He tried to play with the cat, but the cat, not being used to William's method of playing, scratched him on the cheek and escaped under the bicycle shed, whither William could not follow him. William next climbed the apple-tree, but, like the rest of Aunt Ellen's establishment, the apple-tree was not "used to boys," and the first branch upon which William took his stand precipitated him on to the lawn, and almost down the well, to join his victim, "Peter, the Sunshine of the Home." Next he took up a few of Aunt Ellen's cherished chrysanthemums to compare the length of their roots at different stages, replanting them when he heard Aunt Ellen's footsteps approaching----
"William, darling," she said reproachfully, "have you finished the book?"
"Umph," answered William non-committally.
"You must read very quickly, darling. I'll get you another. I have another book about Peter, you'll be glad to hear."
"Thanks," he said, "I don't jus' feel like any more readin'. I'd like more to _do_ somethin'. I'm tired of doin' nothin'."
"But what do you _want_ to do, William darling?"
"Dunno. Any sort of a game would do," he said graciously.
The only game in Aunt Ellen's house was an old archery set, a relic of her Victorian youth. She brought it down for William.
"You see, you shoot at the target, darling," she explained.
"Thanks," said William, brightening considerably. "You needn't bother lending me the target."
Aunt Ellen retreated upstairs to continue her interrupted nap.
It was only when William, in a perfectly laudable attempt to shoot an apple down from the apple-tree, had broken the landing window, driven the cat into a hysterical state of fury, and landed an arrow full in the back of the next-door gardener, that Aunt Ellen raised herself once more from the bed that was usually the scene of such untroubled rest. She rescued William, in a state of indignation, from the cat and gardener, and suggested a little walk. She felt, somehow, less sure of the contaminating influence of the outside world on William's character.
"Everyone's got to _practise_," said William indignantly. "Well, I was only _practising_. I'd have got my eye in soon. I hadn't got my eye in when I hit 'em. Everyone's got to practise. No one's born with their eye in. If I went on about five minutes longer, I wouldn't be hittin' anythin' 'cept wot I wanted to. And then," he added darkly, with a vague mental vision of the world in general, and Peter and the cat and the gardener in particular, at his mercy, "then some folks had better look out."