HOW HOD’S TROUSERS WENT TO THE SQUIRE’S HOUSE.
HANK leaned over the log,—his lank frame and astonishing length of limb
favoring the execution of his stratagem,—and seized Lion by one of his
hind legs while his attention was diverted by a feigned attack upon the
treasure. Finding himself caught, the dog wheeled furiously; but on the
instant Hank, swinging his hind-quarters upon the log, drew them between
two prongs of an upright limb, forked near the trunk, where it was easy
to hold him, with his head hanging.
“Now who’s got a good stout string?”
“Here’s a whiplash in Hod’s breeches pocket!”
Tug leaped the log with it, and assisted in lashing Lion’s hind legs to
the limb, below the fork in which he was suspended by his thighs. The
poor fellow’s struggling and yelping were of no avail: there he was,
hung.
Meanwhile Cub held his pair of bags open, and the coin was emptied into
them. The squire stooped with many a groan to pick up the scattered
pieces that rolled on the ground. Then the well-freighted trousers were
set astride Hank’s lofty neck; at which he began to prance and kick up,
in playful imitation of a colt—or should we say a giraffe?—with a
strange rider.
“Now ye needn’t but one of ye go with me,” said Peternot; “or at the
most two.”
“Two can’t carry all that silver,” said Cub. “We must all help. And edge
along towards Aunt Patsy’s wood-lot, if ye don’t want to meet Jack and
the deacon. Comin’, Hod?”
“I can’t without my breeches!” replied the discontented youth.
In no very pleasant mood he saw his trousers ride off on Hank’s
shoulders,—still visible above the undergrowth after the squire and the
rest of his odd escort had disappeared from view. So great indeed was
Hod’s chagrin at being left behind in this way, that he found it
necessary at once to set himself about some sort of mischief. First he
broke open the best of the remaining melons, and ate as much as he could
of them. Then he gathered up all the rinds and fragments and placed them
in the basket, together with bits of rotten wood, covering the whole
with the frock which Jack had left spread over the coin.
“Now when he comes he’ll think his money is there, till he looks, then
won’t he be mad!” With which happy thought Hod ran and hid in some
bushes, where he could watch the fun.
Meanwhile Hod’s trousers, with their legs full of coin, were shifted
from shoulder to shoulder of his big brothers, as the strange procession
emerged from the woods and moved across Peternot’s pasture, the squire
lamely bringing up the rear. Arrived at his house, he brought out a
meal-sack, and the coin was emptied into it. He then took two of the
half-dollars and offered them to Hank.
“What’s that fer?” said the tall youth, stooping to look at the money as
if it had been some curious insect.
“I owe ye a dollar,” said Peternot.
“So ye du,” replied Hank, “but I prefer to take my pay in money as is
money, if it’s the same thing to you.”
“You yourself said you believed this was bogus,” added Dock; “an’ I
don’t s’pose you want to be hauled up for passin’ it.”
Peternot felt the force of the remark, and with a long face took from
his pocket-book a bank-note, which he handed to Hank.
“The same to me, if you please,” said Dock. “I said a dollar _apiece_.”
The squire protested against such extortion, but finally, reminded that
he had said two of the boys might come with him, he paid Dock also. Then
Cub and Tug held out expectant hands; whereat he flew into a passion.
“I don’t even know ’t the coin is good; and d’ ye think I’m goin’ to
submit to any such swindle? Clear out, you melon-thieves!”
“All right!” said Cub, coolly, with his hand on the meal-sack; “but if I
don’t take my dollar with me, I take this right back where we found it,
and give it to the boy.”
The firm position thus taken by Cub being approved by his brothers,
especially by Tug, the poor old squire saw no way but to yield, and Cub
and Tug were paid.
“Now a dollar for Hod,” said Hank.
“For Hod!” roared out the squire, like a man tortured beyond endurance.
“Hod didn’t come!”
“But his breeches did. A dollar for his breeches,—if that will suit you
any better. And quick!” said Hank, “or the coin goes into ’em agin, an’
back to the basket.”
“I hain’t got another dollar!” said Peternot, trembling with wrath and
vexation.
“You’ve a V there; we can change it,” suggested Cub.
“Take it, and may the rum ye buy with it pizen ye, you pack o’ thieves
and robbers!”
“That sounds well from you, that have jest robbed a poor boy of what you
more ’n half believe is good money, but which we’re dumb sure is bogus,
or else we never ’d have helped ye off with it. Thieves and robbers,
hey? Hear him, boys!”
Hank laughed derisively, and all went off chuckling gleefully over their
Sunday afternoon’s job, while the squire, entering his house, slammed
and bolted the door behind them.
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