“Ho!” I yelled. “Think you’re smart, don’t you? Well, we heard you in that wagon, all right, and we know where uncle is. You needn’t think you can smouge him while we’re around. We’re goin’ to go to him as quick as we can and tell—” Then Mark clapped his hand over my mouth, and all of a sudden I knew what I’d done.
“Git into the h-h-house, quick!” he stuttered. “Q-q-quick!”
Both Collins and Jiggins were coming toward us on the run. We didn’t wait, but went pell-mell through the door and slammed it after us. Mark locked it. Then he looked at me.
“Binney,” says he, slow and deliberate and cutting, “if I had a yaller dawg that didn’t know b-b-b-better than to d-d-do sich a thing I’d s-s-skin him and use his h-h-hide for a r-r-rope to hang him with.”
I didn’t have a word to say, and I can tell you I felt pretty mean. Who wouldn’t, I’d like to know? Just by being fresh I’d got us all into a peck of trouble that nobody could see the end of, and maybe fixed it so Collins and Jiggins would get uncle’s mine, after all. I felt like crying.
Collins or Jiggins pounded on the door, but it was Collins who called to us to open. We didn’t say a word, just kept perfectly quiet. We could hear them talking outside, but couldn’t make out what they said.
“Will they bust in?” Plunk asked, his teeth already beginning to chatter.
“’Tain’t l-likely,” says Mark. “What good would it d-d-do them? Eh? Well, folks with sense don’t g-g-generally do things unless there’s some g-good to be got out of it.”
“What’ll we do?” This was Tallow.
“Looks like we’ll stay right here.”