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Tom arrived at home in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt said to him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an unpromising market:

"Tom, I've a notion to skin you alive!"

"Well, you've done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like an old softy, expecting I'm going to make her believe all that rubbage about that dream, when lo and behold you she'd found out from Joe that you was over here and heard all the talk we had that night. Tom, I don't know what is to become of a boy that will act like that. It makes me feel so bad to think you could let me go to Sereny Harper and make such a fool of myself and never say a word."

"Auntie, what have I done?"

This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had seemed to Tom a good joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked mean and shabby now. He hung his head and could not think of anything to say for a moment. Then he said:

"Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from Jackson's Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn't ever think to pity us and save us from sorrow."

"Auntie, I wish I hadn't done it-but I didn't think."

"Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn't mean to be mean. I didn't, honest. And besides, I didn't come over here to laugh at you that night."

"It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn't got drownded."

"Indeed and 'deed I did, auntie-I wish I may never stir if I didn't."

"Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never did-and I know it, Tom."

"What did you come for, then?"

"Oh, Tom, don't lie-don't do it. It only makes things a hundred times worse."

"It ain't a lie, auntie; it's the truth. I wanted to keep you from grieving-that was all that made me come."

"I'd give the whole world to believe that-it would cover up a power of sins, Tom. I'd 'most be glad you'd run off and acted so bad. But it ain't reasonable; because, why didn't you tell me, child?"

"Why, you see, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got all full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I couldn't somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my pocket and kept mum."

"Kiss me again, Tom! -- and be off with you to school, now, and don't bother me any more."

"DID you kiss me, Tom?"

"No, I don't dare. Poor boy, I reckon he's lied about it-but it's a blessed, blessed lie, there's such a comfort come from it. I hope the Lord-I KNOW the Lord will forgive him, because it was such goodheartedness in him to tell it. But I don't want to find out it's a lie. I won't look."

"The bark I had wrote on to tell you we'd gone pirating. I wish, now, you'd waked up when I kissed you-I do, honest."

"Why, yes, I did."

"Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry."

"Why, yes, I did, auntie-certain sure."

"What did you kiss me for, Tom?"

"Are you sure you did, Tom?"

"What bark?"

The hard lines in his aunt's face relaxed and a sudden tenderness dawned in her eyes.

The words sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor in her voice when she said:

The moment he was gone, she ran to a closet and got out the ruin of a jacket which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with it in her hand, and said to herself: