Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/29

 "Aw, c'm' on fishin', Billie!"

At the magic of that mysterious call, floating in on his honest labor, all the world seemed to change. The boards about Billie Steiner became a prison wall; the heavy rake fell from his listless hand. The seed of revolt sank deep in his breast. He scuttled secretively down toward the back fence. There he held converse with certain unseen conspirators, through a narrow crack between the imprisoning boards.

A moment later he had scaled his audacious way out to liberty. In the freedom of the alley, on the sunny side of the Steiner chicken-coop, the three boys talked things over, Piggie producing matches and Redney McWilliams a supply of punk and dried spatter-dock stems. A happy and pensive silence fell over the little group as they lit up. There was no hurry; the whole day was before them and it was not until their three throats were dry and their three tongues well blistered that they felt they had had their fill of the weed, and decided to move on.

Pud Jones was moodily receiving his first lesson in garden-making, under the wing of