Norwich bulletin., 1916-10-12

Tom is my friend" said the freckled boy, and besides. ma. you don't under stand hlm. Now, Tom Is a regular piker at some things, but when it comes to knowin' lot, he's right there, and hes full of pop" too. Why only yesterday, he n1ade the brilliantist re- marks to the teacher. You know she was telling us about shoe factories and how the leather is tanned, and the kind of bark they get from trees to use in the tannin' process and she caught Tom whispering to Ellen Pratt.
 He told me afterwards he was only askin' her if they took the skin from her calves 10 make her shoe of; and the teacher up and asked him, just as suddin'. what kind of troes they took the bark from. She thought she'd catch him, but I tell you ne was smart and he popped right up and sez: "t tac'treos, Miss Day.
 Wasn't that clever? It shows he knew all the time what she was talk in about. She just gasped and asked him how he happened to be so bril- liant; and he popped up again and said it must be because his father worked in the Gas Light office.
 She gasped again and asked him if he was lght-headed, too. He only grinned and said he guessed he was, as he had light hair.
 Then she told him to stay after school and get little light on the leather subject. I thought that was mean of her when she didn't stick him at all.
 T hope you don't talk that way to the teacher" responded his mother.
 Goodness, ma, l never could think of such smart things to say. I just wished l was as bright as Tom is.
 Now the other day, he was at the drug store where he works every night after school until 6 o'clock, and he asked MT. Bradley if he could get off half hour early that night as he had left his school books at the library on his road there from school, and he'd got to have them the next morning, and the library closed at 6.
 MT. Bradley said he could go, but he ought to have been more thoughtful about them, and not leave them there.
 Tom told me he left them on pur- pose sos he could get off early. That's the cleverest scheme I ever heard of.
 He can do anything, Tom can." sighed the freckled boy. He can ride his bike without touching the handle bars: and he's the best pitcher on our ct Jimmy Cole 10 cents that he could
 at him to school yesterday. He was
 go way around by the grist mill,
 lich is farther, than by the red
 idge. the way Jimmy was to go.
 mrny knew 1t was farther, so he Jok up the bet, but he lost, cause when he got to the school Tom was sittin' on the step laughing at him. You see, they both started together, but Tom came back and got his bike and he got to the school five minutes before Jimmy did. He didn't say how they was to go, only just who would be there first, and he was. so he got the ten cents. --.--
 The other day man said he'd give him 25 cents If he'd go around with a hundred hand bills for his auction. Tom said he would, so he got the money and he left one at the first ten houses and when he got to the Pollock block, he left all the rest of them in the hallway.
 That wasn't right" said the freck- led boys mother. "He didn't earn the 25 cents" "Oh, yes it was, ma! Why, he said he thought there must be near ly a hundred families there, judstn' from the young ones that were on the steps, and he left enough to go around. He was just quick to see 1t, that's all.
 "T do think that Tom is hen -pecked, though" the boy went on. His mother makes him work around for her."
 "fIis mother is lame. and he ought to help her all he can," added the boys s mother.
 "We1l he does. cause he told me that when his little sister was sick he had to wait on her and one day. she said