A boy would rather take a dozen whippings at school than have the story of one of them come home; and Piggy thought with inward trembling that he would rather report even a whipping at home than face his mother in the dishonor which covered him.  At supper Mrs. Pennington repeated the legend of the note with great solemnity.  When her husband showed signs of laughing, she glared at him.  Her son ate rapidly in silence.  Over his mother’s shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle.  The only reply that Mrs. Pennington could get to her questions was, “Aw, that ain’t nothin’,” or “Aw, gee whiz, ma, you must think that’s somethin’.”  But she proclaimed, in the presence of the father, the son, and the hired girl, that if she ever caught a boy of hers getting “girl-struck” she would “show him,” which, being translated, means much that no dignified young gentleman likes to contemplate.  But when the son was out of hearing, Mrs. Pennington told her husband, in the repressed tone which she used when expressing her diplomatic communications, that he would have “to take that boy in hand.”  Whereupon the father leaned back in his chair and laughed, laughed until he grew red in the face, laughed till the pans in the kitchen rattled, laughed—­to use the words of his wife in closing the incident—­“like a natural born simpleton.”

[Illustration:  Her son ate rapidly in silence.]

[Illustration:  Over his mother’s shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle.]

Alas for Piggy Pennington—­he might affect great pride in his amours when the hired girl teased him; he might put on a brave face and even lure himself into the belief that this arch tormentor saw him only as a gay deceiver; but when the lights were out, Piggy covered his head with the bedclothes, and grew hot and cold by turns, till sleep came and bore him away from his humiliation.

All day Saturday, before the Bud Perkins’ surprise party, Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones were inseparable.  And Piggy, who was King of Boyville, came down from his throne and walked humbly beside Mealy, the least of all his courtiers.  In fact, since the reading of his note Piggy had become needlessly deferential and considerate of the feelings of his rival.

If the two entered a crowd and played “foot and a half” or “slap and a kick” or “leap-frog,” and if Mealy was “it”—­and poor Mealy was generally “it” in any game—­Piggy did not jump viciously on Mealy’s wobbly back, nor did he slap hard, nor kick hard, as he would have slapped and kicked on other days, before he descended from his throne to dwell with the beasts of the field on that fatal Friday.  Pride kept Mealy on the rack.