So, after making the purchase she intended, granny made another visit to the Park and Printing House Square, and inspected eagerly the crowds of street children who haunt those localities as paper-venders, peddlers, and boot-blacks. But Tom, as we know, was by this time an inmate of Mrs. Merton’s boarding-house,—the home found for her by her friend, the sea-captain. This was quite out of Mrs. Walsh’s beat. She had not anticipated any such contingency, but supposed that Tom would be forced to earn her living by some of those street trades by means of which so many children are kept from starvation. It did not enter her calculations that, so soon after parting from her, Tom had also ceased to be a street Arab, and obtained a respectable home. Of course, therefore, disappointment was again her portion, and she was forced to return home and go to bed without the exquisite satisfaction of “breaking every bone in Tom’s body.”
Granny felt that she was ill-used, and that Tom was a monster of ingratitude; but on that subject there may, perhaps, be a difference of opinion.
CHAPTER XIV
TOM IS CAPTURED BY THE ENEMY.
We pass over two months, in which nothing of striking interest occurred to our heroine, or her affectionate relative, who continued to mourn her loss with more of anger than of sorrow. My readers may be interested to know how far Tom has improved in this interval. I am glad to say that she has considerably changed for the better, and is rather less of an Arab than when she entered the house. Still Mrs. Merton, on more than one occasion, had assured her intimate friend and gossip, Miss Betsy Perkins, that Tom was “a great trial,” and nothing but her promise to her brother induced her to keep her.
Tom was, however, very quick and smart. She learned with great rapidity, when she chose, and was able to be of considerable service in the house before and after school. To be sure she was always getting into hot water, and from time to time indulged in impish freaks, which betrayed her street-training. At school, however, she learned very rapidly, and had already been promoted into a class higher than that which she entered. If there was one thing that Tom was ashamed of, it was to find herself the largest and oldest girl in her class. She was ambitious to stand as well as other girls of her own age, and, with this object in view, studied with characteristic energy, and as a consequence improved rapidly.
She did not get along very well with Mary Merton. Mary was languid and affected, and looked down scornfully upon her mother’s hired girl, as she called her; though, as we know, money was paid for Tom’s board. Tom did not care much for her taunts, being able to give as good as she sent; but there was one subject on which Mary had it in her power to annoy her. This was about her defective education.
“You don’t know any more than a girl of eight,” said Mary, contemptuously.
“I haven’t been to school all my life as you have,” said Tom.
“I know that,” said Mary. “You were nothing but a beggar, or rag-picker, or something of that kind. I don’t see what made my uncle take you out of the street. That was the best place for you.”
“I wish you had to live with granny for a month,” retorted Tom. “It would do you good to get a lickin’ now and then.”