“Come on!” cried the boys in a chorus, and soon Tommy and the others, stopping work on the baseball diamond, were hurrying toward the old swimming hole. Within a few minutes they were in the water, splashing about, diving off a spring-board, swimming across the hole under water, leaping over and ducking each other and having a general good time.
It was quite warm, and the water was not a bit chilly, so they stayed in for some time.
“Well, I’m going out,” finally announced Tommy. “Can you fellows come over to my house this evening, and we’ll see about having a meeting, getting a captain, manager and things like that? We want to arrange about playing other nines, too.”
Several of the boys promised to come, though some had to stay at home and study, and, while busily thinking of how he could manage to raise money for uniforms, Tommy scrambled out of the water and ran toward the place where he had left his clothes.
“Hello!” he suddenly exclaimed. “This is queer!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Billie. “Did somebody tie your clothes in knots?”
“I should say they had!” exclaimed Tommy, “and hard knots, too! Look at the legs of my pants! I’ll never get them out, and my shirt and coat, too! And where are my shoes?”
The other boys aided him in looking around in the grass for them. But though the shoes of everyone else but Tommy Tiptop were there, his had disappeared.
“Guess I’ll have to go home barefoot,” he remarked, ruefully, “and my mother won’t like it. Those shoes were almost new.”