"What happened?" Gerard questioned.
"We drove over to the farm together, and father went in for a private interview with old man Goodwin. After which he, father, escorted me around to the well and informed me that I was to drink a cup of that water. Phew, I would rather have drunk hemlock! I wasn't much given to begging off when I got into trouble, but I tried that time, all right.
"'It's what you've left these folks to drink,' said he, standing with his hands in his pockets, looking at me. 'It would have been a lot more pleasant for you to swallow if you had owned up two days ago; just keep that as a reminder never to put off a thing you ought to do. Take your medicine, Corwin B.'
"I took it. But it almost killed me." He shook his blond head disgustedly. "I told him I would probably die of typhoid, or something worse. He said we would chance it."
"Still, it was a chance, Corrie."
Corrie calmly fastened the last button of his raincoat.
"No, I guess not. You see, old Goodwin had told father that they pulled pussy out of the well ten minutes after I ran away, the first day. She was clinging to the bucket, pretty wet, but healthy and merry. Father told me the truth, before dinner-time; I didn't seem to care for luncheon, that day. Have you got a pencil? I've lost my fountain-pen again; that's the third I've bought this month."
Gerard produced the pencil.
"It was a rough joke on you, though," he commented. "Didn't you resent it?"
Corrie lifted his bright clear glance from his task of tearing a blank leaf from his notebook.