It was so seldom he got a car ride . Uncle Walter was always too busy , attending to sick children all over the town , to take him . It was only once in a blue moon Mrs. Loring asked him to go out with her . But she always ended up with ice cream or a movie , and to-day Jims had had strong hopes that both were on the programme . `` I hate Aunt Augusta , '' he said aloud ; and then the sound of his voice in that huge , still room scared him so that he only thought the rest . `` I wo n't have any fun -- and she wo n't feed my gobbler , either . '' Jims had shrieked `` Feed my gobbler , '' to the old servant as he had been hauled upstairs . But he did n't think Nancy Jane had heard him , and nobody , not even Jims , could imagine Aunt Augusta feeding the gobbler . It was always a wonder to him that she ate , herself . It seemed really too human a thing for her to do . `` I wish I had spilled that pudding on purpose , '' Jims said vindictively , and with the saying his anger evaporated -- Jims never could stay angry long -- and left him merely a scared little fellow , with velvety , nut-brown eyes full of fear that should have no place in a child 's eyes . He looked so small and helpless as he crouched against the door that one might have wondered if even Aunt Augusta would not have relented had she seen him . How that window at the far end of the room rattled ! It sounded terribly as if somebody -- or something -- were trying to get in . Jims looked desperately at the unshuttered window . He must get to it ; once there , he could curl up in the window seat , his back to the wall , and forget the shadows by looking out into the sunshine and loveliness of the garden over the wall . Jims would have likely have been found dead of fright in that blue room some time had it not been for the garden over the wall . But to get to the window Jims must cross the room and pass by the bed . Jims held that bed in special dread . It was the oldest fashioned thing in the old-fashioned , old-furnitured house .
It was high and rigid , and hung XXXXX gloomy blue curtains .
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