PETERNOT IN THE HOLLOW LOG.
“Help! ho! I’m killed!” said the voice, growing fainter and fainter.
“And buried!” Jack yelled back, laughing with wild excitement. “But you kick well, for all that!” And in went more rubbish about the old man’s heels. “How do ye like your bargain? You’ll have plenty of time to count your dollars before I send Pipkin over to help you out.”
And, having got the old man wedged so tightly into the log that he could not even kick, Jack, inspired with extraordinary strength for the occasion, caught up his basket of coin and started to run, followed by Lion.
CHAPTER X
“THE HUSWICK TRIBE.”
Running quickly behind walls and fences, the Huswick boys made a rapid raid upon Peternot’s melon-patch, and left it loaded with spoils.
“Say, Dock!” said Hank (nickname for Henry), skulking behind some bushes, “le’s put for Chatford’s orchard, and scatter rines by the way, so if we’re tracked the old man’ll think ’t was the deacon’s boys hooked his melons.”
“Go ahead!” said Dock (nickname for Jehoshaphat), carrying two fine ripe melons on his left arm while he dug into one of them with a jack-knife in his right hand. “Stoop, and keep clus to the fence!”