me on Saturday
instead of on Monday, Mr. Ball might have taught the Greenbank school
until to-day,--that is to say, if he hadn't died or quite dried up and
blown off meanwhile.

For when Riley and Ben Berry saw this flight of pigeons begin on Monday
morning, they remembered that the geography lesson was a hard one, and
so they played "hooky," and, taking their guns with them, hid in the
bushes at the top of the hill. Then, as the birds struck the hill, and
beat their way up over the brow of it, the boys, lying in ambush, had
only to fire into the flock without taking aim, and the birds would drop
all around them. The discharge of the guns made Bob Holliday so hungry
for pigeon pot-pie, that he, too, ran away from school, at recess, and
took his place among the pigeon-slayers in the paw-paw patch on the hill
top.

Tuesday morning, Mr. Ball came in with darkened brows, and three extra
switches. Riley, Berry, and Holliday were called up as soon as school
began. They had pigeon pot-pie for dinner, but they also had sore backs
for three days, and Bob laughingly said that he knew just how a pigeon
felt when it was basted.

The day after the whipping and the pigeon pot-pie, when the sun shone
warm at noon, the fire was allowed to go down in the stove. All were at
play in the sunshine, excepting Columbus Risdale, who sat solitary, like
a disconsolate screech-owl, in one corner of the room. Riley and Ben
Berry, still smarting from yesterday, entered, and without observing
Lummy's presence, proceeded to put some gunpowder in the stove, taking
pains to surround it with cool ashes, so that it should not explode
until the stirring of the fire, as the chill of the afternoon should
come on. When they had finished this dangerous transaction, they
discovered the presence of Columbus in his corner, looking at them with
large-eyed wonder and alarm.

"If you ever tell a living soul about that, we'll kill you," said Ben
Berry.

Riley also threatened the scared little rabbit, and both felt safe from
detection.

An hour after school had resumed its session. Columbus, who had sat
shivering with terror all the time, wrote on his slate:

"Will Riley and Ben B. put something in the stove. Said they would kill
me if I told on them."

This he passed to Jack, who sat next to him. Jack rubbed it out as soon
as he had read it, and wrote:

"Don't tell anybody."

Jack could not guess what they had put in. It might be coffee-nuts,
which wo