Turned out! just as they’d got their new uniforms! Of course he must go.
“And look here,” continued Tom, “didn’t you see me have a paper, my grammar exercise, in my hand all finished, when we came over the marsh yesterday?”
“No, I didn’t,” said Dick. “You said you hadn’t once thought of it.”
“Oh, fudge, now! What a poor memory! Why, man, don’t you remember seeing me lose it? slipped on the stones, you know. Come now, if you don’t, Blackman’ll keep me in to-night, sure as pop.”
“But you wouldn’t have me tell a lie, I hope?”
“Oh, no; we don’t do such things now, we’re too good,—only when it comes to them examples,” said Tom, forgetting the practical part of his grammar. “But mind, now, if you don’t trump up something to get me off—you used to be up to that sort of thing—I’ll let on to Blackman all about that key; and then where’s your prize?”
Dick turned it over and over in his mind as he walked slowly home at noon.
“My guesses you doesn’t know what this is,” called Tod from his father’s steps, holding up a leathern belt with something like shoulder-straps attached.
“No; what is it?” said Dick absently.
“It’s what my mamma used to tied me up wif, when my was vewy little, so my wouldn’t eat gween apples and curwants an’ goo-woose-berries. Her don’t have to, now.”