Halloween was sure to see a variety of pranks played in Scottsville. It was a fortunate front fence which had its own gate the next morning. All of which shows that there were boys in Scottsville. "Well, gates are good enough if you can't do any better," said Teddy, on the afternoon of a last day in October, "but I'm getting tired of them."
"What about signs, then?" asked Joe.
"Signs are all right—genuine signs up on buildings—not these pasteboard cards saying 'To Rent,' and sewing-machine boards nailed on fences, and such stuff."
"You don't think you could get a big store sign down, do you?" asked Fred.
"Yes, I do."
"Whose?"
"Oh, a lot of 'em. Mr. Parks's would be an easy one."
"But it's up over the door, and runs clear across the front of the building!" protested Joe. "And it's fastened up with irons!"
"Don't care if 'tis. We're good for it, if we only think so. I've been looking at it. The irons are loose, and there's room to stand on the ledge behind it. It would be just as easy as nothing to take it down."
"What would you do with it?" asked Joe.
"Well," answered Ted, slowly, "it says on it, 'M. Parks. Cheap Cash Grocery.' I think it would look sort of funny to take it up and put it on the school-house."
The other boys instantly fell in with this idea, though they still doubted their ability to get the sign down. Then Fred thought of the village's night watchman, who spent most of his time in the business part of town.
"But what about Billy Snyder?" he asked.
"Oh, my pa says Billy goes to sleep every night at nine o'clock," answered Teddy, confidently. "He says burglars might pull Billy's boots off and he'd never know it."
"Well, if he sleeps all night, he must walk in his sleep," said Joe, who lived farther down town than the others. "I've been awake 'way in the night sometimes, and heard him tramping round."
"But, don't you see, to-night he'll be up town looking out for fellows lugging off gates," returned Teddy, not to be convinced that there was any danger from the watchman. "Besides, Billy can't run for shucks."
It was accordingly arranged that the boys should meet that night across the street from Mr. Parks's store at half past ten; and promptly at that hour they were all on hand. It was a dark night, and the streets were deserted.
"It's—it's pretty dark, isn't it, Ted?" said Joe, in a loud whisper.
"Course," answered Teddy, contemptuously. "Want it dark, don't we?"
"Y—yes. Seen anything of Billy?"
"Oh, he's all right—way off somewhere. He won't be down here to-night."
They tiptoed cautiously across the street, and looked up at the sign.
"Has he been raising it?" said Joe, very earnestly.
"No, of course not," answered Teddy, impatiently.
"Well, it never looked so high to me before," insisted Joe.
"Oh, you're scared!" returned the brave Ted. "Better run home."
"I'm not scared. How are you going to get up?"
"Climb the eaves-spout on the corner. It's easy as nothing," and he started up.
He went up for five or six feet, but found it harder work than he expected. He stopped and rested a moment, then struggled on. This he did twice, feeling his hold weakening all the while. The last time he stopped he looked down. It seemed a long ways. His hold suddenly grew still weaker, and he slid back and rolled over on the ground.
"Are you hurt, Ted?" anxiously inquired the other boys.
"Of course not," answered Teddy, impatiently. "Came down to rest and put a little dust on my hands," and he went out into the street and spatted his palms on the ground.
[Pg 93]
"We ought to had Tom Ketcham along," said Joe, when Teddy came back. "He's a bully climber."
"Oh, pshaw!" said Ted. "If Tom Ketcham can climb any better'n I can I'd like to know it. Just watch me now;" and he started up again.
Thanks to the street dust or to a determination to show Joe that he was as good a climber as Tommy, he managed to get up this time and wriggle in on the cornice, which made a sort of ledge behind the sign. He loosened the iron on that end of the sign, and walked cautiously along, taking a piece of clothes-line out of his pocket, with which he intended to lower it. Just then footsteps were heard approaching.
"Billy's coming!" cried Fred, in a hoarse half-whisper, and he and Joe started down the street.
"Hold on there!" called Teddy to the younger boys, in a fierce tone. "Get in the doorway and keep still."
The others obeyed, and Ted himself lay down on the ledge behind the sign and flattened out as much as possible. It proved to be only a man on his way home, and he passed without seeing the boys.
Teddy's heart was thumping pretty hard as he thrust his chin over the edge of the sign and whispered, "You fellows down there?"
"Yes," answered the boys.
"Well, what you so scared at?" he asked, tauntingly, as a way of keeping up his own courage. "Look out, now, and I'll have this sign down there before you know it." He rose up and started to hurry along the cornice, but stumbled over something and went down with a great thump. Fortunately he fell on the ledge, and the sign kept him from rolling into the street.
"What's the matter, Ted?" asked the others, excitedly.
"Nothing. Don't know. Fell over something." He felt about in the darkness, and added: "Iron thing to put a big flag in. Forgot it was here."
He crawled on to the other end, and readily pulled up the other iron that held the sign in place. Then he crept back to the middle, looking out for the flag-staff bracket this time, and tied one end of his clothes-line around the sign. He took a half turn with the line around the flag-holder, which he stood astride, lifted up on the sign to release it from the supports on which it rested, and began to lower it slowly. "Get ready, there!" he whispered to the other boys. The sign was heavier than he had expected, and the rope hurt his hands. But he shut his teeth together and hung on, and slowly paid out the line. Just then there came the sound of a heavy step up the street. Teddy tried to let the rope go a little faster, but it suddenly shot through his hands. The sign struck the stone sidewalk broadside with a report like a gun, and the end of the rope, which was entangled with his feet, jerked him off the ledge, and he shot down after the sign. But the flag bracket which had tripped him up before saved him this time. Its upturned end caught under the back of his jacket, and stopped him with a jerk, his shoulder-blades against the front of the ledge, and his legs dangling in the air above the doorway. Between the crash of the falling sign and the heavy footsteps, which sounded precisely like the watchman's, the other boys had been too frightened to think, and had scampered down the ............