"Aw, we'll spell it all right, won't we, Ginger?" demanded Sparrow Bangs.
"Let me at them—that's all," boasted Fred.
When they got to the upper island, there was nobody there. They pulled their boats ashore and went up into the wood. There was the shack they had built the previous fall, almost as good as new.
Of course, the roof was rotting and wet, but it was pretty dry inside and they patched up the walls and roof in a little while.
Then they built a fire, made cocoa, opened a can of condensed milk, and spread out the sandwiches and pie that Mary had furnished. In the midst of the picnic, a chunk of sod popped right into the tin cup out of which Pee Wee was drinking.
"Oh! who did that?" demanded the fat boy.
In a moment a big sod came slap into the fire, and scattered the burning brands. Then followed a fusillade from the woods on two sides of the camp!
"The Bedlamites! I see that Larry Cronk!" yelled Howell Purdy.
The feast was spoiled. The boys from the rival school had pulled up a lot of soft, wet turf, and they bombarded the boys from Rockledge nicely.
It was an uneven fight at first, for the picnickers had been totally unprepared for such an attack.