You have reached 4dy.org"TOM!"No answer."TOM!"No answer."What's gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!"No answer.The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about theroom; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom ornever looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were herstate pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," notservice--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, butstill loud enough for the furniture to hear:Sponsored Links"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--"She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punchingunder the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate thepunches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat."I never did see the beat of that boy!"She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among thetomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom.So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance andshouted:"Y-o-u-u TOM!"There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time toseize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight."There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing inthere?""Nothing.""Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS thattruck?""I don't know, aunt.""Well, I know. It's jam--that's what it is. Forty times I've said ifyou didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."The switch hovered in the air--the peril was desperate--"My! Look behind you, aunt!"The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. Thelad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, anddisappeared over it.His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentlelaugh."Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricksenough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But oldfools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks,as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days,and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just howlong he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if hecan make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all downagain and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy,and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spilethe child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering forus both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's myown dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lashhim, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so,and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, manthat is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as theScripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening, *and [* Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll just be obleege