Now he had found Captain Hollowboy's garden rake, and was shouting, "Give it to 'em, boys! You kill the hornets, and I'll pull down the nest. We must keep it for the Captain."
"He wants it for a specimen," explained Steve Whitney.
"Will he pickle it somehow?" asked Andy; but at that moment it seemed to him as if he had leaned against a red-hot pin, and he clapped his hand to his side. He had better not have dropped his bunch of weeds just then, for in a second more he was calling out, "Van! Van! did you say you knew where the mud was?"
"Here it is, Andy, right by the cistern. The Captain must have stirred it up for himself."
"And they kept right on stinging him while he was putting it on."
"Yah! That's just what they're doing now. They can sting right through a shirt sleeve."
"Sting? I guess they can; right through anything. Oh dear! I've got another! Boys, we won't leave one of 'em!"
"Boys! boys! I say, boys, what are you doing? I never indicated my assent to the application of fire!"
"I declare!" exclaimed Deacon Whitney, as he came through the gate behind Captain Hollowboy, "the young rascals have set them all a-going."
"Can you see, Deacon? I can not with any accuracy. Where have they located the combustion?"