10 Tom Seven Years Old.

things brought over in ships. The tea he
drank hot every morning was made with the
dried leaves of a stranger plant, and his papa’s
coffee, though it looked like nothing but a
brown powder when it was put into the coffee-
pot, was really ground from stranger berries
carried over on purpose. Then his dear
cockatoo, which had been given him when
quite a little boy, and the yellow canary in the
next house, were both travellers, and had left
their brothers and sisters behind them to live
in England, where sparrows and thrushes and
robins build their nests.

One evening, Tom had slipped out to pick
up pieces of wood, when his papa met him.

“What are you doing ?” asked he.

“Don’t you remember ?” answered Tom.
“T told you long ago. I’m collecting for my
ship. Come and see what a lot I’ve got.”

His papa followed him to a hole behind
the tool-house, which only Tom and_ the
gardener knew of. There, in a corner, lay a
little heap.

“I'm getting on,” said Tom. “Am I not?