“Hurray,” he yelled, “that’s a bully waterfall!” and he thrust his whip into the stream to see it spatter, hopping about meantime.

It was just at this instant that grandfather Stebbins came out of the barn, and, hearing the shout of the boy, looked over that way and took in the situation.  He was over seventy, but he covered the ground from barn to barrel in most excellent time.

“Hi! hi!” he shouted as he ran.  “Stop it up!  Stop it up!”

“Dodd” saw the old man coming, and realizing something of the situation, he began to beat a retreat, taking the spigot with him.

“Here! you young Benjamite” ("Dodd” was left-handed, and the old gentleman was well posted in Bible lore), “bring back that spigot.”

But the boy ran like a white-head that he was, and a race of several yards ensued before he was caught.  But the old man was wiry and was urged to his topmost speed by the press of the circumstances.  He caught “Dodd,” and collared him with a grip such as the boy had never before felt.  He dragged the young rogue back to the barrel in no gentle manner, and thrust the plug into the hole, saving a mere remnant that remained of the contents of the cask, and then devoted himself to the little scamp whom he still held.

For a few times in a lifetime Fortune puts into our hands the very thing we most want at the very time we most want it, and this was one of the times when the fickle goddess favored the old man Stebbins.

“Dodd” had dropped the riding whip that he had been using, beside the barrel, and it lay where it fell.  It was a tough bit of rawhide, hard-twisted, and lithe.  The old man’s hand caught it instinctively, as if drawn to it by an irresistible attraction, and before the young lawbreaker, whom he held by the collar, could say, or think, “what doest thou?” he plied it so vigorously about his legs and back that the culprit thought for a moment that he had been struck by lightning.  He yelled from very pain for the first time in his life, from such a cause, and tried to find breath or words to beg for a respite, but in vain, for the blows fell thick and fast and they stung terribly, every one.

“I’ll teach you,” the old man shouted as he laid on.  “Perhaps you think this is a little switch, and that I shall only tickle you with it.”

He paused a minute to let “Dodd” catch up with the general line of thought, in his somewhat distracted mind, and while the youth danced about, he proceeded.

“Young man, I have got to teach you to mind!  I told you to keep away from this barrel and you paid no attention, and now I’m going to whip you till you will pay attention!”

At the words “going to whip you” “Dodd” tried to find words to beg, but they came too slowly, and once more the old man wrapped the supple lash about the smarting understandings of his grandson.

It seemed to “Dodd” as though his legs were fairly whipped off, and as if the place for the general reception of the strokes had left him altogether; as though he could not endure another blow, but still the supply was unexhausted.  He fell limp to the ground, and fairly roared for mercy.