one at night
When she saw the brass lining of the jelly-pan discolored , and that the stockings hanging from the string beneath the mantelpiece had given way where the wearers were hardest on them ; when she found dripping adhering to a cold frying-pan instead of in a `` pig , '' and the pitcher leaking and the carrot-grater stopped -- when these and similar discoveries were made by Grizel , was it a squeal of horror she gave that such things should be , or a cry of rapture because to her had fallen the task of setting them right ? `` She just made a jump for the besom , '' was Tommy 's graphic description of how it all began . You should have seen Grizel on the hoddy-table knocking nails into the wall . The hoddy-table is so called because it goes beneath the larger one at night , like a chicken under its mother , and Grizel , with the nails in her mouth , used them up so quickly that you would have sworn she swallowed half of them ; yet she rocked her arms because she could not be at all four walls at once . She rushed about the room until she was dizzy , and Tommy knew the moment to cry `` Grip her , she 'll tumble ! '' when he and Elspeth seized her and put her on a stool . It is on the hoddy-table that you bake and iron .