They dropped the melons, and started to run, but they couldn't get to the back gate without passing close to me, and I knew they wouldn't try that. So they started to run round the house to the front gate, and I ran after them. When they reached the new front walk, they seemed to stop all of a sudden, and two or three of them fell down.
PRYING THE BOYS OUT.
I didn't wait to hear what they had to say, but went quietly back, and got into the house through the kitchen-window, and went up-stairs to my room. I could hear them whispering, and now and then one or two of them would cry a little; but I thought it wouldn't be honorable to listen to them, so I went to sleep.
In the morning there were five boys stuck in the askfelt, and frightened 'most to death. I got up early, and called father, and told him that there seemed to be something the matter with his new walk. When he came out and saw five boys caught in the pavement, and an extra pair of shoes that belonged to another boy who had wriggled out of them and gone away and left them, he was the most astonished man you ever saw. I told him how I had caught the boys stealing melons, and had played I was a ghost and frightened them away, and he said that if I'd help the coachman pry the boys out, he would overlook it. So he sat upon the piazza and overlooked the coachman and me while we pried the boys out, and they came out awfully hard, and the askfelt is full of pieces of trousers and things. I don't believe it will ever be a handsome walk; but whenever father looks at it he will think what a good boy I have been, which will give him more pleasure than a hundred new askfelt walks.