Mr. Jones hung up his crooked cane, put a stick of wood in the stove,
scraped his pipe with his knife, and blew through the stem.

"I guess he wasn't hurt much," replied the father. Then he added, as
he put a live coal in the pipe: "I s'pose you went an' babied him an'
spoiled it all." There was a puffing pause, after which Mr. Jones
added, "If you'd let him go more, an' didn't worry your head off when
he was out of sight, he'd amount to more."

Mrs. Jones always gave her husband three moves before she spoke. "Yes!
yes! you'd make that boy a regular little rowdy if you had your way,
William Jones."

In the mean time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle in the
alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his spindling legs
would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They were grinning broadly
when he came to them. It was Piggy Pennington who first spoke, "Oh,
pa, I won't do it any more," repeating the phrase several times in a
suppressed voice, and leering impishly at Mealy.

"Aw, you're makin' that up," answered Mealy in embarrassment. But
Piggy continued his teasing until Abe Carpenter said: "Say, Mealy, we
want you to go to the cave with us to-morrow; can you?"

The "can you" was an imputation on his personal liberty that Mealy
resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom dollar I can."
Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him, and the boys sat in
the dirt behind the barn, chattering about the new boy, whose name,
according to the others, was "Bud" Perkins. Mealy entered the