Francis
house too. I like Jim you bet.
CHAPTER XX
TOM'S NEW VIEWPOINT
Pearl was quite disappointed in Tom's appearance the
morning after the party. Egbert always wore a glorified
countenance after he had seen Edythe; but Tom looked
sleepy and somewhat cross.
He went to his work discontentedly. His mother's moroseness
annoyed him. His father's hard face had never looked so
forbidding to him as it did that morning. Mrs. Slater's
hearty welcome, her good-natured motherly smiles, Mr.
Slater's genial and kindly ways, contrasted sharply with
his own home life, and it rankled in him.
"It's dead easy for them Slater boys to be smart and
good, too," he thought bitterly; "they are brought right
up to it. They may not have much money, but look at the
fun they have. George and Fred will be off to college
soon, and it must be fun in the city,--they're dressed
up all the time, ridin' round on street cars, and with
no chores to do."
The trees on the poplar bluff where he had made his toilet
the evening before were beginning to show the approach
of autumn, although there had been no frost. Pale yellow
and rust coloured against the green of their hardier
neighbours, they rippled their coin-like leaves in glad
good-will as he drove past them on his way to the hayfield.
The sun had risen red and angry, giving to every cloud
in the sky a facing of gold, and long streamers shot up
into the blue of the mid-heaven.
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