Violets and Other Tales

								

warmth, he plunged his hands in his pockets, shut his teeth, and started
manfully on his mission out the railroad track towards the swamps.
It was late when Titee came home, to such a home as it was, and he had
but illy performed his errand, so his mother beat him, and sent him to
bed supperless. A sharp strap stings in cold weather, and long walks in
the teeth of a biting wind creates a keen appetite. But if Titee cried
himself to sleep that night, he was up bright and early next morning,
and had been to early mass, devoutly kneeling on the cold floor,
blowing his fingers to keep them warm, and was home almost before the
rest of the family was awake.
There was evidently some great matter of business in this young man's
mind, for he scarcely ate his breakfast, and had left the table, eagerly
cramming the remainder of his meal in his pockets.
"I wonder what he's up to now?" mused his mother as she watched his
little form sturdily trudging the track in the face of the wind, his
head, with the rimless cap thrust close on the shock of black hair, bent
low, his hands thrust deep in the bulging pockets.
"A new snake, perhaps," ventured the father; "he's a queer child."
But the next day Titee was late for school. It was something unusual,
for he was always the first on hand to fix some plan of mechanism to
make the teacher miserable. She looked reprovingly at him this morning,
when he came in during the arithmetic class, his hair all wind-blown,
cheeks rosy from a hard fight with the sharp blasts. But he made up for
his tardiness by his extreme goodness all day; just think, Titee didn't
even eat in school. A something unparalleled in the entire history of
his school-life.
When the lunch-hour came, and all the yard was a scene of feast and fun,
one of the boys found him standing by one of the posts, disconsolately
watching a ham sandwich as it rapidly disappeared down the throat of a
sturdy, square-headed little fellow.
"Hello, Edgar," he said, "What yer got fer lunch?"
"Nothin'," was the mournful reply.
"Ah, why don't yer stop eatin' in school fer a change? Yer don't ever
have nothin' to eat."
"I didn't eat to-day," said Titee, blazing up.
"Yer did!"
"I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted a
punctuation mark on his comrade's eye.
A fight in the school-yard! Poor Titee in disgrace again. But in spite
of his battered appearance, a severe scolding from the principal, lines
to write, and a further punishment from his mother, Titee scarcely
remained for his dinner, but was off, down the railroad track, with his
pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of his scanty meal.
And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless, too, and the
next, and the next, until the teacher in despair sent a nicely printed
note to his mother about him, which might have done some good, had not
Titee taken great pains to tear it up on his way home.
But one day it rained, whole bucketfuls of water, that poured in