"Martha--take it, if you please," Martha looked at him haughtily, and turned her back on him. Poor Lionel was distracted and abashed.
"Well, really, I don't--I don't know just what to do myself," he declared, as his brother snorted with satisfaction at Lionel's discomfiture.
"Well," said Lionel, hesitating a moment; then he took his hat and hung it up himself; then Plunkett picked up _his_ cloak and waited upon _him_self.
"A pretty kettle-of-fish, I should say," he muttered. "Well, then, to your spinning!"
"Yes, yes, to your spinning," Plunkett returned testily. "Do you expect to do nothing but entertain us with conversation? To your spinning, I said." Then all at once the women burst out laughing.
"Are ye good for nothing?" Plunkett shouted, in a greater rage. "Come, we've had enough of this! You go and bring those spindles," and Plunkett shouted this so loudly that the girls were downright frightened at last.
"Oh, do not scold us," Martha entreated, shrinking back.
"Stuff! Now, girls, you get at that spinning wheel as I tell you."
The two girls looked at each other. They no longer dared carry matters with a high hand, and yet how could they spin? They knew no more how to spin than did a couple of pussy-cats. After going up to the wheels and looking at them in wonder, they exclaimed:
"Well, upon my soul!" Plunkett cried. "Now you two sit down there as quick as you can." They sat as if they were shot. Plunkett seemed very much in earnest. "Now turn those wheels!"
"They--they will _not_ turn," they cried, trying and making an awful botch of it.
"Twist the thread," Lionel instructed with much anxiety.
"O Lord! It _won't_ twist, they _won't_ turn. Oh, good gracious! We can't! we can't do it at all."
"Now then, look at this," Plunkett cried, and he took Nancy from the chair, and seated himself at the spinning wheel; and Lionel unseated Martha--gently--and took her place, and then the fun began. "Now watch--and we will teach you something about this business."
This way set the wheel a-flying, Set it whirring, set it flying. Work the treadle with a will. While an even thread you're plying, Never let your wheel be still.
Come, you will not lose by trying, I can see you have good will.