We all started for the river, because it would be cooler there even if we didn’t go in, but on the way Mark found a four-leaf clover, and a white cat ran across the road in front of us, so he figured it out that if there _was_ any bad luck about Friday and killing a spider those two good-luck signs had knocked the spots off it. CHAPTER III Mark Tidd wasn’t given much to exercise, but that isn’t saying he couldn’t stir around spry if there was some good reason. He never wanted to play baseball or tag or anything where you had to run, and usually when a game was going on he’d be lying under a tree reading a book. He said it was a lot easier reading about a game than playing it, and more interesting than watching the kind we played. He read a good deal, anyhow, mostly, I guess, because you can sit so still to do it, and rest at the same time if you want to; and it was surprising the things he got to know about that were useful to us. Seemed like almost everything we wanted to do Mark would have read about some better way of doing it, and that’s how we came to get up the K. K. K., which stands for Ku Klux Klan. We were all sitting in Tidd’s yard where the shade of the barn fell, and nobody had said anything for quite a spell. I was beginning to want to do something, and it was easy to see that Plunk and Binney were wriggling around uneasy like; but Mark he lay with his little eyes shut tight, looking as peaceful and satisfied as a turtle on a log. All of a sudden the idea popped into my head, and I yelled right out, “Let’s git up a secret society.” Mark opened one eye and sort of blinked at me, and Plunk and Binney sat up straight. “What’ll we call it?” Binney wanted to know. “Who’ll be officers?” Plunk asked. “I dunno,” I says, sharp like, because they seemed to think I ought to have the whole thing planned out for them to do without their lifting a hand. Mark rubbed his eyes and rolled over on his side. “What’s the main thing about a s-secret society?” he asks. “Payin’ dues,” I says, quick. “Havin’ somethin’ to eat,” Binney guessed. “Naw,” Mark grunts, contemptuous. “The main thing about a secret society is the s-s-secret.” We could see in a minute that he was right about that. “So,” he went on, “if we’re goin’ to have a secret society the first thing is to git a s-s-secret to have.” “I don’t know no secret,” Binney said, shaking his head hard. “Nor me,” said Plunk. I thought a minute, because I knew a couple of secrets, but they were secrets I didn’t calculate to tell anybody, least of all Mark and Plunk and Binney; so I just shook my head, too. “We’ll make a secret,” Mark told us. “How?” I wanted to know, because I didn’t see how you could go to work to make a secret, but I might have known Mark would find a way. “Did you ever hear of the K-k-k-ku K-k-k-klux K-k-k-klan?” “What?” I asked. He said it over again.