OH, WHAT A DUCK!

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

"Is that the duck, Joe Biddle? The little stone on top of the big one?"

"That's the duck. Do you s'pose you could hit him from here, and scare him off his nest?"

"Nest? Why, it's bigger 'n a peck measure, and the stone on top isn't bigger 'n my two fists."

"The big stone's the nest. You're the first fellow I ever knew that didn't know duck. Guess you don't have much fun in the city. Charley McGraw, Sid Wayne never played duck in all his life."

Sid blushed in spite of himself, for he found that he was being "looked at" with a kind of wonder; but he had some help right away from Charley McGraw.

"Well, maybe he didn't. But we wouldn't play it with such a rig as that over in Putney."

"Putney!" sneered Bob Wilson.

"Over in Putney!" echoed Fred Babbitt. "What do they know about duck?"

"Go ahead with your ducks," responded Charley. "That one might about as well have been nailed on. Why, it's flat-bottomed, and the nest is a'most flat on top, and the duck-stones you've picked out ain't fit for cobblestones."

"Missed him!" shouted Bill Eaton, as Mort Senter's duck-stone struck the edge of the nest, and glanced away a few feet on the ground. In an instant more Mort was standing by his duck-stone, with his hand out toward it, waiting his chance to seize it and "run home" to the pitching line. It was Bill Eaton's duck on the nest, and Fred Babbitt was watching his own stone, almost under Bill's arm. Jake Potter was already on a clean run home, without being "touched," having made his escape while Bill was watching Mort Senter's throw.

PLAYING DUCK.—Drawn by S. G. McCutcheon.

"You see," said Joe Biddle, in pity for Sid's ignorance, "Bill Eaton can't get his duck away and have another chance to pitch till it's knocked off; and he can't then unless he grabs it, puts it back on the nest, and touches another fellow that's made a miss before that fellow can get away home. If one of 'em tries to take his duck-stone, though, any time, and Bill can touch him before he gets in with it, then that fellow has to be 'duck-tender' in Bill's place. Don't you see? Jake Potter's just got away. Now he can throw again. It wouldn't take you long to learn."

"Guess not," said Sid, confidently.

"Well, if you're going to stay here this summer, we'll teach you lots of things. You'll know a good deal when you go home."

Sid was aching just then for a chance to speak of some other things he felt sure the Rockville boys did not know, but Charley McGraw once more got in ahead of him.

"Stay here! He'd better come over to Putney. We'd show him how to play duck. We wouldn't teach him to use such a duck-stone as that, either."

"Do you mean mine?"

"Yes. Why, it's just ragged. Knocked it out of a stone wall, didn't you? It's all corners."

"What do you want more'n that? Isn't it big enough?"

"Yes; only you fellows stand too near. A little nearer, and you could poke the duck off its nest with a stick. Why don't you get some smooth clean round stones that'll throw straight, and that'll just balance and teter when they're ducks. Why don't you get a decent nest, with a smooth round top, that a duck'll scare from easy? We don't do things in any such way as that over in Putney."

The Rockville boys felt that there was something awful in being lectured after such a fashion, right before Joe Biddle's city cousin. Just as if they didn't know how to play duck!

Nevertheless, there sat Bill Eaton's duck, solid as ever, and twice as ugly. Every duck stone that was pitched at it tumbled to the ground in disgrace, and lay there with an increasing look of being unfit for its business.

"I say, Charley McGraw," exclaimed Jake Potter at last, "where do you Putney fellows get your duck-stones? Make 'em?"

"Wade for 'em in the creek. You've got as much creek as we have. 'Fraid of getting your feet wet?"

"Boys," suddenly shouted Mort Senter, "tell you what. Let's leave Bill Eaton to watch his duck, while we go down to the old hole and have a swim. Get some new stones to pitch with. Lots of 'em there—smoothest kind."

"Better get a new nest too," said Charley. "Get a good one."

"Well; and Bill he can stand there and watch the old one till somebody comes along and knocks it off."

Bill had heard it all, in spite of his eager watching, and he had been by that "nest" about as long as he cared to. So at that moment one of his feet went straight for his despised "duck," and he came forward on a run, and joined the rest of the boys.

"No you don't. I'm out of that. Let's get some ducks that won't stick as if they were setting hens. I know a place, just above the old hole."

Every boy of them seemed to "know a place," somewhere down that way, supplied with pebbles of marvellously perfect finish. It looked for all the world as if they had studied the question all up before they heard any news from Putney.

It did not take a very long walk to bring them from the vacant lot where they had been playing, back of Snider's grocery, down to the bank of the creek, and it was only a quarter of a crooked mile to the swimming hole.

The "creek" was a shallow stream where it was wide, and deep only where the banks rose a little and squeezed it narrow, so that all you had to do, for ordinary wading, was to roll up your trousers as far as they would go; that is, for any boy over twelve who was not small for his age. Any boy big enough to pitch a two-pound duck-stone for thirty feet could wade for one in that creek almost anywhere. Very small boys would have to keep near shore, and do their pitching with pebbles suited to their own size.

"We use the biggest kind over in Putney," said Charley McGraw.

There was fun in wading, but under the rigid inspection of the self-appointed teacher of the great game of duck the best pebbles of that creek bottom were fished out only to be despised and thrown away.

"I've got one," shouted Sid Wayne, as he lifted a dripping arm just high enough to let the water trickle down toward his neck, under his rolled-up sleeve.

"That!" said Charley. "Well, now, that'll almost do. Some of our fellows'd take that, if they couldn't find anything better."

"They'd have to hunt, then," said Joe Biddle. "Keep it, Sid."

Just at that moment Mort Senter was whispering to Jake Potter, slyly: "Don't tell him, Jake. Pass it round. He's only a rod to go. Don't let him know about the hole."

Charley was too busy over Sid's really remarkable duck-stone to take note of the winks and nods and whispers that were firing off around him, and as soon as he discovered that there was no fault to be found with the size, smoothness, roundness, or weight of Sid's pebble, he was again wading on down stream.

"Sh, boys!"

Fred Babbitt was raising his hand as if warning somebody, when Charley McGraw suddenly caught his breath with an astonished "Oh!" and went clean under the water. He made hardly any splash; but in a moment more his head came to the surface, and he recovered breath enough to ask, "I say, boys, what's this?"

"Didn't we tell you we were going for a swim?" said Joe Biddle. "That's the hole. It begins with an old rock, and it's ten feet deep. Best kind of a hole."

"Better 'n' any thing you've got over in Putney," said Bill Eaton. "Why didn't you wait and take your clothes off? We always do."

Charley was a good swimmer, and he was on his way to the shore before they had said half they had to say about that hole, and the duck-stones there were at the bottom of it. All the rest were on their way to the bank, but they were a little careful about their footing until they got there.

"Wring 'em out, Charley, and hang 'em up to dry while we're in," said Bob Wilson. "I should hate to live in Putney, though, if that's the way you fellows always go in swimming."

Charley's pluck was good, for he not only set his wet clothes a-drying, but went right in again. It was first-rate swimming, and the search for jewels of duck-stones went on at intervals, until a set had been provided which it would have been hard to beat.

"Oh, but won't they pitch!"

"They'll just sit and teter."

"Scare off if they're touched."

The science of it was dawning on the Rockville boys, and when they finally dressed for the back trip, their eyes were all around them for the right kind of a "nest" for those ducks.

Charley McGraw got his wet clothes on, with some difficulty, and the boys started toward home.

The right kind of a setting stone was discovered before they were half way home, and the very weight of it suggested that the river-bank was as good a place as any to try their hew pebbles.

"Besides," said Jake Potter, "it'll give Charley McGraw a chance to dry. Hang your coat on the fence, Putney, and pitch your level best."

Sid Wayne went into the game with as much enthusiasm as anybody, but he found that, for some reason, his duck-stone had more work to do as "duck" than any other geological specimen in that crowd.

"If you spend the summer here," remarked Joe Biddle, "you'll know how to play first-rate by the time you go home."