“Oh, come, now, drop the extras,” ordered Dick.  “Time is short.  Are we a community, in a sort of legal sense?  Just plain yes or no.”

“Well, then, yes!” decided Grady.

“Whoop!” ejaculated Dick, placing his straw hat back on his head and starting on a sprint out of the yard.  His chums followed.  Some of the fellows who were nearer the gate tried to reach it first.  In an instant, the flight was general.

“Come on, Rip!  You’re not going to hang back on the crowd, are you?” uttered one boy, reproachfully.  “Don’t spoil the community idea.”

So Fred Ripely tagged on at the rear of the flight.

“What is it, boys—–­a fire?” called Laura Bentley.  A dozen girls had drawn in, pressing against the wall, to let this whirlwind of boys go by.

“Tell you when we get back,” Purcell called.  “Time presses now.”

It took the leaders only about four minutes to reach Foster’s Pond.  Even Ripley and the other tail-enders were on hand about a minute later.  There was a fine grove here, fringed by thick bushes, and no houses near.  In a jiffy the High School boys were disrobing.

“And the fellow who ‘chaws’ anyone else’s clothes, to-day,” proposed Dick, “is to be thrown in and kept in, when he’s dressed!”

“Hear! hear!”

Dick was one of the first to get stripped.  He started on a run, glided out over a log that lay from the bank, and plunged headlong into one of the deepest pools.  Then up he came, spouting water.

“Come on, in, fellows!  The water’s grand!” he yelled.

Splash! splash!  The surface of the pond at that point was churned white.  The bobbing heads made one think of huckleberries bobbing on a bowl of milk.

Splash! splash!  More were diving in.  And now the fun and the frolic went swiftly to their height.

“This is the real thing!” vented one ecstatic swimmer.  “Down with ’do-re—­mi-fa-sol!”

“As long as we’re all to be hanged together, what say if we don’t go back at all to-day?” questioned Purcell.

There were some affirmative shouts, but Dick, who had just stepped back on the bank for a moment shook his head.

“Don’t be hogs, fellows!” he urged.  “Don’t run a good thing into the ground.  We’ll have our swim, get well cooled off—–­and then we’d better go back looking as penitent as the circumstances seem to call for.”

“I guess it’s the wise one talking,” nodded Purcell, as he climbed to the bank preparatory to another dive.

For at least twenty minutes the High School boys remained at their delightful sport.  Then cries started here and there: 

“All out!  All out!”

Reluctantly the youngsters began to leave the water.

“Now, don’t let anyone lag,” begged Purcell.  “As we ran away together, we ought all to go back together.”

So dressing went on apace.  Then the fellows began to look at each other, wonderingly.  To be sure, they didn’t stand so much in personal awe of the principal.  But then Mr. Cantwell had the Board of Education behind him.  There was Superintendent Eldridge, also, and back of it all, what parents might—–­oh, hang it, it began to look just a bit serious now.