“But what is it?” insisted Hansel.
“It’s when the Towners come up here after supper and try to get on to the steps of Academy Building and cheer. I don’t know when the thing started, but it’s been the custom for years. They try to take us Schoolers by surprise and rush the steps before we can stop them. Our play is to keep them away, or, if they get there, to put them off. But if they once make the steps they’re pretty sure to stay there. It’s a lovely rough-house, isn’t it, Bert? Last year they did about as they liked with us, and all we could do was to bother them. They stood there on the steps and cheered for themselves for about half an hour. When they started home, though, we got at them in fine style and chased them all the way back to the town.”
“I got a peach of a crack on the side of the head last year,” said Bert, with a trace of pride in his voice.
“Well, some of the Towners got a heap worse,” laughed Harry. “Simpson had most of his clothes torn off him before he got home. Simpson was their leader,” he explained for Hansel’s enlightenment.
“And Poor! Do you remember?” cried Bert. “He lived at Mrs. Hyde’s, and two of us fellows chased him inside the yard and he tried to dive through an open window and the window came down on him when he was half way through and pinned him there. We didn’t do a thing to him!”
“But how do you know when the raid’s going to occur?” asked Hansel.
“We don’t,” Harry replied. “We only know that it usually comes the first of this week. We have to be on guard. But we’ve got a dandy scheme fixed up for this time. I’d tell you, Dana, but it’s a sort of a secret; we don’t want it to get out, you know.”
“That’s all right,” said Hansel. “I suppose I’ll learn about it in time.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Bert, “if you learned about it to-morrow evening. I have an idea that they mean to raid then, for Royle told me yesterday that young Gates, one of the Towners, told him that it was going to come off Tuesday. That looks to me as though they wanted to put us off the track.”
“Sure! That’s just what it means,” Harry answered with conviction. “Anyhow, we’ll be ready for them whenever they come. They won’t find us asleep the way they did last year, you can bet on that!”