Kid’s home was in New York City—worse luck!—and if the Doctor had written, as he had intimated, on Saturday, why, then by Tuesday at the latest the cat would be out of the bag and Kid would be trying to explain to the principal how the rumor had got around that his father had met with financial reverses. And Kid didn’t know, couldn’t think for the life of him how he was going to explain. It meant that Mr. James Fairchild was destined to punishment. Kid wondered just what form the punishment would take. Probably he would be put “in bounds,” for one thing, and that meant that he wouldn’t be allowed to go to the village. Kid didn’t like that, for the village had attractions for him. There was a quite remarkable shop in Mt. Pleasant where they sold all sorts of enticing things in the stationery, bakery and confectionery line. Kid thought sadly of the chocolate éclairs which, when consumed with the aid of a glass of root beer, were quite the best things life afforded. He also recalled the cocoanut bars. Pink and white they were and exceedingly toothsome. He had only to close his eyes and see them reposing in the little flat glass tray just crying, “Eat me! Eat me, Kid!” No more of those for a while after Tuesday, he thought regretfully. Life looked pretty dark just then, and the wealth reposing in the collar-box was as dust in his mouth.
Kid mooned through Sunday, miserable and dejected. He could face trouble when it arrived with an admirable equanimity, but trouble in anticipation was too much for him. He found the name of a firm who manufactured silver mugs and other trophies and wrote to them on Sunday afternoon, enclosing Small’s design. But his heart was not in it. To add to his depression he realized that he had allowed “Toots” Morgan to fool him, for “Toots” had agreed to pay him that quarter for the tablets “to-morrow.” And “to-morrow” was to-day, and to-day was Sunday; and of course “Toots” didn’t come near the school on Sunday! (I may as well state here that “Toots” never did pay that quarter. Not only did he decline firmly and emphatically to do so, but he unreasonably laid the blame for losing that second game on Kid! Was anything ever so unjust and unfair? Kid said as much, but “Toots” would not reconsider. The only thing he would do was to indicate as nearly as possible the place where he had thrown the remaining forty-nine tablets.) But to-day Kid was spared the knowledge of this defection, which was just as well, since he was low enough in spirits without it.
I fancy that it must have been some time during Sunday evening—I trust it wasn’t during prayers—that the idea came to Kid to have one final fling before the sword fell; in short, to meet Nemesis satiated with pleasure. All day Monday there was a reckless gleam in Kid’s eyes, and just as soon as school was over in the afternoon, he ascended to his room, emptied the contents of the collar-box in his trouser’s pocket—weighting them evenly—and departed for the village.
To trace Kid’s career that afternoon between four and six would be monotonous. Suffice it to say that at ten minutes to six he drove up to the door in Mr. Higgins’s sleigh surrounded by packages and palpably weary. His advent occasioned both surprise and indignation. House in general gathered on the porch while Kid paid his quarter to the Pirate, emerged from the sleigh with an effort and then deliberately and with criminal extravagance tipped that worthy ten cents!
“Well!” ejaculated Ben Holden. “You’re a nice help to your folks, you are! Driving around in sleighs and throwing tips at the Pirate! What have you got in those bags?”
Kid walked nonchalantly, almost disdainfully, to the foot of the stairs. There he turned and faced the outraged House and, protruding his tongue for an instant, remarked succinctly:
“Find out!”
Kid didn’t eat any supper that evening and displayed no interest in the evident fact that he was in disgrace with his fellows. He was cheeky and altogether insufferable and would answer no questions. He merely sat and stared sleepily at his food, eating not nor talking.
When Stanley Pierce came in from tobogganing at a little before nine he found Kid in bed, very pale in the face and moaning feebly. The doctor reached the scene twenty minutes later and took command. Unfortunately he was accompanied to the room by Mr. Folsom, and it was Mr. Folsom who discovered six cream-cakes (very oozy), a dozen bananas, four apples and three pears, two pounds of candy, some chewing gum, two pickled limes and three cakes of sweet chocolate. All these things Mr. Folsom heartlessly appropriated. But Kid was much too miserable to care at the time. Life was at a very low ebb with Kid.
The doctor gave it as his opinion that if Kid abstained from food for a day and took the medicine prescribed he would pull through. Kid, listening uninterestedly, assimilated the sense of the verdict and sincerely hoped the doctor might prove mistaken. He didn’t want to live. Life held no pleasures for him. He wanted them to leave him alone to die.