"What's all this about ?" said Mr.
Harry, stopping and looking at the boy.

"What's the matter with your feathered charges, Tommy my lad ?" "If it's the geese you mean," said the boy half crying and looking very much put out, "it's all them nasty potatoes.

They won't keep away from them." "So the potatoes chase the geese, do they ?" said Mr.Maxwell, teasingly.
"No, no," said the child, pettishly; "Mr.Wood he sets me to watch the geese, and they runs in among the buckwheat and the potatoes and I tries to drive them out, and they doesn't want to come, and," shamefacedly, "I has to switch their feet, and I hates to do it, 'cause I'm a Band of Mercy boy." "Tommy, my son," said Mr.Maxwell, solemnly "you will go right to heaven when you die, and your geese will go with you." "Hush, hush," said Miss Laura, "don't tease him," and putting her arm on the child's shoulder, she said, "You are a good boy, Tommy, not to want to hurt the geese.

Let me see your switch, dear." He showed her a little stick he had in his hand, and she said, "I don't think you could hurt them much with that, and if they will be naughty and steal the potatoes, you have to drive them out.

Take some of my pears and eat them, and you will forget your trouble." The child took the fruit, and Miss Laura and the two young men went on their way, smiling, and looking over their shoulders at Tommy, who stood in the lane, devouring his pears and keeping one eye on the geese that had gathered a little in front of him, and were gabbling noisily and having a kind of indignation meeting, because they had been driven out of the potato field.
Tommy's father and mother lived in a little house down near the road.
Mr.Wood never had his hired men live in his own house.