TOT
The boy was a year or two younger than Dot, and seemed a chubby
little fellow as he sat with his legs spread apart and his dark eyes
raised wonderingly to the face of his unexpected visitor. Waves of
brown hair clustered loosely about his broad forehead, and his dress
was neat, though of a coarse material.
He paused in his play and stared hard at Dot for a moment; then
dropped his eyes bashfully and ran his fingers through the white
pebbles in an embarrassed way.
"Who are you?" asked the girl, in the calm, matter-of-fact tone
peculiar to children, while she continued to regard the boy with the
interest of a discoverer.
"Tot," was the low reply.
"Tot who?" she demanded.
"Tot Tompum," murmured the boy.
"Tompum! That doesn't mean anything," said Dot, decidedly.
This positive statement seemed to annoy the little fellow. He raised
his eyes half shyly a moment and said, in a louder voice:
"Papa Tompum cuts the grass, an' makes the flowers grow. I'm Tot
Tompum."
"Oh," said Dot; "you must mean Thompson. Thompson's the gardener, I
know, and gardeners make the flowers grow and cut the grass."
The boy nodded his head twice as if to say she was right.
"Gard'ner," he repeated. "Papa Tompum. I'm Tot Tompum."
Then he took courage to look up again, and seeing a friendly smile
upon Dot's face he asked boldly, "Who is you?"
"Oh, I'm Dot," she answered, sitting down beside him. "My whole name
is Dot Freeland."
"Dot F'eelan'," said Tot.
"Freeland," corrected Dot.
"F'eelan'," said Tot.
"Never mind," laughed the girl; "let us play together. What were you
doing with the pebbles?"
"Jack-stones," said the boy, and gravely picking out five of the
white pebbles, nearly of one size, he tossed them into the air and
tried to catch them on the back of his hand. Two tumbled off, and Dot
laughed. The boy laughed, too, and tried it again. Before long they
had become fast friends, and were laughing and chatting together as
happily as if they had known one another for months.
Tot's mother, hearing their voices, came to the door of her cottage;
but seeing her boy's new playmate was "the young lady at the
mansion," she smiled and returned to her work.
Presently Dot jumped up.
"Come, Tot," she cried, "let us go where your father is working. I
saw him weeding one of the flower beds this morning."
Tot scrambled to his feet and poured the white pebbles from his hat,
after which he placed it upon the back of his head; so far back,
indeed, that Dot wondered why it did not tumble off.
"We'll go see Papa Tompum," he said, trotting along beside his new
friend.
Thompson, the gardener, was quite surprised to see his little boy
holding fast to the hand of the rich banker's daughter, and chatting
away as frankly as if he had known her for years; but Thompson had
learned by this time that Dot ruled everyone about the place and did
exactly as she pleased, so he made no protest. As he watched the
children running about the grounds where Tot was usually forbidden to
play, Thompson felt proud that his boy had been selected by "the
young lady" for so high and honorable a position as her playmate.
He made no protest when they raced across a flower bed and left the
prints of their small feet upon the soft earth, for Dot held Tot
firmly by the hand, and he obediently followed wherever she led. The
big red roses attracted her fancy, and she ruthlessly plucked a
handful and stuck them in rows around the rim of Tot's hat as well as
her own, although the poor gardener, who had tended these flowers so
patiently that they had become precious in his eyes, actually winced
and shivered with dismay at witnessing the careless and, to him,
cruel manner in which the young mistress of the house destroyed them.
But Dot knew they were her property and enjoyed the roses in her own
way; while Tot, although he may have felt guilty, wisely shifted all
responsibility to his companion, and admired the royal way in which
she accepted everything about the place as her very own.
When the luncheon gong sounded from the big house, and Dot left Tot
to obey the summons, she said to him, "Tomorrow I will bring a basket
of sandwiches and cake, and we'll have a picnic down by the river
bank."
"All right!" answered Tot, and trotted away toward his father's
cottage.
It had been an eventful day to him, for he had found a delightful
playmate.