"It's wicked! It's a shame!" muttered Teddie Poole (or Tadpole as his friends had nicknamed him). "This has got to end somehow!"
But his father only growled under his breath, caught up his cap, and left the house.
"Yes, it's too bad; everything's against me and them two poor chil'en. Dad's number two—she don't care for 'em one little bit, though nothin's too good for that great, thumpin', squealin' baby of hers. I'd take Bert and Nell right off somewheres, only I couldn't keep 'em and look after 'em—poor mites!"
Then with a heavy heart, Tad betook himself to his work. It was not much of a place that the boy had got. He was only a grocer's lad at four shillings a week, but it was better than nothing, and he did his work willingly enough, though he was often footsore and weary with running or standing about from morning till night.
There was a great deal of good in poor Tad. When his own mother died, he tried to take care of his little brother and sister, and often denied himself for their sake.
But when at last James Poole married again, the boy bitterly resented his stepmother's harsh ways with her husband's children. And since her own baby's birth, things at home had been worse than ever. She grudged to Bert and Nell every moment of time that she was obliged to give them, and even the very food they ate. She had no sympathy for their childish troubles, no tender words or caresses for anyone but her own baby boy; while towards Tad, who had from the first made no secret of his feelings, she showed in return a dislike which had something almost malignant about it.
Several times the lad had complained to his father, but his words had produced no effect except still more to enrage his stepmother against him. And now Tad had made another appeal, and had once again failed.
All day long, he turned the matter over in his mind as he ran his errands or helped his master, Mr. Scales, to make up parcels in the shop. Life at home was becoming unbearable—impossible—he told himself. What was to be done?
Once the grocer glanced at him with a comical, puzzled smile on his fat, good-natured face, but Tad never looked up, and presently his master said:
"Before you put them little packets up in brown paper, Teddie, just see if they are all right, will you?"