se, and Dave showed the way
around. There was the same little cot on which he had been wont to
stretch his weary limbs after a hard day's work in the fields, and there
were the same simple cooking utensils with which he had prepared many a
meal for himself and the old professor. Conditions certainly had
improved wonderfully, and for the time being Dave forgot his trouble
with Aaron Poole. No one could again call him "a poorhouse nobody."

From the cottage the boys walked to the barn. As they entered this
building they heard earnest talking in the rear.

"You are a mean lad, to tease an old man like me!" they heard, in Caspar
Potts's quavering tones. "Why cannot you go away and leave me alone?"

"Don't you call me mean!" came in Nat Poole's voice. "I'll do what I
please, and you can't stop me!"

"I want you to leave me alone," reiterated the old professor.

"I will--when I am done with you. How do you like that, old man?" And
then Nat Poole gave a brutal laugh.

"Oh! oh! Don't smother me!" spluttered Caspar Potts. "Please leave me
alone! You have ruined my clothes!"

"I wonder what's up?" said Dave to his chums, and ran through the barn
to the rear. There he beheld Caspar Potts in a corner. In front of him
stood Nat Poole, holding a big garden syringe in his hands. The syringe
had been filled with a preparation for spraying peach trees, and the son
of the money-lender had discharged the chalk-like fluid all over the
aged professor.

"Nat Poole, what are you up to!" cried Dave, indignantly, and, leaping
forward, he caught the other youth by the shoulder and whirled him
around. "You let Professor Potts alone!"

"Dave!" cried the professor, and his voice showed his joy. "Oh, I am
glad you came. That young man has been teasing me for over a quarter of
an hour, and he just covered me with that spray for the peach-tree
scale."

"What do you mean by doing such a thing?" demanded Dave. "Give me that
syringe." And he wrenched the article from the other youth's grasp. He
looked so determined that Nat became alarmed and backed away several
feet.

"Don't you--you--er--hit me!" cried the money-lender's son.

"What a mean piece of business," observed Roger, as he came up, followed
by Phil. "Nat, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"Oh, you shut up!" grumbled Nat, not knowing what else to say.

"I always thought you were a first-class coward," put in Phil. "Now I am
sure of it."

"This is none of your affair, Phil