The Worst Boy in Town

e devil

a saint

y to being rubbed or held. The pain which it experienced from the shaking consequent upon running caused Jack to subside into a walk as soon as he had assured himself that he was not followed; even then the pain gave no indication of subsiding. Suddenly the truth dawned upon the boy's mind, and between the s

hat's th

, "I've tumbled, and I'm

onceived ideas of the nature of fun. Finally, when the doctor carefully removed his clothing, put him into bed, and told him he would have to lie there for at least a fortnight, Jack dragged the pillow up to his face w

s a fever with arms broken above the elbow, and if you excite yo

l month. I can't pick a blackberry, and I can't have any money for Christmas, and I know Frank Parker guesses one of the

ink how horrid it is for you to go and break your a

don't think that makes me

"you should take your sufferin

d her fingers to her ears and fled, and informed her husband in almost the same breath, that the dreadful boy d

en now a merry chuckle which a twinge of the arm suddenly discouraged—but it was equally certain that the teacher himself did not seem to enjoy it. As for sliding down a bell rope, no boy had ever done it before, to Jack's knowledge, but oh, how his hands were smarting! The mor

which he could do nothing else. So Jack confessed, and had his hands treated to a cooling lotion. The doctor, having previously heard the story from the vivacious tongue of the outraged exile himself, and having spent a delightful hour, partly retrospective, in laughing over the latest capers of h

see me?" asked Jack

t a time," said the doctor; "eve

talk to him

to your mother and m

sible men when they have forgotten their own boyhood days, and it is not sur

ed or clothe you?

ing modifications of the first

take care of you when you were

hook h

for your mother and me as you d

was s

camp," exclaimed the doctor with considera

Jack, "it isn't!

rtled by such an exhibition

f considerable pain which the motion inflicted u

wonderful reason. I should think you would want

ap coals of fire upon the old gentleman's head—oh, no! Indeed, he was not sure but he might one day become a missionary—missionaries must have jolly times on tropical islands where they can always go about in their shirt sleeves, have for nothing all the bananas they can eat, and shoot lions, and birds of paradise, and things, right from their

me comes, I'll give you

mean, Jack?"

and there's only two or three boys in town

Wittingham, "and," she continued, a dire suspicio

rmingly, and left Jack to feel that grown folks were most shamefully suspi

ort to him to report progress to Matt, in the five minutes which that youth was allowed daily at the sufferer's bedside. The tenor of his thoughts was daily interrupted by his mother, who considered the occasion demanded Bible reading instead of personal sympathy for th

might like to call, and Jack replied that it would be very nice to have a chat with that gentleman, the lady became considerably alarmed on the subject of the boy's recovery. Mr. Daybright, the minister, was really a very pleasant man, as Jack discovered, now that he had time to "take his measure," as h

nd peg-tops and balls and birds' nests and orchards and crooked pins and truancy did not exist anywhere nearer than the planet Neptune. Then the teacher gave Jack a book from the Sunday-school library, which book he had selected with Jack's particular condition of mind in view,

hough the doctor had heard the story a month before from the lips of Matt's father, he had not yet reached that mental balance which would enable him to reprove the boy and

ng, until he became so affected that he silently vowed never to rob a nest again. He found in the flowers and the shrubbery many a charm which he had never suspected when weeding them; he contemplated cloud pictures until an overwhelming sense of the beautiful compelled him to decide

s and being happy just because they become good, so there was considerable disappointment experienced by such youths as shrewdly imagined that Jack's change of heart would result in his large and varied assortment of knives, lines, marbles, skates, etc., being thrown upon the market at reduced prices. Jack explained, with considerable vigor, that because he was going to give up mischief it did not necessarily follow that he should become a muff, or a soft head, or a twiddler, or an apron string, or a foo-foo, or a stick-in-the-mud, or a dummy, or any other of a dozen or two unpo