DYER’S HOLLOW. be 
going. He entertained a very decided 
opinion that he should n’t like to live there; 
a wholesome aversion, I am bound to main- 
tain, dear Uncle Venner to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 
A stranger was not an every-day sight in 
Dyer’s Hollow, I imagine, and as I went up 
and down the road a good many times in the 
course of my visit, I came to be pretty well 
known. So it happened that a Western 
Islands woman came to her front door once, 
broom in hand and the sweetest of smiles on 
her face, and said, “Thank you for that five 
cents you gave my little boy the other day.” 
“Put that in your pocket,” I had said, and 
the obedient little man did as he was bid- 
den, without so much as a side glance at the 
denomination of the coin. But he forgot 
one thing, and when his mother asked him, 
as of course she did, for mothers are all 
alike, “‘Did you thank the gentleman?” he 
could do nothing but hang his head. Hence 
the woman’s smile and “thank you,” which 
made me so ashamed of the paltriness of the 
gift (Thackeray never saw a boy without 
wanting to give him a sovereign /) that my 
mention of the matter here, so far from in- 
