Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/130

 When the burst of merriment that followed these words, and in which Frank joined as heartily as any of his companions, had somewhat subsided, the narrator continued:

"I am free to confess that I didn't see any thing funny in the way the old woman jammed that long-handled dipper into the kettle and sent its boiling contents flying toward us, but it was very amusing after it was all over, and I woke up in the night and laughed about it. Of course the defiant squatters were overpowered after a while, but not until Matt and both his boys had been knocked flat, and one of the guides had disarmed the old woman by running in and kicking over her kettle of water. The officer was determined to arrest the last one of them for resisting his authority; but Mr. Hastings, who happened along just then, and who thought that neighbors so undesirable could not be got rid of any too quick, told the constable to chuck the squatter and all his belongings into the punt and shove them out into the lake, after giving them fair warning that they would be sent up as vagrants if they stopped this side of Sherwin's pond."