prompt:
Chapter: Tom Comes Home

Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another
fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the
sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a
strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound
came,--that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels,--and in spite of
the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to
respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the
door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting
all the griefs of the morning.

"There he is, my sweet lad! But, Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a
collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoilt the
set."

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg
and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said,
with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap--what!
are you there?"

Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie
hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray
eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he
promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow
morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and
at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,--a
lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips,
indeterminate nose and eyebrows,--a physiognomy in which it seems
impossible to discern anything but the generic character to boyhood;
as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed
to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that
same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the
appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see
through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a
refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish
physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals
some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most
unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious
girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this
pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon
as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlor had
taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know
what I've got in _my_ pockets," nodding his head up and down as a
means of rousing her sense of mystery.

"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles)
or cobnuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it
was "no good" playing with _her_ at those games, she played so badly.

"Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and
cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see
here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.

"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit
of yellow."

"Why, it's--a--new--guess, Maggie!"

"Oh, I _can't_ guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.

"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his
hand back into his pocket and looking determined.

"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was
held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I
can't bear guessing. _Please_ be good to me."

Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new
fish-line--two new uns,--one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I
wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save
the money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't.
And here's hooks; see here--I say, _won't_ we go and fish to-morrow
down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie and
put the worms on, and everything; won't it be fun?"

Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck and hug him,
and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly
unwound some of the line, saying, after a pause,--

"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You
know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."

"Yes, very, very good--I _do_ love you, Tom."

Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks
one by one, before he spoke again.

"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in about the
toffee."

"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
hurt you?"

"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a
large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he
looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he
added,--

"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that's what he got by wanting to
leather _me;_ I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered
me."

"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came
a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?"

"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no
lions, only in the shows."

"No; but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa, where
it's very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the
book where I read it."

"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."

"But if you hadn't got a gun,--we might have gone out, you know, not
thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run
toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you
do, Tom?"

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the
lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?"

"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him.
"Just think what you would do, Tom."

"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my
rabbits."

Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad
truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he
went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at
once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all
things; it was quite a different anger from her own.

"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money
did you give for your rabbits?"

"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.

"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse
upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."

"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want _your_ money, you silly thing.
I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always
have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I
shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're
only a girl."

"Well, but, Tom--if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a
sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know,
and buy some more rabbits with it?"

"More rabbits? I don't want any more."

"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."

Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie.
"You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color
heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry.
I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't
go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits
every day." He walked on again.

"Yes, but I forgot--and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very
sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.

"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought
you the fish-line. I don't love you."

"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you, if _you_
forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and
love you."

"Yes, you're silly; but I never _do_ forget things, _I_ don't."

"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie,
shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on
his shoulder.

Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone,
"Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"

"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly.

"Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy
it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the
toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"

"Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom."

"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my
lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my
fish-line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head
through my kite, all for nothing."

"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."

"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And
you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."

With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the
mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.

Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two;
then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic,
where she sat on the floor and laid her head against the worm-eaten
shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had
thought how happy she should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use
was anything if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she
wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She
knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to
Tom--had never _meant_ to be naughty to him.

"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in
the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the
attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was
too miserable to be angry.

These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange,
when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and
the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be
tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her.
Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself,--hide herself
behind the tub, and stay there all night,--and then they would all be
frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride
of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to
cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she
went down again to Tom now--would he forgive her? Perhaps her father
would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to
forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No,
she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This
resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the
tub; but then the need of being loved--the strongest need in poor
Maggie's nature--began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it.
She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but
just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs.

Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the
round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and
whittling sticks without any particular reason,--except that he didn't
whittle sticks at school,--to think of Maggie and the effect his anger
had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having
been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a
practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father
said, "Why, where's the little wench?" and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at
the same moment, said, "Where's your little sister?"--both of them
having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the
afternoon.

"I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of Maggie, though
he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honor.

"What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the
father. "She'd been thinking o' nothing but your coming home."

"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commencing on the
plumcake.

"Goodness heart; she's got drownded!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising
from her seat and running to the window.

"How could you let her do so?" she added, as became a fearful woman,
accusing she didn't know whom of she didn't know what.

"Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've been
naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?"

"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I think she's in
the house."

"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking
to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times."

"You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather
sharply,--his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making
him suspect that the lad had been hard upon "the little un," else she
would never have left his side. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else
I'll let you know better."

Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man,
and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand;
but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and
not intending to reprieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than
she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in
grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open
questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one
point,--namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. Why,
he wouldn't have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but,
then, he never _did_ deserve it.

It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her
need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with
her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her
father would stroke her head and say, "Never mind, my wench." It is a
wonderful subduer, this need of love,--this hunger of the heart,--as
peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to
the yoke, and change the face of the world.

But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with
the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs
and said, "Maggie, you're to come down." But she rushed to him and
clung round his neck, sobbing, "Oh, Tom, please forgive me--I can't
bear it--I will always be good--always remember things--do love
me--please, dear Tom!"

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we
have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this
way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one
side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate
in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but
conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized
society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and
so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random
sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been
used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a
weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much
as she deserved. He actually began to kiss her in return, and say,--

"Don't cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o' cake."

Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake
and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they
ate together and rubbed each other's cheeks and brows and noses
together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two
friendly ponies.

"Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last, when there was
no more cake except what was down-stairs.

So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was
trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the
basket in the other, stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the
muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant from under her
beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told Tom, however,
that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her,
although she accepted his word when he assured her that worms couldn't
feel (it was Tom's private opinion that it didn't much matter if they
did). He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things; and what
birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and which way the
handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie thought this sort of
knowledge was very wonderful,--much more difficult than remembering
what was in the books; and she was rather in awe of Tom's superiority,
for he was the only person who called her knowledge "stuff," and did
not feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion that
Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly,--they couldn't
throw a stone so as to hit anything, couldn't do anything with a
pocket-knife, and were frightened at frogs. Still, he was very fond of
his sister, and meant always to take care of her, make her his
housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong.

They were on their way to the Round Pool,--that wonderful pool, which
the floods had made a long while ago. No one knew how deep it was; and
it was mysterious, too, that it should be almost a perfect round,
framed in with willows and tall reeds, so that the water was only to
be seen when you got close to the brink. The sight of the old favorite
spot always heightened Tom's good humor, and he spoke to Maggie in the
most amicable whispers, as he opened the precious basket and prepared
their tackle. He threw her line for her, and put the rod into her
hand. Maggie thought it probable that the small fish would come to her
hook, and the large ones to Tom's. But she had forgotten all about the
fish, and was looking dreamily at the glassy water, when Tom said, in
a loud whisper, "Look, look, Maggie!" and came running to prevent her
from snatching her line away.

Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as
usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench
bouncing on the grass.

Tom was excited.

"O Magsie, you little duck! Empty the basket."

Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom
called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar
her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened
to the light dripping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle
rustling, as if the willows and the reeds and the water had their
happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice
heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never
knew she had a bite till Tom told her; but she liked fishing very
much.

It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down
together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them;
they would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would always
be like the holidays; they would always live together and be fond of
each other. And the mill with its booming; the great chestnut-tree
under which they played at houses; their own little river, the Ripple,
where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing the
water-rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds,
which she forgot and dropped afterward; above all, the great Floss,
along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing
spring-tide, the awful Eagle, come up like a hungry monster, or to see
the Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man, these
things would always be just the same to them. Tom thought people were
at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot of the globe; and
Maggie, when she read about Christiana passing "the river over which
there is no bridge," always saw the Floss between the green pastures
by the Great Ash.

Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in
believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would
always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth
so well if we had had no childhood in it,--if it were not the earth
where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to
gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the
grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn's hedgerows; the same
redbreasts that we used to call "God's birds," because they did no
harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony
where everything is known, and _loved_ because it is known?

The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown
foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white
star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my
feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid
broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate
fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these
well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness,
these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality
given to it by the capricious hedgerows,--such things as these are the
mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all
the subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our
childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the
deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of
wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the
far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception
into love.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Tom has brought home a gift for Maggie, a new fish line. He acquired it at some cost to himself, having had to fight every day at school because he wouldn't share the cost of toffee and gingerbread while he was saving the money. For this and for his promise to take Maggie fishing the next day Tom receives the admiration and gratitude he expects. Next he proposes to go see to his rabbits. Maggie tries to head him off by offering to buy him some new ones, but she finally has to admit that she has let the others die. Tom reminds her of previous failings of this sort and tells her that he will not take her fishing after all. He is unmoved by her sobs. After Tom leaves her alone, Maggie goes up in the attic to cry. She determines to stay there and starve herself and frighten everyone, but eventually her need of love and forgiveness overcomes her. She is starting down when Tom, who has been sent by their father, comes to fetch her. Their father correctly suspected that Tom had been hard on her. But once they are together the two quickly make up and share a bite of cake. The next day Tom takes Maggie fishing, and he is pleased with her when she catches a large fish. This makes her happy and pleased with herself. She dreams that life may go on like this always, that they two will never change. The narrator remarks that life did change for them, but that the thoughts of these first years were always part of them, and that the love of our early surroundings never fades.


prompt:
Chapter: The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming

It was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were more
exquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make 'em blow about
like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live under
a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or
circumstances could have been more propitious for a family party, even
if it had not been advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet
about Tom's going to school.

"I'd as lief not invite sister Deane this time," said Mrs. Tulliver,
"for she's as jealous and having as can be, and's allays trying to
make the worst o' my poor children to their aunts and uncles."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Tulliver, "ask her to come. I never hardly get a
bit o' talk with Deane now; we haven't had him this six months. What's
it matter what she says? My children need be beholding to nobody."

"That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver; but I'm sure there's nobody
o' your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave 'em so much as a
five-pound note for a leggicy. And there's sister Glegg, and sister
Pullet too, saving money unknown, for they put by all their own
interest and butter-money too; their husbands buy 'em everything."
Mrs. Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a
little when she has lambs.

"Tchuh!" said Mr. Tulliver. "It takes a big loaf when there's many to
breakfast. What signifies your sisters' bits o' money when they've got
half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide it among? And your sister
Deane won't get 'em to leave all to one, I reckon, and make the
country cry shame on 'em when they are dead?"

"I don't know what she won't get 'em to do," said Mrs. Tulliver, "for
my children are so awk'ard wi' their aunts and uncles. Maggie's ten
times naughtier when they come than she is other days, and Tom doesn't
like 'em, bless him!--though it's more nat'ral in a boy than a gell.
And there's Lucy Dean's such a good child,--you may set her on a
stool, and there she'll sit for an hour together, and never offer to
get off. I can't help loving the child as if she was my own; and I'm
sure she's more like _my_ child than sister Deane's, for she'd allays
a very poor color for one of our family, sister Deane had."

"Well, well, if you're fond o' the child, ask her father and mother to
bring her with 'em. And won't you ask their aunt and uncle Moss too,
and some o' _their_ children?"

"Oh, dear, Mr. Tulliver, why, there'd be eight people besides the
children, and I must put two more leaves i' the table, besides
reaching down more o' the dinner-service; and you know as well as I do
as _my_ sisters and _your_ sister don't suit well together."

"Well, well, do as you like, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, taking up his
hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive than
Mrs. Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; but
she had been a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable
family indeed,--as much looked up to as any in their own parish, or
the next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought to hold up
their heads very high, and no one was surprised the two eldest had
married so well,--not at an early age, for that was not the practice
of the Dodson family. There were particular ways of doing everything
in that family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making the
cowslip wine, curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries;
so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the
privilege of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a
Watson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in the
Dodson family: the hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the gloves
never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and
there were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was
in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate
member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the
most disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated; if the
illness or trouble was the sufferer's own fault, it was not in the
practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short,
there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the right
thing in household management and social demeanor, and the only bitter
circumstance attending this superiority was a painful inability to
approve the condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by the
Dodson tradition. A female Dodson, when in "strange houses," always
ate dry bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, having
no confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves had
probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and boiling. There
were some Dodsons less like the family than others, that was admitted;
but in so far as they were "kin," they were of necessity better than
those who were "no kin." And it is remarkable that while no individual
Dodson was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was
satisfied, not only with him or her self, but with the Dodsons
collectively. The feeblest member of a family--the one who has the
least character--is often the merest epitome of the family habits and
traditions; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mild
one, as small-beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable as
very weak ale: and though she had groaned a little in her youth under
the yoke of her elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears at
their sisterly reproaches, it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be an
innovator on the family ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson,
and to have one child who took after her own family, at least in his
features and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans, which a
Tulliver never did.

In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he was
as far from appreciating his "kin" on the mother's side as Maggie
herself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of the
most portable food, when he received timely warning that his aunts and
uncles were coming,--a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced
the gloomiest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that
Tom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but the
weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious _impedimenta_ in cases of
flight.

On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there
were such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven
and jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it
was impossible to feel altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air.
Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other
marauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed
to carry away a sufficient load of booty.

"Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree,
eating their jam-puffs, "shall you run away to-morrow?"

"No," said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eying
the third, which was to be divided between them,--"no, I sha'n't."

"Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming?"

"No," said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the puff,
with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult
problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.)
"What do _I_ care about Lucy? She's only a girl,--_she_ can't play at
bandy."

"Is it the tipsy-cake, then?" said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic
powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on the
hovering knife.

"No, you silly, that'll be good the day after. It's the pudden. I know
what the pudden's to be,--apricot roll-up--O my buttons!"

With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was in
two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the
halves doubtfully. At last he said,--

"Shut your eyes, Maggie."

"What for?"

"You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you."

Maggie obeyed.

"Now, which'll you have, Maggie,--right hand or left?"

"I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping her eyes
shut to please Tom.

"Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to
you fair, but I sha'n't give it you without. Right or left,--you
choose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggie
peeped. "You keep your eyes shut, now, else you sha'n't have any."

Maggie's power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear she
cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff,
than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit.
So she shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to "say which,"
and then she said, "Left hand."

"You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.

"What! the bit with the jam run out?"

"No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the best
piece to Maggie.

"Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don't mind--I like the other; please take
this."

"No, I sha'n't," said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own
inferior piece.

Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate
up her half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom
had finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last
morsel or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn't
know Tom was looking at her; she was seesawing on the elder-bough,
lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.

"Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had swallowed the last
morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she
ought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would
have refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a
different point of view before and after one's own share of puff is
swallowed.

Maggie turned quite pale. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask me?"

"I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have
thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit."

"But I wanted you to have it; you know I did," said Maggie, in an
injured tone.

"Yes, but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair, like Spouncer. He
always takes the best bit, if you don't punch him for it; and if you
choose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I go
halves, I'll go 'em fair; only I wouldn't be a greedy."

With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw
a stone with a "hoigh!" as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also
been looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his
ears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet
the excellent dog accepted Tom's attention with as much alacrity as if
he had been treated quite generously.

But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which
distinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance from
the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave
herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have
given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some
of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie's
palate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many
times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with
her. And he had said he wouldn't have it, and she ate it without
thinking; how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that
Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by that
time resentment began to give way to the desire of reconciliation, and
she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in the
paddock behind the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and Yap
with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree,
where she could see far away toward the Floss. There was Tom; but her
heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great
river, and that he had another companion besides Yap,--naughty Bob
Jakin, whose official, if not natural, function of frightening the
birds was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob was
wicked, without very distinctly knowing why; unless it was because
Bob's mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queer
round house down the river; and once, when Maggie and Tom had wandered
thither, there rushed out a brindled dog that wouldn't stop barking;
and when Bob's mother came out after it, and screamed above the
barking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she was
scolding them fiercely, and her heart beat with terror. Maggie thought
it very likely that the round house had snakes on the floor, and bats
in the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom a
little snake that was inside it, and another time he had a handful of
young bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps even
slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats;
and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn't mind
about Maggie, and would never let her go with him.

It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it be
otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was a
swallow's, or a tomtit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all the
wasps' nests, and could set all sort of traps; he could climb the
trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detecting
hedgehogs and stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather
naughty, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing stones after
the sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering _incognito_.

Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be treated with
authority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily a
fatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to
have days of grief because he had gone off with Bob.

Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie could
think of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the
hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little
world into just what she should like it to be.

Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took
her opium.

Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproach
which he had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob, whom he
had met accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in a
neighboring barn. Bob knew all about this particular affair, and spoke
of the sport with an enthusiasm which no one who is not either
divested of all manly feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching,
can fail to imagine. For a person suspected of preternatural
wickedness, Bob was really not so very villanous-looking; there was
even something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close-curled
border of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at the
knee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and his
virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably "virtue in rags," which,
on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all
well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain
unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).

"I know the chap as owns the ferrets," said Bob, in a hoarse treble
voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river,
like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. "He
lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggest
rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher nor
anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun
ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!" Bob
continued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, "he's no more
good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, I did, at the
rot-catchin' i' your feyther's barn."

Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in
and shrank close to Tom's leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had
not the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for
a dog who made so poor a figure.

"No, no," he said, "Yap's no good at sport. I'll have regular good
dogs for rats and everything, when I've done school."

"Hev ferrets, Measter Tom," said Bob, eagerly,--"them white ferrets
wi' pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, an' you might put
a rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see 'em fight, you might. That's
what I'd do, I know, an' it 'ud be better fun a'most nor seein' two
chaps fight,--if it wasn't them chaps as sold cakes an' oranges at the
Fair, as the things flew out o' their baskets, an' some o' the cakes
was smashed--But they tasted just as good," added Bob, by way of note
or addendum, after a moment's pause.

"But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, "ferrets are
nasty biting things,--they'll bite a fellow without being set on."

"Lors! why that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold o' your
ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good un, _he_ won't."

At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in
their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water from
among the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob
intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant
consequences.

"Hoigh! Yap,--hoigh! there he is," said Tom, clapping his hands, as
the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank.
"Seize him, lad! seize him!"

Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge,
trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.

"Ugh! you coward!" said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated
as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstained
from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallow
edge of the overflowing river by way of change.

"He's none so full now, the Floss isn't," said Bob, as he kicked the
water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to it.
"Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all one sheet o' water, they was."

"Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition between
statements that were really accordant,--"but there was a big flood
once, when the Round Pool was made. _I_ know there was, 'cause father
says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went all
over the fields ever such a way."

"_I_ don't care about a flood comin'," said Bob; "I don't mind the
water, no more nor the land. I'd swim, _I_ would."

"Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?" said Tom, his
imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread.
"When I'm a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of
it, like Noah's ark, and keep plenty to eat in it,--rabbits and
things,--all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I
shouldn't mind. And I'd take you in, if I saw you swimming," he added,
in the tone of a benevolent patron.

"I aren't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so
appalling. "But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits on th' head when you
wanted to eat 'em."

"Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at heads-and-tails,"
said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation might
have fewer charms for his mature age. "I'd divide fair to begin with,
and then we'd see who'd win."

"I've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, coming out of the
water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. "Yeads or tails?"

"Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.

"It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it
fell.

"It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You give me the
halfpenny; I've won it fair."

"I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.

"Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom.

"Yes, I can."

"You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.

"No, you can't."

"I'm master."

"I don't care for you."

"But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring Bob and
shaking him.

"You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.

Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw
him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom
down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or
two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the
mastery.

"_You_, say you'll give me the halfpenny now," he said, with
difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob's
arms.

But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returned
barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable opportunity for
biting Bob's bare leg not only with inpunity but with honor. The pain
from Yap's teeth, instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of his
hold, gave it a fiercer tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force
he pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get
no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so that
Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and, almost
throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was up
again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of
swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his knees
firmly on Bob's chest.

"You give me the halfpenny now," said Tom.

"Take it," said Bob, sulkily.

"No, I sha'n't take it; you give it me."

Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from him
on the ground.

Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.

"There the halfpenny lies," he said. "I don't want your halfpenny; I
wouldn't have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a cheat. I
sha'n't go along with you any more," he added, turning round homeward,
not without casting a regret toward the rat-catching and other
pleasures which he must relinquish along with Bob's society.

"You may let it alone, then," Bob called out after him. "I shall cheat
if I like; there's no fun i' playing else; and I know where there's a
goldfinch's nest, but I'll take care _you_ don't. An' you're a nasty
fightin' turkey-cock, you are----"

Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example,
the cold bath having moderated his passions.

"Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog; I wouldn't own such a
dog--_I_ wouldn't," said Bob, getting louder, in a last effort to
sustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be provoked into turning
round, and Bob's voice began to falter a little as he said,--

"An' I'n gi'en you everything, an' showed you everything, an' niver
wanted nothin' from you. An' there's your horn-handed knife, then as
you gi'en me." Here Bob flung the knife as far as he could after Tom's
retreating footsteps. But it produced no effect, except the sense in
Bob's mind that there was a terrible void in his lot, now that knife
was gone.

He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappeared
behind the hedge. The knife would do not good on the ground there; it
wouldn't vex Tom; and pride or resentment was a feeble passion in
Bob's mind compared with the love of a pocket-knife. His very fingers
sent entreating thrills that he would go and clutch that familiar
rough buck's-horn handle, which they had so often grasped for mere
affection, as it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades,
and they had just been sharpened! What is life without a pocket-knife
to him who has once tasted a higher existence? No; to throw the handle
after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of desperation, but to throw
one's pocket-knife after an implacable friend is clearly in every
sense a hyperbole, or throwing beyond the mark. So Bob shuffled back
to the spot where the beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite a
new pleasure in clutching it again after the temporary separation, in
opening one blade after the other, and feeling their edge with his
well-hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not sensitive on the point of
honor, not a chivalrous character. That fine moral aroma would not
have been thought much of by the public opinion of Kennel Yard, which
was the very focus or heart of Bob's world, even if it could have made
itself perceptible there; yet, for all that, he was not utterly a
sneak and a thief as our friend Tom had hastily decided.

But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage, having
more than the usual share of boy's justice in him,--the justice that
desires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is
troubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts.
Maggie saw a cloud on his brow when he came home, which checked her
joy at his coming so much sooner than she had expected, and she dared
hardly speak to him as he stood silently throwing the small
gravel-stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up a
rat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had told
his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, "I'd do just
the same again." That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions;
whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The aunts and uncles are to be invited to discuss Tom's education, and Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver are working out the details. Mr. Tulliver is not concerned about their opinions, and he cares less than does his wife about the money her relatives might leave to Maggie and Tom. Mrs. Tulliver laments that her children are so awkward with their aunts and uncles and wishes that they were more like their cousin Lucy. But she holds naughtiness to be more excusable in a boy than in Maggie. Tom and Maggie meanwhile show their independence by escaping with a stock of the pastry being prepared for their visitors. Tom cuts the last cream puff exactly in half and gives Maggie the choice of halves. She tries to take the one Tom wouldn't want, but he makes her choose with her eyes closed. He finishes his piece first and becomes angry when she fails to offer him part of hers. He leaves her and goes off to join Bob Jakin along the river. Bob is a poor boy who is knowledgeable in matters of rat-catching, tree-climbing, and such matters. He is bound for a rat-catching at a nearby barn. As they go along Bob idly tosses a halfpenny in the air and challenges Tom to call it. Tom correctly calls tails, but Bob covers the coin and keeps it. Tom, with help from his dog Yap, wrestles Bob into giving up the coin. Tom then lets it lie and refuses to go any farther with Bob, saying that he hates a cheat. Bob retaliates by throwing down the knife that Tom once gave him; but when Tom lets it lie, Bob picks it up again.