“Capital, Tom; you'll be an orator yet. Learn another piece like that, and I'll come and hear you speak it. Are you ready for your velocipede, hey?”
Polly was right; and Tom owned that “the governor” was kind, did like him and had n't entirely forgotten his promise. The boy turned red with pleasure, and picked at the buttons on his jacket, while listening to this unexpected praise; but when he spoke, he looked straight up in his father's face, while his own shone with pleasure, as he answered, in one breath, “Thankee, sir. I'll do it, sir. Guess I am, sir!”
“Very good; then look out for your new horse tomorrow, sir.” And Mr. Shaw stroked the fuzzy red head with a kind hand, feeling a fatherly pleasure in the conviction that there was something in his boy after all.
Tom got his velocipede next day, named it Black Auster, in memory of the horse in “The Battle of Lake Regillus,” and came to grief as soon as he began to ride his new steed.
“Come out and see me go it,” whispered Tom to Polly, after three days' practice in the street, for he had already learned to ride in the rink.
Polly and Maud willingly went, and watched his struggles, with deep interest, till he got an upset, which nearly put an end to his velocipeding forever.
“Hi, there! Auster's coming!” shouted Tom, as came rattling down the long, steep street outside the park.
They stepped aside, and he whizzed by, arms and legs going like mad, with the general appearance of a runaway engine. It would have been a triumphant descent, if a big dog had not bounced suddenly through one of the openings, and sent the whole concern helter-skelter into the gutter. Polly laughed as she ran to view the ruin, for Tom lay flat on his back with the velocipede atop him, while the big dog barked wildly, and his master scolded him for his awkwardness. But when she saw Tom's face, Polly was frightened, for the color had all gone out of it, his eyes looked strange and dizzy, and drops of blood began to trickle from a great cut on his forehead. The man saw it, too, and had him up in a minute; but he could n't stand, and stared about him in a dazed sort of way, as he sat on the curbstone, while Polly held her handkerchief to his forehead, and pathetically begged to know if he was killed.
“Don't scare mother, I'm all right. Got upset, did n't I?” he asked, presently, eyeing the prostrate velocipede with more anxiety about its damages than his own.
“I knew you'd hurt yourself with that horrid thing just let it be, and come home, for your head bleeds dreadfully, and everybody is looking at us,” whispered Polly, trying to tie the little handkerchief over the ugly cut.