Tom instantly extended her hand, but now it was Mary who held back. Her mother would have forced her to give her hand, but Captain Barnes said, “It don’t matter. Leave them to become friends in their own time.”
Two days afterwards the captain sailed. Tom renewed her promise to be a good girl, and he went away hopeful that she would keep it.
“I shall have somebody to come home to, Jenny,” he said. “Will you be glad to see me back?”
“Yes, I will,” she said; and there was a heartiness in her tone which showed that she meant what she said.
The next day Tom went to school. She was provided with two or three books such as she would need, and accompanied Fanny; for, though several years older, she was not as proficient as the latter.
In the next street there was a boy, whose pleasure it was to bully children smaller than himself. He had more than once annoyed Fanny, and when the latter saw him a little in advance, she said, nervously, “Let us cross the street, Jenny.”
“Why?” asked Tom.
“There’s George Griffiths just ahead.”
“What if he is?”
“He’s an awful bad boy. Sometimes he pulls away my books, and runs away with them. He likes to plague us.”