Table of Contents

battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the terms of the next
disagreement agreed upon and the day for the necessary battle appointed; after
which the armies fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward
alone.

As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl in
the garden-a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two
long tails, white summer frock and embroidered pantalettes. The fresh-crowned
hero fell without firing a shot. A certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart
and left not even a memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to
distraction, he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a
poor little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had
confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in
the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time she had gone
out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is done.

He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had
discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and began
to “show off” in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win her admiration.
He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time; but by and by, while he
was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic performances, he glanced aside
and saw that the little girl was wending her way toward the house. Tom came
up to the fence and leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet a
while longer. She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the
door. Tom heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face
lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she
disappeared.

The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and then
shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if he had
discovered something of interest going on in that direction. Presently he picked
up a straw and began trying to balance it on his nose, with his head tilted far
back; and as he moved from side to side, in his efforts, he edged nearer and
nearer toward the pansy; finally his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes
closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure and disappeared round
the corner. But only for a minute-only while he could button the flower inside
his jacket, next his heartor next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much
posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.

He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, “showing off,” as
before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom comforted himself
a little with the hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and been
aware of his attentions. Finally he rode home reluctantly, with his poor head full
of visions.

All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered “what had
got into the child.” He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and did not
seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his aunt’s very nose,
and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said: “Aunt, you don’t whack Sid when