Year: 1878




bright his fathers eyes were, and
what an eager look there was on his
face as he watched the children at
their play, and how hard he seemed
to be trying to make the day merry
one for all, and still how it sometimes
seemed as though he would cry, even
While he was laughing. Tom did not
know, then, what this all meant, nor
why his mother was so sad; but
when, two months after, his father
died, he understood that they were
full of sorrow because they knew that
it would be the last Christmas they
ever would spend ON earth together.


Tom loved his father dearly; and
when one day they called him in and
he sat down by the bedside and took
the thin cold hand in his and heard
the slowly whispered words: ''I'm
: going away, my boy. Be good to
your mother. Take care of little Sue
and Dick. l leave them with you!
Always tell the truth. Don't do a
mean thing. Father trusts you. Je-
sus will help YOU when Tom heard
these words, slowly and painfully
spoken, and went out of the room
knowing that he never again should
see his father alive, it seemed to him
thai his heart woald break. He
thought he should never be happy
again like other boys. But young
hearts are rot often crushed by sor-
row, and Tom soon saw that there
was need that he should be braver
and more cheerful than he had ever
been before.


In the spring their house in the
city was sold, and Toms mother,
with the children, moved into the
farm house where his father had lived
when he was boy. 1t was an old
fashioned house, with a sloping roof
in the rear that reached almost TO the
ground, and there were five large
clms i'll the yard with swing hang
ing from the branches of one of them,
and there was a nice garden with cur
rant bushes and asparagus beds ana
pie-plant in great abundance, and
there was an orchard with twenty or
thirty old apple trees, and pasture
with woods in the rear and brook
running through it with a good many
dace and minnows in it, and now and
then trout. There could not have
been better home for twclve-year-
old boy, and Tom had enjoyed it,
though he had been obliged to work
pretty hard, for his mother was not
rich. The care of the garden and of
old Betsey the COW, and of the pigs
and the hens fell pretty much on Tom,
and in looking after these things his
mornings and evenings and holidays
and vacations had been fully occu-
pied. suppose he had sometimes
been idle when he ought to have been
at work, and sometimes careless and
roguish but am bound to say that
Tom had tried hard to act like man.
All the neighbors said, at any rate,
that that Widow Mobiles boy Tom
was Just the manifest little chap that
ever was.


Handles a hoe" said Farmer
Brown, ''as if he had been born with
a hoe in his hand"


''Ye oughter see his inyun beds"
said Farmer Green. There amt
weed in 'erA anywhere big enough
for grasshopper to roost on. Pus-
ley don't stand no show at all in his
garden"


AID that amt the best ont"
said Farmer White. ''Blau ned it he
aint the most fatherliest little fellow
to them younger children that ever
see. And he's jest as tender and
good to his mother as boy could be.
faint often you see a woman treated
by anything of mankind as he treats
her. Seems jest like as if he was a
courtin' on her; he's so kind and
thoughtful-like,''


1t did the neighbors good to praise
Tom, 1 am sure. And if they did
not say these things to his face, he
knew that they thought well of him,
and their good opinion helped him
nightly to be better boy.


l have told you all these things
about Tom, that you may understand
a little how he felt that Christmas
eve, as he lay there thinking about
the last Christmas day, and of all that
had happened since. He felt sure
there would be no presents; for his
mother was going to Brookville, the
week before, but she had been taken
suddenly ill and had neither been
able to purchase nor prepare anything
for Christmas. Now she was better;
grandmother had come to take care
of her, and all was going on well.
But though Tom was very thankful
for this, he couldn't help thinking
, how different things were the year be-
fore and because he was real boy
and not one of Mr., Hiram Hydraulic
boys, / guess (though don't know,
, because l was not there to see) that
, he cried about 1t little before he
: went to sleep.


| The next morning all this sorrow