“W’en de puddle duck ’e leave de pon’
En start to comb e fedder–”
A stone struck the rock on which Stacy Brown was sitting. Some small particles flew up and hit him in the neck.
“Hey, you fellows quit that!”
“Den yo’ bettah take yo’ umbrell,
Kase dey’s gwine to be wet wedder.”
“Yeow!”
The fat boy left the rock, jumping right up into the air, for the wild yell had seemed to come out of the rock itself. At that juncture three pajama-clad figures rose from behind the rock and threw themselves upon him.
“Let go of my neck!” howled Chunky, fighting desperately to free himself, not having caught a glance at his assailants, though he knew well enough who they were. Stacy had calculated on aggravating them to the danger point, then slipping away and hiding until 93breakfast time. But he had gone a little too far with his so-called singing.
The boys picked the fat boy up and carried him, kicking and yelling, to a point just beyond the camp where a glacial stream trickled down, forming in a pool some three feet deep near the trail.
“I–I’ll get even with you fellows for this. Can’t you let me alone?” he cried.
Reaching the spring they held him by the feet and soused him into the icy water head first, thrusting the fat boy in until his head struck the hard bottom. He was howling lustily, howling and choking, when his head was out of water.