MICKEY OWNS UP
Brother told Mickey the tar incident in a few words.
"And you can't make her believe Betty and I didn't put it on her
porch," he concluded. "She's just 'termined we did it."
"And she sent the policeman to your house and all," mused Mickey. "Gee!"
His face was rather red and he looked at Brother and Sister queerly. He
opened his mouth as though to say something, then apparently changed
his mind.
"Well, we have to go home," declared Brother. "You'll go see Miss
Putnam, won't you, Mickey?"
"I suppose so," muttered Mickey. "So long!"
"Maybe he doesn't like it," said Sister as they went on toward their
house.
"Oh, yes he does," replied Brother confidently. "He'll go, you see if
he doesn't."
Mickey Gaffney did go see Miss Putnam, and something about him made the
old lady like him right away. She engaged him to do errands for her an
hour in the morning, and again in the afternoon, and she paid him
fifteen cents an hour. If he weeded in the garden that was to be extra.
"Will you have enough for your shoes?" asked Sister anxiously one
morning, when Mickey came to do some weeding in the garden for Jimmie.
"My, yes, and I guess I can buy my little sister a pair," said Mickey
proudly.
"Have you a little sister?" demanded Brother and Sister together. "How
old is she?"
"Five," answered Mickey, getting down on his hands and knees and going
at the weeds in a business-like way. "She'll be five next month."
"Isn't that nice!" commented Sister. "I'm five years old, too."
Mickey avoided her eyes and was apparently too busy to talk much to
them, so by and by Brother and Sister ran off and left him to his
weeding.
If they had stayed, they might have seen Mickey throw down his
weeding-fork suddenly and march out of the garden.
"Don't believe that boy is going to stick to his work," said Molly to
Mother Morrison. "He's gone already."
But Mickey was hurrying along toward Miss Putnam's house and did not
care very much what anyone thought of him. He didn't think kindly of
himself at that moment.
"Why, Mickey!" Miss Putnam looked up at him in amazement as he came
around to the back porch where she was sweeping a rug. "What's the
matter, child, don't you feel well?"
"I feel all right," he said briefly. "Say, Miss Putnam, you know that
tar that was on your porch? I threw it!"
"You--you what?" gasped Miss Putnam. "You threw that hot tar all over
my clean porch and walk? Why, Mickey!"
"Yes'm," muttered Mickey miserably.
"But why?" insisted Miss Putnam. "And Mrs. Graham told me that the
Morrison boy and girl did it."
"Guess she thought she saw 'em--it was most dark," said Mickey. "But it
wasn't Roddy and Betty. I did it, and Nina, my little sister, helped
me."
"But why?" persisted Miss Putnam. "I never should have thought it of
you, Mickey, never."
Strange as it may seem, Miss Putnam really liked Mickey. He was so
willing and so cheerful and so quick that the old lady who had had to
do all the work of her small home so long that she had forgotten how it
felt to have younger hands helping her, began to look forward to
Mickey's coming every day.
And Mickey liked Miss Putnam. He found she was very fair about time and
reasonable about the amount of work she expected him to accomplish. The
fact that he was barefooted did not seem to bother her and she treated
him exactly as though his clothes were whole instead of torn and poorly
patched.
Now when she asked him why he had thrown the tar, it was hard for him
to tell the truth. But he did. When Mickey once made up his mind to do
a thing, he always went through with it.
"It was 'count of the barbwire," Mickey explained in a low voice. "I
didn't know you put it up, and I climbed the fence one night, to scare
you through the window, and I thought you'd run out and chase me. And I
tore my coat on the wire and scratched my face. So after that I was
always looking for a chance to get even."
"When I saw the tar, I came back after supper and made Nina carry it
for me while I slung it--we had a tin bucket. I'm awful sorry, Miss
Putnam; honest I am!"
"But--did you let me send a policeman to the Morrison's house?" asked
Miss Putnam uncertainly.
"I never knew about that till just before I came here to work," said
Mickey earnestly. "And ever since I've felt mean as dirt, not telling.
Nina is just as old as Betty. It wasn't her fault--Nina's, I mean; she
does whatever I tell her to."
"Well, I'll go call on Mrs. Morrison this afternoon," said Miss Putnam
briskly. "And then I'll take down that wire. I don't need it now
anyway, for the children don't bother me since you're here. I guess
they're afraid you'd catch them if you should chase them," she smiled
grimly.
"And I can go right on working?" suggested Mickey anxiously.
"Of course, child. Why not?" said Miss Putnam.
That settled Mickey's last worry. With a hurried "thank you," he dashed
away, out through the yard and up the street. He wanted to find Brother
and Sister and tell them what he had done.
"My goodness, I think you're ever so brave," said Sister when she had
heard his story. "I'd be scared to death to tell Miss Putnam like that."
"Pooh, she's all right," answered Mickey. "I like her. And now I have a
lot of time to make up--most half an hour."
"School begins two weeks from today," announced Brother, watching
Mickey tackle an onion row. "You're sure you're going, Mickey?"
"Of course," said Mickey proudly. "I'll stop for you the first morning
just to prove it."
"And we'll go every day and never be late once, will we?" chimed in
Sister.
But whether they were able to keep this good resolution or not remains
to be seen. If you are interested to know you will have to read the
next book about them, called "BROTHER AND SISTER'S SCHOOL DAYS."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Brother and Sister, by Josephine Lawrence