﻿284 PICTORIAL MISCELLANY. 



Our Tommy, or the Little Errand-Boy. 



BY NILLA FORRESTER. 



I AM going to tell you a story about our Tommy. Like Sterne, 

 [ found out that a domestic was what I required, and, after a few 

 days' search, a funny little specimen of humanity offered his ser- 

 vices. I scanned him from head to foot. He looked shrewd and 

 intelligent; his blue eye had a twinkle in it; and his nose, which 

 was of an undefined order, ranging between a turn up and a pug, 

 looked as though it might speak, if it would. His hair nature had 

 intended for yellow, but constant exposure to the sun had bleached 

 it to a rusty white. He did not appear at all abashed at my critical 

 inspection, for his eye ran round the room, scanning the furniture, 

 and then came back to fix itself on me. His clothes in some former 

 year might have been a fit, but now a good length of leg exposed 

 itself below the trowsers ; and his little round, fat body looked, for 

 all the world, as though it had just been stuffed for a pin-cushion ! 



"Who sent you here, my little fellow ?" I asked, questioning. 



" Our folks heard you wanted a boy to run arrants, and do chores, 

 and mother sent me up to try it a spell." 



" What is your name ?" 



" Thomas Jefferson Marsh." 



" Ah, indeed ! then I have a second edition of Jefferson ?" 



Tommy was forthwith installed in his new vocation, and his busy 

 little feet pit-a-patted to and fro, and up and down the house. He 

 was what foreigners would term a unique Yankee specimen. Ran- 

 sack New England from Calais to Waterbury, and I do not believe 

 that you could look upon his like ! Nimble and supple as a cat, he 

 would turn somersets about the yard, stand upon his head, or, 

 sticking his little bare toes into the bark, climb a cherry tree as 

 quick as a monkey a rope ladder ; and swinging himself round fiom 

 limb to limb, pick and sing, as merry and happy as the birds and 

 squirrels who divided the cherries with him. 



Reverence to superiors was to him a thing unknown ; nature had 

 never hinted it ; and education had not as yet forced upon him such 

 an unpleasant impression. Forever out of sight when most needed, 

 all day long our lungs were in exercise. " Tommy," sounded from 



