The Court of Boyville eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 113 pages of information about The Court of Boyville.

The Court of Boyville eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 113 pages of information about The Court of Boyville.

The boys on the porch followed Piggy’s example, and in a minute or two they stood huddled at the gate calling at the girls in the house to hurry.  When the girls were on the porch, the boys struck out, and the two groups, a respectful distance apart, walked through the town.  Mealy Jones was enjoying the triumph of his life, walking proudly between the noisy boys and giggling girls, beside—­but why linger over the details of this instance of man’s duplicity and woman’s worse than weakness!

The young blades of the Court of Boyville waited politely at the gate before the house where Bud Perkins lived with Miss Morgan, his foster mother.  When the maidens arrived, all the company went trooping up Miss Morgan’s steps.  After Piggy had chased Bud from the front door into a closet, from which the host fought his way gallantly into the middle of the parlor floor, the essential preliminaries of the evening’s entertainment were over.  A little later the games began.  First, there was “forfeits.”  Then came “tin-tin.”  “Clap in and clap out” followed, and finally, after much protestation from the girls, but at the earnest solicitation of Mealy Jones, “post-office” started.  Piggy did not urge, nor protest.  He had gone through the games listlessly, occasionally breaking into a spasm of gayety that was clearly hollow, and afterwards sinking into profound indifference.  For how could a well-conditioned boy be gay with a heartache under his Sunday shirt and the spectacle before his eyes of a freckled human cock-sparrow darting round and round the bower of his Heart’s Desire?  Under such circumstances it was clearly impossible for him to see the eyes that sought his in vain across the turmoil of the room.  Indeed, a voice pitched a trifle high to carry well spoke for him to hear, but met deaf ears.  A little maid in a black-and-red check which the King of Boyville once preferred to royal purple, even made her way across the throng—­undesignedly, he thought, but Piggy basked in the joy of her presence and made no sign to show his pleasure.  A little later, in the shuffle of the game, Piggy and his Heart’s Desire were far apart.  Half an hour passed, but still he did not revive.  Mealy Jones called her out in “post-office,” and Piggy thought he saw her smile.  That was too much.  When the dining-room door closed behind the black-and-red checked dress, the pitcher that enclosed his woe broke and the wheel at the cistern of his endurance stopped.  Mealy Jones came into the room, and the boy who kept the “post-office” called out, “Piggy Pennington.”  But the slam of the front door was his answer.

[Illustration:  A little maid in a black-and-red check.]

Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair.  It began when his Heart’s Desire had fluttered into his autograph album with a coy: 

    “When this you see
     Remember me.”

[Illustration:  Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair.]

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Court of Boyville from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.