University of Virginia Library

TOMMY MIGGS'S VISION.

LITTLE Tommy Miggs was observed to be very restless in school all of Friday morning. It was quite evident to those who observed him that something of unusual importance was resting upon his mind. He missed the easiest questions, and picked up the wrong books, and once tried to do a sum on his slate with a willow whistle. The boy in the next seat to Tommy was the only one who did not wonder at his uneasiness. Five distinct times Tommy found and availed himself of the opportunity to whisper in a sepulchral tone to this young man that his ma was going to have a strawberry shortcake for dinner, and that he was to hurry home just as soon as school was out. There was every encouraging indication in Tommy's manner of the most flattering speed being made between the school and his house when the time came. None of these opportunities for verbal communication were of sufficient length to permit of more

than a hurried announcement of the fact; but, by a series of diagrams hastily improvised with his hands, little Tommy succeeded in conveying to the mind of his friend an idea of the size of the cake, which was to be, without doubt, a "booster."

The moment Tommy got outside the building, he "lit out" for home. Fully two-thirds of the distance he made on a run, and the balance at a quick walk. As he reached the gate, panting heavily, but full of glad purposes, he met his two little brothers. Very little they were too; but there was enough of them to express enough of any sort of deep emotion to attract attention.

"Halloo!" said Tommy, with a sudden sinking of spirits: "is ma sick, Georgy?"

Georgy merely shook his head, as if afraid to open his lips, and thus disclose what was evidently a more dreadful calamity than that which Tommy's inquiry suggested.

"What is it, Toady?" asked Tommy, looking straight in Toady's extended eyes.

"O Tommy!" ejaculated Toady. And then the little fellow dug his knuckles into his eyes, and began to whimper.

"What is it, I tell ye?" And Tommy shook Toady to conceal his agitation.

"Company's come," sputtered Toady.

"Company?" gasped Tommy, catching hold of the post.

"Yes," volunteered little George: "uncle Richard, and aunt Jane, and aunt Ann. And they are goin' to stay to dinner."

It was just as well Tommy had hold of the gate-post, or he must surely have gone over on his back. Poor child! All through that long, hot fore-noon he had drawn visions of pastry glory, through which ran the rich heart-blood of the loveliest fruit the gods e'er blessed. The last injunction of his mother had been an unbroken song in his soul during the weary hours; and, every time he was prompted to faint, his flagging spirits were stimulated up to a new life by the vision of the short-cake. Poor child! He slipped heavily into the house. There was his uncle Richard with very fat and bearded fingers clasped across a frightful expanse of abdomen, as if to restrain its devouring tendencies till the right moment. There were also aunts Jane and Ann, both fat, and both, apparently, in a disastrous state of good health. In the terrible state of fear he was in, Tommy would have felt much more comfortable, we have no doubt, in the embrace of a boa-constrictor, rather than under the caresses of his relatives. He tried to get a word to his mother; but she was too busy, and too flustered over the appearance of her unexpected company, to notice Tommy. Dinner was speedily announced; and the family sat down, leaving the children to speculate on futurity in the wood-shed.

It was a mournful group. Tommy sat down on the saw-buck; Georgy climbed upon the shaving-barrel; while Toady crouched on the step close to the door leading to the kitchen, where the dinner was going on. The children were directed to play in the yard; but there was no desire for sport with them. Between three relatives from the country and one shortcake there was not space to crowd the least particle of levity, even with the aid of the sharpest knife. They wanted to get as close as they possibly could to the noise of the fray, although every sound went to their hearts with a great shock.

"Have they started it yet, Toady?" whispered Tommy anxiously.

Toady cautiously raised himself to his feet, crept up to the sill, and, standing on the extreme point of his very little toes, was able, through the crack in the door, to take in a view of the table.

"No," he whispered after an instant delay, and sank back again to his place. A moment later, Tommy again asked if they had started it; and again Toady mounted cautiously up to his post. The instant he reached the point of survey, he fell back so suddenly as to startle his waiting brothers.

"They've gone at it!" he gasped, his eyes fairly protruding in the excitement he labored under.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Tommy, dropping his head.

"Gosh!" ejaculated Georgy under his breath;

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while an expression of sickening fear crept over his face.

For a full moment there was a silence in the wood-shed. Then Georgy slid down from his barrel, and crept up to the door, and peered through to the table. There was a look of faint expectation on the face he presented to the crack; but it was dimmed somewhat when he turned it about to his brothers.

"I can't see the plate," he said dejectedly, shaking his head; "but they're all a-eatin'. It's darned mean, an' I don't care who knows it!" he added in desperation, as he dropped moodily on the splitting-block.

"Sh!" said Tommy faintly.

"To come in like that!" pursued Georgy, apostrophizing the great grievance from its harshest aspect. "I s'pose they smelt that cake all the way, and hain't had none themselves for a year, an' so come in to take ours." And Georgy smiled with a bitterness that was painful in one so young.

"I wish it would choke 'em!" he shortly added.

Tommy tried to give his brother a reproachful look, but did not succeed well; while the softening about the corners of Toady's mouth might have led a hasty observer to believe that he shared in the wild desire.

The hush that followed was broken by their mother's voice:—

"Do have that other piece, Richard. I know you like it."

The emphasized word no sooner struck the ears of the anxious waiters in the shed than they involuntarily clutched hold of their resting-places for support; while the expression of horror which blanched their faces was pitiful to behold.

"I don't care if I do, Susan, seeing you're so free," came the heavy voice of uncle Richard.

"Oh!" came from Tommy's white lips like a shot; and then he sank back on the saw-horse, and dropped the white face on his knees.

Little Toady abruptly rolled off the step on to the ground, too full of grief to make a sound; while the aggressive George, shutting his teeth tight together, marched around the shed, shaking his clinched fists in a way that implied the most dreadful doom to the unsuspecting relatives from the country.

It was when Tommy was back again in school, bending the little white face over his book, and striving with all his might to still the pain in his heart, that the boy in the seat whispered,—

"How's the cake, Tommy?"

But there was no answer.

"Was it an old booster?" asked the boy, trying to compress his enthusiastic expectations into the most cautious whisper.

There was a short, sharp sob from the white lips,

which startled the boy in the next seat, and attracted the attention of the teacher; while the little head went down on the book, and two little threadbare sleeves coiled around it.

"What is it, Tommy?" said the teacher, coming up.

But Tommy was as noble as he had been sanguine. He would not say that the other boy had been teasing him: he simply drew the patched little sleeves tighter about his head, and gave way to a flood of agonizing tears. She was a sympathetic woman as well as a good teacher. She laid her hand softly on his hair, and tenderly said,—

"Poor Tommy!"

"And so we, without the blessed privilege of stroking the thin white hair, can say too,—

"Poor Tommy!"