Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/134

 After a time, however, he found something else to amuse him, for one of Madam Mortimer's sons and his little boy came to visit her, and the jackdaw delighted in teasing the little fellow, and pecking his heels, and stealing his bits of string, and hiding his pencils; while the boy, on the other hand, was constantly teasing the bird, stroking his feathers the wrong way, snatching away his crusts, and otherwise plaguing him.

'I wish Patience was here to play with that child, and keep him from teasing my Jack,' said the old lady, fretfully. 'I get so infirm' that children are a trouble to me.'

'Who is Patience?' asked her son.

So then Madam Mortimer told him the whole story; the boy and the jackdaw having previously gone out of the room together the boy tantalizing him, and the bird gabbling and pecking at his ankles. When she had finished, her son said, 'Mother, I believe this will end in your suspecting me next! Why did you not ascertain whether the girl was innocent or guilty before you parted with her?'

'I feel certain she is guilty,' answered the mother, 'and I never mean to trust any servant again.'

'But if you could be certain she was innocent?' asked the son.

'Why, then I would never suspect a servant again, I think,' she replied. 'Certainly I should never suspect—her she seemed as open as the day—and you do not know, son, what a painful thing it is to have nobody about me that I can trust.'

'Excuse me, mother,' replied the son, 'you mean Rh