"I thought as much, ma'am," said Ready. "I must go and see what the
berries were." And the old man hastened down to the place where Mr.
Seagrave had been at work. In the meantime Mrs. Seagrave was much
alarmed lest the child should have poisoned himself, and Mr. Seagrave
went to search among the medicines for some castor-oil.
Ready returned just as he came back to the tent with the bottle of
castor-oil, and he told Ready that he was about to give Tommy a dose.
"Well, sir," replied Ready, who had a plant in his hand, "I don't think
you should give him any, for it appears to me that he has taken too
much already. This is, if I recollect right, the castor-oil plant, and
here are some of the castor-oil beans which Master Tommy has been
eating. Tell me, Tommy, did you eat them?"
"Yes," cried Tommy.
"I thought so: give him a little warm drink, ma'am, and he'll soon be
better: it will teach him not to eat berries or beans again."
What Ready said was true; nevertheless Master Tommy was very ill for
the whole of the day, and was put early to bed.
Chapter XXVI
The next day, when Mr. Seagrave, William, Juno, and Ready were all at
work at their allotted tasks, Mrs. Seagrave was sitting down at the
front of the tent, the little baby, Albert, crawling close to her,
Caroline trying to work with her needle, and Tommy was making holes in
the ground, and putting a small stone into each hole.
"What are you doing, Tommy?" said Mrs. Seagrave.
"I'm making a garden," replied Tommy.
"Making a garden! Then you ought to plant some trees in it."
"No; I'm sowing seeds: look here," replied Tommy, pointing to the
stones.
"But these are stones, not seeds."
"Well, but I pretend, and that's the same thing," replied Tommy.
"Not exactly, Tommy; suppose, instead of eating those beans yesterday,
you had only pretended to eat them, wouldn't it have been better?"
"I won't eat any more," replied Tommy.
"No, not of those beans; but if you saw anything else which you thought
you would like, I am afraid you would eat it, and be as ill and even
worse than you were."
"I like cocoa-nuts; why don't we have some? there's plenty upon the
trees."
"But who is to climb up so high, Tommy? Can you?"
"No; but why don't Ready climb, or papa, or William?"
"I suppose they will get some by and by, when they are not so busy, but
they have no time now."
"I like turtle-soup," replied Tommy.
"William and Juno are making a pond to put turtle in, and then we shall
have it oftener; but we cannot have everything we like when we wish for
it."
"I like fried fish," said Tommy; "why don't we have fried fish?"
"Because every one is too busy to catch them just now. Tommy, go and
bring your brother Albert back; he has crawled too near to Billy, and
he butts sometimes."
Tommy went after the baby, who was crawling towards the kid, which had
now grown pretty large, and as he took up his brother he kicked at the
goat's head.
"Don't do that, Tommy; he'll butt at you, and hurt you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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