You will remember that we left poor Johnny crying in the lane, vainly trying to call back his sister, as she hurried in pursuit of the pedlar. When the child found his terrors unheeded, his loud roar gradually sank into a low broken sob, he scrambled to his feet, rubbed his plump dusty hand across his eyes to brush away the tears, and began to think of trotting back to the cottage.
Just as the little fellow was commencing his journey, he heard a voice call him from the other side of the hedge which bordered the narrow lane. At first, fancying that it might be silly Sally, with whom he had been threatened, Johnny was inclined to run the faster for the call; but he soon knew Tom, when he saw him clambering over and holding something in his hand.
“Here’s something for you, my jolly little man!” cried Tom, who amused himself sometimes by playing with, but more often by teasing, his little rosy-cheeked neighbour.
“What got?” asked the child, as Tom jumped down beside him. Johnny was always sparing of his words.
A NEST OF LITTLE BIRDS.
“A nest of little birds that was swinging on a bough. I knocked off the nest, and down came the birds!”
“All dead!” said Johnny sadly.
“Why, yes; you see they had some way to fall. The little things broke their necks, so there was an end of them.”