There was no doubt about it—Johnny had, to use one of his own expressions, “got up wrong end foremost,” that morning. Not that he had really and come out of bed upon his head instead of his feet; that would not have mattered at all, for he would have been right end up again in a minute. No, it was much worse than that, for the plain English of it was, that he was in a very bad humor, and did not know it!  
What he thought he knew was, that everything went wrong. The fire had gone out in the furnace, the night before, and his room, although by no means freezing cold, was uncomfortably . A button snapped off his new school jacket as he was ; the bell rang before he was quite ready, and he had intended, lately, to be punctual at every meal, “really and truly”; it was one of the ways in which, without saying anything about it, he was trying to do right.
 
He was only a moment or two late, after all; the rest of the family had only just sat down, and he was in time for grace, but he felt “flustered.” He was ashamed to aloud when he found the smoking brown batter-cakes were “only -cakes,” instead of his favorite buckwheats, but his face certainly .
 
He his books together, after breakfast, with a good deal of needless force; the suddenly gave way, and the books flew about the floor in various directions.
 
“Bother the old strap!” said Johnny, , as he gathered up his books.
 
“I think the old strap has bothered you!” said Tiny, merrily, as she stooped to help him.
 
“I wouldn’t be so silly, if I were you, Tiny!” and Johnny turned his nose up, and the corners of his mouth down, all at once.
 
“Oh yes you would, don’t you see, Johnny, if you were me!” and Tiny laughed again. She thought Johnny was being solemn “for fun,” or she would not have laughed.
 
Johnny something which sounded a little like “thank you,” as she handed him the last book, and a nice strong piece of , which was conveniently lying in a little coil on the table. The strap had broken in the middle, so there was no use in trying to do anything with it, and he discontentedly used the twine instead. His mother passed through the hall just as he was tying up his books, and, seeing the broken strap, said pleasantly,—
 
“So the new jacket must needs have a new strap to keep it company? How much will it be? Fifteen cents? Well, here it is—you can buy one as you come home from school, I am afraid you would hardly have time before.”
 
Johnny thanked his mother, and kissed her goodbye, with a pretty good grace; he even said, of his own accord,—
 
 
“I’m afraid I pulled a little harder than I needed to, mamma, but the old thing couldn’t have been good for much, anyway, to break just for that!”
 
“It will make lovely trunk-; and a shawl-strap too. May I have it, Johnny?” and Tiny measured the pieces approvingly on her finger, as she . It is needless to say that the articles she mentioned were for the latest addition to her doll family.
 
“Oh yes, you may have it, but how girls can be so foolish about dolls—!” and Johnny marched off, leaving Tiny to make the most of this gracious permission.
 
“I was afraid he would want it for a or something,” she said, . “You don’t think dolls are foolish, do you, mamma?”
 
“No, darling, or I wouldn’t have helped papa to give you that beauty for Christmas. I cared more for my dolls than for all the rest of my toys put together, and while you are such a good mother to your family, and make such neat clothes for it, and at the same time are such a good little daughter to me, I shall find no fault with either the dolls or their mamma.”
 
Tiny looked very much pleased, and went, in her usual orderly manner, to put the strap away, until she could Johnny into cutting it up for her. It was , considering his contempt for the whole doll race, how much he had done to better its condition! Trunks and furniture, vehicles of various sorts, and even a complete summer residence, had in turn been from him, and not a few of Tiny’s small playmates openly expressed the wish that they had brothers “just like Johnny Leslie.”
 
 
Though the cloud had lifted for a moment, it lowered again as Johnny walked to school. The twine cut his hand, the wind blew his hat off, as he was passing Jim’s stand, and I am afraid that Jim’s kindness in picking up and restoring the wanderer, just before it reached the , was quite lost sight of because Jim clapped it on Johnny’s head with rather more force than was necessary.
 
“Got the toothache?” asked Jim, sympathizingly, as he caught sight of Johnny’s face.
 
“No; what makes you think I have?” and Johnny “bristled”; he was not a little afraid of Jim’s sharp tongue.
 
“Oh, I thought I saw a sort of a swelled-out look around your mouth,” said Jim, very gravely, “and you don’t look happy; and those two things are what I heard a big doctor call symptom-atic!”
 
Johnny’s face cleared a little.
 
“Look out you don’t choke, Jim,” he said, briskly, and, with a nod by way of good morning, began to run, to make up for lost time.
 
He barely did it, and he felt that he was looking red and breathless, while everybody else had a particularly cool and comfortable expression—“as if they’d been here a week!” he grumbled to himself.
 
Things went on in this style all day. He nearly quarrelled with one of his best friends, at , about such a trifle that he was ashamed to remember it, . His sums “came wrong”; he lost a place in one of his classes; he tripped and tumbled, his books again, just as he was starting for home; the store was out of book straps, and although the polite stationer promised to have a very superior one, direct from the saddle-and-harness-maker’s, by the next afternoon, at latest, Johnny was not consoled.
 
So, altogether, he came home in a rather worse humor than that in which............