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Updated: May 13, 2025
The door swung back again as Sid DuPree and Silvey stamped noisily in. It developed that they were on a similar errand, and presently Miss Thomas cut the cord around the big, blue bundle and gave them their weapons. The trio left in high spirits, puffing through the empty tubes, making imaginary shots at open windows, and blustering loudly about past performances, as they sauntered along.
His mother swung back the door anxiously. "What on earth's the matter?" "School doctor sent me home," her son explained. "Think's I've got the measles." "Nonsense! Let me take a look at you." His eyes were reddened to an alarming degree, but there seemed little else the matter. "He did," John insisted. "Told me to stay home today to see if they got worse. Silvey and I are going fishing."
John and Bill were always bossing things; ought to let him lead once in a while; thought they were the earth, anyway. John shot him a keen glance and whirled upon Silvey. "First choose!" he shouted. "'Tain't fair," objected his rival. "I wasn't ready. Draw lots." Perry Alford plucked a half-dozen blades of grass of varying lengths and folded them carefully.
There had been discussions and disputes as to speed, and John's wagon, a long, well-oiled affair with a coat of red, discarded house paint on its framework, had come to grief in a collision with Brown's, one sunny afternoon. Even Silvey, the optimist, who had furnished the motive power, had looked at the wreckage in well-founded despair. "Where's yours?" Red turned abruptly to the Harrison boys.
"Won't be back until dinner time." Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have to pitch in alone.
The faint tinge of orange in the eastern sky deepened to a radiant crimson glow. A glistening, fast-widening, crescent sliver of the sun appeared on the horizon and painted a long golden path on the rippled lake, and still the lonely perch waited in vain for a companion in misery. Silvey jerked his line from the water and examined the untouched bait in disgust.
A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him. When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.
"Come on, Silvey, let's see that big tree of yours." So they stamped up the Silvey front steps and into the house. "There," said Bill, pointing proudly at the family fir. John gave one disgusted glance. "That? Why that's set on a little table! Wouldn't come near the ceiling if it was on the floor. Come down to my house and I'll show you a real tree." They left the Silvey house noisily.
"Wanta fight!" announced a tousled-headed, wash-suited five-year-old with determination. "Go on!" retorted Silvey incautiously as he looked down upon the petitioner from the lofty height of ten long years of life. "This game ain't for babies. It's for men. You'd get hit in the eye and go home to ma-ma in a minute. You can't play."
For it was here that the Silvey family lived, and if Bill were his boon companion with tastes akin to his, strange to relate, the Silvey elders were light sleepers with the same propensities as his own parents for curbing unlawful fishing expeditions, and there was need of caution.
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