The Grammar School Boys of Gridley Part 31

"Come on out with it!" coaxed Spoff Henderson.

"Ain't he the mean one--keeping it all to himself?"

"If d.i.c.k has anything hidden in his sleeve," broke in Tom Reade, "he'd show a lot of sense, wouldn't he, telling it to a lot of you fellows with loose-jointed tongues? Why, it would be in the evening paper, and the folks we want to torment would be at their gates waiting for us."

"We won't tell--won't breathe a word! Honest!" came in instant denial.

"I'll tell you just one thing, fellows, if you think you really can keep it to yourselves," grinned d.i.c.k.

"Go ahead!"

"Don't trust these talkative Indians with anything in advance, d.i.c.k,"

protested Tom Reade.

"Yes, yes--go ahead!" cried the boys.

"You won't tell, fellows, will you?" d.i.c.k fenced.

"Cross our hearts we won't."

"Well, then, fellows, the truth is that you are all on the wrong scent.

I haven't thought up a blessed prank for to-night."

"Aw!" came an unbelieving chorus.

"Let's make him tell. Get hold of him. We'll paddle d.i.c.k Prescott until he'll be glad to tell."

There was a rush, but Dave and Tom got in front of d.i.c.k.

"Who wants to try the paddle first?" asked Dave, his fists clenching, as he faced the mischievous Grammar School boys.

"But I haven't thought of a thing, fellows," protested Prescott.

"Say, I want some of you fellows to help me take off old Pond's gate to-night," called Toby Ross. "We can take it down and hang it on the fountain in the square. That'll be a good mile from his house, and old Pond will be awful mad, because he'll have to tote it all the way back himself. He's too stingy to hire a teamster to take it back."

"And that's your idea of fun is it?" demanded d.i.c.k.

"Sure!" grinned Toby.

"It might be for a seven-year-old, but it sounds pretty stupid for an eighth grader."

"What do you want me to do, then--set old Pond's house a-fire?" queried Toby with an injured air.

"We'll have to take down a lot of signs and change 'em," proposed Ned Allen.

"What do you think of that, d.i.c.k?" asked Spoff Henderson.

"That sounds kiddish, too, doesn't it?" objected d.i.c.k. "And the trick is at least three times as old as Gridley."

"We can slip in at the back of George Farmer's place," suggested Wrecker Lane. "You know, he's always bragging about the fine milk he serves.

Well, if we can get in at the cooling trough in his yard we can empty half the milk out of each big can and fill it up with water. Then won't he hear a row from his customers about watered milk?"

That brought a guffaw from some of the youngsters, but d.i.c.k shook his head.

"That's kiddish, too," he remarked.

"Say, what do you call kiddish tricks?" Hoof Sadby wanted to know.

"Why, things that have been done, over and over again, by small boys.

All the tricks you fellows have named have been done by our grandfathers. That's why I call 'em kiddish. A fellow who can't think up a new one is only a kid. Use your brains, fellows."

"Well, if you're so all-fired smart, you tell us a new one that has some ginger in it," growled Wrecker.

"I told you that I hadn't any," retorted d.i.c.k. "I admit that I'm dull.

But, if I do play any tricks to-night, they'll have to be just a little bit new. Boys of our age haven't any business traveling around with Hallowe'en jokes that are so old that they've voted and worn whiskers for forty years. It isn't showing proper respect for old age."

"d.i.c.k has a few new ones in his tank. Don't you worry about that,"

muttered some of the wise ones. "You just find d.i.c.k & Co. on the street to-night, and stick to 'em, and you'll see plenty of fun happening."

"I'll tell you something else that we fellows are growing a bit too old for, too, if you want to know," d.i.c.k offered presently, for the crowd still insisted on hanging out close to this usually fertile leader in fun.

"Fire away," groaned Spoff.

"Well, then, I mean the kind of tricks that destroy people's property.

The fellow that s.h.i.+es a stone through the window of some one he doesn't like, or who carries off gates, or tramples flower beds is only a cheap penny pirate."

That was rather daring, for d.i.c.k's condemnation had touched rather closely some forms of mischief that boys always imagine as belonging to them on Hallowe'en night.

However, the general opinion was against quarreling with d.i.c.k. Without him and his chums on the streets, the Grammar School boys knew that there wouldn't be as much sport.

"You're trying to think up some good ones, aren't you?" asked Dave, as he and d.i.c.k were about to part on the homeward way at noon.

"Yes, of course; but I hope you other fellows have brains that are working faster than mine is to-day."

"Oh, you'll have something ready by to-night," laughed Dave.

"I hope so."

That afternoon the boys and girls in Old Dut's room did not appear to have their minds very much on their lessons. A man of Old Dut's experience knew why.

"I'll stay at home and sit tight on my place to-night," murmured the princ.i.p.al to himself. "Like as not I'm slated to be one of the biggest Hallowe'en victims."

When d.i.c.k reached Main Street that evening he found himself instantly the center of a crowd of at least twenty boys from the Central Grammar.

"What'll we do, d.i.c.k?" came the hail.

"Anything you like," agreed Prescott.