Part 13 (1/2)
”'Tis so!” cried the girl.
”I tell you,” said the very shrewd-looking boy. ”We'll show it to you for ten cents.”
”I don't believe it,” repeated Sammy, but more doubtfully.
The girl laughed at him more scornfully than before. ”He's afraid to spend a dime--an' him with so much money,” she cried.
”I don't believe you've got a cherry-colored calf to show me.”
”Gimme the dime and I'll show you whether we have or not,” said Peter.
”No,” said the cautious Sammy. ”I'll give you a dime _if_ you show it to me. But no foolin'. I won't give you a cent if the calf is any other color.”
”All right,” shouted the other boy. ”Come on and I'll show you. Come on, Liz.”
”All right, Peter,” said the girl, quite as eagerly. ”Hurry up, raggedy-pants. We can use that dime, Peter and me can.”
The bare-legged youngsters got through a rail fence and darted down a path into a scrubby pasture, as wild as unbroken colts. Sammy, feeling fine after the bountiful breakfast he had eaten, chased after them wis.h.i.+ng that he had thought to remove his shoes and stockings too.
Peter and Liz seemed so much more free and untrammeled than he!
”Hold on!” puffed Sammy, coming finally to the bottom of the slope. ”I ain't going to run my head off for any old calf--Huh!”
From behind a clump of brush appeared suddenly a cow--a black and white cow, probably of the Holstein breed. There followed a scrambling in the bushes. Liz jumped into them with a shriek and drove out a little, blatting, stiff-legged calf. It was all of a glossy black, from its nose to the tip of its tail.
”That's him! That's him!” shrieked Liz. ”A cherry-colored calf.”
”What did I tell you?” demanded the boy, Peter. ”Give us the dime.”
”You go on!” exclaimed Sammy. ”I knew all the time you were story-telling. That's no cherry-colored calf.”
”'Tis too! It's just the color of a black-heart cherry,” giggled Liz.
”You got to give up ten cents.”
”Won't neither,” Sammy declared.
”I'll take it off you,” threatened Peter, growing belligerent.
”You won't,” stubbornly declared Sammy, who did not propose to be cheated.
Peter jumped for him and Sammy could not run. One reason why he could not retreat was because Liz grabbed him from the rear, holding him around the waist.
She pulled him over backward, while her brother began to pummel Sammy most heartily from above. It was a most unfair attack and a most uncomfortable situation for the runaway. Although he managed to defend his face for the most part from Peter's blows, he could do little else.
”Lemme up! Lemme up!” bawled Sammy.
”Gimme the dime,” panted Peter.
”I won't! 'Tain't fair!” gasped Sammy, too plucky to give in.