“You think I’m fooling, but I mean it,” he said seriously. “Fire is nothing to play with.”
“’Less you want to burn down a carpenter shop!” shouted Tim Roon. Then he skated away, with Fred Baldwin after him.
“Don’t you mind him,” whispered Meg to Bobby, as they joined hands and struck out across the ice. “He just likes to be mean.”
It did seem as though Tim liked to be mean. He and Charlie Black, instead of skating off with the others, hung around the edges of the pond and tried to tease the younger children who were amusing themselves by making slides on the ice. There were half a dozen who had no skates and these played with Twaddles and Dot. Left alone, they would have had a happy time, but Tim and Charlie continually tormented them. Finally when Tim put out his foot and tripped Morgan Smith, a boy about a year older than Twaddles, for the third time, that quick-tempered lad lost his last shred of patience.
“I’ll fix you!” he shouted, and grabbing a long burning stick from the fire he started after Tim.
The other children scattered and Morgan, his stick leaving a trail of fire behind him, was running after Tim when Twaddles cried a warning.
“Look out! Stanley’s coming!” he called.
Morgan turned, but not quickly enough to throw the stick back in the fire. Stanley skated up to him and not even Mr. Carter, the twins thought, could look more severe than he did.
“What do you mean, pulling a stick out of the fire like that?” demanded Stanley. “Don’t you know the little Davis girl was burned yesterday doing that? I’ve a good mind to spank you with that very stick.”
This was too much for Twaddles, who saw Tim grinning on the edge of the crowd.