All this time Sidney Tracy was going through HIS pockets, too, and just
as I was getting up again in a hurry he took off his cap and emptied
his pockets into it. I wish you could have seen what that cap held
then--worms, and sticky chewing-gum, and tops, and strings, and hooks,
and marbles, and two pieces of molasses candy all soft and messy, and a
little bit of a turtle, and a green toad, and a slice of
bread-and-butter, and a dirty, soaking, handkerchief that he and Billy
had used for a towel. There was something else there, too--a dark, wet,
pulpy, soggy-looking thing with pieces of gum and molasses candy and
other things sticking to it. Sidney took it out and held it toward me
in a proud, light-hearted way:
"There's your letter, all right," he said, and Billy gave a whoop of
joy and called out, "Good-bye, Alice," as a hint for me to hurry home.
I was so anxious to get the letter that I almost took it, but I stopped
in time. I hadn't any gloves on, and it was just too dreadful. If you
could have seen it you would never have touched it in the world. I got
near enough to look at it, though, and then I saw that the address was
so dirty and so covered with gum and bait and candy that all I could
read was a capital "M" and a small "s" at the beginning and an "ert" at
the end; the name between was hidden.
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