There is nothing a boy perceives so quickly as a chance for fun, and before the teacher could rise, Sammy McClay also went tumbling over the grinning Fred Sheldon, with such violence, indeed, that he struck the bewildered instructor as he was trying to adjust his spectacles to see where he was.
Then came Joe Hunt and Jimmy Emery, and Fred Sheldon capped the climax by running at full speed and jumping on the struggling group, spreading out his arms and legs in the effort to bear them down to the earth.
But the difficulty was that Fred was not very heavy nor bony, so that his presence on top caused very little inconvenience, the teacher rising so hurriedly that Fred fell from his shoulders, and landed on his head when he struck the earth.
The latter was dented, but Fred wasn't hurt at all, and he and his friends scrambled hastily into the school-house, where the other children were in an uproar, fairly dancing with delight at the exhibition, or rather "circus," as some of them called it, which took place before the school-house and without any expense to them.
By the time the discomfited teacher had got upon his feet and shaken himself together, the four lads were in school, busily engaged in scratching their legs and studying their lessons.
Mr. McCurtis strode in a minute later switch in hand, and in such a grim mood that he could only quiet his nerves by walking around the room and whipping every boy in it.