Davy stepped off the green grass of the roadside, ankle deep into the fine dust which four weeks of rainless weather had made on the road, and marched along in it, shuffling his feet viciously until he was enveloped in a hazy cloud.
“That’s the beginning,” he announced triumphantly. “And I’m going to stop in the porch and talk as long as there’s anybody there to talk to. I’m going to squirm and wriggle and whisper, and I’m going to say I don’t know the Golden Text. And I’m going to throw away both of my collections RIGHT NOW.”
And Davy hurled cent and nickel over Mr. Barry’s fence with fierce delight.
“Satan made you do that,” said Dora reproachfully.
“He didn’t,” cried Davy indignantly. “I just thought it out for myself. And I’ve thought of something else. I’m not going to Sunday School or church at all. I’m going up to play with the Cottons. They told me yesterday they weren’t going to Sunday School today, ‘cause their mother was away and there was nobody to make them. Come along, Dora, we’ll have a great time.”
“I don’t want to go,” protested Dora.
“You’ve got to,” said Davy. “If you don’t come I’ll tell Marilla that Frank Bell kissed you in school last Monday.”
“I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know he was going to,” cried Dora, blushing scarlet.
“Well, you didn’t slap him or seem a bit cross,” retorted Davy. “I’ll tell her THAT, too, if you don’t come. We’ll take the short cut up this field.”
“I’m afraid of those cows,” protested poor Dora, seeing a prospect of escape.
“The very idea of your being scared of those cows,” scoffed Davy. “Why, they’re both younger than you.”
“They’re bigger,” said Dora.
“They won’t hurt you. Come along, now. This is great. When I grow up I ain’t going to bother going to church at all. I believe I can get to heaven by myself.”
“You’ll go to the other place if you break the Sabbath day,” said unhappy Dora, following him sorely against her will.
But Davy was not scared — yet. Hell was very far off, and the delights of a fishing expedition with the Cottons were very near. He wished Dora had more spunk. She kept looking back as if she were going to cry every minute, and that spoiled a fellow’s fun. Hang girls, anyway. Davy did not say “darn” this time, even in thought. He was not sorry — yet — that he had said it once, but it might be as well not to tempt the Unknown Powers too far on one day.
The small Cottons were playing in their back yard, and hailed Davy’s appearance with whoops of delight. Pete, Tommy, Adolphus, and Mirabel Cotton were all alone. Their mother and older sisters were away. Dora was thankful Mirabel was there, at least. She had been afraid she would be alone in a crowd of boys. Mirabel was almost as bad as a boy — she was so noisy and sunburned and reckless. But at least she wore dresses.
“We’ve come to go fishing,” announced Davy.
“Whoop,” yelled the Cottons. They rushed away to dig worms at once, Mirabel leading the van with a tin can. Dora could have sat down and cried. Oh, if only that hateful Frank Bell had never kissed her! Then she could have defied Davy, and gone to her beloved Sunday School.
They dared not, of course, go fishing on the pond, where they would be seen by people going to church. They had to resort to the brook in the woods behind the Cotton house. But it was full of trout, and they had a glorious time that morning — at least the Cottons certainly had, and Davy seemed to have it. Not being entirely bereft of prudence, he had discarded boots and stockings and borrowed Tommy Cotton’s overalls. Thus accoutered, bog and marsh and undergrowth had no terrors for him. Dora was frankly and manifestly miserable. She followed the others in their peregrinations from pool to pool, clasping her Bible and quarterly tightly and thinking with bitterness of soul of her beloved class where she should be sitting that very moment, before a teacher she adored. Instead, here she was roaming the woods with those half-wild Cottons, trying to keep her boots clean and her pretty white dress free from rents and stains. Mirabel had offered the loan of an apron but Dora had scornfully refused.
The trout bit as they always do on Sundays. In an hour the transgressors had all the fish they wanted, so they returned to the house, much to Dora’s relief. She sat primly on a hencoop in the yard while the others played an uproarious game of tag; and then they all climbed to the top of the pighouse roof and cut their initials on the saddleboard. The flat-roofed henhouse and a pile of straw beneath gave Davy another inspiration. They spent a splendid half hour climbing on the roof and diving off into the straw with whoops and yells.
But even unlawful pleasures must come to an end. When the rumble of wheels over the pond bridge told that people were going home from church Davy knew they must go. He discarded Tommy’s overalls, resumed his own rightful attire, and turned away from his string of trout with a sigh. No use to think of taking them home.
“Well, hadn’t we a splendid time?” he demanded defiantly, as they went down the hill field.
“I hadn’t,” said Dora flatly. “And I don’t believe you had — really — either,” she added, with a flash of insight that was not to be expected of her.
“I had so,” cried Davy, but in the voice of one who doth protest too much. “No wonder you hadn’t — just sitting there like a — like a mule.”
“I ain’t going to, ‘sociate with the Cottons,” said Dora loftily.
“The Cottons are all right,” retorted Davy. “And they have far better times than we have. They do just as they please and say just what they like before everybody. I’m going to do that, too, after this.”
“There are lots of things you wouldn’t dare say before everybody,” averred Dora.
“No, there isn’t.”
“There is, too. Would you,” demanded Dora gravely, “would you say ‘tomcat’ before the minister?”
This was a staggerer. Davy was not prepared for such a concrete example of the freedom of speech. But one did not have to be consistent with Dora.
“Of course not,” he admitted sulkily.
“‘Tomcat’ isn’t a holy word. I wouldn’t mention such an animal before a minister at all.”
“But if you had to?” persisted Dora.
“I’d call it a Thomas pussy,” said Davy.
“I think ‘gentleman cat’ would be more polite,” reflected Dora.
“YOU thinking!” retorted Davy with withering scorn.
Davy was not feeling comfortable, though he would have died before he admitted it to Dora. Now that the exhilaration of truant delights had died away, his conscience was beginning to give him salutary twinges. After all, perhaps it would have been better to have gone to Sunday School and church. Mrs. Lynde might be bossy; but there was always a box of cookies in her kitchen cupboard and she was not stingy. At this inconvenient moment Davy remembered that when he had torn his new school pants the week before, Mrs. Lynde had mended them beautifully and never said a word to Marilla about them.
But Davy’s cup of iniquity was not yet full. He was to discover that one sin demands another to cover it. They had dinner with Mrs. Lynde that day, and the first thing she asked Davy was,
“Were all your class in Sunday School today?”
“Yes’m,” said Davy with a gulp. “All were there—’cept one.”
“Did you say your Golden Text and catechism?”
“Yes’m.”
“Did you put your collection in?”
“Yes’m.”