e
appearance of his assailants, after the custom of boys in such cases.
Because his son was not involved in the calamity, Piggy's father was
not moved deeply by the story of the raid of the North-enders and
their downfall. So he put the young gentlemen of the Court of Boyville
into the back room of his grocery store, where coal-oil and molasses
barrels and hams and bacon and black shadows of many mysterious
things were gathered. He gave the royal party a cheese knife and a
watermelon, and bade them be merry, a bidding which set the hearts of
Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy to dancing, while Bud's heart, which
had been sinking lower and lower into a quagmire of dread, beat
on numbly and did not join the joy. As the time for going home
approached, Bud shivered in his soul at the thought of meeting Miss
Morgan. Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon
will not help a boy his extremity is dire. Still he laughed and
chatted with apparent merriment, but he knew how hollow was his
laughter and what mockery was in his cheer. When the melon was eaten
business took its regular order.

[Illustration: _When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a
show-case and laughed till he shook all over_.]

"Say, Bud, how you goin' to get home?" asked Abe.

Bud grinned as he looked at his rags.

"Gee," said Mealy, "I'm glad it ain't me."

"Aw, shucks," returned Bud, and he thought of the stricken Ananias in
the Sunday-school lesson leaf as he spoke; "run right through like I
always do. What I got to be 'fraid of?"

"Yes, Mr. Bud, you can laugh, but you know you'll catch it when you
get home."

This shaft from Jimmy Sears put in words the terror in Bud's heart.
But he replied: "I'll bet you I don't."

Bud's instinct piloted him by a circuitous route up the alley to the
kitchen door. Miss Morgan sat on the front porch, waiting for the boy
to return before serving supper. He stood helplessly in the kitchen
for a minute, with a weight of indecision upon him. He feared to go
to the front porch, where Miss Morgan was. He feared to stay in the
kitchen. But when he saw the empty wood-box a light seemed to dawn.
Instinct guided him to the woodpile, and the law of self-preservation
filled his arms with wood, and instinct carried him to the kitchen
wood-box time and again, and laid the wood in the box as gently as if
it had been glass and as softly as if it had been velvet. Not until
the pile had grown far above th