"I wonder if there can be a pair of shoes in it!"
Little Tim sat on the ground close beside a very ugly dark-colored stone jug. He eyed it sharply, but finding it quite impossible to see through its sides, pulled out the cork and peered anxiously in. "Can't see nothin', but it's so dark in there I couldn't see if there was anything. I've a great mind to break the hateful old thing."
He sat for awhile thinking how badly he wanted a pair of shoes to wear to the Sunday School picnic. His mother had promised to wash and mend his clothes, so that he might go looking very neat indeed; but the old shoes were far past all mending and how could he go barefoot?
Then he began counting the chances of his father being very angry when he should find his jug broken. He did not like the idea of getting a whipping for it, as was very likely, but how could he resist the temptation of making sure about those shoes? The more he thought of them, the more he couldn't. He sprang up and hunted around until he found a good size brick-bat, which he flung with such vigorous hand and correct aim that the next moment the old jug lay in pieces before his eyes.
How eagerly he bent over them in the hope of finding not only what he was so longing for but, perhaps, other treasure! But his poor little heart sank as he turned over the fragments with trembling fingers. Nothing could be found among the broken bits, wet on the inside with a bad-smelling liquid.
Tim sat down again and sobbed as he had never sobbed before; so hard that he did not hear a step beside him until a voice said:
"Well, what's all this?"
He sprang up in great alarm. It was his father, who always slept late in the morning, and was very seldom awake so early as this.
[Illustration]
"Who broke my jug?" he asked. "I did," said Tim, catching his breath half in terror and half between his sobs.