"I tell you what it is," he said. "You haven't been to see mother for a long time, and if you ain't got any money to buy a dinner for yourself, it is but fair you should have a slice off our Sunday joint."
"Sunday joint, indeed!" snapped Mrs. Church.
"You couldn't expect us not to have a bit of meat on Sunday," said Tom. "Why, we'd get so weak that mother couldn't earn the money she sends you every month."
"And you couldn't do your lessons and be the fine big boy that I am proud of," said Mrs. Church. "Now, to tell the truth, I can't bear that sister of yours—Susy, you call her—but I have a liking for you, Tom Hopkins. What is it you want me to do?"
"If you will let me come here to-morrow, I'll push you all the way to Merrifield in time for our dinner. Wouldn't you like that? And I'd bring you back again in the evening. There's your own old bath-chair that Uncle Church used to be moved about in before he died."
"To be sure, there is," said Mrs. Church, her eyes brightening. "But the lining has got moth-eaten."
"Who minds that?" said Tom. "I'll go and clean it after you have given me that bit of cake you promised me."
Everything ended quite satisfactorily as far as Tom was concerned, for Mrs. Church forgot her anger in the interest that the boy's visit gave her. She consulted him about her fowls, and gave him a new-laid egg to slip into his pocket for his own supper. Later on she allowed him to munch some very poor and very stale plumcake. Finally
she gave him his heart's delight, for he was allowed to peer into the old microscope and revel in the sight of the beetle's wings with thin, sweeping plumes, as he afterwards described them.
It was rather late when Tom returned home. He burst into the parlor where his mother and Susy were sitting.