st his balance, or else it had destroyed the
equilibrium of the bundle itself, so that almost before he had time even
to say "O Master Ted," the mischief was done. Down plumped the bundle,
with a crash of broken crockery, and a brown liquid at once oozed out
through the cloth, making a melancholy puddle on the road. Jamie's
half-spoken words changed into a cry of despair. It was the Sunday's
dinner which had come to grief, the pie which his poor mother had
prepared so carefully, and which he was taking home from his
grandmother's, in whose oven it had been baking.

"Oh dear, oh dear, what ever _shall_ I do?" cried the poor little boy.
"What will mother say? Oh dear, oh dear!--O Master Ted, what shall I
do?"

Jamie's tears and sobs were pitiful. Ted, with a pale concerned face
stood beside him, speechless.

"It was all my fault, Jamie," he said at last. "It's me your mother must
scold, not you. I must go home with you, and tell her it wasn't your
fault."

"Oh but it were," sobbed the child. "Mother always tells me to look
neither to right nor to left when I'm carrying anything like this here.
Oh deary me, what ever shall I do?"

He stooped down and untied the knots of the large checked handkerchief
in which the unfortunate pie had been enveloped. The dish was all in
pieces, the gravy fast disappearing. Jamie gathered together, using the
largest bit of the broken stoneware as a plate, some of the pieces of
meat which might still be eaten, and Ted, stooping down too, helped him
to the best of his ability. But it was very little that could be saved
from the shipwreck. And then the two boys turned in the direction of
Jamie's home, Jamie sobbing all the way, and Ted himself too appalled to
know what to say to comfort him.

Jamie's mother was a busy, hard-working woman. She was kind to her
children, but that is not to say that they never had a sharp word from
her. And there were so many of them--more than enough to try the patience
of a mother less worried by other cares. So poor Jamie had some reason
to cry, and he did not attempt to prevent Ted's going home with
him--alone he would hardly have dared to face the expected scolding.

She was at the door, or just inside it, as the boys made their
appearance, with a big tub before her in which she was washing up some
odds and ends, without which her numerous family could not have made
their usual tidy appearance at church and Sunday school the next day.
For it was Saturd