Ever since I got up," replied Tommy, placing his hand upon his
stomach.

"You ate your breakfast very well for a sick boy."

"I feel worse since I ate my breakfast," said the little boy,
trying very hard to look sick.

"What ails you?"

"I feel sick at the stomach."

"Well, I think you will feel better by and by," added Dr. Woggs.

"But I can't go to school, father."

"O, you can't?" said his father, with a smile.

"I don't feel able to go."

"Then you needn't go."

Tommy was much pleased to find he had gained his point; and he did
not think of the wicked lies he had told. His father said he might
stay away from school that day, and this was all he wanted.

He had a pair of rabbits in the wood shed, and without thinking
that he was sick, he was going out to play with them.

"Where are you going, Tommy?" asked his father.

"Out in the wood shed to see my rabbits."

"I thought you were sick."

"So I am, father."

"Then sit down on the sofa, and I will attend to you in a moment.
Do you feel very sick?"

"I'm real bad, father," replied Tommy, quickly, for he was afraid
his father would send him to school, after all.

Dr. Woggs opened a drawer in his bookcase, and took out a little
jar, filled with a kind of yellow powder. He then asked Mrs. Woggs
to get him a little molasses in a cup, and a teaspoon.

Tommy turned pale then, for he knew all about that powder in the
little jar.

"Now, my son, we will make you well by to-morrow, so that you will
be able to go to school again," said Dr. Woggs, as he took the
cover off the jar.

Tommy began to cry, for he would rather have taken a whipping than
a dose of that nasty, yellow powder.

"What's the matter, Tommy? Do you feel worse?" asked his father.

"I don't want to take any of that stuff," whined the poor little
invalid.

"I know, Tommy, it isn't pleasant to take; but when we are sick, we
must take something to keep us from getting any worse."

"I don't want to take it, father. It always makes me a good deal sicker
than I was before--it does indeed, father."

"That's very true, my boy; but, for all that, you must take it. We
very often have to make folks worse before they can be any better.
It always hurts to set a broken arm or leg; but no one would think
of letting it remain unset because the operation is painful."

His mother soon came with the cup of molasses, and Dr. Woggs put
some of the yellow powder into it, and stirred up the mixture.