be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first
time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with
gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water
treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith to Pain-killer.
She gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with the deepest anxiety for the
result. Her troubles were instantly at rest, her soul at peace again;
for the indifference was broken up. The boy could not have shown a
wilder, heartier interest, if she had built a fire under him.
Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be
romantic enough, in his blighted condition, but it was getting to have
too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he
thought over various plans for relief, and finally hit upon that of
professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he
became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling him to help himself and
quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no misgivings
to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the bottle
clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish, but it
did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack in
the sitting-room floor with it.
One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt s yellow
cat came along, purring, eyeing the teaspoon avariciously, and begging
for a taste. Tom said:
Don t ask for it unless you want it, Peter.
But Peter signified that he did want it.
You better make sure.
Peter was sure.
Now you ve asked for it, and I ll give it to you, because there ain t
anything mean about me; but if you find you don t like it, you mustn t
blame anybody but your own self.
Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down
the Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then
delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging
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