"What do you mean?" roared Tom, striving desperately to unclasp the strong fingers that were holding fast to his collar. "Let me up, or I'll give you cause to remember this night's work as long as you live. Let me up, I say."
"Well, I swan!" exclaimed the farmer, peering down into Tom's face, "I thought you made a poor fight for a man." Then hearing footsteps behind him, he looked up, and called out to some one who was approaching—"I say, Josh, they're only little brats of boys; they aint men at all. I wish I had a good apple-tree switch."
"O, now, you wouldn't use it on me if you had one," drawled Tom.
"Wouldn't! I'd like to know what's the reason?"
"Because you wouldn't dare do it. I always get even with any one who imposes on me, so you had better mind what you are about."
"I don't want any insolence now, for I aint in just the mood to stand it. If you and your crowd are the same fellows who have been prowling around here for the last week, you have stolen more than twenty dollars worth of garden truck. Get up here, you young robber!"
The farmer jerked his prisoner roughly to his feet, and by this time Josh came up. The arrival of re-enforcements, and the ease with which he was handled, convinced Tom that further resistance was useless, and he began to beg lustily.
"O, now, if you will let me go I'll never do it again," he pleaded.
"O yes, we'll let you go," was the encouraging reply. "We'll lock you up till morning, and then take you over to the 'squire; that's what we'll do with you. Catch hold of him, Josh."
His captor held fast to one arm, Josh took hold of the other, and Tom was marched off between them. Of course he pulled back, and tried hard to escape; but the stalwart young farmers walked him along without the least difficulty. When they reached the house, they pulled him up the steps that led to the porch, and opening a door, ushered him into the kitchen, where Tom found himself in the presence of the female portion of the farmer's family.