He fastened the bridle to the spigot and mounted in hot haste, kicking his little heels into the bleached staves, and plying the riding whip like a young fury. The horse acted badly ("Dodd's" horses always acted badly), and he jerked smartly on the bridle rein to subdue him. It was rare sport, and the lad fairly reveled in it, in his little heart defying those who had forbidden him this pleasure, and glorying in his triumph.
But "the way of sinners is as darkness, they know not at what they stumble," and "Dodd" was destined to "take a header" forthwith. The jerks on the reins drew the spigot from its place, and the first he knew it was dangling in the air over the end of the barrel. He leaned over, fully to observe this fact, and saw the cider shooting out in an amber stream and flooding all the ground.
"Hurray," he yelled, "that's a bully waterfall!" and he thrust his whip into the stream to see it spatter, hopping about meantime.
It was just at this instant that grandfather Stebbins came out of the barn, and, hearing the shout of the boy, looked over that way and took in the situation. He was over seventy, but he covered the ground from barn to barrel in most excellent time.
"Hi! hi!" he shouted as he ran. "Stop it up! Stop it up!"
"Dodd" saw the old man coming, and realizing something of the situation, he began to beat a retreat, taking the spigot with him.
"Here! you young Benjamite" ("Dodd" was left-handed, and the old gentleman was well posted in Bible lore), "bring back that spigot."
But the boy ran like a white-head that he was, and a race of several yards ensued before he was caught. But the old man was wiry and was urged to his topmost speed by the press of the circumstances. He caught "Dodd," and collared him with a grip such as the boy had never before felt. He dragged the young rogue back to the barrel in no gentle manner, and thrust the plug into the hole, saving a mere remnant that remained of the contents of the cask, and then devoted himself to the little scamp whom he still held.
For a few times in a lifetime Fortune puts into our hands the very thing we most want at the very time we most want it, and this was one of the times when the fickle goddess favored the old man Stebbins.
"Dodd" had dropped the riding whip that he had been using, beside the barrel, and it lay where it fell. It was a tough bit of rawhide, hard-twisted, and lithe. The old man's hand caught it instinctively, as if drawn to it by an irresistible attraction, and before the young lawbreaker, whom he held by the collar, could say, or think, "what doest thou?" he plied it so vigorously about his legs and back that the culprit thought for a moment that he had been struck by lightning. He yelled from very pain for the first time in his life, from such a cause, and tried to find breath or words to beg for a respite, but in vain, for the blows fell thick and fast and they stung terribly, every one.