“Well, well, it’s all right,” crooned his mother, “but what’s that you’ve got in your hand?” The Farmer looked too and all at once his face grew very red. Tightly clutched in Oswald’s hand was all that was left of the blue night shirt.
A few hours later Mrs. Simpkins, waiting with her son for a train at the village station, was being interviewed by an appreciative reporter.
“Yes,” she was saying. “It was all my Oswald. He isn’t like other boys. He is always finding out things for himself. He went under the barn all alone and discovered the lost clothes. Isn’t he wonderful?”
The reporter’s eye swept appraisingly over the blushing Oswald.
“Well, yes,” he admitted reluctantly, “he certainly is; but, doesn’t he smell awful!”
CHAPTER IX
FIFTY DOLLARS ON HIS HEAD
Farmer Slown was sitting on his doorstep reading another special edition of the village paper. Opposite him stood a stranger watching with amusement the changing expression on the Farmer’s red face.
“That’s the line I referred to,” he interrupted the other man. “See, right here!” He pointed to a paragraph. The Farmer began to read it aloud.
“And so,” he read, “the great monster of the woods, the prehistoric mammal, turned out to be nothing more than a little skunk. The boy who made the discovery described it as jet black all over except for white stripes on its head and neck. Could a more ridiculous ending possibly be—”
“That’s enough,” said the man, “did you notice it said jet black except for white on its head and neck? Well I’ve come to buy that skunk. What do you want for him alive?”