Tubby proffered the apple and instantly Jake forgot his troubles in devouring it. In the meantime Tubby slipped to the wagon and selected a poster or two and a brush full of paste. Returning, amidst shouts of laughter from his fellow conspirators, he plentifully “shampooed” Jake with paste, and then slapped the gaudy yellow bills on till it appeared as if the astute Jake had enveloped himself in a bright orange overcoat.
“Now cut him loose,” ordered Rob, when Tubby, with all the satisfaction of a true artist, stepped back to view his completed work.
Merritt slipped the noose, and off down the road toward the farm dashed the gaudily decorated Jake, conveying the news to all who might see that on Saturday, April —, there would be a Grand Baseball Game at Hampton, Boy Scouts of The Eagle Patrol vs. The Hampton Town Nine.
As the boys, shouting and shaking with laughter, watched this truly original bit of advertising gallop off down the road, the one touch needed to complete the picture was filled in. From his dooryard emerged the farmer. The first thing his eyes lighted on was Jake. For one instant he regarded the alarmed animal in wonderment. Then, with a yell, he rushed into the house.
“Ma! ma! Lucindy!” he bellowed at the top of his voice, “Jake’s got the yaller fever, er the jaunders, er suthin’. Come on quick! He’s comin’ down ther road like ther Empire State Express, and as yaller as a bit of corn bread.”
At this stage of the proceedings the boys, their sides shaking with laughter, deemed it prudent to emulate the Arabs of the poem and “silently steal away.”
Looking back as they drove off they could see Lucindy and her spouse engaged in a mad chase after the overcoated Jake. Even at that distance the latter’s piercing cries reached their ears with sharp distinctness and added to their merriment. Rob alone seemed a bit remorseful at the huge success of Tubby’s novel advertising scheme.
“Applegate’s a pretty old man, fellows,” he remarked, “and maybe we went a bit too far.”
“Well, if his age runs in proportion to his meanness, he’ll outlive Methuselah,” declared Merritt positively.
The road they followed gradually led into a by-track that joined the main road they had left with one that traversed the north side of the island. It was sandy, and at places along its course high banks towered on each side of it. At length they emerged from one of these sunken lanes and found on their right an abandoned farm. Quite close to the roadside stood a big, rattletrap-looking barn. It had once been painted red, but neglect and the weather had caused the paint to shale off in huge patches, leaving blotches of bare wood that looked leprous with moss and lichen.