AVRAINY DAY a la | 
and hoed? Now, guided by a careful old leader who sat 
on a dead sycamore top and gave warning (for all crow 
flocks have such a chief), they were beginning to attack 
the ripened ears, the scarecrows placed at intervals 
that had been of some use in the early season having 
now lost the little influence they possessed and fallen into 
limp heaps, like unfortunate tramps asleep by the wayside. 
So every time the crows came over, Tommy would 
stretch up in his seat and finally slip out of it entirely and, 
hanging half out of the window, shake his fist at them, 
all the time uttering dire threats of what he would do if 
he only had his father’s shot-gun. 
For these reasons, Friday morning saw him seated in the 
middle of the room with the older girls and sharing the 
double desk with Sarah Barnes. Now Sarah thought that 
Tommy was the cleverest boy she had ever seen, and 
Sarah had visited in Centre Village in Hattertown, and 
Bridgeton, been twice to the Oldtown County Fair, and 
would have gone to New York once with her Aunt Jane if 
measles had not prevented; so that her friends thought, 
for thirteen, she was quite a travelled lady. 
Tommy also considered her favourably and had been 
heard to say that she was not bad for a girl; yet, to be put 
in the middle seats with the girls he considered an insult 
to his years, and he was sulky and brooded mischief all 
the morning. 
In reality Tommy was not a bad boy in any way. 
What he wanted was plenty of occupation for his mind 
and body to work at. Miss Wilde knew this and tried to 
give him as many little things to do as possible. It was 
Tommy who had charge of the new cage rat-trap of shiny 
