Publisher's Synopsis
"TOM!"No answer."TOM!"No answer."What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"No answer.The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then sheput them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for"style," not service-she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. Shelooked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for thefurniture to hear: "Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll-"She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bedwith the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrectednothing but the cat."I never did see the beat of that boy!"She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and"jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an anglecalculated for distance and shouted: "Y-o-u-u TOM!"There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy bythe slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight."There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?""Nothing.""Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that truck?""I don't know, aunt.""Well, I know. It's jam-that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jamalone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."The switch hovered in the air-the peril was desperate-"My! Look behind you, aunt!"The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on theinstant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh."Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that forme to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can'tlearn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long hecan torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me offfor a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing myduty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile thechild, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's fullof the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't gotthe heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of womanis of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookeythis evening, * and [* Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll just be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boysis having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to dosome of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season tohelp Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's wood and split the kindlings beforesupper-at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did threefourths of the work. Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was alreadythrough with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, and had noadventurous, trouble-some