Then there was Mr. Ford, one of the very best of our friends. He was a sort of factotum of our father, and, like The Bishop in the “Bab Ballads,” was “short and stout and round-about, and zealous as could be.” We were very fond of trotting at his heels, and loved to pull him about and tease him, which the good man never seemed to resent. Once, however, we carried our teasing too far, as you shall hear. One day our mother was sitting quietly at her writing, thinking that the children were all happy and good, and possessing her soul in patience. Suddenly to her appeared Julia, her hair flying, eyes wide open, mouth ditto,--the picture of despair.
“Oh, Mamma!” gasped the child, “I have done the most dreadful thing! Oh, the most dreadful, terrible thing!”
“What is it?” exclaimed our mother, dropping her pen in distress; “what have you done, dear? Tell me quickly!”
“Oh, I cannot tell you!” sobbed the child; “I cannot!”
“Have you set the house on fire?” cried our mother.
“Oh, worse than that!” gasped poor Julia, “much worse!”
Now, there _was_ nothing worse than dropping the baby, so our mother began to feel relieved.
“Tell me at once, Julia,” she said, “what you have done!”
“I--I--” sobbed poor Julia,--“I pulled--I pulled--off--Mr. Ford’s wig!”
There were few people we loved better than Tomty, the gardener. This dear, good man must have been a martyr to our pranks, and the only wonder is that he was able to do any gardening at all. It was “Tomty” here and “Tomty” there, from morning till night. When Laura wanted her bonnet-strings tied (oh, that odious little bonnet! with the rows of pink and green quilled ribbon which was always coming off), she never thought of going into the house to Mary, though Mary was good and kind too,--she always ran to Tomty, who must “lay down the shovel and the hoe,” and fashion bow-knots with his big, clumsy, good-natured fingers. When Harry was playing out in the hot sun without a hat, and Mary called to him to come in like a good boy and get his hat, did he go? Oh, no! He tumbled the potatoes or apples out of Tomty’s basket, and put that on his head instead of a hat, and it answered just as well.
Poor, dear Tomty! He went to California in later years, and was cruelly murdered by some base wretches for the sake of a little money which he had saved.