Tabitha at Ivy Hall, page 60 by Ruth Alberta Brown
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am now. Will--will--will you be friends with me after all that?"
"Poor little girl, poor little girl," said the weak voice, as the thin arms clasped her gently around. "Of course I'll be your friend. I am sorry Jerome teased you. I am afraid he likes to plague folks whenever he can, but he doesn't mean to be bad. You mustn't pay any attention to what he says and he will soon get tired of tormenting."
"That's just what Mr. Carson said, and I promised I would try not to get mad, but I forgot. I've got a perfectly terrible temper, and when it boils up inside of me it just sizzles all over everything before I can stop it. Why, I even sassed Dad! I thought sure he'd lick me, but he didn't."
"Tell me all about it," urged the tender-hearted woman, and Tabitha poured out her pent-up griefs and longings into those sympathetic ears with a passion that astonished her listeners.
"I don't know what I'd do without Tom. He's my 'Guardian Angel.' Did you ever read the book called The Guardian Angel? The surveyor let me take it. It's about a girl who had almost as ugly a temper as mine. She didn't have any mother or father. I've got Dad, but he hates us. I reckon it must be a job to move us everywhere he wants to go, and it is particularly bad now, 'cause Aunt Maria doesn't like it and she keeps saying she won't stay. Tom's most grown up now though, and when he gets through college and has a surveying office of his own, I'm going to keep house for him. In two more years now he'll be ready to go to Reno to college. Mr. Carson and the surveyor are helping him with his lessons, so he doesn't have very much time to teach me any more; but I am way ahead of Carrie and Nettie and the other girls of my age and I'm going to learn all I can so's I can help Tom. If I only had a pretty name, I think I could stand Dad, but it's awfully trying to have two such things to bother you all the time. There, now, I didn't mean to say that! Miss Brooks says it is wicked to talk so, and I made up my mind to forever