“I am the New Year!” said the boy. “This is my day, and I have brought you your leaves.”
“What leaves?” asked Tommy.
“The new ones, to be sure!” said the New Year. “I hear bad accounts of you from my Daddy—”
“Who is your Daddy?” asked Tommy.
“The Old Year, of course!” said the boy. “He said you asked too many questions and I see he was right. He says you are greedy, too, and that you sometimes pinch your little sister, and that one day you threw your reader into the fire. Now, all this must stop.”
“Oh, must it?” said Tommy. He felt frightened, and did not know just what to say.
The boy nodded. “If it does not stop,” he said, “you will grow worse and worse every year, till you grow up into a Horrid Man. Do you want to be a Horrid Man?”
“N-no!” said Tommy.
“Then you must stop being a horrid boy!” said the New Year. “Take your leaves!” and he held out a packet of what looked like copy-book leaves, all sparkling white, like his own clothes.
“Turn over one of these every day,” he said, “and soon you will be a good boy instead of a horrid one.”