"No, you didn't," muttered Gizzard, as there materialized before his eyes a sadly ruptured drumhead. "What you goin' to do about it, anyway?"
"Goin' to do?—I've done it!"
"Done it! What'd you do?"
"Why, Biscuit brought the drum back here to the barn. I had all I could do to keep him from takin' it back to ol' lady Burton jus' it was. But I tol' 'im Mr. Ingraham wasn't through with it yet, so he left it." The boys grinned knowingly at each other as Sube continued: "Well, I washed the printin' off and jus' soon as it got dark I sneaked the drum up on Burton's front porch and turned the good side up, and then I rung the bell and ducked. I hid behind a tree and watched and pretty soon ol' lady Burton opened the door. When she got her eye on the drum she looked all around for somebody, and when she couldn't find anybody she took it inside.
"The next day she come to call on my mother, and I thought she'd come to squeal on me, and I listened at the door so's to know what to say; but she never said a word about the drum at all!"
"She didn't!" cried Gizzard delightedly.
"Never peeped about it!" Sube assured him. "But you'd ought to heard her rip ol' Prof Ingraham up the back!"
"What's he been doin'?" asked Gizzard.
"I don't know. I couldn't understand; but she called him all kinds of names! She said he was underbred and ign'rant and ill-mannered and illiterate and a lot of stuff like that, and I most b'lieve we'll have a new principal next year!"
"Say! She'd ought to gone to school to him for a while! He's the worst principal to chew about manners I ever saw."