Aunt Polly Quotes

“Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart.”

“But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can’t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. ”

“Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of Tom’s statement true. When she found the entire fence white-ashed, and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable.”

“Well, I never! There’s no getting round it, you can work when you’re a mind to, Tom.”

“He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model “catch it.”

“Oh, you don’t, don’t you? So all this row was because you thought you’d get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart with your outrageousness.”

“I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter. It done _him_ good, too. I never see him get around so since—”

“Oh, Mrs. Harper, I don’t know how to give him up! I don’t know how to give him up! He was such a comfort to me, although he tormented my old heart out of me, ‘most.”

“Not a word against my Tom, now that he’s gone! God’ll take care of _him_—never you trouble _your_ self, sir!”

“Still, he was sufficiently touched by his aunt’s grief to long to rush out from under the bed and overwhelm her with joy—and the theatrical gorgeousness of the thing appealed strongly to his nature, too, but he resisted and lay still.”

“Then with a mutual impulse the two bereaved women flung themselves into each other’s arms and had a good, consoling cry, and then parted.”

“Well, I don’t say it wasn’t a fine joke, Tom, to keep everybody suffering ‘most a week so you boys had a good time, but it is a pity you could be so hard-hearted as to let me suffer so. If you could come over on a log to go to your funeral, you could have come over and give me a hint some way that you warn’t dead, but only run off.”

“It would have been something if you’d cared enough to think of it, even if you didn’t do it.”

“A body does just the same in a dream as he’d do if he was awake.”

I’m thankful to the good God and Father of us all I’ve got you back, that’s long-suffering and merciful to them that believe on Him and keep His word, though goodness knows I’m unworthy of it, but if only the worthy ones got His blessings and had His hand to help them over the rough places, there’s few enough would smile here or ever enter into His rest when the long night comes.

“Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from Jackson’s Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn’t ever think to pity us and save us from sorrow.”

″‘What did you kiss me for, Tom?’ ‘Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry.‘”

“It’s a good lie—it’s a good lie—I won’t let it grieve me.”