“Well, I don’t know how it started,” replied Sam, “but I do know that it’s war to the knife now. Remember last Fall when we met him coming home from town in his buggy and Tyler Wicks walked up to the old horse and put his arms around his neck?”
“You bet! Say, that was funny, wasn’t it? The horse stopped short in the road and Old Fink was so astonished he didn’t know what to do or say for a minute!”
“And all the time Tyler was telling the horse that he was a ‘nice old plug’ and why didn’t he get a good, kind master.”
“But when Old Fink woke up he had a few things to say, didn’t he?” laughed Chesty.
“And the way he lashed out with his old busted whip was a caution! He got Tyler around the legs all right; he showed me the welts next day.”
“Just the same,” said Joe Williams, “he didn’t have any right to say we burned his haycock last September.”
“No, and he will think we did it as long as he lives. Nothing Benny could say made any difference with him.”
“Was it really burned?” asked Jack Borden.
“Oh, I guess it was burned all right,” answered Sam, “but none of us fellows knew anything about it. It was tramps, probably. We might have a little fun with the old codger, and swipe a few of his apples, but we don’t do things like that, you know.”