And that wasn't like Fan, because what she would mostly say, would be, “You little imp, you know where that ring is! You get it this instant or father will attend to you.”
So I knew she was pretty sick about Herb.
Well, as soon as Fan said that I skipped out the back way, over to Swatty's, and asked him for the ring, because we had had it in pardnership, and I had let him have it awhile. I told him what I wanted it for and he said:
“I ain't got it. I thought you or Bony had it; I gave it to Bony.”
So we went over to Bony's house, and the minute we said “ring” he was scared stiff. “It was stole,” he said. “The burglar stole it out of my pants pocket, but I didn't say nothing because I guessed the police would get it back again.” So that was a nice one, wasn't it? So me and Swatty were mad at Bony and we wouldn't talk to him or let him play with us unless we got the ring back, and none of the policemen caught Bony's burglar. Bony's father printed a reward of fifty dollars in the newspaper, but my father said that whoever caught the burglar would n't be half as lucky if he caught him as he would if he ever got fifty dollars out of Bony's father, because my father would be blessed if he believed Bony's father had ever seen fifty dollars at one time. So maybe the policemen knew that. Anyway, they did not catch the burglar. I guess folks thought he would never be caught, and he never would have been if it hadn't been for me and Swatty and Mamie Little. I guess he would never have been caught if Mamie Little had known how to spell “sulphur.”
The burglar got plenty of other things from Bony's house, too, but the signet ring is the thing I'm telling about because it was the signet ring that helped Swatty to catch the burglar. That and Mamie Little, only Mamie Little didn't know she helped until I told her, and then she didn't understand any better than she did about the sulphur bag. I guess nobody will know unless I tell it. So I'll tell it.
Thursday afternoon I went past Mamie Little's yard about five o'clock and she was trying to fix up a couple of old boxes to make a playhouse and I leaned on the fence and was glad I was there, because nobody else was there to see me. So I said: “Aw! that's no way to make a playhouse out of boxes!”
“Oh, dear!” she said. “I know it ain't. I want this one on top of the other one but I can't lift it.”
“I bet I could lift it!” I said.
“I know you could,” she said. “Boys are stronger than girls.”