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Little Susy's Little Servants

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<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> Early the next morning Thomas's mamma began to pack her trunks in order to go away, for she felt quite vexed with Susy, and with her mamma. While she was busy in this way, Thomas was quite as busy in eating some dainties that she had placed on the floor while she made room for them in the trunk. Thomas knew they were to be carried to his aunt, who was sick. By and by his mother turned round, and seeing him eating, she said to him: "Thomas! what are you about? I hope you have not touched any of those things I got for your aunt? Let me see, one, two, three; there ought to be four boxes of jelly. Come here and let me look at your hands. Come this minute, you naughty boy, you." "I didn't eat a bit," said Thomas, "I only just made a little hole in one side, and ate what came out on a pin." "Where is the box?" "I don't know. There were only three boxes." "Yes there were four boxes. And you've eaten one of them. I never saw such a boy! Well, I shall not buy you the present I promised you yesterday. To think of your eating your aunt's jelly!" "I didn't eat it," said Thomas, in a sulky voice. "Your face is all covered with it, so don't let me hear another word. I begin now to think you told me a story, yesterday. Come here!" "What are you going to do?" cried Thomas trying to get away. "I'm going to see if the lid of my trunk fits to that mark on your face," said his mother. "And if it does, I shall believe Susy spoke the truth after all." "I said she let the lid fall on me," said Thomas. "You said no such thing. You said she struck you with a stick." "I didn't," said Thomas. "What a wicked, wicked boy you are!" cried his mother. "I see just what you are. If there is such a thing as a rod in this house, I'll whip you with it till you are ashamed of yourself. What do you suppose Susy's mother thought of me yesterday, when I took your part? I only wish your father was here. But I'll whip you, you see if I don't." On hearing this, Thomas ran to get away; his mother ran after him, and seeing a door half open, Thomas hoped to escape by that means. For this door led to a dark, low closet under the stairs, in which a grown person could not stand upright. The moment Thomas crept in his mother shut and locked the door. "There! now I've got you!" she cried, "and there you shall stay on bread and water, the whole day!" Thomas kicked against the door, and cried, and begged to come out, but in vain. His mother was as severe on one day as she was fond on another. She kept him shut up till nearly night, when she took him out all covered with cobwebs, gave him a good shaking, and told him to ask Susy's pardon for telling a story about her. That night when Susy was going to bed, she said to her mamma: "Thomas and his mother fighted together to-day, and she couldn't whip him he ran away so." "How came you to know that, Susy?" "The door was open, and I was going by, and I heard a noise, and so I stopped." "That was not right, my darling. You must teach your little eyes not to look at things they ought not to see. Didn't you feel, all the time, that it was not quite proper for you to stop and watch in that way? Always make it a rule never to look at any thing, no matter what, if you have even a little bit of a feeling that you ought not. Your eyes are your own, and you must teach them." "I will, mamma," said Susy. "And I am glad I've got you for a mamma. I'm glad Thomas's mamma isn't mine. She didn't pray to God to make him good; she fighted with him." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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