“You might as well give it up,” says Collins. “You’ve made a bully try, and you had us scared. Two boys couldn’t have done better. You’re all right.”
We weren’t looking for compliments, but, just the same, I couldn’t help feeling Collins was a pretty good sort of a fellow. He was doing wrong, but he didn’t realize it. I don’t believe it’s as bad to do wrong when you don’t know you’re doing wrong as it is to do wrong on purpose. But I may be mistaken.
“I’m going to stand half-way up the stairs,” says Collins, “an’ I’m not going to let you past. No good to try. I’ll be as gentle as I can, but you’d better own up you’re beaten. Don’t feel bad about it. You put up a dandy fight.”
Mark Tidd was pinching his cheek and squinting his eyes. Somehow that made me feel a little lighter inside. I’d been feeling like I’d swallowed a ton of lead by mistake.
“Well,” says Mark, “we m-m-might as well git away from here.”
“That’s the spirit,” says Collins. “But, all the same, I’ll be standing right on those stairs, so don’t try any monkey-shines.”
“Come on, Binney,” says Mark, as down-hearted as could be. We walked to the corner and turned. “Now r-r-run,” says Mark. He started off helter-skelter, and I stuck right by him. At the back corner of the building he stopped. “Over the f-f-fence,” he panted.
We were over in a jiffy, and then over the next fence, and that brought us into the back yard of the yellow-brick building.
I guess Mark had been expecting to go up the back stairs and get in that way, but the stairs were all built in and there was a padlock on the door. Mark stood looking at it like it had reached out and slapped him, then he looked up at the second story as if he thought maybe he’d try to jump.
“Um!” says he. “Um!” Then he began looking all around. At last he banged his right fist against his other hand and pointed to a low barn on the back of the lot that faced the next street. “Can we get up th-th-there?” he asked.