"Dear me!" said Mrs. Fairchild, catching sight of her son's remarkably sleek head. "I do wish you wouldn't put so much water on your hair when you comb it. It isn't at all necessary and it looks horrid—particularly when it's so long. Do be more careful next time."
"I will," promised Roger, helping himself to an orange.
"It must have taken you a great while to dress. I thought I heard you stirring about hours ago."
"Yes'm," returned Roger, looking anywhere except at his pretty mother.
"I'm glad you remembered to put on your old clothes, since it's Saturday. But—why, Roger! What is that?"
"That" was a thin, brownish stream, scarcely more than an elongated drop—trickling down the boy's wrist to the back of his plump hand. Roger looked at it with horror. His drenched, fleece-lined underwear was betraying him.
Mrs. Fairchild pushed up his coat sleeve, turned back the damp cuff of his blue cotton shirt, and disclosed three inches of wet, close-fitting sleeve. She poked an investigating finger up her son's arm. Then her suspicious eye caught a curious change of color in the bosom of his blue shirt. It had darkened mysteriously in patches. She touched one of them. Then she reached up under his coat and felt his moist back.
"Roger, how in the world did your shirt get so wet? Surely you didn't do all that washing yourself?"
"No'm."
"Have you been outdoors?"