“What makes you fight with your granny?”
“She gets drunk and fires things at my head; then I pitch into her.”
The cool, matter-of-fact manner in which Tom spoke seemed to amuse her questioner.
“I was right,” he said; “you’re a philosopher,—a practical philosopher.”
“That’s more’n you said before,” said Tom; “I want ten cents for that.”
The ten cents were produced. Tom pocketed them in a business-like manner, and went back to her employment. She wondered, slightly, whether a philosopher was something very bad; but, as there was no means of determining, sensibly dismissed the inquiry, and kept on with her work.
CHAPTER II
TOM GETS A SQUARE MEAL.
About twelve o’clock Tom began to feel the pangs of hunger. The exercise which she had taken, together with the fresh air, had stimulated her appetite. It was about the time when she was expected to go home, and accordingly she thrust her hand into her pocket, and proceeded to count the money she had received.
“Forty-two cents!” she said, at last, in a tone of satisfaction. “I don’t generally get more’n twenty. I wish that man would come round and call me names every day.”
Tom knew that she was expected to go home and carry the result of her morning’s work to her granny; but the unusual amount suggested to her another idea. Her mid-day meal was usually of the plainest and scantiest,—a crust of dry bread, or a cold sausage on days of plenty,—and Tom sometimes did long for something better. But generally it would have been dangerous to appropriate a sufficient sum from her receipts, as the deficit would have been discovered, and quick retribution would have followed from her incensed granny, who was a vicious old woman with a pretty vigorous arm. Now, however, she could appropriate twenty cents without danger of discovery.