“I don’t care if he hasn’t; he’s a boy, and acts like one, and I can get on with him a great deal better than I can with those men.”

Fanny was just going to take Polly to task for saying “those men” in such a disrespectful tone, when both were startled by a smothered “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” from under the opposite seat.

“It’s Tom!” cried Fanny; and with the words out tumbled that incorrigible boy, red in the face, and breathless with suppressed laughter. Seating himself, he surveyed the girls as if well satisfied with the success of his prank, and waiting to be congratulated upon it. “Did you hear what we were saying?” demanded Fanny, uneasily.

“Oh, didn’t I, every word?” And Tom exulted over them visibly.

“Did you ever see such a provoking toad, Polly? Now, I suppose you’ll go and tell papa a great story.”

“P’r’aps I shall, and p’r’aps I shan’t. How Polly did hop when I crowed! I heard her squeal, and saw her cuddle up her feet.”

“And you heard us praise your manners, didn’t you?” asked Polly, slyly.

“Yes, and you liked ‘em; so I won’t tell on you,” said Tom, with a reassuring nod.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Ain’t there, though? What do you suppose the governor will say to you girls going on so with those dandies? I saw you.”

“What has the Governor of Massachusetts to do with us?” asked Polly, trying to look as if she meant what she said.

“Pooh! you know who I mean; so you needn’t try to catch me up, as grandma does.”

“Tom, I’ll make a bargain with you,” cried Fanny, eagerly. “It wasn’t my fault that Gus and Frank were there, and I couldn’t help their speaking to me. I do as well as I can, and papa needn’t be angry; for I behave ever so much better than some of the girls. Don’t I, Polly?”

“Bargain?” observed Tom, with an eye to business.

“If you won’t go and make a fuss, telling what you’d no right to hear – it was so mean to hide and listen; I should think you’d be ashamed of it! – I’ll help you tease for your velocipede, and won’t say a word against it, when mamma and granny beg papa not to let you have it.”

“Will you?” and Tom paused to consider the offer in all its bearings.

“Yes, and Polly will help; won’t you?”

“I’d rather not have anything to do with it; but I’ll be quiet, and not do any harm.”

“Why won’t you?” asked Tom, curiously.

“Because it seems like deceiving.”

“Well, papa needn’t be so fussy,” said Fan, petulantly.

“After hearing about that Carrie, and the rest, I don’t wonder he is fussy. Why don’t you tell right out, and not do it any more, if he don’t want you to?” said Polly, persuasively.

“Do you go and tell your father and mother everything right out?”

“Yes, I do; and it saves ever so much trouble.”

“Ain’t you afraid of them?”

“Of course I’m not. It’s hard to tell sometimes; but it’s so comfortable when it’s over.”

“Let’s!” was Tom’s brief advice.

“Mercy me! What a fuss about nothing!” said Fanny, ready to cry with vexation.

“’Tisn’t nothing. You know you are forbidden to go gallivanting round with those chaps, and that’s the reason you’re in a pucker now. I won’t make any bargain, and I will tell,” returned Tom, seized with a sudden fit of moral firmness.

“Will you if I promise never, never to do so any more?” asked Fanny, meekly; for when Thomas took matters into his own hands, his sister usually submitted in spite of herself.

“I’ll think about it; and if you behave, maybe I won’t do it at all. I can watch you better than papa can; so, if you try it again, it’s all up with you, miss,” said Tom, finding it impossible to resist the pleasure of tyrannizing a little when he got the chance.

“She won’t; don’t plague her any more, and she will be good to you when you get into scrapes,” answered Polly, with her arm round Fan.

“I never do; and if I did, I shouldn’t ask a girl to help me out.”

“Why not? I’d ask you in a minute, if I was in trouble,” said Polly, in her confiding way.

“Would you? Well, I’d put you through, as sure as my name’s Tom Shaw. Now, then, don’t slip, Polly,” and Mr. Thomas helped them out with unusual politeness, for that friendly little speech gratified him. He felt that one person appreciated him; and it had a good effect upon manners and temper made rough and belligerent by constant snubbing and opposition.

After tea that evening, Fanny proposed that Polly should show her how to make molasses candy, as it was cook’s holiday, and the coast would be clear. Hoping to propitiate her tormentor, Fan invited Tom to join in the revel, and Polly begged that Maud might sit up and see the fun; so all four descended to the big kitchen, armed with aprons, hammers, spoons, and pans, and Polly assumed command of the forces. Tom was set to cracking nuts, and Maud to picking out the meats, for the candy was to be “tip-top.” Fan waited on Polly cook, who hovered over the kettle of boiling molasses till her face was the color of a peony. “Now, put in the nuts,” she said at last; and Tom emptied his plate into the foamy syrup, while the others watched with deep interest the mysterious concoction of this well-beloved sweetmeat. “I pour it into the buttered pan, you see, and it cools, and then we can eat it,” explained Polly, suiting the action to the word.

“Why, it’s all full of shells!” exclaimed Maud, peering into the pan.

“Oh, thunder! I must have put ’em in by mistake, and ate up the meats without thinking,” said Tom, trying to conceal his naughty satisfaction, as the girls hung over the pan with faces full of disappointment and despair.

“You did it on purpose, you horrid boy! I’ll never let you have anything to do with my fun again!” cried Fan, in a passion, trying to catch and shake him, while he dodged and chuckled in high glee.

Maud began to wail over her lost delight, and Polly gravely poked at the mess, which was quite spoilt. But her attention was speedily diverted by the squabble going on in the corner; for Fanny, forgetful of her young-ladyism and her sixteen years, had boxed Tom’s ears, and Tom, resenting the insult, had forcibly seated her in the coal-hod, where he held her with one hand while he returned the compliment with the other. Both were very angry, and kept twitting one another with every aggravation they could invent, as they scolded and scuffled, presenting a most unlovely spectacle.

Polly was not a model girl by any means, and had her little pets and tempers like the rest of us; but she didn’t fight, scream, and squabble with her brothers and sisters in this disgraceful way, and was much surprised to see her elegant friend in such a passion. “Oh, don’t! Please, don’t! You’ll hurt her, Tom! Let him go, Fanny! It’s no matter about the candy; we can make some more!” cried Polly, trying to part them, and looking so distressed, that they stopped ashamed, and in a minute sorry that she should see such a display of temper.

“I ain’t going to be hustled round; so you’d better let me alone, Fan,” said Tom, drawing off with a threatening wag of the head, adding, in a different tone, “I only put the shells in for fun, Polly. You cook another kettleful, and I’ll pick you some meats all fair. Will you?”

“It’s pretty hot work, and it’s a pity to waste things; but I’ll try again, if you want me to,” said Polly, with a patient sigh, for her arms were tired and her face uncomfortably hot.

“We don’t want you; get away!” said Maud, shaking a sticky spoon at him.

“Keep quiet, crybaby. I’m going to stay and help; mayn’t I, Polly?”

“Bears like sweet things, so you want some candy, I guess. Where is the molasses? We’ve used up all there was in the jug,” said Polly, good-naturedly, beginning again.

“Down cellar; I’ll get it;” and taking the lamp and jug, Tom departed, bent on doing his duty now like a saint.

The moment his light vanished, Fanny bolted the door, saying, spitefully, “Now, we are safe from any more tricks. Let him thump and call, it only serves him right; and when the candy is done, we’ll let the rascal out.”

“How can we make it without molasses?” asked Polly, thinking that would settle the matter.

“There’s plenty in the storeroom. No; you shan’t let him up till I’m ready. He’s got to learn that I’m not to be shaken by a little chit like him. Make your candy, and let him alone, or I’ll go and tell papa, and then Tom will get a lecture.”

Polly thought it wasn’t fair; but Maud clamored for her candy, and finding she could do nothing to appease Fan, Polly devoted her mind to her cookery till the nuts were safely in, and a nice panful set in the yard to cool. A few bangs at the locked door, a few threats of vengeance from the prisoner such as setting the house on fire, drinking up the wine, and smashing the jelly-pots, and then all was so quiet that the girls forgot him in the exciting crisis of their work.

“He can’t possibly get out anywhere, and as soon as we’ve cut up the candy, we’ll unbolt the door and run. Come and get a nice dish to put it in,” said Fan, when Polly proposed to go halves with Tom, lest he should come bursting in somehow, and seize the whole.

When they came down with the dish in which to set forth their treat, and opened the back door to find it, imagine their dismay on discovering that it was gone – pan, candy, and all – utterly and mysteriously gone!

A general lament arose, when a careful rummage left no hopes; for the fates had evidently decreed that candy was not to prosper on this unpropitious night.

“The hot pan has melted and sunk in the snow, perhaps,” said Fanny, digging into the drift where it was left.

“Those old cats have got it, I guess,” suggested Maud, too much overwhelmed by this second blow to howl as usual.

“The gate isn’t locked, and some beggar has stolen it. I hope it will do him good,” added Polly, returning from her exploring expedition.

“If Tom could get out, I should think he’d carried it off; but not being a rat, he can’t go through the bits of windows; so it wasn’t him,” said Fanny, disconsolately, for she began to think this double loss a punishment for letting angry passions rise.

“Let’s open the door and tell him about it,” proposed Polly.

“He’ll crow over us. No; we’ll open it and go to bed, and he can come out when he likes. Provoking boy! If he hadn’t plagued us so, we should have had a nice time.”

Unbolting the cellar door, the girls announced to the invisible captive that they were through, and then departed much depressed. Halfway up the second flight, they all stopped as suddenly as if they had seen a ghost; for looking over the banisters was Tom’s face, crocky but triumphant, and in either hand a junk of candy, which he waved above them as he vanished, with the tantalizing remark, “Don’t you wish you had some?”

“How in the world did he get out?” cried Fanny, steadying herself after a start that nearly sent all three tumbling downstairs.

“Coal-hole!” answered a spectral voice from the gloom above.

“Good gracious! He must have poked up the cover, climbed into the street, stole the candy, and sneaked in at the shed window while we were looking for it.”

“Cats got it, didn’t they?” jeered the voice in a tone that made Polly sit down and laugh till she couldn’t laugh any longer.

“Just give Maud a bit, she’s so disappointed. Fan and I are sick of it, and so will you be, if you eat it all,” called Polly, when she got her breath.

“Go to bed, Maudie, and look under your pillow when you get there,” was the oracular reply that came down to them, as Tom’s door closed after a jubilant solo on the tin pan.

The girls went to bed tired out; and Maud slumbered placidly, hugging the sticky bundle, found where molasses candy is not often discovered. Polly was very tired, and soon fell asleep; but Fanny, who slept with her, lay awake longer than usual, thinking about her troubles, for her head ached, and the dissatisfaction that follows anger would not let her rest with the tranquillity that made the rosy face in the little round nightcap such a pleasant sight to see as it lay beside her. The gas was turned down, but Fanny saw a figure in a gray wrapper creep by her door, and presently return, pausing to look in. “Who is it?” she cried, so loud that Polly woke.

“Only me, dear,” answered grandma’s mild voice. “Poor Tom has got a dreadful toothache, and I came down to find some creosote for him. He told me not to tell you; but I can’t find the bottle, and don’t want to disturb mamma.”

“It’s in my closet. Old Tom will pay for his trick this time,” said Fanny, in a satisfied tone.

“I thought he’d get enough of our candy,” laughed Polly; and then they fell asleep, leaving Tom to the delights of toothache and the tender mercies of kind old grandma.