gy's wet, glistening
arm and stumbled nervously into the stream, with an "Oo-oo!" at every
uncertain step. When the water came to Mealy's waist Abe cried, "Duck!
duck, or I'll splash you!" The boy sank down, with his teeth biting
his tongue as he said, "Oo! I wouldn't do you that way."

When the shock of the tepid water had spent itself, Mealy's grin
returned, and he shivered happily, "Oo--it's good, ain't it?"

Ten minutes later the boys were diving from the roots of the elm-tree
into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten minutes after
that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by
splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys
for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves
with coats of mud, adorned--one with stripes made with the point of a
stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with
snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path
to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it
came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted arms
like the barbarian warriors which they fancied they were. They swam up
the stream leisurely, and, as they rounded the bend that brought their
landing-place into view, the quick eye of Piggy Pennington saw that
some one had been meddling with their clothes. He gave the alarm. The
boys quickened their strokes. When they came to the shallows of the
ford they saw the blue-and-white starched shirt of Mealy Jones lying
in a pool tied into half a dozen knots, with the water soaking them
tighter and tighter. The other boys' clothes were not disturbed.

"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other boys
echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up people, but
there is never a moment in after-life more poignant with grief than,
that which stabs a boy when he learns that he must wrestle with a
series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As Mealy sat in the broiling
sun, gripping the knots with his teeth and fingers, he asked himself
again and again how he could explain his soiled shirt to his mother.
Lump after lump rose in his throat, and dissolved into tears that
trickled down his nose. The other boys did not heed him. They were
following Piggy's dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging
limb of the elm-tree.

They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham shirt, blue
overalls, and a torn stra