The Wishing-Stone Stories

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Wishing-Stone Stories, by Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess, Illustrated by Harrison Cady
BY THORNTON W. BURGESS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRISON CADY
BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1936
Copyright, 1915, 1921 , By Thornton W. Burgess
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To the cause of love, mercy and protection for our little friends of the air and the wild-wood, and to a better understanding of them, the Wishing-Stone Stories are dedicated.
TOMMY AND THE WISHING-STONE
TOMMY AND THE WISHING-STONE
Tommy scuffed his bare, brown feet in the grass and didn’t even notice how cooling and refreshing to his bare toes the green blades were. Usually he just loved to feel them, but this afternoon he just didn’t want to find anything pleasant or nice in the things he was accustomed to. A scowl, a deep, dark, heavy scowl, had chased all merriment from his round, freckled face. It seemed as if the very freckles were trying to hide from it.
Tommy didn’t care. He said so. He said so right out loud. He didn’t care if all the world knew it. He wanted the world to know it. It was a horrid old world anyway, this world which made a fellow go hunt up and drive home a lot of pesky cows just when all the other fellows were over at the swimming-hole. It always was that way whenever there was anything interesting or particular to do, or any fun going on. Yes, it was a horrid old world, this world in which Tommy lived, and he was quite willing that everybody should know it.