Adventures of Pinocchio | Page 8

from side to side, in
his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally his bare foot rested upon
it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure and disappeared
round the corner. But only for a minute--only while he could button the flower inside his
jacket, next his heart--or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in
anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.
He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing off," as before; but
the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom comforted himself a little with the
hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions.
Finally he strode home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.

All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered "what had got into the
child." He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the
least. He tried to steal sugar under his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it.
He said:
"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it."
"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into that sugar if I
warn't watching you."
Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, reached for the
sugar-bowl--a sort of glorying over Tom which was wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's
fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies
that he even controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not
speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who
did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world
as to see that pet model "catch it." He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly
hold himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging
lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to himself, "Now it's coming!" And
the next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike
again when Tom cried out:
"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting ME for?--Sid broke it!"
Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when she got her
tongue again, she only said:
"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some other audacious
mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."
Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving;
but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that she had been in the
wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a
troubled heart. Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart his
aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the consciousness of it.
He would hang out no signals, he would take notice of none. He knew that a yearning
glance fell upon him, now and then, through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of
it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching
one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word
unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the
river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself
upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back
her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would lie there cold and
white and make no sign--a poor little sufferer, whose griefs were at an end. He so worked
upon his feelings with the pathos of these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was
so like to choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked,
and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to him was this

petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness or any
grating delight intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when
his cousin Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long
visit of one week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darkness out at one
door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other.
He wandered