"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is like."
"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy field.
The broken glass and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the cucumber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the sparse, fresh grass blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers" purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they turned to their captain for advice.
"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at him in futile anger.
"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.
Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain, but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."
"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."
John dropped his rake over the fence on his return, and glanced at his watch as a precaution. It was nearly five! Blame the paper business anyway! Never did he start some important project but what time flew so swiftly that he had to leave just when things were getting interesting. He called an explanatory "paper time!" to his team mates, turned his implement over to Red, and left for the little delicatessen store.
All the next Monday afternoon the boys labored while their captain stood around with his hands in his pockets and watched condescendingly. John picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass, rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he beamed his approval.
"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.