This was not all. A little neighbor, Gilbert Brown, came to the house at all hours, and between the two boys there was a noise of driving nails, firing pop-guns, shouting and running from morning till night.
They built a "shanty" of the boards which grandpa was saving to mend the fence, and in this shanty they "kept store," trading in crooked pins, home-made toys, twine, and jackknives.
"Master chaps, them children are," said Abner, the good-natured hired man.
"Hard-working boys! They are as destructive as army-worms," declared grandpa, frowning, with a twinkle in his eye.
Horace had a cannon about a foot long, which went on wheels, with a box behind it, and a rammer lashed on at the side—not to mention an American flag which floated over the whole. With a stout string he drew his cannon up to the large oilnut tree, and then with a real bayonet fixed to a wooden gun, he would lie at full length under the shade, calling himself a sharpshooter guarding the cannon. At these times woe to the "calico kitty," or Grace, or anybody else who happened to go near him! for he gave the order to "charge," and the charge was made most vigorously.
Upon the whole, it was decided that everybody would feel easier and happier if Horace should go to school. This plan did not please him at all, and he went with sulky looks and a very bad grace.
His mother sighed; for though her little boy kept the letter of the law, which says, "Children, obey your parents," he did not do it in the spirit of the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother."
In a thousand ways Mrs. Clifford was made unhappy by Horace, who should have been a comfort to her. It was sad, indeed; for never did a kind mother try harder to "train up a child" in the right way.
It did not take Horace a great while to renew his acquaintance with the schoolboys, who all seemed to look upon him as a sort of curiosity.
"I never knew before," laughed little Dan Rideout, "that my name was Dan-yell!"