keeping her eyes
shut to please Tom.

"Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to
you fair, but I shan't give it you without. Right or left?--you
choose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, as Maggie peeped. "You keep your eyes
shut, now, else you shan't have any."

So Maggie shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to "say which,"
and then she said, "Left hand."

"You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.

"What! the bit with the jam run out?"

"No; here, take it," said Tom firmly, handing the best piece to Maggie.

"Oh please, Tom, have it. I don't mind; I like the other. Please take
this."

"No, I shan't," said Tom, almost crossly.

Maggie began to eat up her half puff with great relish; But Tom had
finished his own first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last
morsel or two without noticing that Tom was looking at her.

"Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had eaten the last morsel.

Maggie turned quite pale. "O Tom, why didn't you ask me?"

"I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have
thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit."

"But I wanted you to have it--you know I did," said Maggie, in an
injured tone.

"Yes; but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair. But if I go halves,
I'll go 'em fair--only I wouldn't be a greedy."

With this Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a stone with a
"hoigh!" to Yap, who had also been looking on wistfully while the jam
puff vanished.

Maggie sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to misery. She
would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have
saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice; but she
would have gone without it many times over sooner than Tom should call
her greedy and be cross with her.

And he had said he wouldn't have it; and she ate it without thinking.
How could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that Maggie saw
nothing around her for the next ten minutes; then she jumped from her
bough to look for Tom. He was no longer near her, nor in the paddock
behind the rickyard. Where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him?

Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree, where she
could see far away towards the Floss. There was Tom in the distance;
but her heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to
the great river, and that he had another companion besides Yap--naughty
Bo