Sherman suggested they get a dime changed and expend their nickel for the sweets. Once inside, the sight of sundry acquaintances eating alluring pyramids of creamy coolness confronted them. The boys had been standing around at Brown’s field watching the ball game. It was hot and dusty and their mouths watered. Carol had ten cents of his own. By using their nickel and the remaining fifteen cents they could each have a dish. Ernest hesitated about this borrowing, but the boys said they could pay it back. Ernest was sure he had that much in his toy bank at home, and the other boys were positive they could shake it through the slit if they tried hard enough.
So the tempter won and the trust money was speedily converted into ice-cream. The ice-cream once down the transaction began to take on a different phase. The boys plodded home rather silently.
Sherman voiced the first doubt.
“Say, Ern, are you sure you’ve got enough?”
Ern was wondering himself if he had.
“I guess we’d better go in the side gate and get it out before the girls see us,” he replied.
The boys slipped in the side gate in a manner so noiseless that it might almost be called sneaking. On up to Ernest’s room they filed and hastily secured the bank.
Alas, no rattle of coin repaid them. Absent-minded Ernest had entirely forgotten that his father had taken the contents to the savings bank for him the preceding month, and that he had not been able to save up anything since.
The boys looked at each other.
“Maybe Mother’ll lend me fifteen cents,” said Ernest after a pause.