The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-08-18


"Please sew up the place now, auntie,"
he said.
And sure enough, she sewed it up
without the least difficulty at all. She
would have wondered at the affair very
much if her mind had not been preoc-
cupied by a recipe for a new kind Of
salad that the cook was making for sup
per.
The very next morning Hebron ran off
to school with his arithmetic lesson I'M
learned, and he did not mean to learn it,
either; he meant to copy off the sums
from some other boys slate, and slip
along through the recitation in that way.
"Hullo, jeff" he called out to the first
boy he met in the school yard, femme
look at your slate a minute"
Eyes, take it if you want to" said JEFF,
good naturally, but just then another
boy shouted:
"Ho. Hot Hobron's got a letter in the
postofice! Let's see if it's a long one!"
And running up he seized upon a hand
full Of Hobron's white shirt that showed
very plainly through a great rip in the
elbow of his coat sleeve. The other boys
came crowding about, laughing and
hooting, and Hebron grew red with
shame and anger.
81 won't wear the hateful coat" he ex-
claimed, and tried with all his might to
pull It off, but it fitted SO well and SO
clo. nat he could not remove it, and
there was the shocking rip full in sight
to make him the laughing stock of the
whole school.
'Oh! Obi" he muttered; sif I could
only have my revenge on that tailorr"
But there was no use in Tuning and
raging, and Hebron felt pretty well as
sured in his own mind that the rent in
his coat would stay there till the neg
lected lesson was fully learned. He
glanced up at a neighboring church
clock; it wanted still twenty minutes
of 8.
ut is too bad" thought Hebron; 'sbut
/ may as well go about it at once"
So he sat down on the school house
steps and began to cipher away very
diligently, to the surprise of the boys,
who We're not used to seeing him in such
a mood. The lesson was really not a
hard one, and to Hobron's own surprise
as much as any ones, by the time the
bell rang all the sums were done in order
on his slate. He walked into the school
room with quite a proud, independent
feeling.
sit is better than if I had copied them
all, and had a poor recitation" he said
to himself.
But where was the terrible rip in the
seam of his coat? One of his friends
had tried to pin it together for him. and
he must have succeeded wonderfully
well, for there was no sign to be seen of
the place where the rent had been, and
even the pin could not be found. But
when Hebron went home at noon and
told his mother, she smiled a little and
said she was glad he had finished his
arithmetic lesson before school began.
Hebron got caught once more that day.
He was out wedding the lettuce bed for
his father in the afternoon, when it sud
denly occurred to him TO swing on the
low branches of the apple tree, and away
he went. Up and down, in the sweet,
fresh air, clinging to the elastic young
bough, swung Hebron, and he thought
he was having a splendid time, when
down the street came his Sunday school
teacher, and paused a moment by the
fence.
"Why, Hobron!' she exclaimed kindly,
.you are losing the collar off from your
pretty coat!"
Down sprang Hebron with blushing
face, and back he went to the lettuce
bed, which this time got a thorough
wedding. Could it have been that his
teacher was mistaken? For when he had
finished and put his hand up to his col
lar, it seemed to be all right; there was
no trouble there.
Hebron began to grow careful. This
wonderful little coat that fitted him SO
well had such a way of calling him to
account the minute he neglected any
thing. Why, even if he slipped on his
shoes in a hurry without tying up the
strings, as boys sometimes will, just as
likely as not he would find one of his
coat buttons hanging by a single thread,
ready to drop.
So Hebron improved, and at last he
got into the habit of finishing every
thing he begun, because it was SO much
more pleasant and satisfactory to do so,
and not because the mysterious coat was
40 raadv to adlnonish him. He grew to