After school the subject was renewed.
"I won't go," said one. "Didn't she set the dog onto us one day?"
"Neither will I," insisted another. "Don't I remember how she sassed us for gettin' chestnuts in the wood patch back of her corn lot?"
Three boys, however, were waiting for Eddie a little way down the road, who promised to help him, but were very anxious that Jim Pennell should not know about it.
Eddie reported his experience to Tom and to his mother.
At eight o'clock on Saturday morning, Tom, as good as his word, locked his shop, and hung out an old sign which read, "Gone a-fishin'," and drove away with four boys in the wagon. Five others ran and clambered in as the party went merrily down the village street, and finally Tom protested that he would not have any more along.
What a time they had, to be sure, in the orchard! Some climbed out on the limbs and shook them vigorously, while others held sheets to catch the apples.
At two o'clock they were all collected in heaps—big red Spitzenbergs, plump greenings, brown russets, and luscious Baldwins. "Seventy bushels of 'em if there's one," said Tom.
Two trips were made to the cider mill, the boys going along and helping to unload, though it must be confessed some of them were a great deal better pleased to put long straws into the open bungs of the barrels, and suck the fresh sweet cider until they could not hold another drop.
There is nothing the country boy likes more than to watch the men at work in a cider mill. If you, my reader, live in the city, it is likely that you have never seen such a place, so I will venture to tell you how it looks.