“Doctor, do you see that! I’ll discharge him! He hasn’t cut it off. That Irishman!”
“Isn’t that what the boys denominate a spring-board?” asked the doctor.
“That’s it, sir. I told Pat Murphy to cut it off this very morning. They walk out to the end of that, sir, and tilter up and down, and then jump into the water.”
“Is there no danger of its breaking and drowning them?” asked the doctor.
“Drown ’em! Drown so many pickerel,” exclaimed the miller. “No, sir. Hold up a ton, sir. Why, it’s clear white pine. Stole it from me, most likely. Walk out on it. Try it yourself, Doctor.”
“I? Oh, no, indeed,” responded the doctor. “That would never do. I weigh very little, to be sure, but I could not think of such a thing.”
As the learned gentleman drew his thin and wizened form back to its most dignified uprightness, however, a riotous yell and splash from Zeb and his friends stirred the blood of the miller to the very bounds of endurance.
“Come on, boys,” shouted Zeb; “let’s have a jump from the board, and show ’em what we can do.”
The face of the miller grew red, and he actually drew a long breath as he strode forward.
He knew too well the strength of a two-inch pine plank to have any misgivings, and, just as a wild shout rang out from the window of the grist-mill, and Pat Murphy sprang insanely through it to the great heap of sour “bran” beneath, Gershom Todderley gave the treacherous wood the full benefit of his overfed weight.