Aunt Tabitha's Tooth.

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 1 July 1903, Page 81

Aunt Tabitha's Tooth.

Do pity me, wnteb "Madge," in .Truth. I think you will when I tell you of something that befell me. Aunt Tabitha came up to stay with us, and one morning when 1 was going out s>he asked me to do .some shopping for her.

" Take my purse," «he eaid, "and then you need uot mix yom money up with

So I tcok her pur->:?, and paid foi her thing.- out of it. I bought th.n%-> r or her >n foui different hops, nn.lu.ding a post office.

When I go; back. Aunt Tabitha said in her £ruff way, "I forgot to tell you that my fal-c tooth, about which I a:n going to the dentist to morrow, wa- in that purse. I hope you'\o not lost it. It was wrapped in tiMiit> paper."

The tooth was gone. "It cost mo two guineas." shrieked that terrible aunt of mine, as she poked her fi'i-g^r into_evciy (oincr of the piusc. "You mujt go and tiy to find it, Madge."

And I wrmt Into taeh of tho four shops I wa!k r d, and inquired if I had dropped a tooth there.

You can imagine the dreadful grins of the as-'istant-s.

A boy was sweeping the floor of the. pest office when I went m, jnd it must have been a "■unoiis sight to soe him and me bent double over the littk h<_ap of du=t hs had diligently -ollected ill one coiner.

And in that heap I found the tooth. I woiild gladly ha\e gi\en my aunt her two guinea*, aiid been spared the humiliation of that quest: but I knew it was u^ele^s to su^gctt such a thing. And ome aunts can be so very nice!