Page:Quinby and Son (1925).pdf/18

 "How about the time, Peg," one of the boys cried, "that you put the kerosene down Mr. Perriwinkle's well?"

Peg Scudder threw back his head and the thick muscles of his neck shook with his mirth. His rough bursts of merriment, the uncertain qualities of his temper, had more than once been told in Herbie's hearing; and so, though Bill Harrison pressed forward through the gathering, he himself held back.

"Blast me, but that was a lark," Peg cried. "Perriwinkle hopped about like a sparrow. 'You're a rowdy,' he said. 'And, mark me, you'll come to no good end.' 'Go on, you,' I said, 'or I'll drop you down the well, too.' He went tearing around to my house and told my Old Man."

"Did you get a hiding, Peg?"

"Oh, he was a hard one, was my Old Man," Peg answered in accents of admiration. "He lambasted me with the buckle end of a strap. That was the night before he got killed, and he lammed me good. 'That will hold you until I get back in the morning,' he said, but he never came back. Blast me, but that was a joke on the Old Man. And this Perriwinkle—his name was Herbie—stopped me on the street and said, 'Well, I suppose you'll go to the devil now.' Oh, he was a sweet one, this Herbie Perriwinkle. All he needed was a petticoat and ribbons in his hair. Regular little ninny."