Trimble did not intend to be mean, or cross, but he certainly was. Some folk just can't help being that way.
"Huh! Are you coming over again to bother me about that runaway boy, Tom Vine?" asked Mr. Trimble, as he saw Mr. Brown.
"No, I've given Tom up," replied the children's father. "I guess he has gone back to the city. I'm sorry, for I wanted to help him."
"Boys are no good!" cried Mr. Trimble. "That Tom is no good. But I'll pay him back for running away from me!"
"Did he come back to you?" asked Mr. Brown, thinking perhaps, after all, the "ragged boy," as Sue sometimes called him in fun, might have thought it best to go back to the man who had first hired him.
"You don't see him anywhere around here; do you?" asked Mr. Trimble.
"No, I don't see him," said Mr. Brown, wondering why the farmer answered in that way.
"Well, he isn't here," said Mr. Trimble, and he went on hoeing his potatoes, for he was in
