“I don’t care! I’m hungry! Oh, what will become of me! Where can my father be gone! Oh! how miserable I am!” whined Phil.
“Poor boy!” said little Essie, her blue eyes filling with compassionate tears; “give me my crutches, please, dear father, and I will go right in the kitchen and hurry the tea.”
Her father did as she wished, and oh! then, it would have done you good if you could have seen the little thing hobbling to the kitchen door, and crying out so pleasantly, as she rested on the crutches, to give a smart clap of her hands—“Hurry up, Hannah. Let’s have tea before you can say Jack Robinson!”
You would hardly believe how the good woman bustled about after that! She tore to the dresser and got a dish; she flew to the table and caught up a fork; and in a trice the ham was out of the frying-pan, in the dish, and on the table, which was already set in the kitchen; then one, two, three, a dozen hot snowballs of potatoes—that’s a funny idea!—were whipped out of a pot in the corner, into a big bowl, and those put on the table, opposite the ham; then the tea was set to steam, and, while that was doing, Hannah skipped round like a crazy monkey, and thump, thump, thump, thump, just like that, four chairs were set to steam—no, I don’t mean that—I mean, to the table; but I’m in such a hurry to tell it all before you can say Jack Robinson, you know! and then tea was ready.
It was all done in two minutes, because Hannah loved little Essie so dearly; but she could not help looking rather crossly at the greedy boy, who hardly waited for grace to be said, before he began to eat as if he meant to give himself half-a-dozen stomach aches, and a horrible nightmare, when he went to bed, by his gourmandizing.
When he could not possibly swallow another morsel, he pushed back his chair, and, in five minutes, was in a heavy sleep, snoring like a trumpet.
“Wife,” said the farmer, “if that chap’s father hadn’t promised to give our Johnny at least three months of first-rate education, if we would consent to this queer experiment, I don’t think I could keep such a lout about the place.”
“How long is he to stay?”
“Why, I tell you, it is to be for three months, if he gives up his lazy, ugly ways; if not, six months; and all this time he’s not to know where his parents are; and I’ve promised to watch him like a cat, so that he don’t run away.”
“I tell you what, husband,” said the good woman, “if any thing will make a good boy of him, it will be living with our little Essie here;” and she looked through the kitchen door, into the sitting, or “living room,” as country people call it, at her darling, who was bending her golden curls over a book called “Neighbor Nelly Socks,” and laughing out every little while, as if it was very amusing.