"I tell you I didn't!" and Titee's hard little fist planted a
punctuation mark on his comrade's eye.

A fight in the school-yard! Poor Titee in disgrace again. But in spite
of his battered appearance, a severe scolding from the principal, lines
to write, and a further punishment from his mother, Titee scarcely
remained for his dinner, but was off, down the railroad track, with his
pockets partly stuffed with the remnants of his scanty meal.

And the next day Titee was tardy again, and lunchless, too, and the
next, and the next, until the teacher in despair sent a nicely printed
note to his mother about him, which might have done some good, had not
Titee taken great pains to tear it up on his way home.

But one day it rained, whole bucketfuls of water, that poured in
torrents from a miserable angry sky. Too wet a day for bits of boys to
be trudging to school, so Titee's mother thought, so kept him home to
watch the weather through the window, fretting and fuming, like a
regular storm-cloud in miniature. As the day wore on, and the storm did
not abate, his mother had to keep a strong watch upon him, or he would
have slipped away.

At last dinner came and went, and the gray soddenness of the skies
deepened into the blackness of coming night. Someone called Titee to go
to bed--and Titee was nowhere to be found.

Under the beds, in corners and closets, through the yard, and in such
impossible places as the soap-dish and the water-pitcher even; but he
had gone as completely as if he had been spirited away. It was of no use