Pretty soon I went home. It was all dark in the woods and dandy for thinking, and I was glad I had one friend, anyway, and that was Jim Hawkins in the book. I guessed maybe that was the reason that Westy got the book, because only lately I had read it, and I had told him so much about it. All the way home I kept thinking about Westy and I wished I had never found that out.
Mostly at night I sit on the porch with my mother and father, but that night I went to my tent and lit the lantern and sat there. I like a lantern because it reminds you of camping. Nix on electric lights up at Temple Camp, that’s what Jeb Rushmore says. Gee, he has no use for electric lights—electric lights and umbrellas. But, anyway, I’ve got a wire from our garage to Camp Solitaire (that’s my tent) and a bulb for when I want to read. Jerry says I ought to pay for tapping the garage current. I should worry.
I sat down and began reading Treasure Island all over again. I skipped a lot because I had only just lately read it, and pretty soon I was reading about in the middle of it, where they start off in the ship. That’s the part I like best. All of a sudden I couldn’t see the reading very good and I noticed there was a stain on the page.
Here’s where I wish that I knew all about writing books like a regular grown up author, because I have to explain something to you and, cracky, I wish you could see that book, because then it would be easier. First, I didn’t think anything about it at all, only I noticed that the stain was on the left hand page. Then, all of a sudden I noticed something about that stain that got me all excited.
It was in the shape of a ring, kind of.
Right away I knew what it meant. I picked up one of my oar-locks and laid it on the stain and it just covered it. So I saw I had damaged the book when I had it before. That’s one thing you’re not supposed to do—damage books out of the library. If you keep a book till it’s overdue, that isn’t so bad, because then you just pay a fine. Connie says that’s being a good bookkeeper.
But to damage a book—g-o-o-d night!
CHAPTER XXVII
THE GENTLE BREEZE
I was just thinking how funny it was that Westy got this very same book that I had, but maybe it wasn’t so funny, because that was what put it into his head to get it—seeing it in my tent. Anyway, I was glad it came back to me, because now I saw what I had done and I made up my mind that I’d buy a new book for the library.
Then I was thinking how I’d have to tell Westy about it, and, oh, I don’t know, I just didn’t know how to go and speak to him. I wasn’t mad at him, but anyway, I felt as if I didn’t want to see him—yet. Anyway, I didn’t have any money yet and books like that cost a lot.