"Guess there's a hole in my pocket, and the medal fell through."
And without stopping to examine the pocket, he ran back all the way to the brook. Nowhere to be found. Not in the grass on either side of the road; not on the bank.
Then he remembered to look at his pockets; turned them all three inside out four times. No hole there.
"Well, I never!—Look here, you Oze Wiggins; did you pick up anything in the grass?"
"Noffin' but a toadstool," replied little Ozem, innocently; and Willy wondered if he wasn't a half-fool to make such an answer as that.
"Where can that medal be?" said he, with a dry sob.
He did not once suspect that Gideon Noonin had taken it.
"I'll go home and tell my mother. O, dear! O, dear!"
He was still at the tender age when little boys believe their mammas can help them out of any kind of trouble. True, he had been naughty and disobedient; but if he said he was sorry, wouldn't her arms open to take him in? He was sorry now,—no doubt of that,—and was running home with all speed, when the sight of his father in the distance reminded him of his errand, and he rushed back to the store for the codfish and mackerel.
"What makes your hair so wet, bubby?" asked Daddy Wiggins, rolling the fish in brown paper. "Haven't been in swimming—have you?"