ssault.

The shadows of the house tops and the lindens spread across the street
and shut off gradually the flood of sunlight through the attic window.
The Mosher four-year-old trotted past, just out of range, on his way
towards home and an early supper. John wasted a few ineffectual peas on
a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof
gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk
of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side,
whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his pea
shooter.

"Better leave him alone," Sid cautioned.

"Can't do anything to us," John scoffed. "Doors are all locked. And
how's he going to tell our mothers when he doesn't know who we are?"

He filled his mouth anew, took aim with the long tin tube, and let fly.
Bill seconded him nobly. The quarry halted, looked upwards, and received
Sid's volley full in his face.

"He's coming up the steps," yelled John, who was watching the effect of
the attack. "Jiggers, fellows, he's coming up the steps."

They turned to fly to safety. But where was a haven of refuge to be
found? They could hear his angry footsteps tramping up and down on the
porch.

"Were those front windows locked?" Sid asked.

John shrugged his shoulders miserably. An angry pounding echoed through
the deserted hall and bare, cheerless rooms. They stole silently down to
the second floor.

"There's more closets to hide in, here," said John hopefully. He glanced
from a rear window to the little pantry gable which stood but a story's
height from the back yard. "If he gets in, we can climb out and drop. It
won't hurt much."

Their enemy tried the door again. Once a window rattled ominously. Sid's
face regained a little of its color. "They were locked after all.
Jiggers, there he is around the back!"

They drew hastily away from the opening as a purple, distorted face
glared up into theirs. A moment later, he was kicking at the back door.

"That's bolted, too," said Silvey thankfully. "I guess we're safe."

At last he left and went around to the front. They listened for a second
attack from that quarter. Not a sound in the house, save the dripping of
a leaky faucet in the bathroom.

"Come on, fellows." John led the way to the stairs. "We'll open the back
door and run like everything!"

The rapidly deepening dusk cast weird shadows through the empty rooms as
they tiptoed tensely to the first floo