Do you want to set me bawling ? I could just see that horrid old Piper going away on , and you boys following him , and us girls sitting here waiting all alone . I dunno why it is -- I never was one of the blubbering kind -- but as soon as you start your spieling I always want to cry . '' Walter smiled in triumph . He liked to exercise this power of his over his companions -- to play on their feelings , waken their fears , thrill their souls . It satisfied some dramatic instinct in him . But under his triumph was a queer little chill of some mysterious dread . The Pied Piper had seemed very real to him -- as if the fluttering veil that hid the future had for a moment been blown aside in the starlit dusk of Rainbow Valley and some dim glimpse of coming years granted to him . Carl , coming up to their group with a report of the doings in ant-land , brought them all back to the realm of facts . `` Ants ARE darned in ` resting , '' exclaimed Mary , glad to escape the shadowy Piper 's thrall . `` Carl and me watched that bed in the graveyard all Saturday afternoon . I never thought there was so much in bugs . Say , but they 're quarrelsome little cusses -- some of 'em like to start a fight ` thout any reason , far 's we could see . And some of 'em are cowards . They got so scared they just doubled theirselves up into a ball and let the other fellows bang 'em . They would n't put up a fight at all . Some of 'em are lazy and wo n't work . We watched 'em shirking . And there was one ant died of grief 'cause another ant got killed -- would n't work -- would n't eat -- just died -- it did , honest to Go -- oodness . '' A shocked silence prevailed .
Every one knew that XXXXX had not started out to say `` goodness . ''
'cause Carl Mary Piper Walter ant-land cusses escape spieling years