e o'clock--I forgot. We
got to go up the stairway and try to sneak out through the house."

They tiptoed back, and up the inner stairs. They paused at the top,
then breathlessly stepped out into a hall which was entirely dark. Sam
touched Penrod's sleeve in warning, and bent to listen at a door.

Immediately that door opened, revealing the bright library, where sat
Penrod's mother and Sam's father.

It was Sam's mother who had opened the door.

"Come into the library, boys," she said. "Mrs. Schofield is just
telling us about it."

And as the two comrades moved dumbly into the lighted room, Penrod's
mother rose, and, taking him by the shoulder, urged him close to the
fire.

"You stand there and try to dry off a little, while I finish telling
Mr. and Mrs. Williams about you and Sam," she said. "You'd better make
Sam keep near the fire, too, Mrs. Williams, because they both got
wringing wet. Think of their running off just when most people would
have wanted to stay! Well, I'll go on with the story, then. Della told
me all about it, and what the cook next door said _she'd_ seen, how
they'd been trying to pull grass and leaves for the poor old thing all
day--and all about the apples they carried from _your_ cellar, and
getting wet and working in the rain as hard as they could--and they'd
given him a loaf of bread! Shame on you, Penrod!" She paused to laugh,
but there was a little moisture round her eyes, even before she
laughed. "And they'd fed him on potatoes and lettuce and cabbage and
turnips out of _our_ cellar! And I wish you'd see the sawdust bed they
made for him! Well, when I'd telephoned, and the Humane Society man got
there, he said it was the most touching thing he ever knew. It seems he
_knew_ this horse, and had been looking for him. He said ninety-nine
boys out of a hundred would have chased the poor old thing away, and he
was going to see to it that this case didn't go unnoticed, because the
local branch of the society gives little silver medals for special acts
like this. And the last thing he said before he led the poor old horse
away was that he was sure Penrod and Sam each would be awarded one at
the meeting of the society next Thursday night."

... On the following Saturday morning a yodel sounded from the sunny
sidewalk in front of the Schofields' house, and Penrod, issuing forth,
beheld the familiar figure of Samuel Williams in waiting.

Upon Sam's breast there glittered a round bit of silver s