Squint went over to where Jack was lying and took hold of the scruff of Jack's neck. Jack winked at me in his good-natured way, and made a show of pulling back some, but finally let Squint pitch him into the deepest part of the swimming-hole. His head went clear under—which is a thing no dog likes, let alone being picked up that way and tossed about. Every boy there set up a shout, and when Jack scrambled up the bank, wagging his tail and shaking the water off himself, the humans all yelled, “Sling him in again, Squint!”
Jack trotted over to where he had a bone planted at the foot of a walnut tree, and began to dig for it. Squint followed, intending to sling him in again. I wondered if old Jack would stand for any more of it. Jack didn't; but before he got that fool boy to give up his idea he had to pretend like he was actually trying to bite him. He threw a good scare into the whole bunch of them, and then made out like he'd seen a rabbit off through the trees, and took after it. Mutt Mulligan and I went with him, and all the boys followed, naked, and whooping like Indians, except two that stayed behind to tie knots in shirts. When we three dogs had given the whole bunch of them the slip, we lay down in the grass and talked.
“Some day,” says Jack to me, “I'm afraid I'm really going to have to bite that Squint boy, Spot.”
“Don't do it,” says I, “he's just a fool boy, and he doesn't really mean anything by it.”
“The thing to do,” says Mutt Mulligan, “is to fire him—just turn him loose without a dog to his name, and pick up another boy somewhere.”
“But I don't like to give Squint up,” says Jack, very thoughtful. “I think it's my duty to stick to him, even if I have to bite him once or twice to keep him in his place.”
“You see,” Jack went on, “I'm really fond of Squint. I've had him three years now, and I'm making a regular boy of him. He was a kind of a sissy when I took charge of him. His folks made him wear long yaller curls, and they kept him in shoes and stockings even in the summer-time, and they dressed him up in little blouses, and, say, fellows, you'd never guess what they called him!”
“What?” says I.
“Percival,” says Jack. “And they wouldn't let him fight. Well, I've seen him turn into a real boy, a bit it a time, and I think it's up to me to stick to the job and help with his education. He chews tobacco now,” says Jack very proudly, “and he can smoke a corncob pipe without getting sick; and I'll tell you what, Spot, he can lick that Freckles boy of yours to a frazzle.”
“Huh!” says I, “there's no boy of his age in town that dast to knock a chip off that Freckles boy's shoulder.”