In shorter words, the nurse terrified me with horrid threats until I did not dare to contradict her even if she lied her head off.

The things she promised me in this life and in the life to come could not be executed by a person without imagination.

The nurse gave almost her entire attention to us older children, disposing easily of the baby's claims.

Deborah, unless she was teething or whoop-coughing, was a quiet baby, and would lie for hours on the nurse's lap, sucking at a "pacifier" made of bread and sugar tied up in a muslin rag, and previously chewed to a pulp by the nurse.

And while the baby sucked the nurse told us things--things that we must remember when we went to bed at night.
A favorite subject of her discourse was the Evil One, who lived, so she told us, in our attic, with his wife and brood.