determinedly; "don't strike me,
or my father will take the law on you."

Lampeer let go.

Just then the groceries came, and a minute later, Billy Horton's wagon
drove up with the machine, and all the other boys, who came in and shook
hands with the poor but delighted mother and her children. I cannot tell
you any more about that scene. I only know that Lampeer went out angry
and muttering.

X.

TOMMY PUFFER.

Willie was happy that night. He went down to the festival at the Mission.
There was Tommy Puffer's soft, oyster-like body among the scholars of the
Mission. He was waiting for something good. His mouth and eyes were
watering. He looked triumphantly at the boys from the other school. They
wouldn't get anything so nice. The superintendent announced that no boy's
name would be called for a paper bag of "refreshments" but those who had
been present two Sundays. And so poor starving Tommy Puffer had to carry
his pudding-bag of a body home again without a chance to give it an extra
stuffing.

XI.

AN ODD PARTY.

I cannot tell you about the giving of the broom-machine to the blind
broom-maker; of the ton of coal to Aunt Parm'ly, and of all the other
things that happened on Christmas Day when the presents were given. I
must leave these things out. As for Aunt Parm'ly, she said she did not
know, but dat dare coal seemed like it come from de sky.

But there was an ample feast yet for the boys at the Sunday-school, for
many biscuits, and cakes, and pies had been baked. But every time Willie
looked at the walking-stick he thought of "the poor, the maimed, the
lame, and the blind." And so he and Sammy Bantam soon set the whole
school, teachers and all, a-fire with the idea of inviting in the inmates
of the county poor-house. It was not half so hard to persuade the members
of the school, to do this as it was to coax them to the first move; for
when people have found out how good it is to do good, they like to do
good again.

Such a company it was! There was old crazy Newberry, who had a game-bag
slung about his neck, and who imagined that the little pebbles in it were
of priceless value. Old Dorothy, who was nearly eighty, and who, thanks
to the meanness of the authorities, had not tasted any delicacy, not so
much as a cup of tea, since she had been in the almshouse; and there were
half-id