think
I could find the pump, if you'd let me try."

She muttered something like an acquiescence; so Tom took up the kettle,
and, tired as he was, went out to the pump. Jack, who had done nothing
but mischief all day, stood amazed, but at last settled that his cousin
was a "softy."

When Tom came back, he tried to blow the fire with the broken bellows,
and at last the water boiled, and the tea was made. "Thou'rt a rare lad,
Tom," said his uncle. "I wonder when our Jack will be of as much use."

This comparison did not please either Jack or his mother, who liked to
keep to herself the privilege of directing their father's dissatisfaction
with his children. Tom felt their want of kindliness towards him; and
now that he had nothing to do but rest and eat, he began to feel very
sad, and his eyes kept filling with tears, which he brushed away with
the back of his hand, not wishing to have them seen. But his uncle
noticed him.

"Thou had'st better have had a glass at the Spread Eagle," said he,
compassionately.

"No; I only am rather tired. May I go to bed?" said he, longing for a
good cry unobserved under the bed-clothes.

"Where's he to sleep?" asked the husband of the wife.

"Nay," said she, still offended on Jack's account, "that's thy look-out.
He's thy flesh and blood, not mine."

"Come, wife," said uncle John, "he's an orphan, poor chap. An orphan is
kin to every one."

She was softened directly, for she had much kindness in her, although
this evening she had been so much put out.

"There's no place for him but with Jack and Dick. We've the baby, and
the other three are packed close enough."

She took Tom up to the little back room, and stopped to talk with him
for a minute or two, for her husband's words had smitten her heart, and
she was sorry for the ungracious reception she had given Tom at first.

"Jack and Dick are never in bed till we come, and it's work enough to
catch them then on fine evenings," said she, as she took the candle
away.

Tom tried to speak to God as his mother had taught him, out of the
fulness of his little heart, which was heavy enough that night. He tried
to think how she would have wished him to speak and to do, and when he
felt puzzled with the remembrance of the scene of disorder and anger
which he had seen, he earnestly prayed God would make and keep clear his
path before him. And then he fell asleep.

He had had a long dream of other and happier days, and had thought he