Publisher's Synopsis
Three boys stood impatiently kicking the dew off the tall grass in Ring's back yard, only pausing from their scanning of the beclouded, dawn-hinting sky to peer through the lightening dusk toward the clump of cedars that hid the Fulton house. "He's not up yet, or there'd be a light showing," grumbled the short, stocky one of the three. "Humph-it's so late now he wouldn't be needing a light. Tod never failed us yet, Frank, and he told me last night that he'd be right on deck." "We'd ought to have gone down right off, Jerry, when we saw he wasn't here. Frank and I would have stopped off for him, only we was so sure he'd be the first one here-especially when you two were elected to dig the worms." "We dug the worms last night-a lard pail half full-down back of his cabbage patch. And while we were sitting on the porch along comes his father-you know how absent-minded he is-and reaches down into the bucket and says, 'Guess I'll help myself to some of your berries, boys.'" "Bet you that's why Tod isn't here, then."
