34 TOM HICKATHRIFT.

 

this good man, the father, to his rest, his
mother, being tender of him, kept him
by her hard labour as well as she could;
but this was no easy matter, for Tom
would sit all day in the chimney-corner,
instead of doing anything to help her,
and although at the time we are speaking
of he was only ten years old, he would
eat more than four or five ordinary men,

and was five feet and a half in height,