THE TRAP THAT PELEG SET
"There's Growdy's shack and barns!"
"Don't seem to be anything stirring, fellows!"
"Look out for a trap. Once bitten, twice shy. Perhaps he's just laying
for some fellers to come along, and play some more paintin' job trick.
I heard that he said he would find some way to stop the nuisance!"
This from "Red" Betts, who was known as a cautious chap, and able to
vanish at the first sign of danger better than any fellow in town.
"Suppose we hold up here, and send out scouts to see how the land lies?
That's the military way of doing it," ventured Bobolink.
"A good idea, and I appoint you, Bobolink, with Jud Elderkin, to carry
out the little business," remarked Paul, in a low tone.
"Trot along, you chaps; the rest of us will bunk right here alongside
the road and wait till you report," and suiting the action to his words
William dropped in his tracks.
A brief time elapsed, and then the pair of spies returned.
"Not a single light in the house, and the coast clear, fellows; so come
on!" and Jud waved his long arms as though enjoying his brief assumption
of authority to the limit.
It would have doubtless astonished the old farmer had he chanced upon the
scene just then. A young moon hung in the western sky, and while giving
little light, still the figures of some score of stooping boys might have
been discovered, advancing in broken formation along the road.
The leader silently opened the gate leading to the dooryard of Growdy's
place. His barns stood near the house, so that the confusion which
reigned was all the more noticeable. Its equal had never been known
around Stanhope; and could only be expected in the case of a place where
a woman's influence for cleanliness had been totally absent during the
past ten years.
Over to the stable went some of the boys.
Paul had talked it all over with them as they walked, and each knew what
part he was to take in the general clean-up.
To some of them it was simply another form of a lark. Boys are queer
creatures even to those who imagine they know them well. They must be
doing something all the time. Once get them started in the right
direction, and they will labor just as sturdily to bring about a good
object, as under other conditions, they would work to play a joke. It all
depends on how they begin. And thanks to the sagacity of Paul, he had
succeeded in interesting them in the novelty of his proposal.
Some secured rakes and hoes, and began to systematically gather up the
scattered loose material that covered the place, ankle deep. Others
pushed the wagons, and the old dilapidated buggy, back into the shed in
systematic order.
They worked like busy bees, chuckling, whispering and evidently getting
considerable fun out of the strange frolic.
Paul himself went over the job to make sure that it had been thoroughly
done, and that nothing remained uncared for.
Up to this time fortune had favored the busy workers, since no sound had
come about to betray their presence.
"How is it, Paul?" asked Jack Stormways, as he ran across the other in
making his rounds.
"About at the end. The boys are putting the old tools back where they
found them; and then we can go home. It's the best half hour's work
any of us have done for a good while, I tell you, Jack."
"Some of the boys don't seem to think it quite so funny now as when they
started in. They say they can't see where the pay is going to come in,
and have begun to grumble," whispered the other.
"Perhaps it never will, and again, who knows what might come out of this?
Anyhow, the ladies will be glad to see this dirty place clean for once.
Some others I know may take a notion that if Old Growdy can clean up they
ought to. Listen! what in the world is that?"
A rattling of tin pans came to their ears, as if one of the boys in
prowling around had accidently upset a bench on which a milk bucket and
some flat tinware had been airing.
"That settles it! He'll hear all that row and be out on us in a jiffy!"
said Paul, annoyed because the affair had not gone off according to
schedule.
"Look! there's a light sprung up inside the house. He's getting his
trousers on, all right, and the sooner we skip out the better!" declared
Jack.
The boys now came running from every direction, while sounds from within
the nearby farmhouse told that Old Peleg must be switching on his heavy
boots.
So Paul, knowing that the only thing left now was a hasty flight, gave
the signal arranged for. It meant every fellow for himself until they
had put a reasonable distance between themselves and the seat of danger.
Then they could meet at a given place, and go home, laughing over the
whole affair, and wondering what Peleg would think when he saw what a
miraculous transformation had taken place while he slept.
Paul happened to be the very last to run away. Instead of passing out by
way of the gate as most of the others did, Paul started to pass over the
fence at an inviting point, where two of the bars seemed to be down, and
he could gain the adjoining woodlot, from which he might reach the road
at his pleasure.
But alas! the best of plans often go amiss. And that gap that yawned in
the fence proved a delusion and a snare.
Hardly had Paul made the jump over the two lower bars than he found
himself suddenly jerked down, and his head came with a crash on the
ground, causing him to see a myriad of stars.
Nor was this all. An unknown power at the same time seemed to lift his
lower extremities up in the air at least two feet, so that he appeared to
be trying to swim on dry land.
For a moment he was puzzled to account for this remarkable happening;
but as his head cleared a bit, and the stars ceased to shoot before his
mental vision, he began to get an idea as to what had happened.
Apparently the fellows who had painted the farmer's pigs on the other
night must have entered his place from the woods, and through this gap
in the fence.
Old Peleg had remembered, and anticipating another invasion sooner or
later, he had succeeded in arranging some sort of ingenious trap on the
spot.
In jumping Paul had set off the trigger, with the consequence that a
noose had instantly tightened around his ankles, and a hogshead partly
filled with stones, starting to roll down the slope, had drawn his legs
upward.
Well, at any rate there he was, clinging to the grass, and with an unseen
force pulling at his elevated feet, so that he was helpless to assist
himself.
It was very funny, no doubt, but Paul hardly felt like laughing, just
then. He tried to wriggle around so as to get at the loop, in the hope
that he might loosen the same; but all his efforts were wasted.
Old Peleg had builded better than he expected when he set that trap in
which to catch his tormentors.
He was coming now to see the result of his cunning. No doubt he had heard
the tremendous rattle as the bulging barrel of stones started to roll
down the slope after being liberated; for even a deaf man could hardly
have missed that racket. Lantern in hand he was even now hobbling along,
chuckling in anticipation of what he would find in his trap.
Closer came the limping farmer. Paul saw now that he held a vicious black
whip in his right hand, while gripping a lighted lantern in the other.
Laughter in the distance told that the boys had all taken themselves off.
They could not suspect what a dire calamity had befallen their leader, or
a rescue party must have certainly been formed.
Another minute and Peleg had arrived at the fence, and bending over held
the lantern so that its light fell upon the figure of his captive.
"Gut ye, have I? Mebbe ye'll try to paint some critters of mine agin, an'
mebbe ye won't!" said the farmer, as he raised the ugly black whip which
he held, with the evident intention of bringing it down good and hard on
the helpless boy.