Tom was about fourteen years of age, as smart as any boy in the village, and might have been of some use in the world, had it not been for his numerous bad habits, which kept him in constant trouble, and were the sole cause of all his unhappiness. One of these bad habits was carelessness. He thought it was too much trouble to carry out the motto he had so often heard—“A place for every thing and every thing in its place”—and the consequence was, he was not unfrequently compelled to waste half the day in searching for some article he happened to want. His cap, especially, was the source of a great deal of annoyance and vexation to him. For example, when he came in to his meals, he would take off his cap on entering the house, and throw it somewhere, not caring where it landed; and as soon as he was ready to go out of doors again, his first question—spoken in a slow, drawling tone, as if he were almost ready to drop down with fatigue—would be:
“Now, mother, where’s my cap?”
“I am sure I don’t know, my son,” would be the answer. “What did you do with it when you came in?”
“I hung it right here!” Tom would say, pointing to the hat-rack in the hall, or to a nail behind the door, which had been placed there for his especial benefit. “I know I hung it up, but it isn’t here now. I do wish folks would let my things alone! Something’s always bothering me!”
Then Tom would begin a search in all the rooms of the house, tumbling chairs about and moving tables and sofas, and the missing article would be found, sometimes in the “play-house,” sometimes under the bed, but more frequently under the trees in the yard, or on the portico.
We have spoken of Tom’s “play-house.” It was a room in the attic, nicely furnished, with carpet, tables, and chairs, and provided with a stove, so that he could be comfortable there in cold weather. In this room he kept his playthings, or rather, part of them. Those that were lost—and about half of them were missing—would have been found, some in the barn, others scattered about the yard, while the rest had been thrown under the house for safe keeping, where Tom could not get at them without soiling his clothes, and that was something he did not like to do. To have taken a single glance at the articles in his play-house, one would have thought that he ought never to have been at a loss to know how to employ himself; and that a single glance would also have been sufficient to convince any one that he never took the least care of what was given him. The only thing that ever interested Tom for any length of time, was a fine model of a ship, with sails and ropes complete, which an old sailor had given him, and which had been placed on a stand opposite the entrance to his play-house. But, having been carelessly mounted, it had fallen to the floor, and Tom, in one of his angry moods, had kicked it under the table, where it lay with its masts broken, and its sails torn, looking very much like a vessel that had been wrecked at sea. His playthings were scattered about the room in all directions. Foot-balls, bows and arrows, Chinese puzzles, base-ball bats, a magic lantern, models of vessels, fish poles, hats and boots were mixed up in the most complete confusion, and every article bore evidence to the fact that it had received the roughest usage. Indeed, there was but one thing in the room that was entire, and that was a little fire-engine—a birthday present from his mother. But then this had only come into Tom’s possession two days before the commencement of our story, and it was yet new to him.
Tom was always complaining that he never could find a thing when he wanted it; and no one about the house wondered at it in the least. To his mother’s oft-repeated inquiry why he did not put his room in order, and have a certain place for each particular thing, he would answer:
“O, now, I can’t; I haven’t got time. Let somebody else do it!”
Tom’s room, we ought to remark, was placed in perfect order every day, but it was only time and labor wasted; for, if he happened to want a fish-pole, or a ball bat, he would tumble the things about until he found the article in question, and then go out leaving the room in the greatest confusion.
Another bad trait in Tom’s character was his unconquerable pride. He was ashamed to work, and he would not do so if there was any possible way for him to avoid it. On a cold day, when it stormed too violently for him to go out of doors, he would remain in his room, with benumbed hands and chattering teeth, before he would take the trouble to build a fire. His father often asked him why he stayed there in the cold, and Tom replied: “O, there’s no wood up here!”