“What’s that?” asked Dan.
“I don’t know,” replied Freddy. “You better not come too near, or you may catch it.”
“Pooh, no!” said Dan, who was poised easily on his lofty perch. “I never catch anything. But I’ll keep ready for a jump, or Brother Tim will catch me, and there will be trouble for sure. And as for Brother Bart, I don’t know what he’d do if he thought I had come near you. Jing! but he gave it to me hot and heavy about letting you get that tumble! He needn’t. I felt bad enough about it already.”
“Oh, did you, Dan?” asked Fred, quite overcome by such an admission.
“Rotten!” was the emphatic answer.
“Couldn’t eat any dinner, though we had cherry dumpling. And Brother Bart rubbed it in, saying I had killed you. Then I got the grumps, and when Dud Fielding gave me some of his sass we had a knock-out fight that brought Father Rector down on us good and strong. I tell you it’s been tough lines all around. And this is what you call—vacation!” concluded Dan, sarcastically.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Freddy. “The tumble didn’t hurt me much. I guess I was sort of sick anyhow. And to fight Dud Fielding!” The speaker’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, I bet you laid him out, Dan!”
“Didn’t I, though! Shut up one eye, and made that Grecian nose of his look like a turnip. It ain’t down yet,” answered Dan, with satisfaction. “He fired me up talking about Aunt Win.”
“Oh, did he?” asked Freddy, sympathetically.
“Yes: said I ought to be ditch-digging to keep her out of the poorhouse, instead of pushing in with respectable boys here. Sometimes I think that myself,” added Dan in another tone. “But it wasn’t any of that blamed plute’s business to knock it into me.”