Susie Mayne tumbled down and bruised her nose so badly that it bled, and Harry dragged her toward the fence in anything but a comfortable way.
"I'd be ashamed to run at every little noise before I knew where it came from," called out Ned, making his appearance from the bushes. "Cowards! cowards!"
The boys were for clubbing together and giving him a whipping, but concluded to leave that to the big boys. The girls all pronounced him, without a single dissenting voice, to be the "meanest boy they ever heard of," and then they all went off in high indignation.
Ned climbed up on the fence, and sat there for some time meditating what to do next. Pretty soon Mr. Belding's Sammy came along without seeing Ned, and got over into the meadow, and began picking berries.
Now, Ned hated Sammy Belding, and he thought it would be fine fun to throw stones at him. He calculated the chances of getting caught, and concluded if he stayed over the fence he could get enough start while Sammy was climbing to take him out of danger. So he filled his pockets with stones, and began throwing them at Sammy.
At first Sammy looked around in astonishment, and couldn't make out where they came from. But by and by he pretended that he was paying no attention to them. But if you could have looked under his broad-brimmed hat, you would have seen that he was keeping keen watch.
Ned continued to throw stones. All at once up jumped Sammy, and made for the fence. Ned was taken entirely by surprise, but turned to run as soon as he realized that Sammy had discovered him. But he caught his foot on a stick, and down he went, and before he got on his feet Sammy had him, and proceeded to give him a good pounding, out of which he came with a black eye and a bloody nose. It was too bad the children couldn't have been there to see it.
"Throw stones at me again, will you?" said Sammy. "I'll teach you to mind your own business, if you don't know how."
Ned went home as soon as Sammy got through with him. He was hungry, and his whipping had discouraged him somewhat.
Harry had got home before him, and had reported his bad conduct. The result was that he was ordered to weed out three onion beds that afternoon. That made him groan in spirit. He hated weeding in the garden about the worst of anything in the world.