Part 3 (1/2)
”If old Mammy Shrader is hurt, you'll be to blame,” called Snap after him.
”He's a coward,” was Giant's comment. ”I wish I had got a whack at him. He is much larger than I am, but I am not afraid of him.”
While this scene was transpiring Shep and Whopper had helped old Mammy Shrader to a seat on the porch of a house not far from where she had gone down. The old woman complained of a pain in her side and it was next to impossible for her to take another step.
”I'll have to go home,” she panted. ”But how am I to get there?”
”Here comes Mr. Sell in his grocery wagon,” cried Whopper. ”Perhaps he'll give you a ride.”
”Maybe he will--I buy my things from him,” answered the old woman.
The grocer was stopped and the situation explained, and he readily volunteered to take Mammy Shrader to her home, located at no great distance. He and the boys helped her into the wagon.
”The boy who struck her ought to be horsewhipped,” said the grocer.
”Fun is one thing, but hitting an old woman is quite another.”
”Just what I say,” answered Shep.
”Well, I knocked him down anyway,” said Snap, coming up, and Giant told the details of the brief encounter.
Snap volunteered to go with the grocer, and between them they soon had Mammy Shrader at her home and lying on a couch. Shep hurried home and told his father the particulars of what had occurred.
”I will drive over and see her,” said the doctor, and as his horse was. .h.i.tched up he went immediately.
”She is suffering from a sprain and from the jar,” said the physician, after an examination. ”She must take it easy for a week or so.” Then a neighbor, who had dropped in, said she would look after the patient during that time.
”Carl Dudder ought to be made to pay for this,” said Doctor Reed.
”The Dudders won't pay anything--Mr. Dudder is as miserly as they make him, even if he is well off,” said Whopper.
”Perhaps he can be forced to pay,” replied Snap.
When Carl Dudder heard that a doctor had been called in to attend Mammy Shrader he was much frightened. He went to consult Ham Spink about it. The two were hand-in-glove in everything.
”Are they sure you threw the s...o...b..ll?” asked Ham Spink, pointedly.
”They say they saw me.”
”Who says so?”
”Oh, Snap Dodge and that crowd.”
”Always that crowd!” muttered Ham Spink.
”They say they know you knocked Andrew Felps down,” went on Dudder, finding some consolation in the fact that Ham was in difficulties too.
”They didn't see a thing!” roared the dudish youth.
”Well, that is what they say.”
”Humph! Carl, they are bound to get us into trouble.”