Boys Will Be Boys

Brothers Samuel and Billy Bachtel liked to traverse the muddy streets of town on homemade stilts. In particular, they liked to torment the shoemaker by walking on his porch with their stilts and making a terrible noise. One evening when it was likely to freeze, the shoemaker took the boys’ stilts to the mudhole at lot 38, stuck them two feet into the mud, and let them freeze in place. But, as “boys will be boys,” they returned the favor by stealing the shoemaker’s paste cup and filling it with freezing mud. (Basner 211).