"Oh dear, oh dear, what ever shall I do?" cried the poor little boy. "What will mother say? Oh dear, oh dear!—O Master Ted, what shall I do?"
Jamie's tears and sobs were pitiful. Ted, with a pale concerned face stood beside him, speechless.
"It was all my fault, Jamie," he said at last. "It's me your mother must scold, not you. I must go home with you, and tell her it wasn't your fault."
"Oh but it were," sobbed the child. "Mother always tells me to look neither to right nor to left when I'm carrying anything like this here. Oh deary me, what ever shall I do?"
He stooped down and untied the knots of the large checked handkerchief in which the unfortunate pie had been enveloped. The dish was all in pieces, the gravy fast disappearing. Jamie gathered together, using the largest bit of the broken stoneware as a plate, some of the pieces of meat which might still be eaten, and Ted, stooping down too, helped him to the best of his ability. But it was very little that could be saved from the shipwreck. And then the two boys turned in the direction of Jamie's home, Jamie sobbing all the way, and Ted himself too appalled to know what to say to comfort him.
Jamie's mother was a busy, hard-working woman. She was kind to her children, but that is not to say that they never had a sharp word from her. And there were so many of them—more than enough to try the patience of a mother less worried by other cares. So poor Jamie had some reason to cry, and he did not attempt to prevent Ted's going home with him—alone he would hardly have dared to face the expected scolding.
She was at the door, or just inside it, as the boys made their appearance, with a big tub before her in which she was washing up some odds and ends, without which her numerous family could not have made their usual tidy appearance at church and Sunday school the next day. For it was Saturday, often a rather trying day to heads of households in every class. But Jim's mother was in pretty good spirits. She had got on with her work, Sunday's pie had been made early and sent on to granny's, and Jamie, who was a very careful messenger, would be back with it immediately, all ready to be eaten cold with hot potatoes the next day. So Sunday's dinner was off the good woman's mind, when suddenly a startling vision met her gaze. There was Jamie, red-eyed and tearful, coming down the road, and beside him the little Master from the Lawn House. What could be the matter? Jamie had not hurt himself, thus much was evident, but what was the small and shapeless bundle he was carrying in the handkerchief she had given him to cover the pie, and what had come over the nice clean handkerchief itself? The poor woman's heart gave a great throb of vexation.
"What ever have ye done with the pie, Jamie?" she exclaimed first in her anxiety, though she then turned in haste to bid the little master "good morning."
"O mother," Jamie began, his sobs bursting out afresh, but Ted put him gently aside.
"Let me tell," he said. "I came on purpose. If—if you please," he went on eagerly, though his fair face flushed a little, "it was all my fault. I gave Jim a little poke with my stick, quite in fun, and somehow it made him drop the pie. But it isn't his fault. You won't scold him, please, will you?"