This was not so easily done. Charlie’s ugly temper was up. He tried to scramble back to Mr. Sherwood’s side, but the larger boys held him firmly in spite of kicks and blows which he dispensed without ceremony, until, fairly tired out, he sat down on the floor of the wagon, biting his thumbs and looking like a lump of ill-nature. This display of ugliness spoiled the pleasure of the drive. It was worse than a shower of rain, for it threw a black cloud over the spirits of the party, and made them all unhappy.
They had not fully recovered their cheerfulness, when they came to Duncan’s pond, and in sight of old Joe Bunker’s flagstaff, from the top of which the stars and stripes proudly floated in the fine breeze of that October afternoon.
“There’s the bunting you gave old Mr. Bunker!” observed Guy to his friend Richard.
“Yes, there it is, sure enough, and old Timbertoe is as proud of it as a little boy is of his first pair of pantaloons,” said Richard, laughing at the oddity of his own comparison.
“Or, as Richard Duncan was, of that famous shot from his pea-shooter, which hit Professor Nailer’s long nose,” said Norman Butler, chuckling and rubbing his hands, at the recollection of that exciting scene at the Academy, a few months before.
“Or, as my sister Jessie is of her Uncle Morris,” said Guy.
Mr. Sherwood’s loud whoa! whoa! and the stopping of the horses in front of Joe Bunker’s barn, put an end to this series of comparisons. This was the place where they were to leave the horses; for butternut—trees were quite numerous in some extensive pastures which were situated round the shores of Duncan’s pond. “Old Joe” welcomed the party, and put up the horses, while the boys pulled out the baskets from beneath the wagon-seats, and made ready for the nutting.
But Master Charlie was not yet rid of his sulks, and would not stir from the wagon. He wanted to go home, he said; he didn’t care for nuts, and would not go with his companions. In vain did his sister entreat, Mr. Sherwood command, and Jessie try her coaxing powers. Little Will, the celebrated child-conqueror, was playing the tyrant over him; and the unhappy boy gave himself up, hand and foot, to his enemy. He would not quit the wagon.
“Never mind! leave him where he is, until his good-nature comes back, if he has any,” said Mr. Sherwood.
“I am afraid he will get into mischief after we are gone, if we do that,” said Guy. “Perhaps I had better stay here and mind him.”