“Rich!” chuckled Jimmy Compton. “A gran’ show free gratis fur nothin’. Don’t fergit the day an’ date!”
“They must be achin’ fur trouble,” suggested Henry or “Hank” Milleson. “I reckon if we went over to Elm Street fur a little game o’ poker they’d put the police on us. And fur them swells to be a-plannin’ to come over to Sycamore Pasture” (Hank called it “paster”) “to pull off a toy airyplane show, don’t mean nothin’ but defyin’ us. Ever’ one of ’em, from little Artie Trevor down to Coldslaw Bighead knows that. But say, kiddos,” went on Hank as he paused in the shuffling of a deck of greasy cards, for several of the gang were whiling away the sleepy June afternoon in the shade of the same big sycamore, “I got a hunch. Them kids are wise. They’re on. They ain’t comin’ over here ’less they’re fixed fur trouble. I’ll bet you they got somethin’ up their sleeves. An’ I’ll say this: Artie an’ his friends ain’t no milksops, ef they do run to makin’ toys. They ain’t got no right to come here a-buttin’ in, but ef they do, an’ it comes to a show-down who’s boss, an’ I got anything to do with the dispute, I ain’t a-goin’ to figure on puttin’ anybody down fur the count by tappin’ him on the wrist.”
“It’d be a crime to do it,” sneered Jimmy Compton, whose only activity, aside from flipping trains and fishing occasionally, was the collection and delivery of linen that his widowed mother washed. “I’ll show you what I think o’ them swells when I meet ’em. Meanwhile, here’s my sentiments.”
As he spoke, Jimmy turned from the card-playing group squatted on the grass, and without rising, took from his mouth a quid of tobacco and contemptuously flung it at the near-by sycamore. There it squashed against the circular that Nick Apthorp had stolen from Trevor’s garage. This, in derision, had been hung against the tree trunk.
The poster, the cause of the gang’s resentful comment, made this announcement:
First Monthly Tournament
Young Aviators Club
Toy Aeroplane Flying For
Distance and Altitude,
Sycamore Tree Pasture,
Saturday 2 P. M. Prizes.
Admission Free
Arthur Trevor, President.