run over by a passing sled, while
a little dog ran away with Hetty's seal-skin muff.

I floundered around in that puddle for about two minutes, and then I
got up. Hetty still sat there. She was white, she was so mad.

"I might a known better," said she. "Let me alone. I'd sit here
forever, before I'd let _you_ help me up."

The boys were coming home from school, and they began to hoot and
laugh. I ran after the little dog who was making off with the muff.
How Hetty got up, or who came to her rescue I don't know. That cur
belonged about four miles out of town, and he never let up until he
got home.

I grabbed the muff just as he was disappearing under the house with
it, and then I walked slowly back. The people who didn't know me took
me for an escaped convict--I was water-soaked and muddy, hatless, and
had a sneaking expression, like that of a convicted horse-thief. Two
or three persons attempted to arrest me. Finally, two stout farmers
succeeded, and brought me into the village in triumph, and marched me
between them to the jail.

"Why, what's Mr. Flutter been doin'?" asked the sheriff, coming out to
meet us.

"Do you mean to say you know him?" inquired one of the men.

"Yes, I know him. That's our esteemed fellow-citizen, young Flutter."

"And he ain't no horse-thief nor nuthin'!"

"Not a bit of it, I assure you."

The man eyed me from head to foot, critically and contemptuously.

"Then all I've got to say," he remarked slowly, "is this--appearances
is very deceptive."

It was getting dusk by this time, and I was thankful for it.

"I slipped down in a mud-puddle and lost my hat," I explained to the
sheriff, as I turned away, and had the satisfaction of hearing the
other one of my arresters say, behind my back:

"Oh, drunk!"

I hired a little boy, for five cents, to deliver Miss Slocum's muff at
her residence. Then I went into the house by the kitchen, bribed Mary
to clean my soiled pants without telling mother, slipped up-stairs,
and went to bed without my supper.

The next day I bought a handsome seven-dollar ring, and sent it to
Hetty as some compensation for the damage done to her dress.

That evening was singing-school evening. I went early, so as to get my
seat without attracting attention. Early as I was, I was not the
first. A group of young people was gathered about the great
black-board, on which the master illustrated his lessons. They were
having lots of fun, and did not notice me as