Johnny went round to Mr. Juniper’s store, and asked for a cent roll of checkerberry lozenges. Mr. Juniper had no cent rolls of lozenges; but he had striped candy, and some quite large peaches, which he was willing, for reasons known to himself, to sell for a cent apiece. Johnny felt so thirsty, that he longed to bite of a peach: so he bought one, and turned back towards the garden. Having no knife to cut it with, he ate off his half going along; and this tasted so good, that he could hardly help eating Jimmy’s half. But he only nibbled the edges to make them even.
Turning a corner, he spied Jimmy, and jumped over into a field, so as to run across by a short cut. In the field he met Amos Dyke. Amos Dyke is a large boy, and a cruel boy. He likes to hurt small children who cannot hurt him.
Amos Dyke knocked Johnny’s elbow with a basket he was carrying, and made him drop the half-peach in the grass. Then Johnny began to cry.
“Now, if you don’t stop crying, I’ll eat it,” said Amos, taking up the half-peach, and setting his teeth in it.
“Oh! don’t you! don’t! give it to me! it’s Jimmy’s half!” cried Johnny. Amos took two bites, and then threw away the stone. The stone was all there was left after the two bites were taken. Johnny cried louder than before.
“Here! stop that! stop that!” some one called out from the road. It was Mr. Tompkins the lobster-seller. “Stop!” cried Mr. Tompkins. “Let that little chap alone! Why don’t you take one of your own size?”
The fact is, that Amos Dyke never does take one of his own size. He always takes some little fellow who can’t defend himself.
Just about this time the funny man came along with his umbrellas under his arm. The funny man is an umbrella-mender. Then Amos Dyke, seeing that two men were looking at him, whispered to Johnny, “Hush up! Quick! Don’t tell! Come down to the shore, and I’ll let you go graping with me in a boat. I’ll run ahead and get the oars, and you go get Jimmy.”
The boat was a row-boat. Johnny sat at one end, and Jimmy at the other. Amos Dyke sat in the middle, and rowed. Before starting, he fastened a tall stick at the stern of the boat, and tied his handkerchief to it, and called that the flag.
They rowed along-shore, then off beyond the rocks, then in-shore again, and farther along, for nearly a mile, to a place called “High Pines,” and there landed. The grapes grew in the woods, on the top of a steep, sandy cliff as high as a high house. Twice, in climbing this cliff, did the little Jimmies slide down, down, down; twice was poor Snip buried alive; and many times were all three pelted by the rolling, rattling stones.