William had gone away with his family for a holiday, and he was not enjoying it. For one reason it was not the sea. Last summer they had gone to the sea and William had enjoyed it. He had several times been rescued from a watery grave by passers-by. He had lost several pairs of new shoes and stockings by taking them off among the rocks and then roaming so far afield barefoot that he forgot where he had left them and so came home without them. He got wet through every day as a matter of course. Through the house where his family stayed his track was marked by a trail of sand and seaweed and small deceased crabs. He had upon one occasion floated out to sea in a boat which he had found on the beach and loosened from its moorings, and narrowly escaped being run down by a steamer. At the end of the holiday by the sea Mrs. Brown had said weakly, "Let it be somewhere inland next year."
William found things monotonous inland. There were no crabs and nothing to do. Robert and Ethel, his grown-up brother and sister, had joined a tennis club and were out all day. Not that William had much use for Robert and Ethel. He preferred them out all day as a matter of fact.
"All I say is," he said aggrievedly to his mother, "that no one cares whether I'm havin' a nice time or not. You think that s' long as father can go golfin'—or tryin' to golf—and those two playin' tennis—or what they call tennis"—he added scornfully, "and you can sit knittin', it's all right. You don't think of me. No one thinks of me. I might just as well not be here. All I say is," he ended, "I might jus' as well be dead for all the trouble some people take to make me happy."
His mother looked at his scowling freckled countenance.
"Well, dear," she said, "there are plenty of books about the house that you haven't read."
"Books," said William scornfully. "Sir Walter Scott's ole things—I don't call that books."
"You can go for walks."
"Walks!" said William. "It's no use goin' walks without 'Jumble'."
His father lowered his newspaper. "Your arithmetic report was vile," he said. "You might occupy your time with a few sums. I'll set them for you."
William turned upon his parent a glance before which most men would have quailed. Even William's father, inured as he was by long experience to that glare of William's, retired hastily behind his paper. Then, with a short and bitter laugh, William turned on his heel and left the room. That was the last straw. He'd finished with them. He'd simply finished with them.