One day, he discovered Jeanne, flat on her stomach, dipping her fingers into the fountain.
"My dear child!" said he, "what are you doing?"
"Just feeling to see how warm it is," said Jeanne, kicking up her heels in order to reach deeper. "It's awfully cold, isn't it? If there weren't so many windows and folks around, I think I'd like to go in swimming."
"Swimming! Can you swim?"
"Of course," returned Jeanne. "I swam in the Cinder Pond."
From time to time, homesick Jeanne continued to test the waters of the fountain. In August, to her delight, she found the water almost lukewarm. To be sure, the weather was all but sizzling. Her grandfather, accustomed to seeing her dabble her fingers in the water, was far from suspecting the shocking deed she was contemplating.
Then the deed was accomplished. For thirteen blissful mornings, the Cinder Pond Savage did something that made Harold seem, to his mother, like a little white angel, compared with "that dreadful child from Bancroft." Of course, it was pretty dreadful. For thirteen days, Jeanne slipped joyfully from her bed at four o'clock, crept down the stairs, out of the dining-room door, and along the walk to the fountain. She slipped out of her night-dress, slid over the edge, and, for three-quarters of an hour, fairly revelled in the fountain. For thirteen glorious mornings—and then—!
Mrs. Huntington had had a troublesome tooth. She rose to find a capsicum plaster to apply to her gum. To read the label, it was necessary to carry the box to the window. She glanced downward—and dropped the box.
Something white and wet and naked was climbing out of the fountain. Had some horrid street-boy dared to profane the Huntington fountain?
The "boy," poised on the curb, shook his dark head. A bunch of dark, almost-curly hair fell about his wet shoulders.