To an indifferent observer it would seem that there was no comparison between Tom's luck and Joe's. To have a grandfather was a good deal, in the first place; Joe hadn't any. He hadn't even a father. But to have a grandfather that owned a farm! Here was what you might call downright good fortune. Tom did enjoy it. His whooping-cough was of a light variety, and didn't disturb him much. But he was all the while thinking of the boys fighting away at those examples, and how much easier it was to puzzle them out in the class-room than out there in the haymow. There was so much to distract a fellow. If the boys at school made as much fuss over doing a sum as the hens did about laying an egg, they'd drive the teacher mad. Then the swallows went circling around the top of the barn until it made a body's head swim, and that young rascal of a colt gnawed the manger, and kicked and coaxed to go afield with Tom, and if ever there did happen to be a lull in the racket, something in that hay made a fellow so sleepy--must have been some poppies dried in that grass. And, worst of all, Joe Brown had turned traitor. He had been as good as his word at first, and had kept Tom posted right along; but for more than a month he hadn't sent him a line. It was so hard to plod along almost in the dark. His father helped him when he came out on Saturdays, and Tom didn't give up. He studied on out of spite; but it was harder work for a boy with a heart like Tom's to strive for spite than love. Tom felt that he might perhaps pass with the rest of the boys, and keep abreast with Joe Brown after all, but there wasn't much comfort in it. His father took him back to the city the last week in June, and on the night of his arrival Tom went out to the wood shed to have it out with Joe. He made up his mind to tell him what he thought of him, and never speak to him again; but he felt very miserable over it, very miserable indeed. Bridget was out there splitting wood, and called to Tom as he began to climb: "You needn't rache up to see the boy beyant. He'll climb no more. He's lyin' in bed these three weeks, and they say he's wastin' away. That nasty 'hoopin'-cough wint bad wid the poor little craythur." "Whooping-cough!" cried Tom. "Did Joe get it?" "Av coorse he did, wid all the rest of the gossoons; but it wint wrong wid poor Joe's windpipe, bad luck to it, and ruined him intirely." Tom ran out in the street. He felt so sorry, and so glad--so sorry Joe was sick, and so glad he was true. His heart leaped up to think he had found his friend again, and then sank because what Bridget said had given him a nameless fear. The very first boy Tom met told him the doctor said he didn't think Joe Brown would live to go to school again. Tom ran in to his father, with so pale a face that it frightened Mr. Jones; but he was Tom's confidant, as well as his father, and soothed and comforted him. "Come," he said, taking Tom by the hand, "let's go around and see Joe."