mamma!

MRS. L. Stand back, sir! I don't kiss a bad boy!

EDWARD. A bad boy! Why, mamma, what have I done?

MRS. L. Do you dare to pretend that you do not know? Look at Andrew,
Patrick, and Jane!

EDWARD. I see them. Have they been complaining of me?

MRS. L. Yes, and I am astonished at what they tell me.

EDWARD. The mean things! Mamma, they--

MRS. L. Take care, sir! Don't add lying to your other crimes.

EDWARD (_looking angry_). But what do they say I have done? You scamp of
a turnip top, Andrew! is it you who are trying to rob me of my mother's
love? Such a good boy as I am, too!

ANDREW. You a good boy! about as much as the old gray donkey is a robin
redbreast. No! you are a nuisance, and ought to live up in the air in a
balloon by yourself. You have ruined my garden; and whenever I beg you
to stop, you answer me with your switch over my legs.

EDWARD. Oh, mamma, that is too cruel! I only wish to make you a
bouquet, when Andrew comes up, yelling like a tiger, "Don't touch those
violets! Let that pansy alone! Stop! you shan't take a rose!" Well, what
can I do? So I dug up a little plot, pulling out a few vegetables, so as
to raise some flowers for you myself. Then Andrew screams out, "What
have you done? You have pulled out all my onions!" Then I take another
place, and old Sourcrout bawls, "The beets are planted there." I declare
it's too bad! I wish to cultivate the earth, because Mr. Sherwood says
the most respectable men in the world are farmers; and Andrew, mad as
fury, comes and drives me away. Suppose I do spoil some of his stupid
cabbages; if I could present you with a flower raised by my own hand, it
would be worth all his cabbage heads, and his own too.

MRS. L. The darling! How he loves me! Andrew, you are a brute!

ANDREW. Thank you, ma'am. That's what I call justice.

MRS. L. My dear son was only seeking to gratify me, and you did very
wrong to hinder him. Dear child! he was willing to work like a farmer to
please me.

ANDREW. I'm dumb! If you wish it, he may scratch up the whole garden,
and empty it into the duck pond; he may break down fifty trees a day; he
may have a mass meeting of the dogs, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and
the old gray donkey, in the best flower beds; and end by inviting Farmer
Green's bull Sampson to dance a hornpipe through the glass into the
conservatory. Nothing now will astonish me.

MRS. L. That will do. My son, I forgive your capers in the garden, but I