"The calf's grandmother?" asked Hen Rowe.
"Didn't know you had any grandmother," said Bennet.
"Charley's hit on the very thing," declared Ned Morningstar. "We'll let three or four other fellows into the joke, and I'll be captain, and we'll wear masks, and all the old clothes we can beg, borrow, or take, and get ourselves up prime as a No. 1 band of reg'lar young villains. Aha! your money or your life!" making a lunge at small Al.
"But you won't really hurt Lady Harriet?" said the little fellow, an anxious look coming into his soft brown eyes. "He's good to me, and gives me candy, and took me fishin' once."
"Took you fishin'!" repeated Charley Bennet, counterfeiting the greatest astonishment. "If he did, I'll bet he never let you catch a fish. He'd 'a fainted when he saw it a-wriggling on the hook."
"He did too," answered Al, stoutly. "I caught four, and six crabs, and he got eight," adding, frankly, "but he said he didn't like to catch them, only his grandmother said he must."
"Very reprehensible old lady," said Hen Rowe, gravely, "to allow her greediness for fish to trample on the softest feelings of her grandson's head—I mean heart. But don't be afraid, Smallbones"—stroking Al's dark curls—"we won't hurt him, not a bit; make your mind easy about that. He shall live to take you a-fishin' again.
"It does him good to wake him up once in a while," added Ned Morningstar, "he's such a turtle. I think I see his face when we all shout 'April-fool'!"
At dusk the next evening, after Grandmother Lord had gone to the sewing society, six or seven dreadful-looking objects came splashing through the mud up the road which led to her cottage. They were dressed in uncouth garments of all sizes and colors. Hats, brimless, or with brims very much turned up or very much turned down, two flaming red turbans, and a round handleless basket, through the open wicker-work of which the hair of the wearer straggled in the most outlandish and porcupinish manner, constituted their head-gear. The leader carried a gun. The others were armed with hatchets, knives, and clubs. All their faces were hidden by paper masks painted in various colors. "This is the house," said one of them, in a voice that seemed to come out of the ground beneath his feet, as they ranged themselves on the front porch, and he rapped sharply on the door with the stick he carried. It opened, and there stood Lady Harriet, gazing out with horror-stricken eyes upon the motley gang. "Your money or your life!" demanded he of the gun, at the same time pointing the weapon at the trembling boy.