Tom!"
No answer
Tom!"
No answer
"Where is that boy? You Tom!"
The old lady went to the open door and stood there, looking out into the garden. She couldn't see Tom, so she shouted, "You-u-u-Tom!" There was a very small sound behind her, and she turned just in time to catch a small boy by the back of his shirt. "Ah!" she said. "I ought to have remembered that cupboard. What were you doing in there?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Look at your hands, and look at your mouth. What is that red stuff?"
"I don't know, Aunt."
"Well, I know. It's jam. That's what it is. I've told youforty times, if you steal that jam I'll take your skin off. Pass me that little stick."
The stick was in the air, ready to bring down punishment.
"Oh! Look behind you, Aunt!"
The old lady turned quickly and gathered her long skirt out of danger. The boy quickly ran out, climbed up the garden fence, and disappeared over it. His Aunt Polly stood for a moment, surprised, and then laughed quietly."That boy! Can't I ever learn? He's played that sort of trick often enough, so I ought to be ready. But the trick's always different. And he seems to know just how far I can go before I get angry. And he knows that if he makes me laugh, i can not punish him if he makes me laugh, I can punish him. I ought to punish him much more often than I do, but he's my dear sisters poor boy. I don't like him to make him with in a Saturday as a punishment, but her hates with and if I do not do so it will spoil him."
Tom did miss the school and he had a very good time. At supper. Aunt Polly asked him a question
"I expect it was hot in school, wasn't it?" she said.
"Didn't you want to have a swim, Tom?"face ,but it told nothing. So he said,"No, Aunt will not very much
The old lady reached out and felt Tom's shirt. She thought that was a clever way to discover that Tom's shirt was dry. But Tom guessed her purpose, and She thought that was a clever way to discover put our heads under the water pipe on the way home to get cool. My hair's still wet, as you can feel."
Aunt Polly knew he had beaten her. But she thought you didn't need to undo your shirt where I sewed it up at something else: "If you just put your head under the pipe, you did not need to undo your shirt where I sewed it up at the neck. Let me see.
Tom showed her. His shirt was certainly sewed up at the neck.
"Oh!" his aunt said. "I was sure you had missed school and gone swimming. I'm glad I was wrong."
They had both forgotten that Sidney was there. Sidney was Tom's half-brother, a quiet boy who was never in trouble, but who liked to see Tom in trouble. with white thread, not black."and dirtied his clothes although he won the fight. He got home rather late, and when he climbed through the win-
"Well," said Sidney, "I thought you sewed his shirt up thread. Tom!"
But Tom hadn't waited. As he went out of the door, he said, "Sid, I'll half kill you for that."
Tom's evening amusements included a fight that tore his clothes. aunt was waiting for him. She saw the condition of his clothes, and she knew that she must make him work on Saturday morning.
Very nice, good article.