“Abandoned, as I had hoped. The keeper must be away at breakfast, and while he is gone, I’ll have mine. At least, just the finishing bites. I began my breakfast a couple of hours ago, but that rude boy interrupted the operation. I know I should starve without anything until noon.”
Billy hesitated no longer, but marched boldly in and back of the counter.
Have you ever wished you could be in that wonderful place—back of the counter in a candy store? Back where all the cases are standing open inviting you to come and take and eat to your heart’s content, instead of in front where the glass is between you and all the goodies so temptingly spread out? There were piles of chocolate creams, peppermint chews, peanut brittle, caramels, shining jars of sunshine sticks, and pan upon pan heaped high with taffy, that favorite confection of all fair-goers.
All this sweet array was spread there before Billy’s greedy gaze, and when he realized the feast that was before him, he closed one eye with that provoking wink all his own, licked his chops with a peculiar circular motion of the tongue that was one of his very naughtiest tricks, according to his good mother’s judgment, and paraded up and down, wondering just where to begin.
Did he like chocolates better than butterscotch? Or was the crisp brittle his favorite? There was the pinch.
Passing along the counter in this undecided state, he chanced to peep underneath, and there, luck of all lucks! was a great pail heaping full of pop-corn, with a generous coating of molasses, all waiting to be packed into the small cartons that later in the day every boy and every girl would be holding and declaring with each generous mouthful that “Chew ’em” was by all odds quite the best pop-corn confection ever made and sold over the counter.
Billy had never lost his youthful liking for corn, and now wasted not another minute debating where he should begin—he knew. Nothing could possibly tempt him from the spot until he was fully satisfied.
I am sorry to say it, but I must if I wish to be honest, Billy forgot his manners, and in his eagerness, got into the pail with his feet! He gulped the corn down so fast and buried his nose so deep that he lost his breath, and one stubborn kernel scooted down his Sunday throat. Billy choked, and with one mighty cough up came the offending thing. Never an animal with a great amount of patience, Billy grew angry at even this very brief interruption, though it was not a minute until his head was down as deep as ever.
The nearer he approached the bottom, the stickier grew the corn, and the better Billy liked it. Evidently the molasses had been poured over the corn not long before Billy’s entrance, and the whole pailful left to harden and crystallize. That on top had been just right for packing, but down in the pail, where the air could not get in its work, the syrup was thick and still warm.
Billy gorged himself, with never a thought of the possible ruin it would work to his stomach, but, fortunately, goats’ stomachs are not the delicate organs that boys and girls have to take care of, and he had never been taught how wrong it is to eat too much of rich things that injure the busy, hard working servant that gives us strength.