Miss Stratton sternly waited. The boy's sister had come
into the hall, and was holding a candle for a light. Her brother
came back with the evening paper, and Miss Stratton took it.
"I wish you'd be careful where you throw that paper, Harry," she
admonished him, her indignation cooling. "I've spoken to you about
that before. I don't like to have to come away up here for the
paper. It isn't convenient."
"Yes'm," answered the boy.
Miss Stratton hurried home. When she arrived there, one of the first
things she saw gleaming faintly through the garden's darkness, was
the missing evening paper that Harry had thrown into a pepper tree
near the side fence. During Miss Stratton's absence, the strong wind
had shaken the paper down, and it lay at the foot of the tree. "How
did he suppose I was going to find that paper up that tree?"
questioned Miss Stratton. "I did look up there before dark, but I
didn't see anything."
The evening paper was easily discoverable for a week or so after
this: Then matters went back to their old state and Miss Stratton
frequently spent a quarter of an hour finding her evening paper.
"If he'd take the slightest pains he could throw it on this walk
that is ten feet wide!" she would tell herself indignantly, as she
pushed aside the branches of blue marguerites and the leaves of
calla-lilies, and peered into holes on either side of the steps near
the front gate, where the watering of the garden had washed away the
soil.
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