William in Trouble Read Free Page A

o’ course,’ he
added.
    The boys in front demanded to handle the body, and were sternly refused.
    ‘’Course not,’ said William. ‘You don’ know how to hold the things. It’d drop into dust ’f you caught hold of it. Don’ you remember in that
Tootman’s tomb the things dropped into dust? You’ve gotter be very careful. I know how to hold it so’s it won’t drop into dust an’ you don’t.’
    ‘Why’d it wake the Capitol?’ piped the small boy at the back.
    William had merely read the title of the story in his book, but as the story itself was in the Latin language, he had not been able to make himself further acquainted with it. But William was
never at a loss.
    ‘’Cause it was time for him to get up, of course,’ he said crushingly.
    The next ‘discoveries’ followed thick and fast – a Roman hatpin, a Roman pipe, a Roman toasting fork and a Roman tennis ball. Upon all of these the excavator held forth
eloquently with great empressement if little accuracy. The audience was warming to the game. Each ‘discovery’ was cheered loudly and the account of the excavator challenged at
every detail. The excavator liked that. His eloquence thrived on contradiction. He proved conclusively that the little figure of the Lincoln Imp upon the hatpin was the figure of one of the Roman
gods, ‘Joppiter or Minevus or one of ’em – or I don’ say it isn’t Romus or Remus or the wolf.’
    ‘Or the goose,’ put in the small boy at the back.
    ‘Yes,’ said William kindly, ‘I don’ say it isn’t the goose.’
    He proved too, from the presence of a pipe among his other ‘discoveries’, that smoking, far from having been discovered by Sir Walter Scott, as the small boy insisted, had been one
of the favourite pastimes of Julius Cæsar during his residence in England. An empty match box, lying not far from the other discoveries, said by the excavator upon examination, to be
‘mos’ cert’nly ole Roman,’ was admitted by most of those present to be conclusive proof of this.
    The ‘discoveries’ might have gone on indefinitely had not Farmer Jenks appeared upon the scene. The sight of the Outlaws had that effect upon Farmer Jenks that the proverbial
‘red rag’ is supposed to have upon the proverbial bull. When the Outlaws weren’t climbing his fences, they were treading down his meadowland, or walking through his corn or
climbing his trees or birds’ nesting in his woods. They didn’t seem to be able to live without trespassing on his land.
    Farmer Jenks spent a good deal of time and energy chasing the Outlaws. On this occasion he first saw a crowd of boys (he hated boys) on the public path that bordered his ploughed field. He then
noticed that the crowd was distinctly encroaching upon his ploughed land. Finally he saw ‘that boy’ (thus always in his mind he designated William) and the rest of them actually digging
up his field. He rushed at them with a yell of fury.
    The chief excavator, with great presence of mind, caught up the basket in which his ‘finds’ had been placed, jumped across the ditch, and scrambled through a hole in the hedge. The
others followed.
    Farmer Jenks had outgrown the youthful slimness of his earlier days. Even the occasional physical exercise which the pursuit of the Outlaws gave him had done little to keep down his weight. He
was just in time to seize the smallest boy (who was the last to attempt the hole in the hedge) by the scruff of his neck.
    The smallest boy, though of inconsiderable stature, possessed well-developed teeth which, with a quick twist of his neck, he planted firmly in Farmer Jenks’ detaining hand. Farmer Jenks
released him with a yell, and the small boy, smiling sweetly to himself, scraped through the hole and trotted as quickly as he could after the others, who were already disappearing in the
distance.
    Farmer Jenks turned wrathfully and began to kick back the earth into the hole.
    William reached home breathless, but, on