by a common impulse the boys made up their minds to abandon
the whole affair to him. They all ran home and hid, or else walked about
and tried to ignore it. But at this point the grown-up people began to
be interested; the mothers came to their doors to see what was the
matter. Yet even the mothers were powerless in a case like that, and the
enthusiast had to be left to his fate. He was found under a barn at
last, breathless, almost lifeless, and he tried to bite the man who
untied the can from his tail. Eventually he got well again, and lived
to be a solemn warning to the boys; he was touchingly distrustful of
their advances for a time, but he finally forgot and forgave everything.
They did not forget, and they never tried tying a tin can to a dog's
tail again, among all the things they tried and kept trying. Once was
enough; and they never even liked to talk of it, the sight was so awful.
They were really fond of the dog, and if they could have thought he
would take the matter so seriously, they would not have tried to have
that kind of fun with him. It cured them of ever wanting to have that
kind of fun with any dog.

TOPS

As the weather softened, tops came in some weeks after marbles went out,
and just after foot-races were over, and a little before swimming began.
At first the boys bought their tops at the stores, but after a while the
boy whose father had the turning-shop on the Hydraulic learned to turn
their tops, and did it for nothing, which was cheaper than buying tops,
especially as he furnished the wood, too, and you only had to get the
metal peg yourself. I believe he was the same boy who wanted to be a
pirate and ended by inventing a steam-governor. He was very ingenious,
and he knew how to turn a top out of beech or maple that would outspin
anything you could get in a store. The boys usually chose a firm, smooth
piece of sidewalk, under one of the big trees in the Smith neighborhood,
and spun their tops there. A fellow launched his top into the ring, and
the rest waited till it began to go to sleep--that is, to settle in one
place, and straighten up and spin silently, as if standing still. Then
any fellow had a right to peg at it with his top, and if he hit it, he
won it; and if he split it, as sometimes happened, the fellow that owned
it had to give him a top. The boys came with their pockets bulged out
with tops, but before long they had to go for more tops to that boy who
could turn them. Fr