Hello and welcome to Homeschool Story Time: Week 22.
Revenge is sweet.
At least, it is the way little Judy exacts it.
That probably sounds a bit wrong, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see the way Judy get’s “revenge” on her brother, Tom, in this sweet story.
Read on to see what Judy does.
Judy’s Revenge
by Dorothy Hartley
It was very evident that Judy was in trouble. There she stood in the middle of the yard, her tiny brows drawn together in a pucker, one finger resting between her rosy lips in a way that would have been irresistibly lovely if the lips had been smiling instead of pouting, her eyes cast down on the ground at her feet.
“I sha’n’t! I sha’n’t!” she kept saying every now and again, with a shake of her short, sturdy self.
“Judiet, come here!” called her mother from the kitchen, where she was making a pie for dinner. “Why, what’s the matter, child?” she added, as she saw the very evident traces of displeasure on her little daughter’s face.
“It’s Tom, and I’ll never forgive him!” she cried.
“Hush! hush! you mustn’t say that, Judy. What has Tom been doing?”
“He’s gone off playing, and he wouldn’t let me go with him, and Daisy’s gone with her brother.”
“But perhaps Tom has gone some place where it would be too far for you to walk,” said Mrs. Tewsbury, as she sliced the apples into the dish.
“He’s only gone to watch the boys fly their kites, and he said I should stay home and play with my dolls. But I sha’n’t!”
“Well, Judy, I want you to go to the store for me, and then, when you come back, we’ll talk about Tom. There, run along now. Get the basket and bring me two pounds of sugar.”
Judy started on her errand, her little heart very sore against the brother who rarely found time to make things pleasant for his sister. Tom always had something he wanted to do when Judy asked him to help her. He had felt a little prick as he went off that morning, when he remembered that George Brown had promised to take his sister with him to the top of the hill. “Oh, Judy couldn’t walk so far!” he tried to comfort himself by saying. “I’ll take her to some other place another day.” But Master Tom knew he was making a promise to himself that he was not likely to keep.
And so Judy went to the store, and by the time she returned home she did not feel quite so angry with Tom. Perhaps her mother hoped this would be the case when she sent her little daughter. It is always well to wait and think when one feels angry, before saying things that afterward one will be sorry for having spoken.
“Judy, I’ve been thinking,” said Mrs. Tewsbury, as the girl entered the kitchen, “that we’ll teach Tom a lesson. Shall we?”
“What kind of a lesson, mamma?” asked Judy.
The frowns had all left.
“A good lesson, of course. Now, when he comes home he’ll expect to find you cross, and perhaps sulky with him. Suppose, instead, he finds you smiling and with a nice little apple turnover that you have made for him; what do you suppose he will think? Why, that you are too good a girl to be treated so badly; and, perhaps, too, if he sees you smiling and loving, he will realize how much better it is to be that way than selfish as he has been.”
“Oh, mamma!” And now there were no frowns on Judy’s rosy, dimpled face; nothing but smiles. To make a turnover was a delightful treat in itself. But to help Tom to be a nice boy was more of a satisfaction. So the little girl started to work, and under her mother’s tuition soon had a very wonderful-looking turnover made and baked.
“I’d most like to put salt in instead of sugar, just to pay Tom up,” Judy thought to herself; and then a better feeling came to her and she added: “Oh, no. I wouldn’t, ’cause that wouldn’t be right. I want Tom to think I’m as nice as Daisy’s brother thinks she is.”
Master Tom came home whistling shortly after the dainty had been removed from the oven. He thought Judy would be waiting for him with angry words. So she was waiting for him, but with a beautiful smile, a rosy face, and on a plate in her hand what seemed to Tom a very delicious tit-bit.
“I made it—made it for you, all by myself. Mamma said I could.”
“Oh, Judy! And I wouldn’t take you with me!” exclaimed Tom regretfully.
“But you will next time, if I’m good; won’t you, Tom?” said Judy, coaxingly.
“As true as my name’s Tom Tewsbury. I say, Judy, it was good of you to make this for me, when I don’t deserve it, but I won’t forget it of you.”
And Judy felt well paid for her turnover.
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Many blessings,
