"Mean? You'd have said it was mean if you'd been waked up in the middle of a sermon the way I was. I must have been dreaming of foot-ball seems to me, for I'd tried to put one of my toes right through the back of the next pew, and the noise it made was—well, boys, I can't say how much there was of it, but they must have started that pew for a drum. I sat straight up and looked at Mr. Simmons, but he'd stopped preaching, and he was looking at me, and I heard father coughing fit to kill himself; and ma, she had her head down, and Mrs. Wiggles whispered, 'Sakes alive!' to Aunt Jane, and she said, 'Any boy that'll abuse a cat like mine'; and if I didn't wish that pew was curtained in you may eat me."
"Did they turn you out?"
"Well, no; but on the way home I heard Mrs. Wiggles tell ma she was afraid how I would turn out if I grew up the way I'd begun. I walked slow all the rest of the day, for fear one of my feet would get away from me again."
"Oh, pshaw!" said Sid Thayer. "Foot-ball didn't do it. I tell you what's the matter. There's too much kick in you naturally. You can't help it. And if you don't play foot-ball or something of that sort you'll never work it out, and it'll be always making some sort of trouble for you."
"Do you s'pose that's it?"
"Of course it is. I've heard people say such things ever so many times. Just you come right along now, on our side, and there won't be half so much kicking in you when you get through."
"No, sir!" shouted Wash Handy. "Barney's on our side. We've got the ball mended, Barney. It kicks beautiful!"
"If I thought Phin'd be any safer to-night," hesitated Barney. "But then there's that pew! You never heard such a bang. I don't think the cat'll let me come near enough again unless he's rolled up in something. Did you sew up the rip in the ball, Sid?"
"I? Sew that seam? Look at it! Old Quin did it, the harness-maker. Isn't it lovely? Every stitch as hard as wire! Come on, Barney."
"Well, Sid, the way my feet feel just now I must kick at something, and the down-town boys chose me on their side. We can choose sides over again after the first game. I don't know but it might be good for me."