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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12377 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 12377-h.htm or 12377-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/7/12377/12377-h/12377-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/7/12377/12377-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COURT OF BOYVILLE
+
+By
+
+William Allen White
+
+Author Of The Real Issue, etc.
+
+Illustrated by ORSON LOWELL (with the exception of the first story,
+the illustrations for which are by GUSTAV VERBEEK).
+
+1898
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES
+
+A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
+
+"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"
+
+JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON
+
+MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
+
+"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"
+
+
+
+
+  Where is Boyville? By what track
+  May we trace our journey back;
+  Up what mountains, thro' what seas
+  By what meadow-lands and leas,
+  Must we travel to the bourne
+  Of the shady rows of corn
+  That lead down to the Willows
+  Where the day is always morn?
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"Say, boys, where's its bottle?"
+
+The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a piece of rope
+
+He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water
+
+He felt his father's finger under his collar and his own feet shambling
+
+Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an arm
+
+His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin
+
+His luck was bad
+
+He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the barn
+
+As she turned to her turkey-slicing
+
+The new preacher, for whom the party was made
+
+The first long dress
+
+"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still"
+
+"Did you know my dad was a soldier?"
+
+During the next two hours the boy wandered on the prairie
+
+"Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten days"
+
+Piggy went to get his flying hat
+
+She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him
+
+Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds
+
+Chased the little girls around the yard with it
+
+She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her
+during the opening hour
+
+Harold Jones
+
+To study his tastes
+
+... The comradeship ... was beautiful to see
+
+The red-headed Pratt girl
+
+He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and listen to his
+Heart's Desire
+
+Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing piles
+
+He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be
+brought forward
+
+... fought boys who were three classes above him ... whipped groups of
+boys of assorted sizes
+
+Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle
+
+Her son ate rapidly in silence
+
+His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of it to the
+mothers of other boys
+
+A little maid in a black-and-red check
+
+Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair
+
+It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph
+album
+
+At this important bit of repartee
+
+His heart was full of bitterness
+
+Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish
+
+A crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a sneaker
+
+James
+
+Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter
+
+The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby
+
+Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that
+she was no longer the baby
+
+His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that
+filled the boy with shame
+
+He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart
+was glad
+
+He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into
+an agonized knot
+
+"Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the
+eye"
+
+"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me"
+
+An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his
+hair
+
+"Got anything here fit to eat?"
+
+"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for?"
+
+She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked at her lips
+
+Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and
+down the alley
+
+Mammoth Consolidated Shows
+
+Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry
+
+How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman
+
+Brother Baker--a tiptoeing Nemesis
+
+Dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets, hurrying
+their seniors
+
+The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving
+his wares in a red and blue trail behind him
+
+The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her
+Beau's hat
+
+"One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you saw him"
+
+"It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once?"
+
+8 Funny Clowns--count them 8
+
+"Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick"
+
+The other wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repairs
+
+When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and
+laughed till he shook all over
+
+"Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy"
+
+"Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash
+again"
+
+"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule ... I thought it
+would be nice for the missionary society"
+
+"Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we"
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+We who are passing "through the wilderness of this world" find it
+difficult to realize what an impenetrable wall there is around
+the town of Boyville. Storm it as we may with the simulation of
+light-heartedness, bombard it with our heavy guns, loaded with
+fishing-hooks and golf-sticks, and skates and base-balls, and
+butterfly-nets, the walls remain. If once the clanging gates of the
+town shut upon a youth, he is banished forever. From afar he may peer
+over the walls at the games inside, but he may not be of them. Let him
+try to join them, and lo, the games become a mockery, and he finds
+that he is cavorting still outside the walls, while the good citizens
+inside are making sly sport of him. Who, being recently banished from
+Boyville, has not sought to return? In vain does he haunt the swimming
+hole; the water elves will have none of him. He hushes their laughter,
+muffles their calls, takes the essence from their fun, and leaves it
+dust upon their lips.
+
+But we of the race of grown-ups are a purblind people. Otherwise,
+when we acknowledge what a stronghold this Boyville is, we the
+banished would not seek to steal away the merry townsmen, and bruise
+our hearts and theirs at our hopeless task. We have learned many
+things in our schools, and of the making of books there has been no
+end; so it is odd that we have not learned to let a boy be a boy. Why
+not let him feel the thrill from the fresh spring grass under his
+feet, as his father felt it before him, and his father's father, even
+back to Adam, who walked thus with God! There is a tincture of iron
+that seeps into a boys blood with the ozone of the earth, that can
+come to him by no other way. Let him run if he will; Heavens air is a
+better elixir than any that the alchemist can mix. What if he roams
+the woods and lives for hours in the water? What if he prefers the
+barn to the parlor? What if he fights? Does he not take the risk of
+the scratched face and the bruises? Should he not be in some measure
+the judge of the situation before him when the trouble begins? Boys
+have an ugly name for one of their kind who discovers suddenly, in a
+crisis of his own making, that he is not allowed to fight. And it were
+better to see a boy with a dozen claw-marks down his face than to see
+him eat that name in peace.
+
+Now this conclusion may seem barbaric to elders who have to pay for
+new clothes to replace the torn ones, And according to their light
+perhaps the elders see clearly. But the grown-up people forget that
+their wisdom has impaired their vision to see as boys see and to pass
+judgment upon things in another sphere.
+
+For Boyville is a Free Town in the monarchy of the world. Its
+citizens mind their own business, and they desire travellers in this
+waste to do likewise. The notion that spectacled gentry should come
+nosing through the streets and alleys of Boyville, studying
+the sanitation, which is not of the best, and objecting to the
+constitution and by laws,--which were made when the rivers were dug
+and the hills piled up,--the notion of an outsider interfering with
+the Divine right of boys to eat what they please, to believe what they
+please, and, under loyalty to the monarchy of the world, to do what
+they please, is repugnant to this free people. Nor does it better
+matters when the man behind the spectacles explains that to eat
+sheep-sorrel is deleterious; to feed younkers Indian turnip is cruel;
+to suck the sap of the young grapevine in spring produces malaria; to
+smoke rattan is depraving, and to stuff one's stomach with paw-paws
+and wild-grapes is dangerous in the extreme.
+
+For does not the first article of the law of this Free Town expressly
+state, that boys shall be absolved from obeying any and all laws
+regulating the human stomach, and be free of the penalties thereto
+attaching? And again when Wisdom says that the boy shall give up his
+superstitions, the boy points to hoary tradition, which says that the
+snakes tail does not in fact and in truth die till sundown; that if
+a boy kills a lucky bug he shall find a nickel; that to cross one's
+heart and lie, brings on swift and horrible retribution; that letting
+the old cat die causes death in the family; that to kill a toad makes
+the cow give bloody milk; that horsehairs in water turn to snakes in
+nine days; that spitting on the bait pleases the fish, and that to
+draw a circle in the dust around a marble charms it against being hit.
+What tradition, ancient and honorable in Boyville, declares is true,
+that is the Law everlasting, and no wise mans word shall change the
+law one jot nor one tittle. For in the beginning it was written, to
+get in the night wood, to eat with a fork at table, to wear shoes on
+Sunday, to say "sir" to company, and "thank you" to the lady, to go to
+bed at nine to remember that there are others who like gravy, to stay
+out of the water in dog days, to come right straight home from school,
+to shinny on your own side, and to clean those feet for Heaven's
+sake,--that is the whole duty of boys. As it was in the beginning, so
+it shall be ever after.
+
+Now most of us grown-ups do not admit these things, and not being
+able to speak the language of the people whose rights we are
+seeking to destroy, we will never know how utterly futile are our
+conspiracies. But that is immaterial.
+
+The main point that the gentle reader should bear in mind is this:
+The town of Boyville is free and independent; governed only by the
+ancient laws, made by the boys of the elder days--by the boys who
+found bottom in the rivers that flowed out of Eden; by little Seth,
+little Enoch, little Methuselah, and little Noah; by the boys who
+threw mud balls from willow withes broken from trees whereon David
+hung his harp a thousand years thereafter. For Boyville was old when
+Nineveh was a frontier post.
+
+Boyville hears from afar the buzz about principalities and powers,
+the clatter of javelins and the clash of arms, the hubbub of the
+"Pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war." The courtiers of
+Boyville cheer for each new hero, and claim fellowship with all "like
+gentlemen unafraid." But the Free Town has its own sovereign, makes
+its own idols. And the clatter and clash and hubbub that attend the
+triumphs of the kingdoms of the earth pass by unconquered Boyville as
+the shadow of a dream.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES
+
+
+A WAIL IN B MINOR
+
+  Oh, what has become of the ornery boy,
+    Who used to chew slip'ry elm, "rosum" and wheat:
+  And say "jest a coddin'" and  "what d'ye soy;"
+    And wear rolled-up trousers all out at the seat?
+
+  And where is the boy who had shows in the barn,
+    And "skinned a cat backards" and turned "summersets;"
+  The boy who had faith in a snake-feeder yarn,
+    And always smoked grape vine and corn cigarettes?
+
+  Where now is the small boy who spat on his bait,
+    And proudly stood down near the foot of the class,
+  And always went "barefooted" early and late,
+    And washed his feet nights on the dew of the grass?
+
+  Where is the boy who could swim on his back,
+    And dive and tread water and lay his hair, too;
+  The boy who would jump off the spring-board ker-whack,
+    And light on his stomach as I used to do?
+
+  Oh where and oh where is the old-fashioned boy?
+    Has the old-fashioned boy with his old-fashioned ways,
+  Been crowded aside by the Lord Fauntleroy,--
+    The cheap tinselled make-believe, full of alloy
+    Without the pure gold of the rollicking joy
+  Of the old-fashioned boy in the old-fashioned days?
+
+[Illustration: The Court of Boyville
+              The Martyrdom of Mealy Jones]
+
+His mother named him Harold, and named him better than she knew. He
+was just such a boy as one would expect to see bearing a heroic name.
+He had big, faded blue eyes, a nubbin of a chin, wide, wondering ears,
+and freckles--such brown blotches of freckles on his face and neck and
+hands, such a milky way of them across the bridge of his snub nose,
+that the boys called him "Mealy." And Mealy Jones it was to the end.
+When his parents called him Harold in the hearing of his playmates,
+the boy was ashamed, for he felt that a nickname gave him equal
+standing among his fellows. There were times in his life--when he
+was alone, recounting his valorous deeds--that Mealy more than half
+persuaded himself that he was a real boy. But when he was with
+Winfield Pennington, surnamed "Piggy" in the court of Boyville, and
+Abraham Lincoln Carpenter, similarly knighted "Old Abe," Mealy saw
+that he was only Harold, a weak and unsatisfactory imitation. He was
+handicapped in his struggle to be a natural boy by a mother who had
+been a "perfect little lady" in her girlhood and who was moulding her
+son in the forms that fashioned her. If it were the purpose of this
+tale to deal in philosophy, it would be easy to digress and show that
+Mealy Jones was a study in heredity; that from his mother's side of
+the house he inherited wide, white, starched collars, and from his
+father's side, a burning desire to spit through his teeth. But this is
+only a simple tale, with no great problem in it, save that of a boy
+working out his salvation between a fiendish lust for suspenders
+with trousers and a long-termed incarceration in ruffled waists with
+despised white china buttons around his waist-band.
+
+No one but Piggy ever knew how Mealy Jones learned to swim; and
+Harold's mother doesn't consider Piggy Pennington any one, for the
+Penningtons are Methodists and the Joneses are Baptists, and Very
+hard-shelled ones, too. However, Mealy Jones did learn to swim
+"dog-fashion" years and years after the others had become
+post-graduates in aquatic lore and could "tread water," "swim
+sailor-fashion," and "lay" their hair. Mrs. Jones permitted her son
+to go swimming occasionally, but she always exacted from him a solemn
+promise not to go into the deep water. And Harold, who was a good
+little boy, made it a point not to "let down" when he was beyond the
+"step-off." So of course he could not know how deep it was; although
+the bad little boys who "brought up bottom" had told him that it was
+twelve feet deep.
+
+One hot June afternoon Mealy stood looking at a druggist's display
+window, gazing idly at the pills, absently picking out the various
+kinds which he had taken. He had just come from his mother with
+the expressed injunction not to go near the river. His eyes roamed
+listlessly from the pills to the pain-killer, and; turning wearily
+away, he saw Piggy and Old Abe and Jimmy Sears. The three boys were
+scuffling for, the possession of a piece of rope. Pausing a moment in
+front of the grocery store, they beckoned for Mealy. The lad joined
+the group. Some one said,--
+
+"Come on, Mealy, and go swimmin'."
+
+"Aw, Mealy can't go," put in Jimmy; "his ma won't let him."
+
+"Yes, I kin, _too_, if I want to," replied Mealy, stoutly--but, alas!
+guiltily.
+
+"Then come on," said Piggy Pennington. "You don't dast. My ma don't
+care how often I go in--only in dog days."
+
+[Illustration: _The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a
+piece of rope_.]
+
+After some desultory debate they started--the four boys--pushing one
+another off the sidewalk, "rooster-fighting," shouting, laughing,
+racing through the streets. Mealy Jones longed to have the other boys
+observe his savage behavior. He knew, however, that he was not of
+them, that he was a sad make-believe. The guilt of the deed he was
+doing, oppressed him. He wondered how he could go into crime so
+stolidly. Inwardly he quaked as he recalled the stories he had read of
+boys who had drowned while disobeying their parents. His uneasiness
+was increased by the ever-present sense that he could not cope with
+the other boys at their sports. He let them jostle him, and often
+would run, after his self-respect would goad him to jostle back. Mealy
+was glad when the group came to the deep shade of the woods and walked
+slowly.
+
+It was three o'clock when the boys reached the swimming-hole. There
+the great elm-tree, with its ladder of exposed roots, stretched over
+the water. Piggy Pennington, stripped to the skin, ran whooping down
+the sloping bank, splashed over the gravel at the water's edge, and
+plunged into the deepest water. Old Abe followed cautiously, bathing
+his temples and his wrists before sousing all over. Jimmy Sears threw
+his shirt high up on the bank as he stood ankle-deep in the stream.
+Piggy's exhilaration having worn off by this time, he picked up a
+mussel-shell and threw it at Jimmy's feet. The water dashed wide of
+its mark and sprinkled Mealy, who was sitting on a log, taking off his
+shoes.
+
+"Here, Piggy, you quit that," said Mealy.
+
+Jimmy said nothing. He sprang into the air head foremost toward Piggy,
+who dived from sight. His pursuer saw the direction Piggy took and
+followed him. The boys were a few feet apart when Jimmy came to the
+surface, puffing and spouting and shaking the water from his eyes and
+hair. He hesitated in his pursuit. Piggy observed the hesitation, and
+with a quick overhand movement shot a stinging stream of water from
+the ball of his hand into his antagonist's face. Then Piggy turned
+on his side and swam swiftly to shallow water, where he stood and
+splashed his victim, who was lumbering toward shore with his eyes
+shut, panting loudly. With every splash Piggy said, "How's that, Jim?"
+or "Take a bite o' this," or "Want a drink?" When Jimmy got where he
+could walk on the creek bottom, he made a feint of fighting back,
+but he soon ceased, and stood by, gasping for breath, before saying,
+"Let's quit."
+
+Then followed the fun of ducking, the scuffling and the capers of the
+young human animals at play--at play even as gods in the elder days.
+Mealy saw it all through envious eyes and with a pricking conscience,
+as he doggedly fumbled the myriad buttons which his mother had
+fastened upon his pretty clothes. He heard Piggy dare Abe across the
+creek, and call him a cowardly calf, and say, "Any one't 'ull take a
+dare'll steal sheep." Mealy saw Jimmy grin as he cracked rocks under
+water while the other boys were diving, and watched Old Abe, as
+he made the waves rise under his chin, swimming after the fleeing
+culprit. He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water until
+Mealy's smile faded to a horrified grin. Then he saw the victim and
+the victor come merrily to the shallows, laughing as though nothing
+unusual had occurred. It was high revel in Boyville, and the satyrs
+were in the midst of their joy.
+
+[Illustration: _He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under
+water_.]
+
+Then Mealy heard Piggy say, "Aw, come in, Mealy; it won't hurt you."
+
+"Is it cold?" asked Mealy.
+
+"Naw," replied Piggy.
+
+"Naw, course it ain't," returned Jimmy.
+
+"Warm as dish-water," cried Abe.
+
+Mealy's ribs shone through his skin. His big milky eyes made him seem
+uncanny, standing there shivering in the shade. He hobbled down the
+pebbly bank on his tender feet, his bashful grin breaking into a dozen
+contortions of pain as he went. The boys stood watching him like
+tigers awaiting a Christian martyr. He paused at the water's edge, put
+in a toe and jerked it out with a spasm of cold.
+
+"Aw, that ain't cold," said Piggy.
+
+"Naw, when you get in you won't mind it," insisted Abe.
+
+Mealy replied, "Oo, oo! I think that's pretty cold."
+
+"Wet your legs and you won't get the cramp," advised Jimmy Sears.
+
+Mealy stooped over to scoop up some water in his hands. He heard the
+boys laugh, and the next instant felt a shower of water on his back.
+It made the tears come.
+
+"Uhm-m-m--no fair splashin'," he whined.
+
+Mealy put one foot in the water and drew it out quickly, gasping, "Oo!
+I ain't goin' in. It's too cold for me. It'll bring my measles out."
+He started--trembling--up the bank; then he heard a splashing behind
+him.
+
+"Come back here," cried Piggy, whose hands were uplifted; "come back
+here and git in this water or I'll muddy you." Piggy's hands were full
+of mud. He was about to throw it when the Jones boy pretended to laugh
+and giggled, "Oh, I was just a-foolin'."
+
+But he paused again at the water's edge, and Piggy, who had come up
+close enough to touch the rickety lad, reached out a muddy hand and
+dabbed the quaking boy's breast. The other boys roared with glee.
+Mealy extended a deprecatory hand, and took Piggy's wet, glistening
+arm and stumbled nervously into the stream, with an "Oo-oo!" at every
+uncertain step. When the water came to Mealy's waist Abe cried, "Duck!
+duck, or I'll splash you!" The boy sank down, with his teeth biting
+his tongue as he said, "Oo! I wouldn't do you that way."
+
+When the shock of the tepid water had spent itself, Mealy's grin
+returned, and he shivered happily, "Oo--it's good, ain't it?"
+
+Ten minutes later the boys were diving from the roots of the elm-tree
+into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten minutes after
+that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by
+splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys
+for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves
+with coats of mud, adorned--one with stripes made with the point of a
+stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with
+snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path
+to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it
+came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted arms
+like the barbarian warriors which they fancied they were. They swam up
+the stream leisurely, and, as they rounded the bend that brought their
+landing-place into view, the quick eye of Piggy Pennington saw that
+some one had been meddling with their clothes. He gave the alarm. The
+boys quickened their strokes. When they came to the shallows of the
+ford they saw the blue-and-white starched shirt of Mealy Jones lying
+in a pool tied into half a dozen knots, with the water soaking them
+tighter and tighter. The other boys' clothes were not disturbed.
+
+"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other boys
+echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up people, but
+there is never a moment in after-life more poignant with grief than,
+that which stabs a boy when he learns that he must wrestle with a
+series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As Mealy sat in the broiling
+sun, gripping the knots with his teeth and fingers, he asked himself
+again and again how he could explain his soiled shirt to his mother.
+Lump after lump rose in his throat, and dissolved into tears that
+trickled down his nose. The other boys did not heed him. They were
+following Piggy's dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging
+limb of the elm-tree.
+
+They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham shirt, blue
+overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone back of Mealy,
+smiling complacently. Not until the stranger walked down to the
+water's edge where Mealy sat did the other boys spy him.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Abe.
+
+"I never saw him before," replied Jimmy Sears.
+
+"Oh, I'll tell you who it is," returned Abe, after looking the
+stranger over. "It's the new boy. Him an' his old man come to town
+yesterday. They say he's a fighter. He licked every boy in the
+Mountain Jumpers this mornin'."
+
+By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, "How you
+gittin' along?"
+
+Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled child, "Hush
+your mouth, you old smartie! What good d't do you to go an' tie my
+clo'es?"
+
+Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing. They heard the
+new boy retort, "Who said I tied your clo'es?" Mealy made no reply.
+The new boy repeated the query. Mealy saw the boys in the water
+looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in the primary
+department of life, and had not yet learned that one must fight alone.
+He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the "I," as he tugged at the
+last knot. The new boy had been looking Mealy over, and he replied
+quickly, "You're a liar!"
+
+There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for some one
+to defend him. He was sure that his companions would not stand there
+and see him whipped. One of the boys in the water said diplomatically,
+"Aw, Mealy, I wouldn't take that!"
+
+"You're another," faltered Mealy, who looked supplication and surprise
+at his friends, and wondered if they were really going to desert him.
+The new boy waded around Mealy, and leaned over him, and said, shaking
+his fist in the freckled face, "You're a coward, and you don't dast
+take it up and fight it out."
+
+Mealy's cheeks flushed. He felt anger mantling his frame. He was one
+of those most pitiable of mortals whose anger brings tears with it.
+The last knot in the shirt was all but conquered, when Mealy bawled in
+a scream of passionate sobs,--
+
+"When I git this shirt fixed I'll show you who's a coward."
+
+The new boy sought a level place on the bank for a fight, and sneered,
+"Oh, cry baby! cry baby! Say, boys, where's its bottle?"
+
+[Illustration: "_Say, boys, where's its bottle_?"]
+
+Mealy rose with a stone in each hand, and hobbled over the pebbles,
+trying, "Touch me now! Touch me if you dare!"
+
+"Aw, you coward! drop them rocks," snarled the new boy.
+
+Mealy looked at his friends imploringly. He felt lonely, deserted, and
+mistreated, but he saw in the faces of his comrades the reflection of
+the injunction to put down the stones. He did so, and his anger began
+to cool. But he whimpered again, "Well now, touch me if you dare!"
+
+The new boy came over briskly, and made a feint to slap the naked lad,
+who warded off the blow, sniffling, "You just leave me alone. I ain't
+hurtin' you." The boys in the water laughed--it seemed to Mealy such
+a cruel laugh. Anger enveloped him again, and he struck out blindly
+through his tears, hand over hand, striking the new boy in the mouth
+and making it bleed, before he realized that the fight had begun. The
+new boy tried to clinch Mealy, but the naked body slipped away from
+him; and just then the combatants saw the satisfied grin freeze on the
+faces of the boys in the water. A step crunched the gravel near them,
+and in a moment that flashed vividly with rejoicing that the fight was
+ended, then with abject, chattering terror, Mealy Jones saw his
+father approaching. Mealy did not run. The uplifted cane and the red,
+perspiring face of his father transfixed the lad, yet he felt called
+upon to say something. His voice came from a dry throat, and he spoke
+through an idiotic grin as he said, "I didn't know you wanted me, pa."
+
+After the burst of his father's anger ten awful minutes of shame
+passed for Mealy while he was putting on his wet clothes. The boys
+in the water swam noiselessly upstream to the roots of the elm-tree,
+where he saw them looking at his disgrace. During those ten minutes
+Mealy realized that his father's deepening silence portended evil; so
+he tried to draw his father into a discussion of the merits of the
+case by whimpering from time to time, "Well, I guess they ast me to
+come," or "Piggy said it wouldn't hurt, 'cause 't ain't in dog days,"
+or "I wasn't in where it was deep. I was only a-wadin'." The new boy,
+who was seated upon a log near by with a stone in his hand, which he
+had picked up fearing the elder Jones would join the fray, sniffed
+audibly. He called to the other boys derisively, "Say, any of you boys
+got the baby's blocks?" It did not lift the mantle of humiliation that
+covered Mealy to hear his father reply to the new boy, "That will do
+for you, sir." While Mealy wept he wiped away his tears first with one
+hand and then with the other, employing the free hand in fastening
+his clothes together. He did not fear the punishment that might be in
+store for him. He was thinking of the agony of his next meeting with
+Piggy Pennington. Mealy fancied that Abe Carpenter, who was a quiet,
+philosophical boy, would not tease him, but horror seized him when he
+thought of Piggy.
+
+As Mealy fastened his last button, he felt his father's finger under
+his collar, and his own feet shambling blindly over the pebbles, up
+the path, into the bushes; he heard the boys in the water laugh with
+the new boy, and then--stories differ. The boys say that he howled
+lustily, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any more," over and over again. Mealy
+Jones says that it didn't hurt a bit.
+
+[Illustration: _He felt his father's finger under his collar and his
+own feet shambling_.]
+
+This much is certain: that Master Harold Jones walked through the town
+that day a few feet ahead of his fathers who tapped the boy's legs
+with a hooked cane whenever his steps lagged. At the door of the Jones
+home Mrs. Jones stood to welcome the martial procession, which she
+saw, and then heard, approaching some time before it arrived. To his
+wife, whose face pictured anxious grief, Mr. Jones said, as he
+turned the captive over to her: "I found this young gentleman in
+swimming--swimming and fighting. I have attended to his immediate
+wants, I believe. I leave him to you."
+
+Harold Jones was but a lad--a good lad whose knowledge of the golden
+text was his Sunday-school teacher's pride. Yet he had collected other
+scraps of useful information as he journeyed through life. One of
+these was a perfectly practical familiarity with the official road map
+to his mother's heart. Therefore, when he crossed the threshold of the
+Jones home Harold began at once to weep dolefully.
+
+"Harold Jones, what do you mean by such conduct?" asked his mother.
+
+The boy stood by the window long enough to see that his father had
+turned the corner toward the town. Then he fell on the floor, and
+began to bewail his lot, refusing to answer the first question his
+mother asked, but telling instead how "all the other boys in this town
+can go swimmin' when they want to," hinting that he wouldn't care, if
+papa had only just come and brought him home, but that papa--and this
+was followed by a vocal cataract of woe that made the dish-pans ring.
+
+He noted that his mother bent over him and said, "My poor boy;" at
+which sign little Harold punctured the levees of his grief again,
+and said he "never was goin' to face any of the boys in this town
+again"--he "just couldn't bear it." Mrs. Jones paused in her work at
+this, put down a potato that she was peeling, and stood up stiffly,
+saying in a freezing tone, "Harold Jones, you don't mean to tell me
+that your father punished you in front of those other little boys?"
+
+Her son only sobbed and nodded an affirmative, and gave lusty voice to
+the tearful wish that he was dead. Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and
+took her child by an arm, lifting him to his feet. She smoothed his
+hair and took him with her to the big chair in the dining-room, where
+she raised his seventy pounds to her lap, saying as she did so,
+"Mama's boy will soon be too big to hold." At that the spoiled child
+only renewed his weeping and clutched her tightly. There, little by
+little, he forgot the mishaps of the day. There the anguish lifted
+from his heart, and when his mother asked, "Harold, why did you go
+into the water when we told you not to?" the child only shook his
+head, and, after repeated questioning, his answer came,--
+
+"Well, they asked me, mom."
+
+"Who asked you?" persisted Mrs. Jones.
+
+"Piggy Pennington and Jimmy Sears," returned the lad.
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by
+an arm_.]
+
+To the query, "Well, do you have to do everything they ask you to,
+Harold?" the lad's answer was a renewal of the heart-breaking sobs.
+These softened the mother's heart, as many and many a woman's heart
+has been melted through all the ages. She soothed the truant child and
+petted him, until the cramping in his throat relaxed sufficiently to
+admit of the passage of an astonishingly large slice of bread and
+butter and sugar. After it was disposed of, Harold busied himself by
+assorting his old iron scraps on the back porch, and his mother smiled
+as she fancied she heard the boy trying to whistle a tune.
+
+Harold had left the porch before his father came home with the
+beefsteak for supper, and Mrs. Jones met her husband with: "Pa Jones,
+what could you be thinking of--punishing that boy before the other
+children? Do you want to break what little spirit he has? Why, that
+child was nearly in hysterics for an hour after you left!"
+
+Mr. Jones hung up his crooked cane, put a stick of wood in the stove,
+scraped his pipe with his knife, and blew through the stem.
+
+"I guess he wasn't hurt much," replied the father. Then he added, as
+he put a live coal in the pipe: "I s'pose you went an' babied him an'
+spoiled it all." There was a puffing pause, after which Mr. Jones
+added, "If you'd let him go more, an' didn't worry your head off when
+he was out of sight, he'd amount to more."
+
+Mrs. Jones always gave her husband three moves before she spoke. "Yes!
+yes! you'd make that boy a regular little rowdy if you had your way,
+William Jones."
+
+In the mean time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle in the
+alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his spindling legs
+would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They were grinning broadly
+when he came to them. It was Piggy Pennington who first spoke, "Oh,
+pa, I won't do it any more," repeating the phrase several times in a
+suppressed voice, and leering impishly at Mealy.
+
+"Aw, you're makin' that up," answered Mealy in embarrassment. But
+Piggy continued his teasing until Abe Carpenter said: "Say, Mealy, we
+want you to go to the cave with us to-morrow; can you?"
+
+The "can you" was an imputation on his personal liberty that Mealy
+resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom dollar I can."
+Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him, and the boys sat in
+the dirt behind the barn, chattering about the new boy, whose name,
+according to the others, was "Bud" Perkins. Mealy entered the
+conversation with much masculine pomp--too much, in fact; for when he
+became particularly vain-glorious some one in the group was certain to
+glance at his shoes--and shoes in June in Boyville are insignia of the
+weaker sex, the badges of shame.
+
+But Mealy did not feel his disgrace. He walked up the ash path to the
+kitchen with an excellent imitation of manly pride in his gait. He
+kicked at a passing cat, and shook his head bravely, talking to
+himself about the way he would have whipped the new boy if his father
+had not interrupted the fight.
+
+As Mrs. Jones heard the boy's step on the porch, she said to his
+father, "Now, pa, that boy has been punished enough to-day. Don't you
+say a word to him." Harold walked by his father with averted face. At
+supper the boy did not look at his father, and when the dishes were
+put away, Mr. Jones, who sat in the kitchen smoking, heard his wife
+and the child in a front room, chatting cheerily. The lonesome father
+smoked his pipe and recalled his youth. The boy's voice brought back
+his own shrill treble, and he coughed nervously. After Mrs. Jones had
+put the lad to bed, and was in the pantry arranging for breakfast, the
+father knocked the ashes from his briar into the stove, and, humming
+an old tune, went to the boy's bedroom door. He paused awkwardly on
+the threshold. The boy turned his face toward the wall. The action cut
+the father to the quick. He walked to the bed and bent over the child,
+touching a father's rough-bearded face to the soft cheek. He found the
+soft hand--with a father's large hand--under the sheet, and he held
+the little hand tightly as he said:
+
+"Well, Harold"--there he paused for a second. But he continued, "Do
+you think you'd a-licked that boy--if--if--I hadn't a-come?"
+
+Then the two laughed, and a little throb of joyous pain tingled in
+their throats--such as only boys may feel.
+
+
+
+
+A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
+
+
+A LITTLE DREAM-BOY
+
+  Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
+  And wake up a little man lying forlorn,
+  Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.
+
+  Little Boy Blue, blow a merry, sweet note,
+  Over the pool where the white lilies float,--
+  Fill out the sails of a little toy boat.
+
+  Blow on my dream of a little boy there,--
+  Blow thro' his little bark-whistle, and snare
+  Your breath in a tangle of curly brown hair.
+
+  Blow and O blow from your fairy land far,
+  Blow while my little boy wears a tin star,
+  And rides a stick-horse to a little boy's war.
+
+  Blow for the brave man my dream-boy would be,
+  Blow back his tears when he wakes up to see
+  His knight errant gone and instead--only me.
+
+  Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
+  Blow for a little boy lying forlorn,
+  Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
+
+
+In a small town, every man who has been in the community long enough
+to become thoroughly known to the townsmen has a place in the human
+mosaic; that place seldom changes. Occasionally a man is a year in
+finding his place. The town of Willow Creek located Calhoun Perkins in
+two days. Wednesday he arrived in town with his son, whom he called
+"Bud;" Thursday night it was reported that he had been fishing the
+second time. That settled it. After that the boasting of Perkins about
+his family in Tennessee and his assertion that he expected to go into
+business only made the men laugh when Perkins left a group of them.
+They were not interested in Perkins by the following Saturday; and
+Monday every man in the town felt that his judgment of a man who would
+go fishing every day had been handsomely vindicated, when it was
+learned that Perkins had served in the Confederate army. When Perkins
+had been in the town three years, the anecdotes illustrating his
+shiftlessness multiplied, and his name was a synonym for that trait of
+character known in the vernacular as "no-'count." In the third spring,
+after a winter's tussle with rheumatism, Perkins died. His funeral was
+of so little importance that none of the corpulent old ladies in black
+alpaca, holding their handkerchiefs carefully folded in their hands,
+came panting across the town to attend it. No women came at all. And
+the Perkins boy stood by stolidly while the dry clods were rumbling
+upon the pine box in the grave. The boy wished to be alone, and he
+would not sit on the seat with the driver. He wiped a little moisture
+from his eyes, and rode to town with his feet hanging out of the back
+of the wagon that had held the coffin.
+
+[Illustration: _His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had
+held the coffin_.]
+
+When the wagon came to the thick of the town, Bud Perkins quietly slid
+to the ground, and joined a group of afternoon idlers who were playing
+marbles on the south side of a livery barn. Here and there in the
+group a boy said: "H'lo, Bud," when the Perkins boy joined the
+coterie, but many of the youngsters, being unfamiliar with the
+etiquette of mourning, were silent, and played on at their game. When
+the opportunity came the Perkins boy put a marble in the ring without
+saying a word. He went back to "taws," and "lagged for goes," with
+the others. He spoke only when he was addressed. A black sense of
+desolation lowered over him, and he could not join in the ejaculations
+and responses of the game. His luck was bad, and he lost marble after
+marble. In an hour, when the sun was still in the south, he withdrew
+from the game and sat alone against the barn, drawing figures on the
+earth with a broken piece of hoop-iron. The boy could not fight off
+the thought of the empty home waiting for him down by the river. He
+saw, as he sat there, all the furniture, his father's clothes hanging
+at the foot of the bed, the stove in disorder; and then he realized
+that in the whole town not one hand was held out to him. He was a
+child, yet the heartlessness of it all cut him to the quick. This
+thought overwhelmed him, again and again, each time with more
+agonizing force, like an increasing wave, and as one flood washed over
+him with fiercer passion than the others, the boy rose hurriedly, ran
+around the barn, and flung himself upon a pile of hay. There he gave
+way to a storm of sobs. One of the group, who had been watching him
+more closely than the others, soon withdrew from the game, and going
+in the opposite direction from that taken by Bud Perkins, came
+tiptoeing around the haystack.
+
+[Illustration: _His luck was bad_.]
+
+[Illustration: _He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the
+barn_.]
+
+The paroxysm of sobs had ceased, and Bud was lying face downward as if
+asleep. He heard the step, but pretended not to hear it. He felt some
+one pressing the hay beside him. He knew who it was, and the two boys
+lay upon the hay without speaking. The Perkins boy turned his head
+away from the new-comer; but try as he would, Bud could not keep from
+sniffling. In a few moments the other boy tried to roll the Perkins
+boy over. It was a vain attempt. Then the sobbing began anew. But it
+was a short attack, and, at length, the other boy said: "Bu-ud?" Again
+he said, "Bu-ud?" There came no response. "O, Bud--I got somethin'
+to tell you!" The sniffling continued, and the other boy kept on
+pleading. "Ah, Bud, come on; I got somethin' real good," he said.
+Silence answered. The teasing went on: "Say, Bud, I won back all your
+marbles." That was repeated twice. Then a hand went over toward the
+other boy. He filled it with marbles, and it went back. Another
+silence was followed by a rustle of hay, and a dirty face turned over,
+and a voice said through a pathetic, apologetic smile: "This old
+nicked glassey ain't mine." The two heads nestled together, and four
+eyes gazed at the blue sky and the white clouds for a long time. It
+was the Perkins boy who spoke: "Say, Piggy, I bet you'd cry, too, if
+you was me."
+
+Piggy wormed his arm under the hay around the Perkins boy's neck, as
+he asked, "What you goin' to do to-night, Bud?"
+
+"I dunno. Why?" replied Bud.
+
+"Well, I'm comin' out to stay all night. They're goin' to have a party
+at our house, and ma said I could."
+
+Bud drew himself up slowly; then threw himself with a quick spring on
+top of Piggy, and the two began to wrestle like kittens in the hay.
+
+Even while Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins were sitting at dusk on
+the back-porch steps of the Pennington house, eating turkey-wings
+which Mrs. Pennington had given to them, and devouring ham sandwiches
+which Piggy had taken from the big platterful in the pantry, looking
+the hired girl boldly in the face as he did it, even then the
+preparations for the Pennington entertainment were progressing
+indoors. The parlor, the sitting-room, and the dining-room, which had
+been decorated during the warm afternoon with borrowed palms and with
+roses from the neighbor's vines, were being ventilated. Windows were
+rising, and doors opening. The velvety air of May was fluttering
+everywhere. And there was so much life in it, that when Mrs.
+Pennington saw the two boys pass out of the alley gate, she saw the
+Perkins boy grab her son's hat and run away whooping, while Piggy
+followed, throwing clods at his companion's legs and feet. She
+thought, as she turned to her turkey-slicing, that the Perkins child
+was not taking his father's death "very hard." But she did not know
+that the boyish whoop was the only thing that saved him from sobbing,
+as he left the home where he saw such a contrast to his own. How could
+a woman carrying the responsibilities of the social honor of the
+Methodist church in Willow Creek have time to use her second sight?
+
+[Illustration: _As she turned to her turkey-slicing_.]
+
+The guests at the Pennington house that evening divided the honors
+equally between the new preacher, for whom the party was made, and
+Miss Morgan, whose last niece had married and left her but two days
+before. Most of the guests had met the new preacher; but none of
+them--save one or two of her intimate friends--could know how the
+lonely little old woman was faring in the cottage whence one by one
+her adopted birds had flown. They called her "little Miss Morgan" in
+the town, and the story of her life of devotion to her brothers' and
+sisters' children was familiar to every one about her. For ten years
+she had lived in Willow Creek caring for her brothers' orphans.
+She came to the community from the East, and found what she
+brought--culture, friends, and kindness at every turn. The children
+whom she had cared for had grown up, filed through the town's real
+estate college, and then mating had left the little spinster alone.
+
+[Illustration: _The new preacher, for whom the party was made_.]
+
+At the Penningtons' that evening she was cheerful enough--so cheerful,
+indeed, in her little bird-like way, that many of those who talked
+with her fancied that the resourceful little body was beyond the reach
+of petty grief. The modest, almost girlish smile beamed through the
+wrinkles of fifty autumns as brightly that evening at the Penningtons'
+as the town had ever seen it. From her place in a high-backed chair in
+the corner, Miss Morgan, in her shy, self-deprecatory way, shed her
+faint benediction about her as she had done for a decade. There was a
+sweetness in Miss Morgan's manner that made the old men gallant to her
+in a boyish way; and the wives, who loved her, were proud of their
+husbands' chivalry. During the evening at the Penningtons' the
+conversation found much of its inspiration in the Memorial Day
+services on the morrow and in anecdotes about the thriftlessness of
+Calhoun Perkins. Memorial Day was one of the holidays which Miss
+Morgan kept in her heart. Then she decorated each year a lover's
+grave--a grave she had never seen. The day had been sacred in her
+heart to the memory of a spring night, and the moon and the lilacs and
+the blue uniform of a soldier. Upon other days she waved this memory
+away with a gay little sigh, and would have none of it. But on
+Memorial Day she bade the vision come into her heart and bide a while.
+
+But she did not open the door there at the party. They said to one
+another, going home that night: "Well, I don't see's she minds it a
+bit. Isn't that pluck for you--not lonesome, not grumpy--just the same
+little body she was when we first saw her. Well--I know one thing--I
+couldn't do it."
+
+As for Miss Morgan, while she was walking home that night, she was
+thinking of the women of her age whom she had just left; the romance
+seemed to be gone completely from their lives, their faces seemed a
+trifle hard to her, and she was wondering if life would have gone so
+with her if there had been no Shiloh.
+
+The town clock in the schoolhouse was tolling eleven, as Miss Morgan
+turned the key in the front door. The night was starry and inviting,
+and as her house stood among the trees, somewhat back from the street,
+Miss Morgan did not feel afraid to sit in a porch chair, refreshing
+herself, before going indoors. The wind brought the odor of the lilacs
+from the bush at the house corner, and the woman sat drinking in the
+fragrance. She saw a pair of lovers strolling by, who did not observe
+her. She could hear the murmur of their voices; she did not try to
+catch their words. She sat silently dreaming and wondering. Again and
+again her eyes went to the stars in a vain questioning, and her lips
+moved. Maybe she was asking "where," maybe she was asking "why." As
+the moments slipped by, the years fell away from her. She had carried
+her little romance in her heart unsullied by reality. To-night the
+talk of Memorial Day had brought it all back, and the thrill of other
+days returned with the odor of the lilacs. She yielded to a vague,
+crazy notion, and in an impulsive, girlish run she went to the corner
+of the porch and broke a sprig from the lilac-tree.
+
+Then with a short sigh, that had just the hint of a smile in it, she
+took the lilac sprig into the house. Perhaps she fancied that no one
+would see the flowers but she. Maybe the oppressive stillness of the
+empty house burdened her. Certainly something was heavy upon her, for
+there was no smile in the sigh that came deeply from her heart, as she
+locked the door. It must have seemed lonely for Miss Morgan, coming
+from the crowded parlor, and the questions that her friends asked
+about her plans may have followed her. Perhaps it was the answer to
+these questions that kept her awake. She sat by her window and went
+over and over again the question, what should she do. The wedding that
+had so recently livened the cottage kept coming to the little old
+woman's mind, and with it came the bride. When the other children had
+gone away, Miss Morgan let them go with her blessing, and was glad of
+their good fortunes. But this last child to go had been Miss Morgan's
+pet. As the lonely spinster sat there she recalled how the child had
+been moulded by her; how she had fancied the child's heart was hers,
+cherishing in it the ideals, the sentiment, the tendernesses that the
+older heart had held sacred for a lifetime. Miss Morgan recalled how
+she and the girl had mingled their tears over the first long dress
+that their hands made, knowing, each of them, that it meant the coming
+of the parting. As she looked into the awful vistas of the stars, the
+woman knew that she was one of God's creatures, all alone--without one
+soul that she might even signal to.
+
+[Illustration: _The first long dress_.]
+
+The word "alone" came to her so strangely that she repeated it in a
+whisper. Its sound touched some string within her bosom, and she put
+her head upon the open window sill and wept, sobbing the word "alone"
+until sleep soothed her.
+
+The morning sunlight helped Miss Morgan to put aside the problems of
+the night; she hummed an old war tune as she went about her work, but
+it did not lift the silence from the house. The rooms that a few days
+before had been vocal with life, were so dead that the clock ticking
+in the parlor might be heard in the kitchen. The canary's cheerful
+song echoed shrilly through the silent place. Miss Morgan said to him,
+"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still--you'll drive me wild."
+But her voice only increased the bird's vehemence, and the throbbing
+in her ears brought on a headache. When she put a paper over the cage,
+the clock annoyed her. She was irritated by a passing boy whistling
+"The Girl I Left Behind Me" with all his might, but sadly off the key.
+She went to the window and saw Bud Perkins.
+
+[Illustration: "_Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still_."]
+
+She did not know that the child had just arisen from a cheering
+breakfast at the Penningtons'--even if she knew how much a hearty
+breakfast cheers up any boy. But the spectacle of the orphan facing
+the world so bravely moved Miss Morgan. She felt a sudden wave of
+pity, and with it came the conviction of guilt--that she had been
+selfish while the boy was suffering. She had heard at the Penningtons'
+that the county would probably take charge of him; but she recalled
+what she had heard in its full meaning to the child only when she saw
+him turn the corner, going toward the centre of the town. There was
+a feeling of keen joy in her heart as she realized that she was not
+useless in the world, and she went about her morning's work with the
+lightest heart in all Willow Creek beating in her breast.
+
+Bud Perkins had seen but two Memorial Days in Kansas--and upon each of
+these days he and his father had gone fishing. The boy knew it was a
+soldiers' holiday, and from Piggy Pennington Bud had found out what
+were the purposes of the day. He knew that his father had been a
+soldier--a soldier on the wrong side. But he did not know that graves
+of Confederate soldiers were not included in the day's sacrament.
+
+"Mornin', Captain," said Bud to a slight, gray-haired old man,
+stooping over a basket of flowers in a vacant store-room in the main
+street of the town.
+
+When the man replied kindly the boy took heart to say: "You must be
+kind o' runnin' things here, I guess."
+
+"I'm in charge of the flowers, Bud, just for to-day," replied Captain
+Meyers, who did not wish to seem as vain-glorious as he was.
+
+"Goin' to put flowers on all the soldiers' graves--are you?" queried
+Bud. The elder replied that the Post aimed to do so.
+
+"Did you know my dad was a soldier?" was the boy's next question.
+
+[Illustration: "_Did you know my dad was a soldier_?"]
+
+The captain's heart was pricked when he saw what was in Bud's mind.
+The captain knew what the next query would be. He was a gentle man and
+kind. So, looking about to see if any comrades of a sterner sect than
+he were in hearing before replying, he said: "You mustn't feel bad
+now, Buddie, but it's only them on the Union side--whose graves we
+decorate to-day. I wouldn't mind, if I was you." Captain Meyers was
+not a diplomat, and he said the words poorly.
+
+In an instant the boy's eyes filled with tears. They dried in anger
+before they reached his flushed cheek. He clinched his hands, turned,
+and walked hotly out of the room. In the door he paused, whirled
+around, and cried,--
+
+  "Yank! Yank! Rick-stick-stank!
+  High ball, low ball, dirty-faced Yank!"
+
+[Illustration: _During the next two hours the boy wandered on the
+prairie_.]
+
+Then he ran wildly down the street to escape the infuriated mob which
+he believed would pursue him. The knowledge that he was cut off from
+the day's festivities made him wince with pain as he ran. Not until
+he came out upon the road across the prairie did he stop--breathless,
+worn out, crying. During the next two hours the boy wandered on the
+prairie and in the woods gathering wild flowers. By the time the
+exercises in the Willow Creek opera house were finished and the
+procession was formed, Bud Perkins had a heaping armful of field
+blossoms. He was coming over the hill to the cemetery when he heard
+the band strike up the "Dead March" down in the village. His impulse
+was to run away. He checked himself and walked across the place, past
+the shafts and monuments, toward his father's grave under the hill
+furthest from the town. In the middle of the cemetery the boy stopped.
+His eyes were caught by a marble lamb over a child's grave. The
+inscription he read was "Mary Pennington, aged two years, three
+months, and ten days." The date line upon the stone, told of a year
+that had passed before the Perkins boy was born. He gazed at it a
+moment, and put there a handful of his choicest flowers. Looking up
+he saw some early visitor to the silent place stepping from behind
+a monument. Bud had scattered his flowers before he saw that he
+was being watched; so he pretended to hunt for stones to throw. He
+gathered several, and peppered them at shafts and at birds.
+
+[Illustration: "_Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and
+ten days_"]
+
+Bud Perkins walked to the freshly-made mound where his father lay, and
+scattered his posies over it. The village "cornet band" was coming
+nearer and nearer to the hill. The boy curbed a temptation to leave.
+He walked lazily about the grave until the Memorial Day procession
+had entered the big iron gate a hundred yards away. Calhoun Perkins's
+grave could not be seen from the plot where the townspeople had
+gathered. The boy sat down with his back to the crowd. He did not know
+how near the people were to him. He felt that they were staring down,
+perhaps laughing, at him. So he tried to assume a careless air. He
+picked up clods and tossed them at adjacent objects. Tiring of this,
+he chewed the grass stems, and sucked the nectar from the corolla of
+wild honeysuckles. But this did not keep the lump out of his throat,
+and it did not subdue the turmoil of sorrow in his heart at the
+thought that his father was scorned in the town. Once his small frame
+shook with a strangled sob, but immediately afterward he threw an
+unusually big clod at a post near by. He had been hearing voices and
+footsteps on the brow of the hill for several minutes. Occasionally he
+picked out a familiar voice, and once he heard Mealy Jones call his
+name. He did not answer, but a woman standing a little further up the
+hill asked Mealy, "Who is it, Harold?" "Bud," said the youngster.
+
+"Bud who?" asked the woman's voice.
+
+The Perkins boy heard the dialogue. He was sitting down, throwing
+clods into the air, and catching them as they fell, and this appeared
+to be an engrossing task.
+
+"Bud Perkins. He's settin' down by his pa's grave," replied the boy on
+the hill. The child by the fresh mound pictured himself as the other
+boy saw him, and his eyes brimmed over with tears. He seemed so
+desolate.
+
+"Why don't you go to him?" insisted the woman, coming nearer.
+
+"Oh, Miss Morgan," said the boy whom she addressed, lowering his
+voice, but not lowering it sufficiently, "Miss Morgan, _you_ don't
+know _him_"
+
+Just then Bud was startled by a footstep at his side. He looked up and
+saw Piggy Pennington, who had a big bunch of roses in his hands,
+and who, seeing the stained face of his friend, said in embarrassed
+confusion: "Ma sent 'em." Piggy put the roses by the new pine
+head-board, and lay down--lying across his companion's feet.
+
+"Get off me," said Bud, when he had treated himself to a long,
+trembling sniff, after a painful silence. "I ain't no sidewalk."
+
+When Piggy went to get his flying hat, he said under his breath
+to Bud, "Wipe your face, quick; some one's comin'." Then he stood
+awkwardly at Bud's back and shielded him. Piggy spoke first to the
+little woman, now only a few paces away.
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy went to get his flying hat_.]
+
+"H'lo, Miss Morgan; lookin' for old Tom? He's buried off to the right
+yonder."
+
+"No, my dear. I want to speak to Henry Perkins," replied the woman,
+beaming the kindest of smiles into the guardsman's face. He stepped
+from the line between Miss Morgan and the Perkins boy, not sure that
+the intruder would find a welcome. Bud was glaring steadfastly at the
+earth, between his hands and knees. Piggy said, "Bu-ud?"
+
+"Whut," was the response.
+
+"Miss Morgan wants to talk with you," replied Piggy.
+
+"What's she want?" inquired the Perkins boy, with his head still
+between his knees.
+
+Miss Morgan had been coming nearer and nearer to him as the dialogue
+had progressed. She was standing in front of Bud when he added, "I
+ain't done nothin'."
+
+Miss Morgan bent down and touched his head with her hands. Piggy was
+shaking his head warningly at her with much earnestness. He feared
+that such a feminine proceeding would anger his comrade. When Miss
+Morgan sat upon the ground beside Bud and took one of his hands,
+stroking it without the boy's resisting, Piggy Pennington was dumb
+with wonder. He could not hear the gentle breaking of the agonizing
+lump in the child's throat. Even little Miss Morgan could not see the
+tears that had burst over the brims of the orphan's eyes. His face was
+averted. She stroked his hand, and snuggled closer to him. Then she
+heard a faint whimper, and her heart could stand the strain no longer;
+she leaned upon the child's shoulder, and mourned with him. The
+Pennington boy did not comprehend it all; but as he looked politely
+away from his friends, he felt the moisture in his eyes. He wiped it
+away quickly, glancing to see if his weakness had been detected.
+The woman recovered in a few moments, and arose with the boy's hand
+gripping hers warmly. He had felt her tears through his thin clothing,
+and was conquered.
+
+[Illustration: _She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him_.]
+
+"Come on, Henry; we're going now," said Miss Morgan, and drew the lad
+up with her hand.
+
+"Whur to?" asked Bud, who knew the answer instinctively.
+
+"Home," replied the little woman, who knew that the boy knew, and who
+was sure that he had consented. "Our home--yours and mine."
+
+The boy arose, still holding her hand, and looked toward the grave
+with the flowers strewn over it. He gripped her hand tightly--so
+tightly that it pained her--and sobbed, as he faced away from her: "O
+pop!"
+
+Then they walked on in silence, till they came up with Piggy, who had
+gone a few steps ahead. It was Bud who spoke first. He said: "You
+don't live far from Piggy's, do you, Miss Morgan?"
+
+And Piggy Pennington pointed his finger at Bud's dripping eyes and
+grinned, while Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds.
+
+[Illustration: _Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds_.]
+
+
+
+
+"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"
+
+
+THE RHYME OF MIGNONETTE
+
+  When dandelions fleck the green,
+    And plum-blooms scent the evening breeze,
+    And robin's songs throb through the trees;
+  And when the year is raw thirteen,
+    And Spring's a gawky hoyden yet,
+  The season mirrors in its mien
+    And in its tom-boy etiquette,
+    Maid Mignonette, my Mignonette.
+
+  When bare-feet lisp along the path,
+    And boys and jays go whistling by,
+    And girls and thrushes coyly cry
+  Their fine joys through the aftermath--
+    Then laid ghosts know their amulet
+  Which fickle siren mem'ry hath;
+    So laughing comes that sad coquette,
+    Comes Mignonette,--my Mignonette.
+
+  The wild rose is a conjurer,
+    It charms the heavy years away,
+    Unshoes my feet and bids them stray
+  O'er playgrounds where our temples were.
+    To some pale star I owe a debt
+  For harboring the soul of her
+    With whom I learned love's alphabet--
+    With Mignonette, my Mignonette.
+
+
+
+
+"While the Evil Days come not"
+
+  We duck through the court, reminded a
+  bit by our feelings of our first love, who hadn't
+  the cleanest of faces, or the nicest of manners;
+  but she takes her station in our memory because
+  we were boys then, and the golden halo
+  of youth is upon her.--_George Meredith_.
+
+What little things turn great events! Tragedies swing on such
+inconsequential hinges. It is so exasperating to look back over the
+path of a calamity and see how easily it might have been averted! If
+one man in the little town of Lawrence a generation ago had eaten two
+pieces of pie-plant pie instead of three for supper, the night of a
+certain party caucus, he would have attended that caucus and another
+set of delegates would have gone to the County convention, another
+would have been sent to the State Convention, another Governor of
+Kansas would have been nominated and elected, and he would have chosen
+another United States Senator, who would have voted for, instead of
+against, the impeachment of a President of the United States, and the
+history of the civilized world would have been an entirely different
+affair from the one now in use. Similarly, if Winfield Hancock
+Pennington, of the town of Boyville, had slipped his shoes off in the
+second block from his home, instead of slipping them off in the first
+block, on his way to school, a great shadow that settled over his life
+might have been lifted. For if he had not been sitting exactly where
+he sat on the curbing of the street, on that bright, beautiful Monday
+morning in September, removing his shoes and stockings, he would have
+found no garter snake to kill; and not having killed the snake, he
+could not have brought it to school on a stick; and not having brought
+it to school on a stick, he could not have chased the little girls
+around the yard with it before the teacher came. And if he had not
+been doing that, he would not have conceived the chivalrous notion
+that he might gain the esteem of his Heart's Desire by frightening
+her with a snake. And if Winfield Hancock Pennington had not made his
+Heart's Desire angry--without giving her a chance to cool off--she
+would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her during
+the opening hour. But probably all that happened had to happen in the
+course of things; so speculation is idle. But when it did happen, it
+seemed to be a hopeless case. Young Mr. Pennington had lived through
+the day, a week before, when the teacher changed his seat so that he
+could not see his Heart's Desire smile; but he knew that she was sorry
+with him, and that helped a little. But when he saw Harold Jones
+singing from the same book with his Heart's Desire, he tried in vain
+to catch the fragment of a smile from her. Instead of a smile, he
+found her threatening to make a face if he persisted. Piggy seemed to
+be buried in an avalanche of woe. Then it was that he saw what a small
+thing had started the avalanche of calamity thundering down upon him,
+and he smarted with remorse. In his anguish he tried to sing alto,
+and made a peculiar rasping sound that tore a reproof for him off the
+teacher's nerves.
+
+[Illustration: _Chased the little girls around the yard with it_.]
+
+[Illustration: _She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and
+sing with her during the opening hour_.]
+
+From the hour of the Jones boy's triumph, he and Winfield Hancock
+Pennington--familiarly known as "Piggy"--became boon companions. A
+grown-up outsider might have wondered at such a friendship, for Harold
+Jones was a pale, thin youth, with a squeaky voice. His skimmed-milk
+eyes popped out over a waste of freckles which blurred his features
+and literally weighted down a weak, loosely-wired jaw and kept an
+astonished mouth opened for hours at a time. Piggy, on the other hand,
+was a sturdy, chunky, blue-eyed boy, who had fought his way up to
+glory in the school, and who had run and jumped, and tumbled and
+dived, and bantered himself into the right to be King of Boyville.
+Chummery between the two boys seemed impossible, yet it was one of the
+things which every school expects in a certain crisis. When the affair
+is reversed, the two little girls go about breathing undying
+hatred for one another. But a boy begins to consume his rival with
+politeness, to seek him out from all other beings on earth, to study
+his tastes and cater to his humors. And so, while the comradeship
+between Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones was built on ashes, its
+growth was beautiful to see.
+
+[Illustration: _Harold Jones_]
+
+[Illustration: _To study his tastes_.]
+
+[Illustration: ... _the comradeship ... was beautiful to see_]
+
+In all their hours of close communion neither boy mentioned to the
+other the name of the little girl in the red shawl and the paint-brush
+pig-tails whose fitful fancy had brought on all his trouble. In some
+mysterious way each managed to shower her with picture cards, to
+compass her about with oranges, to embower her desk with flowers;
+but it was all done in stealth, and she who was the object of
+this devotion rewarded it openly and--alas for the vanity of her
+sex--impartially. All the school watched the battle of the hearts
+eagerly. The big boys, who usually know as little about the social
+transactions beneath them as the teacher knows, felt an inkling of the
+situation. The red-headed Pratt girl became deeply interested in
+the affair, though she was never invited to a party in the school's
+aristocracy. She did not even get an invitation to Bud Perkins's
+surprise party, where every one who had any social standing was
+expected. Yet she saw all that went on in the school, and once she all
+but smiled sympathetically at Piggy, when she met him slipping away
+from his Heart's Desire's desk, in which he had left a flock of Cupids
+nestling on a perfumed blotter, and a candy sheep. Mealy Jones would
+have snubbed the Pratt girl if she had caught him thus, but Piggy gave
+her a wink that made her his partner. After that hour the Pratt girl
+became his scout. The next day she blundered. That Friday was burned
+into Piggy Pennington's memory with a glowing brand.
+
+[Illustration: _The red-headed Pratt girl_.]
+
+The trouble occurred in this way: On the Friday following Piggy's
+black Monday, the King of Boyville, decided to resort to an heroic
+measure. In his meditative moments Piggy had made up speeches
+addressed to his Heart's Desire wherein he had proposed reconciliation
+at any sacrifice save that of honor. Twice during those four days he
+had stood by his Heart's Desire during recess, while they had looked
+out at the play-ground. But the words next to his heart had sputtered
+and bubbled into nothing on his lips. He could only snap chalk at
+the young gentlemen in the yard below him, in a preoccupied way,
+and listen to his Heart's Desire rattle on about the whims of her
+fractions and the caprices of her spelling-lesson. Friday noon,
+Winfield Hancock Pennington took a header into the Rubicon. In the
+deserted school-room, just after the other youngsters had gone to
+dinner or to play, Piggy, with much wiggling of his toes, with much
+hard breathing, and with many facial contortions, wrote a note. He
+gave it to the Pratt girl to deliver. When the first bell was ringing
+that noon, Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling,
+squealing piles at "crack the whip." During the fifteen minutes
+that followed, he was charging up and down the yard, howling like a
+Comanche, at "pull-away." But run as he would, yell as he would, and
+wrestle as he would, Piggy could not escape the picture that rose in
+his mind of a boy wearing his features and using his body, writing the
+note that he had written. When dismembered words and phrases from that
+note came to his mind on the play-ground, the quaver of terror that
+rose in Piggy's whoop was not dissembled. Sometimes fear froze his
+vitals, then a flush of self-abasement burned him with its flames. And
+all the time he knew that the Pratt girl had that note. He almost
+hoped that an earthquake would swallow her with it before she could
+deliver it. When Piggy came straggling in, hot, sweaty, and puffing,
+just as the teacher was tapping the tardy-bell, a wave of peace swept
+over him. His Heart's Desire was not at her desk. He knew that he
+had still a few moments' reprieve.
+
+[Illustration: _He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and
+listen to his Heart's Desire_.]
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling,
+squealing piles_.]
+
+They were singing when his Heart's Desire came in. Piggy's head was
+tilted back to give his voice full volume as he shouted, "All his
+jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own." His eyes were
+half closed in an ecstasy, and he did not turn his face toward the
+paint-brush pig-tails, nor give any sign that he knew of their owner's
+presence. Yet when she passed his desk, his voice did not quaver, nor
+his eyes blink, nor his countenance redden, as his foot darted out for
+her to trip over. She tripped purposely, thereby accepting affection's
+tribute, and he was glad.
+
+To elaborate the tale of how the Pratt girl blundered with Piggy
+Pennington's note would be depressing. For it holds in its barbed
+meshes a record of one agonizing second in which Piggy saw the folded
+paper begin to slip and slide down the incline of his Heart's Desire's
+desk, whereon the Pratt girl had dropped it; saw the two girls grab
+for it; heard it crash from the seat to the floor with what seemed to
+him a deafening roar. Nor is this all that the harrowing tale might
+disclose. It might dilate upon the horror that wrenched Piggy's spine
+as he watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be
+brought forward. It would be manifestly cruel and clearly unnecessary
+to describe the forces which impelled the psychic wave of suggestion
+that inundated the school--even to the youth of the "B" class, with
+his head under the desk, looking for a pencil--and gave every demon
+there gleeful knowledge that the teacher had nabbed a note and would
+probably read it aloud. It is enough to submit the plain, but painful,
+statement that, when the teacher tapped her pencil for attention, a
+red ear, a throbbing red ear, flared out from either side of Piggy
+Pennington's Fourth Reader, while not far away a pair of pig-tails
+bristled up with rage and humiliation from a desk where a little
+girl's head lay buried in her arms. Then the teacher unfolded the
+crackling paper and read this note:--
+
+  FRIEND MARY.--Did you mean anything
+  by letting Him sing with you. I
+  dont care if you did but I never don
+  anything to deserve it, but if you dident
+  I am very sorry, will tell you bout it at
+  the partey. Well that is all I can think
+  of today, from
+
+  Yourse Ever,
+
+  WIN PENNINGTON.
+
+  P.S. If you still meen what you sed
+  about roses red and vilets blue all right
+  and so do I.  W H P.
+
+[Illustration: _He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the
+note to be brought forward_.]
+
+Piggy waded home through blood that night. The boys could not resist
+calling out "Friend Mary" or "Hello, Roses Red," though each boy knew
+that his taunt would bring on a fight. Piggy fought boys who were
+three classes above him. He whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes
+from the lower grades; but the fighting took him away from his
+trouble, and in most cases he honored his combatants. He was little
+the worse for wear when he chased the last swarm of primary urchins
+into his father's cow lot, fastened them in, and went at them one by
+one with a shingle. A child living next door to the Penningtons had
+brought the news of Piggy's disgrace to the neighborhood, and by
+supper-time Mrs. Pennington knew the worst. While the son and heir
+of the house was bringing in his wood and doing his chores about the
+barn, he felt something in the air about the kitchen which warned him
+that new tortures awaited him.
+
+[Illustration: ... _fought boys who were three classes above him ...
+whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes_.]
+
+A boy would rather take a dozen whippings at school than have the
+story of one of them come home; and Piggy thought with inward
+trembling that he would rather report even a whipping at home than
+face his mother in the dishonor which covered him. At supper Mrs.
+Pennington repeated the legend of the note with great solemnity. When
+her husband showed signs of laughing, she glared at him. Her son ate
+rapidly in silence. Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired
+girl giggle. The only reply that Mrs. Pennington could get to her
+questions was, "Aw, that ain't nothin'," or "Aw, gee whiz, ma, you
+must think that's somethin'." But she proclaimed, in the presence of
+the father, the son, and the hired girl, that if she ever caught a
+boy of hers getting "girl-struck" she would "show him," which, being
+translated, means much that no dignified young gentleman likes to
+contemplate. But when the son was out of hearing, Mrs. Pennington told
+her husband, in the repressed tone which she used when expressing her
+diplomatic communications, that he would have "to take that boy in
+hand." Whereupon the father leaned back in his chair and laughed,
+laughed until he grew red in the face, laughed till the pans in the
+kitchen rattled, laughed--to use the words of his wife in closing the
+incident--"like a natural born simpleton."
+
+[Illustration: _Her son ate rapidly in silence_.]
+
+[Illustration: _Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl
+giggle_.]
+
+Alas for Piggy Pennington--he might affect great pride in his amours
+when the hired girl teased him; he might put on a brave face and even
+lure himself into the belief that this arch tormentor saw him only as
+a gay deceiver; but when the lights were out, Piggy covered his head
+with the bedclothes, and grew hot and cold by turns, till sleep came
+and bore him away from his humiliation.
+
+All day Saturday, before the Bud Perkins' surprise party, Piggy
+Pennington and Mealy Jones were inseparable. And Piggy, who was King
+of Boyville, came down from his throne and walked humbly beside Mealy,
+the least of all his courtiers. In fact, since the reading of his
+note Piggy had become needlessly deferential and considerate of the
+feelings of his rival.
+
+If the two entered a crowd and played "foot and a half" or "slap and
+a kick" or "leap-frog," and if Mealy was "it"--and poor Mealy was
+generally "it" in any game--Piggy did not jump viciously on Mealy's
+wobbly back, nor did he slap hard, nor kick hard, as he would have
+slapped and kicked on other days, before he descended from his throne
+to dwell with the beasts of the field on that fatal Friday. Pride kept
+Mealy on the rack.
+
+Time and again his little, freckled, milky face hit the moist springy
+ground as Bud or Abe or Jim bumped into him at their play. He was glad
+when the day ended and he could go home. For Mealy Jones abhorred the
+dirt that begrimed his face and soiled his white starched collar. He
+liked to play in lukewarm water, to slosh in the suds, and to rub
+his soft little hands whiter and whiter in the foam. His cleanliness
+pleased his mother, and she boasted of it to the mothers of other
+boys--mothers of boys with high-water marks just above their shirt
+collars; of boys who had to be yanked back to the roller-towel after
+washing to have their ears rubbed; of bad, bad, bad boys who washed
+their feet in the dew of the grass at night and told their mothers
+that they had washed them in the tub at the pump; of wicked and sinful
+boys who killed toads and cried noisily when their warts bled in the
+hot water; in fact, to the mothers of nearly all the boys in Boyville.
+And thus it came about that Boyville having Mealy Jones set before it
+as a model child, contracted a cordial hate for him, and rose against
+him when he presumed to contest with Piggy for his Heart's Desire. Yet
+all Boyville loved a fight, and all Boyville goaded the King to wrath,
+teased him, bantered him, and even pretended to doubt his worth.
+Therefore, when Piggy Pennington, the King of Boyville, dressed for
+the party that night in his Sunday clothes and his Sunday shoes and
+limped down the sidewalk to the Jones's, where the boys and girls were
+to meet before descending upon Bud Perkins, there was rancor in the
+royal heart and maternal hair-oil on the royal head. But a strange
+throb of glad pain in the pit of the royal stomach came at the thought
+of the two bright eyes that would soon meet his own. The eyes made him
+forget his blistering shoes, and a smile at the door divested his mind
+of the serrated collar upon which his head had been pivoting for five
+distracted minutes. The last thing of all to go was his pride in the
+hair-oil, but it fell before a voice that said: "Well, you got here,
+did you?"
+
+[Illustration: _His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of
+it to the mothers of other boys_.]
+
+That was all. But it was enough to make Piggy Pennington feel the core
+of a music-box turning inside him, while outside the company saw the
+King of Boyville transformed into a very red and very sweaty youth
+holding madly to the back of his cuffs and chuckling deliriously. In a
+daze he took off his hat, and put a sack of oranges, his part in the
+evening's refreshment, on a table in the next room. When he regained
+consciousness, Piggy noticed that Mealy Jones, who had pranced into
+the room with much unction, was sitting next to his Heart's Desire.
+The children were making merry chatter. Piggy took his place on the
+end of a lounge, and turning his back to the guilty pair, gave an
+"injin" pinch to Jimmy Sears, with orders to "pass it on."
+
+Indeed, so unconcerned was Piggy in the progress of the affair behind
+him that he began to shove the line of the boys on the lounge; the
+shoving grew into a scuffle, and the scuffle into a wrestle, which
+ended on the front porch. At length Piggy stalked through the room
+where the girls were sitting, saying, when he returned with his
+oranges and his hat: "Come on, fellers, everybody's here."
+
+The boys on the porch followed Piggy's example, and in a minute or two
+they stood huddled at the gate calling at the girls in the house to
+hurry. When the girls were on the porch, the boys struck out, and the
+two groups, a respectful distance apart, walked through the town.
+Mealy Jones was enjoying the triumph of his life, walking proudly
+between the noisy boys and giggling girls, beside--but why linger over
+the details of this instance of man's duplicity and woman's worse than
+weakness!
+
+The young blades of the Court of Boyville waited politely at the gate
+before the house where Bud Perkins lived with Miss Morgan, his foster
+mother. When the maidens arrived, all the company went trooping up
+Miss Morgan's steps. After Piggy had chased Bud from the front door
+into a closet, from which the host fought his way gallantly into
+the middle of the parlor floor, the essential preliminaries of the
+evening's entertainment were over. A little later the games began.
+First, there was "forfeits." Then came "tin-tin." "Clap in and clap
+out" followed, and finally, after much protestation from the girls,
+but at the earnest solicitation of Mealy Jones, "post-office" started.
+Piggy did not urge, nor protest. He had gone through the games
+listlessly, occasionally breaking into a spasm of gayety that was
+clearly hollow, and afterwards sinking into profound indifference. For
+how could a well-conditioned boy be gay with a heartache under his
+Sunday shirt and the spectacle before his eyes of a freckled human
+cock-sparrow darting round and round the bower of his Heart's Desire?
+Under such circumstances it was clearly impossible for him to see the
+eyes that sought his in vain across the turmoil of the room. Indeed, a
+voice pitched a trifle high to carry well spoke for him to hear, but
+met deaf ears. A little maid in a black-and-red check which the King
+of Boyville once preferred to royal purple, even made her way across
+the throng--undesignedly, he thought, but Piggy basked in the joy of
+her presence and made no sign to show his pleasure. A little later, in
+the shuffle of the game, Piggy and his Heart's Desire were far apart.
+Half an hour passed, but still he did not revive. Mealy Jones called
+her out in "post-office," and Piggy thought he saw her smile. That was
+too much. When the dining-room door closed behind the black-and-red
+checked dress, the pitcher that enclosed his woe broke and the wheel
+at the cistern of his endurance stopped. Mealy Jones came into the
+room, and the boy who kept the "post-office" called out, "Piggy
+Pennington." But the slam of the front door was his answer.
+
+[Illustration: _A little maid in a black-and-red check_.]
+
+Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair. It began
+when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph album with a
+coy:
+
+    "When this you see
+     Remember me."
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire
+affair_.]
+
+[Illustration: _It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into
+his autograph album_.]
+
+He followed the corrugated course of true love, step by step up to its
+climax, where, a week before, she had given him his choice of her new
+pack of assorted visiting-cards. He rose at the end of five minutes'
+sombre meditation, holding the curling gelatine card of his choice
+in his warm hand. After venting a heavy sigh, he checked a motion to
+throw away the token of his undoing and put it back into his pocket.
+While he was plotting dark things against the life and happiness of
+Mealy Jones, Piggy heard the sound of the merriment within, and a
+mischievous smile spread over his angry countenance. He tiptoed to the
+window, and peeped in. He saw his Heart's Desire sitting alone. He
+cheered up a little, not much--but sufficiently to reach in his pocket
+for his tick-tack.
+
+Now, it may be clearly proved, if necessary, that the tick-tack was
+invented by the devil. Any wise man's son knows that every boy between
+the ages of ten and fourteen carries with him at all times a complete
+outfit of the mechanical devices on which the devil holds the patent
+and demands a royalty. So there is nothing really strange in the
+statement that Piggy Pennington took from his Sunday clothes,
+beneath a pocketful of Rewards of Merit for regular attendance at
+Sunday-school--all dated before the Christmas-tree--a spool with
+notched wheels, a lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound
+round the spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the
+spool, and held the notched rims of the spool against the window
+pane by pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the cord a quick jerk; a
+rattle, a wail, and a shriek were successively produced by the notches
+whirring on the glass. The company within doors screamed. Everyone
+knew it was Piggy, but no one ever lived with nerves strong enough to
+withstand the shock of a tick-tack. At the first shock those in-doors
+decided to ignore the disturbance. But it occurred twice afterwards,
+and a third tick-tack at a party is a dare. So the boys took it up. As
+Piggy ran he forgot his hot, heavy shoes; he felt the night wind on
+his face and in his hair. He cared nothing for his pursuers; he ran
+for the gladness that came with running. Now he slackened his pace
+and let the boys catch up with him, and again he spread the mocking
+distance between them. He turned down an alley, and eluded the pack.
+
+All the youngsters at the party, even the girls, had scampered out of
+the house to watch the race. When Piggy vaulted the back-yard fence
+into Miss Morgan's garden, he heard the pursuers half a block away. He
+saw, a hundred feet distant, a bevy of girls standing on the sidewalk.
+And he saw, too, as he came skipping down the lot, something that made
+him fairly skim over the earth; his Heart's Desire, standing alone,
+near the porch, in his path, under an apple-tree. The exhilaration of
+the chase had made him forget his trouble. He was so surefooted in the
+race that he forgot to be abashed for the moment and came bounding
+down by the apple-tree. He was full of pride. When he stopped he
+was the King of Boyville and every inch a king. The king--not
+Piggy--should be blamed. It was all over in a second--almost before he
+had stopped. He aimed at her cheek, but he got her ear. That was the
+first that he knew of it. Piggy seemed to return to life then. In
+his confusion he felt himself shrivelling up to his normal
+size--shrivelling and frying. In an instant he was gone, and Piggy
+Pennington ran into the group of girls on the sidewalk and let them
+catch him and hold him. The breathless youths went into the house
+telling their adventures in the race between gasps. But Piggy did not
+dare to look at his Heart's Desire for as much as five minutes--a
+long, long time. No one had seen him beneath the apple-tree. He was
+not afraid of the teasing, but he was afraid of a withering look from
+his Heart's Desire,--a look that he felt with a parching fear in his
+throat would throw the universe into an eclipse for him. He observed
+that she got up and changed her seat to be rid of Mealy Jones. At
+first Piggy thought that was a good sign, but a moment later he
+reasoned that the avoidance of Mealy was inspired probably by a
+loathing for all boys. He dared not seek her eyes, but he mingled
+noisily in the crowd for a while, and then, on a desperate venture,
+carelessly snapped a peanut shell and hit his Heart's Desire on
+the chin. He seemed to be looking a thousand miles away in another
+direction than that which the missile took. He waited nearly a
+minute--a long, uncertain minute--for a response.
+
+Then the shell came back; it did not hit him--but it might have done
+so--that was all he could ask. He snapped shells slyly for a quarter
+of an hour, and was happy. Once he looked--not exactly looked; perhaps
+peeked is the better word; took just the tiniest lightning peek out of
+the tail of his eye, and found a smile waiting for him. At supper, if
+any one save Piggy had tried to take a chair by his Heart's Desire
+when the plates came around, there would have been a fight. Mealy
+Jones knew this, and he knew what Piggy did not know, that it would
+have been a fight of two against one. So Piggy sat bolt upright in his
+chair beside the black-and-red checked dress, and talked to the room
+at large; but he spoke no word to the maiden at his side. She noticed
+that Piggy kept dropping his knife, and the solicitude of her sex
+prompted her to ask: "Are your hands cold, Winfield?"
+
+And the instinct of his sex to hide a fault with a falsehood made
+Piggy nod his head.
+
+Then she answered: "Cold hands, a warm heart!"
+
+At this important bit of repartee, the King of Boyville so forgot his
+royal dignity that he let an orange-peel drive at Jimmy Sears, and
+pretended not to hear her. His only reply was to joggle her arm when
+she reached for the cake. Piggy was so exuberant and in such high
+spirits that he put his plate on his chair and made Bud Perkins walk
+turkey fashion three times around the room. He forgot the disgrace
+which his note had brought to him in the school; he forgot the
+pretensions of Mealy Jones; he did not wish to forget the episode of
+the apple-tree, and for the time Piggy Pennington lived in a most
+peculiar world, made of hazel eyes and red-ribboned pig-tails, all
+circling around on a background of black-and-red checked flannel.
+
+[Illustration: _At this important bit of repartee_.]
+
+After that nothing mattered very much. It didn't matter that Piggy's
+bruised feet began to sting like fire. It didn't matter much if Mealy
+Jones's mother did come for him with a lantern and break up the party.
+It didn't matter if Jimmy Sears did call out, "Hello, Roses Red," when
+the boys reached the bed-room where their hats were; for a voice that
+Piggy knew cried back from the adjoining room, "You think you're cute,
+don't you, old smarty?" Nothing in the world could matter then, for
+had not Piggy Pennington five minutes before handed a card to his
+Heart's Desire which read:
+
+  _If I may not C U home
+     may I not sit on the fence
+        and C U go by_?
+
+And had not she taken it, and said merrily, "I'm going to keep this"?
+What could matter after that open avowal?
+
+And so it came to pass in a little while that the courtly company,
+headed by the King of Boyville, filed gayly down the path. They walked
+two by two, and they started on a long, uneven way. But the King of
+Boyville was full of joy--a kind of joy so strange that wise men may
+not measure it; a joy so rare that even kings are proud of it.
+
+
+
+
+JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON
+
+
+LITTLE SISTER'S LULLABY
+
+  Zhere, zhere, 'ittul b'o', sistuh 'll wock you to s'eep
+  Hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye, b'o',
+  An' tell you the stowy about the b'ack sheep--
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+  A boy onct said "b'ack sheep, you dot any wool?"
+  "Uh-huhm," said the lambie, "I dot free bags full."
+  An' where Murry went w'y the lamb's sure to doe,
+  They's mowe of zis stowy--I dess I don' know;
+  But hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+
+  O, mama says buddy tomed stwaight down from Dod;
+  Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  At doctuh mans bwunged him, now is n't zhat odd--
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+  For papa says, "doctuhs is thiefs so zhey be."
+  An' thiefs tain't det up into Heaven you see:
+  I dess w'en one comes up an' dets sent below,
+  He's dot to bwing wif him a baby or so;
+  Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+
+  But sistuh loves b'o' anyhow if he's dood,
+  Hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Better 'n tandy er infalid's food--
+  Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.
+  An' some day when buddy drows up to a man,
+  W'y sistuh an' him 'ull 'ist harness ol' Fan,
+  An dwive off to Heaven the fuist zhing you know,
+  An' bwing ever' baby back what wants to doe.
+  Zhen hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.
+
+
+
+
+James Sears: A Naughty Person
+
+
+A naughty person ... walketh with a forward mouth.
+
+He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with
+his fingers;... he deviseth mischief continually;...
+
+Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be
+broken without remedy.--_Proverbs_, vi. 12-15.
+
+It was morning--the cool of the morning. The pigeons were gossiping
+under the barn eaves. In the apple-tree a robin's song thrilled
+at intervals, and the jays were chattering incessantly in the
+cherry-trees by the fence. The dew was still on the grass that lay in
+the parallelogram of shade made by the Sears' dwelling, and in
+the twilight of grass-land all the elf-people were whispering and
+tittering and scampering about in surreptitious revel. The breeze
+of dawn, tired and worn out, was sinking to a fitful doze in the
+cottonwood foliage near by. In the lattice of the kitchen porch two
+butterflies were chasing the sun flecks in and out among the branches
+of the climbing rose. Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers
+lining the path that led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the
+breath of the morning air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high
+chord of ecstasy that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that
+hour, James Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his
+neck, stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle.
+His back ached, and his heart was full of bitterness at the scheme of
+creation. For it was Saturday morning--his by every law, precedent, or
+tradition known or reported in the Court of Boyville. But instead
+of inhaling the joys of the new day, James, whose Courtly name was
+"Jimmie," looked for yellow granules on the dasher, and promised God
+if He would let him grow up that his little boy should never have to
+churn.
+
+[Illustration: _His heart was full of bitterness_.]
+
+Any boy knows that it is a degrading thing to churn, and he further
+knows that to wear a green-checked gingham apron is odious beyond
+description; however, if the disgusting thing is tied under a boy's
+arms, from whence it may be slipped down over the hips and the knees
+to the ground, by a certain familiar twist of the body, the case is
+not absolutely hopeless. But Jimmy Sears's apron strings were tied
+about his neck; so his despair was black and abysmal. Once in a while
+Jimmy's bosom became too heavily freighted, and he paused to sigh.
+He cheered himself up on these occasions by slyly licking the
+churn-dasher; but the good cheer on the dasher was a stimulant that
+left him more miserable than it found him. Ever and anon from some
+remote chamber in the house behind him came the faint, gasping cry of
+a day-old baby. That cry drowned the cooing of the doves, the song of
+the robin, and the chirping of the dwellers in the grass; to Jimmy the
+bleat of the little human lamb sounded like the roar of a lion. He
+could endure penal servitude on his Saturday, with a patience born of
+something approaching a philosophy; he could wear a checked gingham
+apron, even as a saint wears an unbecoming halo; but the arrival of
+the new baby--the fifth addition to the family in the short period of
+years covered by Jimmy Sears's memory--brought a bitter pill of wrath
+and dropped it in the youth's brimful cup of woe. As the minutes
+dragged wearily along, Jimmy Sears reviewed the story of his thraldom.
+He thought of how, in his short-dress days, he had been put to rocking
+a cradle; how in his kilted days, there had been ever a baby's calico
+dress to consider; how, from his earliest fishing-days, there had been
+always a tot tagging after him, throwing sticks and stones in
+the water to scare the fish; and how, now in his swimming and
+cave-dwelling days, there was a swarm of tow-headed Searses, a
+crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a sneaker to run away
+from.
+
+[Illustration: _Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish_.]
+
+[Illustration:
+_A crawler,
+A creeper,
+A toddler,
+A stumbler,
+and
+A sneaker_.]
+
+As the churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup began to
+sputter, dissolving into that which in his older sister's heart would
+have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took the form of convulsive
+sniffling. The boy could hear his sister clattering the breakfast
+dishes in the kitchen. The thing that ground upon his heart was the
+firm footfall of Mrs. Jones, a neighbor woman, who was overseeing
+the affairs of the household. Jimmy could not remember hearing that
+footstep except in times of what seemed to him to be the family's
+disgrace. He hated Mrs. Jones because she tried to cool his ire by
+describing the superior points of the particular new baby that had
+arrived each time she came upon her errands of neighborly mercy. Just
+as the yellow granules began to appear in the buttermilk pool on the
+churn-top, Jimmy heard a step on the gravel walk behind him. The step
+came nearer; when Jimmy lifted his eyes, they glared into the face of
+Harold Jones. Choler cooled into surprise, and surprise exploded into
+a vapid, grinning "Huh!" which was followed by another "Huh!" that
+gurgled out into a real laugh as Jimmy greeted the visitor. The Jones
+boy giggled, and Jimmy found his tongue and asked: "Did you ever
+churn?" When Harold admitted that he, too, was a slave of the
+churn, the freemasonry of Boyville was established. A moment later
+Mealy--Harold's title in the Court--was exemplifying the work. When
+Mrs. Jones came out of the house to take care of the butter, she saw
+her son and Jimmy lying on the grass. Half an hour later the boys in
+the barn heard Mrs. Jones's voice calling,--
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter_.]
+
+"Harold, O Harold, don't you want to come and look at the baby?" Now
+James Sears in the twenty-four hours of his new sister's life had not
+let the fact of her existence form expression on his lips. Much
+less had he lowered his hostile flag to salute her; but he knew
+instinctively that Harold Jones was the sort of a boy who would unsex
+himself by looking at a baby. When Mealy answered, "Yes'm," and
+trotted down the back-yard path to the kitchen, Jimmy Sears scorned
+him heartily enough to fancy Mealy in the act of holding the loathsome
+thing in his arms. Further contumely was beyond Jimmy's imagination.
+
+[Illustration: _The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at
+a baby_.]
+
+[Illustration: _James_.]
+
+When Mealy Jones came back, the barn wherein he had left Jimmy was
+empty; and only when Mealy had started homeward, and a clod came
+whizzing down the alley, hitting him under the ear, did Mealy know how
+Jimmy Sears resented an insult. Mealy looked around; no one was in
+sight.
+
+Right here the reader should know that Jimmy Sears was not alone in
+his displeasure. There was mutiny in the Sears household. When the
+baby came, the four elder of the seven Sears children joined Jimmy
+in informal, silent sedition. They looked upon the newcomer as
+an intruder. For all who extended sympathy to the pretender, the
+insurgents developed a wholesome scorn. This scorn fell most heavily
+upon kind Mrs. Jones. The Sears children regarded her familiar
+jocularity with undisguised repugnance; and when Jimmy heard Mrs.
+Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer
+the baby, Jimmy's rage at what he considered a fiendish thrust at the
+innocent and forsaken child passed the bounds of endurance. He hurled
+a bit of that anger in the clod that hit Mealy Jones, then Jimmy
+walked doggedly back to the house. He coaxed the little sister from
+the kitchen, took the child's chubby hand and led her to the barn.
+There Jimmy nursed his sorrow. He assured the younker as they sat
+on the hay that he for one would not desert her, "even if mamma had
+forgotten her." He hugged the wondering tot until her ribs hurt, and
+in his lamentations referred to the new baby as "that old thing."
+The evening before, when Mrs. Jones had marshalled the other Sears
+children and had taken them into the bedroom to see their new sister,
+Jimmy was not to be found. None of the older children had looked at
+the baby. They had turned their heads away deliberately, and had
+responded in gutteral affirmatives when they were asked if it were not
+a pretty baby. But Jimmy had escaped that humiliation, and since then
+he had avoided all snares set to lure him to his mother's bed-side. He
+sat there in the barn, fuming as he recalled what he had heard while
+Annie was in his mother's room early that morning.
+
+[Illustration: _Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie
+that morning that she was no longer the baby_.]
+
+"See little sister's hands. Oh, what pretty hands!" Jimmy had
+reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by the
+child's big-eyed astonishment. Mrs. Jones continued,--
+
+"Weenty teenty little feets! See little sister's toeses. What little
+bitsey toeses. Baby touch little sister's toeses."
+
+Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene came to him
+after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was to dupe the child
+into an affection for her inevitable enemy.
+
+"Does baby love little sister?" continued the voice. "Love nice,
+pretty little sister! Sweet little sister! Zhere! Zhere! Zhat's right;
+love little sister!" As he toyed with a wisp of hay, Jimmy Sears's
+blood froze in his veins at the recollection that his own mother had
+lent her countenance to this baseness. He knew, and he knew that his
+mother knew, that the baby would take all the care due to his toddling
+sister. He saw, from the elevation of the hay-cock on which he and
+the little one sat, that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner
+while she smiled. It seemed deliberately cruel. A lump of pity for the
+child filled his throat. Still, in his heart, he forgave his mother
+for her part in the duplicity. He did not feel for her the contempt he
+felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew that Henry Sears
+was actually proud of the family's ignominy. Jimmy blushed at the
+picture in his mind of his father strutting around town, with his vest
+pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs in the armpits, bragging of the
+occurrence that filled the boy with shame. Jimmy felt that secretly
+his mother did not consider the baby's arrival an occasion for
+vainglory. He felt that his mother was merely putting a good face upon
+the misfortune. These reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.
+
+[Illustration: _His father strutting around town ... bragging of the
+occurrence that filled the boy with shame_.]
+
+At the end thereof a calamitous fate took him up and made him its toy.
+Tragedy is the everlasting piling up of little things. So Jimmy Sears
+could not know that an evil destiny had come to guide his steps when
+he started townward, for it came so gently. To meet Piggy Pennington
+and Bud Perkins and Abe Carpenter coming out of the Pennington yard
+was not such a dreadful thing. Jimmy had met them a score of times
+before at that particular gate, with no serious consequences. It was
+not in the least ominous that the four boys started for the Creek of
+the Willows, for Jimmy had gone to the Creek times without number in
+that very company. It did not augur evil for Jimmy Sears that the lot
+fell to him to go forth and forage a chicken, for the great corn feast
+of the Black Feet, a savage tribe of four warriors, among whom Jimmy
+was known as the "Bald Eagle." Perhaps there were signs and warnings
+in all these things; and then, on the other hand, perhaps Jimmy Sears
+was so intent upon escaping from the shadow that lowered over his
+family that he did not read the signs, and so rushed into his
+misfortunes blindly. These, however, are idle speculations; they are
+the materials from which sages spin their dry and ethereal webs. But
+this narrative is concerned only with the facts in the case. Therefore
+it is necessary to know only that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up
+his nail-pointed arrow, lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the
+sharp nasal "sping" of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow
+and arrow in hand, he began to run, not looking back.
+
+"Here, here, Jimmy Sears, hold on there!" cried a voice. Jimmy knew
+the voice. It and the chicken belonged to the same person. So Jimmy
+quickened his speed. He heard the clattering thump of pursuing feet.
+It was two hundred yards to the end of the cob-strewn cow lot. The boy
+fixed his course toward the lowest length of fence. Then he kept his
+eyes upon the ground. He clenched his teeth and skimmed over the
+earth. The feathers in his hat--stuck there to satisfy the verities of
+his assumed Indian character--caught the breeze; so, rather than lose
+his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He cleared
+the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his shoulder, he
+saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud of boots on the sod
+and the crash of branches behind him sent terror through the boy's
+frame, and he turned towards the creek that flowed sluggishly near by.
+He took great bounding strides, throwing his head from side to side
+as he ran. The boy knew the path. It led to a rickety fence--a cattle
+guard--across the river. Jimmy's heart beat wildly, and the trees
+danced by him on the sloping path. But he was not "the champeen
+fence-walker of Willow Creek," late of "Pennington & Carpenter's
+Circus & Menagerie, price ten pins," without having won his proud
+place by prowess. He came to the water's edge with sure feet. He knew
+that he could cross. He had crossed the creek there a score of times.
+He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart
+was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow him, even
+if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried up the bank
+before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had leaped from so
+lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again and again did the
+"champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he slackened his pace
+to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and again did James Sears--an
+exemplary youth for the most part, who knew his Ten Commandments by
+heart--look exultingly at his pullet. He gloried in his iniquity.
+Lentulus returning to Capua with victorious legions was not so
+proud. But there the evil spirit swooped low upon him--the spirit
+of destruction that always follows pride. Jimmy tripped, and lunged
+forward; the chicken, the hat, the bow and arrow, and the boy
+all parted company. Then Jimmy felt a pain--a sharp pain that he
+recognized too well. He feared to make sure of the extent of his
+injury. Instinctive knowledge told him he had "stumped" his toe. This
+knowledge also brought the sense of certainty that his day's pleasure
+was spoiled. He knew that he would go hobbling along, the last brave
+in the Indian file. The pain in his foot began to throb as he gathered
+up his weapons. He walked for a few moments without looking at the
+wound. He felt the oozing blood, and he bent his body and went along,
+grunting at every step. Finally coming into a flood of sunlight on the
+path, he sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face
+into an agonized knot. He peeked at his toe at first stealthily; then
+little by little uncovering it with his nursing hand, he gazed fixedly
+at the wound. The flesh on the end of the toe was hanging loosely by
+the skin. It was a full minute before the boy could find courage
+to press the hanging flesh back to its place. In the mean time the
+chicken, which lay behind him under the log, had regained its senses,
+squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When Jimmy's mind
+turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been in the depths as
+he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet brought with it a still
+further depression, and Jimmy forgot all about his impersonation of
+the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit in the red ochre stripes on his
+face, and the iridescent feathers in his hat, and the blue-black mud
+on his nimble feet. For a few moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who
+saw the hand of the whole world raised against him. The cry of the new
+baby rang in his ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about
+the number of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of
+wrongs grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all
+the world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying
+chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand,
+saying, before he came down with his index finger,--
+
+[Illustration: _He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet,
+and his heart was glad_.]
+
+[Illustration: _He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot,
+twisting his face into an agonized knot_.]
+
+  "Spit, spit, spy,
+   Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye."
+
+[Illustration: "_Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll
+hit ye in the eye_."]
+
+He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have taken, but
+he knew that luck--like all the world--was against him, and he had no
+heart in the rites that on another day might have brought fortune to
+him. His stubbed toe was hurting him, and the murmur of a ripple in
+the stream a few rods below the cattle guard called to him enticingly.
+As soon as the boy deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he
+hobbled down to the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the
+shade, with the cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that
+the other boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying
+the gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost
+imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the conviction
+of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he was a thief swept
+over him, covering his sense of personal grievance like a mantle. For
+another hour he wrestled with a persistent devil that was tempting him
+to strangle his scruples; he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in
+his cast-iron bank at home--the result of a year's careful saving. He
+crossed the creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was
+walking in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go
+straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to
+offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had
+done. Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he
+progressed slowly. So the afternoon was old when he turned the corner
+and trudged into Baker's store. The speech he was going to make, Jimmy
+had recited to himself over and over. He intended to walk up to the
+counter and say,--
+
+"I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker."
+
+To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not seem
+completely abject. He fancied the grocer would reply,--
+
+"All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents."
+
+To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong voice,--
+
+"Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have that,
+and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are ripe."
+
+With that agreement reached, Jimmy saw himself limping out of the
+store. He harbored a hope that maybe the grocer, pitying the poor,
+lame boy, would call him back, cancel the debt, and perhaps give him
+a stick of licorice. Jimmy knew his part by heart. He was sure there
+would be no halt nor break in this dialogue. But the demon that was
+torturing his destiny that day probably chuckled as Jimmy crossed the
+threshold of the grocery store.
+
+The boy that the grocer saw when he looked up from the pickle barrel
+certainly had a badly freckled face; the grocer thought the boy had
+bold, mean eyes. The youthful jaw set firmly, and the pain in his foot
+engraved ugly lines in his face. The button was off one wristband. A
+long tear down the lower part of his trousers' leg revealed a glimpse
+of brown, tanned skin. He was not a boy that looked like a creature of
+dreams and of high resolve. No boy that amounts to much ever does
+look the part, as the actors say. So when Jimmy Sears--ragged and
+brazen--stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded the man's
+bosom. He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at the boy. The
+instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out of Jimmy's head.
+He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the grocer grab a butter
+paddle,--
+
+"Dern you, don't you touch me; I'll pay for your old chicken. Watch
+out now!"
+
+Two scale weights slipped involuntarily into Jimmy's hands, and he
+backed from the counter to the sidewalk. His hands were uplifted as
+if to throw the weights. The grocer had not come up to the boy who
+shouted in a burst of fear and anger,--
+
+"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me!"
+
+[Illustration: "_I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away
+from me_."]
+
+The grocer hesitated, dismayed for a second by the threatening weights
+in the boy's hand. But pride urged the man on. He stepped up quickly,
+and planted a smarting blow on Jimmy's leg. It was well for the grocer
+that he ducked his head; for when the paddle struck, the boy did not
+flinch, but let drive one weight after another, and cried before each
+crash of glass that the flying irons made inside the store, "Yes, you
+will!" and again, "Yes, you will!"
+
+He forgot the ache in his cramped heel and the burning in his bruised
+toe as he ran to the middle of the street.
+
+"You old coward, why don't you pick on some one your size?"
+
+The tears were rising to his eyes; he had to run to escape from the
+tide. Just as he turned, he caught a glimpse of his father joining the
+gathering crowd. After that his feet grew wings.
+
+A freight train stood on the track in front of the boy, a quarter of a
+mile away. A mad impulse came to him as he ran, and he yielded to it.
+A boy with a grievance, or a boy with a sore toe, or a boy with fear
+at his back, cannot fashion his conduct after the beautiful principles
+laid down in Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics." So when Jimmy
+Sears came to the freight train that blocked his flight, he darted
+down the track until he was out of sight of any possible pursuers in
+the street. He clambered breathlessly into a coal car, and snuggled
+down into a corner inside a little strip of shade, and panted like a
+hunted rabbit. A sickening pain throbbed up from his toe. The train
+moved slowly at first, and Jimmy knew that he could not hide from the
+train men in a coal car. On a banter from Piggy Pennington and Bud
+Perkins Jimmy had ridden on the brake-beam while the switch engine was
+pulling freight cars about the railroad yards. He had a vague idea
+that midway of the train, between two box cars, would be a safe place.
+When the train began to increase its speed, Jimmy climbed up the side
+of a cattle car and ran along the roof. He had gone three car-lengths
+and was about to make his third jump, when he saw the angry face of
+his father, who appeared on the depot platform. Instinctively the boy
+darted to the other side of the car-roof. His jump fell short. The
+father saw his son's head go down, and for an awful minute Henry Sears
+heard the lumbering train rumble by. In the first second of that
+minute, the frantic man listened for a scream. He heard none. Then
+slowly he sank upon a baggage truck. He was helpless. A paralysis of
+horror was upon him. Car after car jolted along. At last the yellow
+caboose flashed by him. Half of the longest second Henry Sears ever
+knew passed before he dared turn his eyes toward the place on the
+track where his son went down. Then he looked, and saw only the cinder
+track and the shining rails. But an instant later he heard a familiar
+whoop, and, staring around, saw Jimmy sitting on a load of wheat that
+was standing between the railroad tracks. In this the boy had fallen
+after his sidewise jump had thrown him from the moving train. When
+Henry Sears saw his son, Jimmy was holding his foot, jiggling it
+vigorously and roaring, moved half by the hysteria of fright and half
+by the pain of a fresh laceration of his bruised toe. The boy's face
+was black with coal-dust and wheat chaff, and tears were striping his
+features grotesquely. The palsy of terror loosened its steel bands
+from the father's limbs, and he ran to the wheat-wagon. Jimmy Sears,
+for all he or his father know, may have floated to the ground from the
+wagon bed. But a moment later, in a frenzy wherein anger furnished
+only a sub-conscious motor, and joy pumped wildly at the expanding
+valves of his blissful heart, Henry Sears took his thirteen-year-old
+son across his knee, and spanked him in a delirium of ecstasy; spanked
+him merrily, while a heavenly peace glorified his paternal soul;
+spanked him, caring not how many times the little body wriggled, and
+the little voice howled, and the dirty little fingers foiled his big,
+bony hand as it fell. At the end of the felicitous occasion, the
+father found his voice,--
+
+"Haven't I told you enough, sir, to keep off the cars? Haven't I?
+Haven't I? Answer me, sir. Do you hear me? Haven't I?"
+
+And Jimmy Sears knew by that turn of the conversation that the
+episodes of the stolen chicken and of the broken showcases were
+forgotten, so he nodded a contrite head, His father returned to earth
+by giving his son a few casual cuffs, with, "Will you try that again,
+sir?" and continued,--
+
+"Now, sir, let me see you walk right straight home. And just you let
+me catch you down here again!"
+
+Jimmy was wise enough to hurry along as fast as his bleeding foot
+would take him. He saw the advantage of a motion to adjourn without
+further debate, and the motion prevailed.
+
+An hour later, Jimmy Sears had washed the dirt from the interior of
+an irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his
+hair. Until the twilight fell he stayed in the conning-tower in the
+Penningtons' barn, and watched his home through a crack between two
+boards. When he saw his father leave the house for town after supper,
+Jimmy hurried down a lane in sight of his father, yet out of his
+father's reach. At the close of twilight, Jimmy Sears came up the
+hard-beaten path that led to his home, through burdock weeds and
+sunflowers. There was a light in the kitchen, and through the window
+he could see Mrs. Jones moving about. He observed that the supper
+dishes were being put away. He saw his eldest sister, with the tea
+towel in her hands, chatting happily with Mrs. Jones. The spectacle
+filled him with rage. He felt that the other children had deserted
+him, and that, in the war against the new baby, they had left him to
+fight unaided. He met a little brother, who greeted him with,--
+
+[Illustration: _An irregular circumference that touched his ears and
+his chin and his hair_.]
+
+"Uh-hu, Mr. Jimmy, you just wait till pa gets you!"
+
+A prolonged and scornful "Aw!" was Jimmy's reply to this welcome. On
+the step of the back porch, his favorite little sister sat playing
+with the house-cat. She toddled to Jimmy; he let her take his finger,
+and they went into the kitchen.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy!--where--you--been?" demanded the eldest sister. "Mamma's
+been asking for you all day. I'd be ashamed if I was you."
+
+The boy did not deign to speak to Mrs. Jones, and kept his back to her
+when he could. He did not answer his sister's question.
+
+"Got anything here fit to eat?" he asked, as he threw open the
+cupboard doors. The insult to Mrs. Jones was not accidental. Jimmy
+supposed that she had cooked the supper. He put two or three plates of
+food on the table, and drew up a chair, sneering bumptiously, "What's
+this?" as he dived into each dish.
+
+[Illustration: "_Got anything here fit to eat_?"]
+
+His sister's "Why, Jimmy!" and her warning frowns did not change his
+course. Mrs. Jones went to the front of the house, diplomatically
+leaving all the doors open behind her, that Mrs. Sears might hear her
+son's voice. In a moment the boy caught the faint sound of his mother
+calling from the distant bedroom, "Jimmy, Jimmy, come here; I want
+you."
+
+The boy pretended not to hear. She called his name again. "Yes 'm," he
+answered. When she repeated her request, he filled his mouth with pie,
+and replied, "I'm a-eatin' now." He slipped a piece of ice down the
+back of his adoring little sister's dress, who sat near him. When she
+wept noisily, he laughed under his breath, and spoke aloud to his
+sister at the dish-pan,--
+
+"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for? Give it back,
+why don't you?"
+
+[Illustration: "_What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her
+for_?"]
+
+"Why--Jimmy--Sears!" retorted the girl. Then lifting her voice,
+"Mamma, Jimmy's put ice down--" But the lad pressed the ice against
+the child's back, pretending to be removing the source of the trouble,
+and the child's lusty howls drowned the girl's protest. When he heard
+the bedroom door close to shield his mother from the turmoil, Jimmy
+knew that he had outwitted Mrs. Jones, so he quelled the disturbance
+he had caused. When Mrs. Jones returned to the kitchen, the boy was
+sitting on the porch steps with his little sister, telling her about
+"raw head and bloody bones," greatly to the child's horror and
+delight.
+
+Jimmy heard his elder sister inquire, "Did Mamma eat her supper?" He
+heard Mrs. Jones respond, "Not very much of it; but she will after a
+while, I guess. She said to leave it in there."
+
+"Couldn't she eat any of that nice chicken Mrs. Pennington sent?"
+
+"No, nor Mrs. Carpenter's lemon jelly."
+
+"Poor mamma!" sighed the girl.
+
+But Jimmy had other reflections. Two minutes later he walked past his
+mother's open door, and fumbled around in the sitting-room.
+
+"Is that you, Jimmy?" asked his mother.
+
+"Yes 'm," rejoined the boy.
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"Lookin' for my other coat."
+
+"Won't you come in and see me, Jimmy? I haven't seen you for two whole
+days."
+
+"In a minute," returned Jimmy.
+
+Standing awkwardly in the doorway, he asked, "What 'd you want?"
+
+"Come over here, Jimmy," returned the mother. "My poor, neglected
+boy!" He would not let his eyes find the new baby. He stood stiffly on
+one foot, and gave his mother his hand. She drew him down and kissed
+his cheek, while he pecked at her lips. As Jimmy rose, his mother
+smiled.
+
+[Illustration: _She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked
+at her lips_.]
+
+"Are you hungry, Jimmy?"
+
+The boy nodded a vociferous affirmative. Being a boy, one of the
+lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions, Jimmy could
+not know that his mother understood the rankle in her son's heart. Nor
+could he divine that she kept the supper dainties as peace offerings.
+
+"Won't you have some of my supper?"
+
+"Don't you want it?" returned the boy, to justify his greed.
+
+"No, Jimmy; I'm not hungry. I kept it all for you."
+
+While her son was sitting on the floor, eating off the tray on the
+chair by the bed, his mother's hand was in his hair, stroking it
+lovingly. His sister and the other children looked in and saw him.
+Jimmy knew they were whispering "Hoggy!" but he did not heed them. His
+mother avoided mentioning the new baby to him; she made him tell her
+about his sore toe, and in return she told him how lonely she had been
+without him.
+
+As his stomach filled, his heart overflowed,--a common coincidence
+even with older and better boys than Jimmy, and the tears came to his
+eyes. At last, when the plate was cleared, he rose, and went to the
+place where the new-comer lay. He bent over the little puff in the
+bedclothes, and grinned sheepishly as he lifted the cover from
+the sleeping baby's face. He looked at the red features a moment
+curiously, and said in his loud, husky, boyish voice,--
+
+"Hullo there, Miss Sears; how are you this evenin'?"
+
+Then he pinched his mother's arm and walked out of the room, his soul
+at peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
+
+
+Back of Pennington's barn, which was the royal castle of the Court of
+Boyville, ran a hollow. In the hollow grew a gnarly box-elder tree.
+This tree was the courtiers' hunting-lodge. In the crotches of the
+rugged branches Piggy Pennington, Abe Carpenter, Jimmy Sears, Bud
+Perkins, and Mealy Jones were wont to rest of a summer afternoon,
+recounting the morning's adventures in the royal tourney of the
+marble-ring, planning for the morrow's chase, meditating upon the
+evil approach of the fall school term, and following such sedentary
+pursuits as to any member of the court seemed right and proper.
+One afternoon late in August the tree was alive with its arboreal
+aristocracy. Abe Carpenter sat on the lowest branch, plaiting a
+four-strand, square-braided "quirt"; Jimmy Sears was holding the ends.
+Piggy was casually skinning cats, hanging by his legs, or chinning on
+an almost horizontal limb, as he took his part in the lagging talk.
+Hidden by the foliage in the thick of the tree, in a three-pronged
+seat, Bud Perkins reclined, his features drawn into a painful grimace,
+as his right hand passed to and fro before his mouth, rhythmically
+twanging the tongue of a Jew's-harp, upon which he was playing "To My
+Sweet Sunny South Take Me Home." He breathed heavily and irregularly.
+His eyes were on the big white clouds in the blue sky, and his heart
+was filled with the poetry of lonesomeness that sometimes comes to
+boys in pensive moods. For the days when he had lived with his father,
+a nomad of the creeks that flowed by half a score of waterways into
+the Mississippi, were upon the far horizon of his consciousness, and
+the memory of those days made him as sad as any memory ever can make a
+healthy, care-free boy. He played "Dixie," partly because it was his
+dead father's favorite tune, and partly because, being sprightly, it
+kept down his melancholy. Later he took out a new mouth-organ, which
+his foster mother had given to him, and to satisfy his boyish idea of
+justice played "We shall Meet, but We shall Miss Him," because it
+was Miss Morgan's favorite. While he played the Jew's-harp his tree
+friends flung ribald remarks at him. But when Bud began to waver his
+hand for a tremulo upon the mouth-organ as he played "Marsa's in
+de Col', Col' Groun'," a peace fell upon the company, and they sat
+quietly and heard his repertoire,--"Ol' Shadey," "May, Dearest May,"
+"Lilly Dale," "Dey Stole My Chile Away," "Ol' Nicodemus," "Sleeping, I
+Dream, Love," and "Her Bright Smile." He was a Southern boy--a bird of
+passage caught in the North--and his music had that sweet, soothing
+note that cheered the men who fought under the Stars and Bars.
+
+Into this scene rushed Mealy Jones, pell mell, hat in hand,
+breathless, bringing war's alarms. "Fellers, fellers," screamed Mealy,
+half a block away, "it's a-comin' here! It's goin' to be here in two
+weeks. The man's puttin' up the boards now, and you can get a job
+passin' bills."
+
+An instant later the tree was deserted, and five boys were running as
+fast as their legs would carry them toward the thick of the town. They
+stopped at the new pine bill-board, and did not leave the man with the
+paste bucket until they had seen "Zazell" flying out of the cannon's
+mouth, the iron-jawed woman performing her marvels, the red-mouthed
+rhinoceros with the bleeding native impaled upon its horn and the
+fleeing hunters near by, "the largest elephant in captivity," carrying
+the ten-thousand dollar beauty, the acrobats whirling through space,
+James Robinson turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last
+and most ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his
+three charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture
+followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been
+pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of cynicism,
+the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in the night wood
+and dream of a wilderness of monkeys.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the two weeks after the appearance of the glad tidings on the
+bill-boards, the boys of Willow Creek spent many hours in strange
+habiliments, making grotesque imitations of the spectacles upon the
+boards. Piggy Pennington rolled his trousers far above his knees for
+tights, and galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and down the
+alley, riding sideways, standing, and backwards, with much vainglory.
+To simulate the motley of the tight-rope-walking clown, Jimmy Sears
+wore the calico lining of his clothes outside, when he was in the
+royal castle beyond his mother's ken. Mealy donned carpet slippers in
+Pennington's barn, and wore long pink-and-white striped stockings of
+a suspiciously feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt
+waist with stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a
+bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud Perkins,
+who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging a bottle of
+angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes,
+and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets
+of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They
+revelled in the pictured visions of the circus, but were sceptical
+about the literal fulfilment of some of the promises made on the
+bills. Certain things advertised were eliminated from reasonable
+expectation: for instance, the boys all knew that the giraffe would
+not be discovered eating off the top of a cocoanut-tree; nor would the
+monkeys play a brass band; and they knew that they would not see the
+"Human Fly" walk on the ceiling at the "concert." For no boy has ever
+saved enough money to buy a ticket to the "concert." Nevertheless,
+they gloated over the pictures of the herd of giraffes and the
+monkey-band and the graceful "Human Fly" walking upside down "defying
+the laws of gravitation;" and they considered no future, however
+pleasant, after the day and date on the bills. Thus the golden day
+approached, looming larger and larger upon the horizon as it came. In
+the interim, how many a druggist bought his own bottles the third and
+fourth time, how many a junk-dealer paid for his own iron, how many
+bags of carpet rags went to the ragman, the world will never know.
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat
+delivery horse up and down the alley_.]
+
+[Illustration: _Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun
+to fry_.]
+
+[Illustration: _How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman_.]
+
+Now, among children of a larger growth, in festive times hostile
+demonstrations cease; animosities are buried; but in Boyville a
+North-ender is a North-ender, a South-ender is a South-ender, and a
+meeting of the two is a fight. Boyville knows no times of truce. It
+asks nor offers quarter. When warring clans come together, be it
+workday, holiday, or even circus day, there is a clatter of clods,
+a patter of feet, and retreating hoots of defiance. And because the
+circus bill-boards were frequented by boys of all kiths and clans,
+clashes occurred frequently, and Bud Perkins, who was the fighter of
+the South End, had many a call to arms. Indeed, the approaching circus
+unloosed the dogs of war rather than nestled the dove of peace. For
+Bud Perkins, in a moment of pride, issued an ukase which forbade all
+North End boys to look at a certain bill-board near his home. This
+ukase and his strict enforcement of it made him the target of North
+End wrath. Little Miss Morgan, his foster-mother, who had adopted him
+at the death of his father the summer before the circus bills were
+posted, could not understand how the lad managed to lose so many
+buttons, nor how he kept tearing his clothes. She ascribed these
+things to his antecedents and to his deficient training. She did
+not know that Bud, whom she called Henry, and whose music on the
+mouth-organ seemed to come from a shy and gentle soul, was the Terror
+of the South End. Her guileless mind held no place for the important
+fact that North End boys generally travelled by her door in pairs
+for safety. Such is the blindness of women. Cupid probably got his
+defective vision from his mother's side of the house.
+
+The last half of the last week before circus day seemed a century to
+Bud and his friends. Friday and Saturday crept by, and Mealy Jones
+was the only boy at Sunday-school who knew the Golden Text, for an
+inflammatory rumor that the circus was unloading from the side-track
+at the depot swept over the boys' side of the Sunday-school room, and
+consumed all knowledge of the fifth chapter of Acts, the day's lesson.
+After Sunday-school the boys broke for the circus grounds. There they
+feasted their gluttonous eyes upon the canvas-covered chariots, and
+the elephants, and the camels, and the spotted ponies, passing from
+the cars to the tents. The unfamiliar noises, the sight of the rising
+"sea of canvas," the touch of mysterious wagons containing so many
+wonders, and the intoxicating smell that comes only with much canvas,
+many animals, and the unpacking of Pandora's box, stuffed the boys'
+senses until they viewed with utter stoicism the passing dinner hour
+and the prospect of finding only cold mashed potatoes and the
+necks and backs of chickens in the cupboards. They even affected
+indifference to parental scoldings, and lingered about the enchanting
+spot until the shadows fell eastward and the day was old.
+
+When a boy gets on his good behavior he tempts Providence. And the
+Providence of boys is frail and prone to yield. So when Bud Perkins,
+who was burning with a desire to please Miss Morgan the day before the
+circus, went to church that Sunday night, any one can see that he was
+provoking Providence in an unusual and cruel manner. Bud did not sit
+with Miss Morgan, but lounged into the church, and took a back seat.
+Three North End boys came in and sat on the same bench. Then Jimmy
+Sears shuffled past the North Enders, and sat beside Bud. After which
+the inevitable happened. It kept happening. They "passed it on," and
+passed it back again; first a pinch, then a chug, then a cuff, then a
+kick under the bench. Heads craned toward the boys occasionally, and
+there came an awful moment when Bud Perkins found himself looking
+brazenly into the eyes of the preacher, who had paused to glare at the
+boys in the midst of his sermon. The faces of the entire congregation
+seemed to turn upon Bud automatically. A cherub-like expression of
+conscious innocence and impenetrable unconcern beamed through Bud
+Perkins's features. The same expression rested upon the countenances
+of the four other malefactors. At the end of the third second Jimmy
+Sears put his hand to his mouth and snorted between his fingers. And
+four young men looked down their noses. In the hush, Brother Baker--a
+tiptoeing Nemesis--stalked the full length of the church toward the
+culprits. When he took his seat beside the boys the preacher continued
+his discourse. Brother Baker's unctuousness angered Bud Perkins. He
+felt the implication that his conduct was bad, and his sense of guilt
+spurred his temper. Satan put a pin in Bud's hand. Slowly, almost
+imperceptibly, Satan moved the boy's arm on the back of the pew,
+around Jimmy Sears. Then an imp pushed Bud's hand as he jabbed the pin
+into the back of a North Ender. The boy from the North End let out a
+yowl of pain. Bud was not quick enough. Brother Baker saw the pin; two
+hundred devout Methodists saw him clamp his fingers on Bud Perkins's
+ear, and march him down the length of the church and set him beside
+Miss Morgan. It was a sickening moment. The North End grinned as one
+boy under its skin, and was exceeding glad. So agonizing was it for
+Bud that he forgot to imagine what a triumph it was for the North
+End--and further anguish is impossible for a boy.
+
+[Illustration: _Brother Baker--a tiptoeing Nemesis_.]
+
+Miss Morgan and Bud Perkins left the church with the congregation. Bud
+dreaded the moment when they would leave the crowd and turn into their
+side street. When they did turn, Bud was lagging a step or two behind.
+A boy's troubles are always the fault of the other boy. The North End
+boy's responsibility in the matter was so clear--to Bud--that, when he
+went to justify himself to Miss Morgan, he was surprised and hurt at
+what he considered her feminine blindness to the fact. After she had
+passed her sentence she asked: "Do you really think you deserve to go,
+Henry?"
+
+The blow stunned the boy. He saw the visions of two weeks burst like
+bubbles, and he whimpered: "I dunno." But in his heart he did know
+that to deny a boy the joy of seeing Willie Sells on his three
+Shetland ponies, for nothing in the world but showing a North-ender
+his place, was a piece of injustice of the kind for which men and
+nations go to war. At breakfast Bud kept his eyes on his plate. His
+face wore the resigned look of a martyr. Miss Morgan was studiously
+gracious. He dropped leaden monosyllables into the cheery flow of her
+conversation, and after breakfast put in his time at the woodshed.
+
+At eight o'clock that morning the town of Willow Creek was in the
+thrall of the circus. Country wagons were passing on every side
+street. Delivery carts were rattling about with unusual alacrity.
+By half-past nine dressed-up children were flitting along the side
+streets hurrying their seniors. On the main thoroughfare flags were
+flying, and the streams of strangers that had been flowing into town
+were eddying at the street corners. The balloon-vender wormed his way
+through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail
+behind him. The bark of the fakir rasped the tightening nerves of the
+town. Everywhere was hubbub; everywhere was the dusty, heated air of
+the festival; everywhere were men and women ready for the marvel that
+had come out of the great world, bringing pomp and circumstance in its
+gilded train; everywhere in Willow Creek the spirit which put the blue
+sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her beau's hat ran
+riot, save at the home of Miss Morgan. There the bees hummed lazily
+over the old-fashioned flower garden; there the cantankerous jays
+jabbered in the cottonwoods; there the muffled noises of the town
+festival came as from afar; there Miss Morgan puttered about her
+morning's work, trying vainly to croon a gospel hymn; and there Bud
+Perkins, prone upon the sitting-room sofa, made parallelograms and
+squares and diamonds with the dots and lines on the ceiling paper.
+When the throb of the drum and the blare of the brass had set the
+heart of the town to dancing, some wave of the ecstasy seeped through
+the lilac bushes and into the quiet house. The boy on the sofa started
+up suddenly, checked himself ostentatiously, walked to the bird
+cage, and began to play with the canary. The wave carried the little
+spinster to the window. The circus had a homestead in human hearts
+before John Wesley staked his claim, and even so good a Methodist as
+Miss Morgan could not be deaf to the scream of the calliope nor the
+tinkle of cymbals.
+
+[Illustration: _Dressed-up children were flitting along the side
+streets, hurrying their seniors_.]
+
+[Illustration: _The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing
+crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him_.]
+
+[Illustration: _The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the
+flag in her Beau's hat_.]
+
+To emphasize his desolation, Bud left the room, and sat down by a tree
+in the yard, with his back to the kitchen door and window. There Miss
+Morgan saw him playing mumble-peg in a desultory fashion. When the
+courtiers of Boyville came home from the parade they found him; and
+because he sat playing a silent, sullen, solitary game, and responded
+to their banter only with melancholy grunts, they knew that the worst
+had befallen him. Much confab followed, in which the pronoun "she" and
+"her" were spoken. Otherwise Miss Morgan was unidentified. For the
+conversation ran thus, over and over:--
+
+"You ask her."
+
+"Naw, I've done ast 'er."
+
+"'T won't do no good for me to ast 'er. She don't like me."
+
+"I ain't 'fraid to ast 'er."
+
+"Well, then, why don't you?"
+
+"Why don't _you_?"
+
+"Let's all ast 'er."
+
+"S'pose she will, Bud?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+Then Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy came trapesing up to Miss
+Morgan's kitchen door. Bud sat by the tree twirling his knife at his
+game. Piggy, being the spokesman, stood in the doorway. "Miss Morgan,"
+he said, as he slapped his leg with his hat.
+
+"Well, Winfield?" replied the little woman, divining his mission, and
+hardening her heart against his purpose.
+
+"Miss Morgan," he repeated, and then coaxed sheepishly, "can't Bud go
+to the show with us, Miss Morgan?"
+
+"I'm afraid not to-day," smiled back Miss Morgan, as she went about
+her work. A whisper from the doorstep prompted Piggy to "ask her why;"
+whereat Piggy echoed: "Why can't he, Miss Morgan?"
+
+"Henry misbehaved in church last night, and we've agreed that he shall
+stay home from the circus."
+
+Piggy advanced a step or two inside the door, laughing diplomatically:
+"O--no, Miss Morgan; don't you think he's agreed. He's just dyin' to
+go."
+
+Miss Morgan smiled, but did not join in Piggy's hilarity--a bad
+sign. Piggy tried again: "They got six elephants, and one's a trick
+elephant. You'd die a-laughin' if you saw him." And Piggy went into a
+spasm of laughter.
+
+[Illustration: "_One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you
+saw him_."]
+
+But it left Miss Morgan high and dry upon the island of her
+determination.
+
+Piggy prepared for an heroic measure, and stepped over to the kitchen
+table, leaning upon it as he pleaded: "This is the last circus this
+year, Miss Morgan, and it's an awful good one. Can't he go just this
+once?"
+
+[Illustration: "_It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this
+once_?"]
+
+The debate lasted ten minutes, and at the end four boys walked slowly,
+with much manifestation of feeling, back to the tree where the fifth
+sat. There was woe and lamentation after the manner of boy-kind. When
+the boys left the yard it seemed to Miss Morgan that she could not
+look from her work without seeing the lonesome figure of Bud. In
+the afternoon the patter of feet by her house grew slower, and then
+ceased. Occasionally a belated wayfarer sped by. The music of the
+circus band outside of the tent came to Miss Morgan's ears on gusts
+of wind, and died away as the wind ebbed. She dropped the dish-cloth
+three times in five minutes, and washed her cup and saucer twice. She
+struggled bravely in the Slough of Despond for awhile, and then turned
+back with Pliable.
+
+"Henry," she said, as the boy walked past her carrying peppergrass to
+the bird, "Henry, what made you act so last night?"
+
+The boy dropped his head and answered: "I dunno."
+
+"But, Henry, didn't you know it was wrong?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"Why did you stick that little boy with the pin?"
+
+"Well--well--" he gasped, preparing for a defence. "Well--he pinched
+me first."
+
+"Yes, Henry, but don't you know that it's wrong to do those things in
+church? Don't you see how bad it was?"
+
+"I was just a-playin', Miss Morgan; I didn't mean to."
+
+Bud did not dare to trust his instinctive reading of the signs. He
+went on impulsively: "I wanted him to quit, but he just kept right on,
+and Brother Baker didn't touch him."
+
+The wind brought the staccato music of the circus band to the
+foster-mother's ears. The music completed her moral decay, for she was
+thinking, if Brother Baker would only look after his own children as
+carefully as he looked after those of other people, the world would
+be better. Then she said: "Now, Henry, if I let you go, just this
+once--now just this once, mind you--will you promise never to do
+anything like that again?"
+
+Blackness dropped from the boy's spirit, and by main strength he
+strangled a desire to yell. The desire revived when he reached the
+alley, and he ran whooping to the circus grounds.
+
+There is a law of crystallization among boys which enables molecules
+of the same gang to meet in whatever agglomeration they may be thrown.
+So ten minutes after Bud Perkins left home he found Piggy and Jimmy
+and old Abe and Mealy in the menagerie tent. Whereupon the South End
+was able to present a bristling front to the North End--a front which
+even the pleasings of the lute in the circus band could not break. But
+the boys knew that the band playing in the circus tent meant that
+the performance in the ring was about to begin. So they cut short
+an interesting dialogue with a keeper, concerning the elephant that
+remembered the man who gave her tobacco ten years ago, and tried to
+kill him the week before the show came to Willow Creek. But when the
+pageant in the ring unfolded its tinselled splendor in the Grand
+Entry, Bud Perkins left earth and walked upon clouds of glory. His
+high-strung nerves quivered with delight as the ring disclosed its
+treasures--Willie Sells on his spotted ponies, James Robinson on his
+dapple gray, the "8 funny clowns--count them 8," the Japanese jugglers
+and tumblers, the bespangled women on the rings, the dancing ponies,
+and the performing dogs. The climax of his joy came when Zazell, "the
+queen of the air," was shot from her cannon to the trapeze. Bud had
+decided, days before the circus, that this feature would please
+him most. Zazell's performance was somewhat tame, but immediately
+thereafter a really startling thing happened. A clown holding the
+trick mule called to the boys near Bud, who nudged him into the
+clown's attention. The clown, drawing from the wide pantaloons a
+dollar, pantomimed to Bud. He held it up for the boy and all the
+spectators to see. Alternately he pointed to the trick mule and to the
+coin, coaxing and questioning by signs, as he did so. It took perhaps
+a minute for Bud's embarrassment to wear off. Then two motives
+impelled him to act. He didn't propose to let the North-enders see
+his embarrassment, and he saw that he might earn the dollar for Miss
+Morgan's missionary box, thus mitigating the disgrace he had brought
+upon her in church. This inspiration literally flashed over Bud, and
+before he knew it, he was standing in the ring, with his head cocked
+upon one side to indicate his utter indifference to everything in the
+world. Of course it was a stupendous pretence. For under his pretty
+starched shirt, which Miss Morgan had forced on him in the hurry of
+departure, his heart was beating like a little windmill in a gale. As
+Bud bestrode the donkey the cheers of the throng rose, but above the
+tumult he could hear the North End jeering him. He could hear the
+words the North-enders spoke, even their "ho-o-oho-os," and their
+"nyayh-nyayh-nyayahs," and their "look--at--old--pretty--boy's," and
+their "watch-him-hit-the-roof's," and their "get-a-basket's," and
+similar remarks less desirable for publication. As the donkey cantered
+off, Bud felt sure he could keep his seat. Once the animal bucked. Bud
+did not fall. The donkey ran, and stopped quickly. Bud held on. Then
+the donkey's feet twinkled--it seemed to Bud in the very top of the
+tent--and Bud slid off the animal's neck to the ring. The clown
+brought the boy his hat, and stood over him as he rose. Bud laughed
+stupidly into the chalked face of the clown, who handed Bud a dollar,
+remarking in a low voice, "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally
+drop the first kick."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: "_Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the
+first kick_."]
+
+What passed in the ring as Bud left it, bedraggled and dusty, did not
+interest him. He brushed himself as he went. The band was playing
+madly, and the young woman in the stiff skirts was standing by her
+horse ready to mount. The crowd did not stop laughing; Bud inclined
+his head to dust his knickerbockers, and then in a tragic instant he
+saw what was convulsing the multitude with laughter. The outer seam of
+the right leg of his velveteen breeches was gone, and a brown leg was
+winking in and out from the flapping garment as he walked. Wildly he
+gathered the parted garment, and it seemed to him that he never would
+cover the ground between the ring and the benches. In the course of
+several aeons--which the other boys measured by fleeting minutes--the
+wave of shame that covered Bud subsided. Pins bound up the wounds in
+his clothes. He drew a natural breath, and was able to join the mob
+which howled down the man who announced the concert.
+
+After that the inexorable minutes flew by until the performance ended.
+In the menagerie tent Bud and his friends looked thirstily upon the
+cool, pink "schooners" of lemonade, and finally, when they had spent
+a few blissful moments with the monkeys and had enjoyed a last, long,
+lingering look at the elephants, they dragged themselves unwillingly
+away into the commonplace of sunshine and trees and blue sky. Only the
+romantic touch of the side-show banners and the wonder of the gilded
+wagons assured them that their memories of the passing hour were not
+empty dreams.
+
+The boys were standing enraptured before the picture of the fat woman
+upon the swaying canvas. Bud had drifted away from them to glut his
+eyes upon the picture of the snakes writhing around the charmer. The
+North-enders had been following Bud at a respectful distance, waiting
+for the opportunity which his separation from his clan gave to them.
+They were enforced by a country boy of great reputed prowess in
+battle. Bud did not know his danger until they pounced upon him. In an
+instant the fight was raging. Over the guy ropes it went, under the
+ticket wagon, into the thick of the lemonade stands. And when Piggy
+and Abe and Jimmy had joined it, they trailed the track of the storm
+by torn hats, bruised, battle-scarred boys, and the wreckage incident
+to an enlivening occasion. When his comrades found Bud, the argument
+had narrowed down to Bud and the boy from the country, the other
+wranglers having dropped out for heavy repairs. The fight, which had
+been started to avenge ancient wrongs, particularly the wrongs of the
+bill-board, only added new wrongs to the list. The country boy was
+striking wildly, and trying to clinch his antagonist, when the town
+marshal--the bogie-man of all boys--stopped the fight. But of course
+no town marshal can come into the thick of a discussion in Boyville
+and know much of the merits of the question. So when the marshal of
+Willow Creek saw Bud Perkins putting the finishing touches of a good
+trouncing on a strange boy, and also saw Bill Pennington's boy, and
+Henry Sears's boy, and Mrs. Carpenter's boy, and old man Jones's boy
+dancing around in high glee at the performance, he quietly gathered in
+the boys he knew, and let the stranger go.
+
+[Illustration: _The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy
+repair_.]
+
+Now no boy likes to be marched down the main street of his town with
+the callous finger of the marshal under his shirt-band. The spectacle
+operates distinctly against the peace and dignity of Boyville for
+months thereafter. For passing youths who forget there is a morrow
+jibe at the culprits and thus plant the seeds of dissensions which
+bloom in fights. It was a sweaty, red-faced crew that the marshal
+dumped into Pennington's grocery with, "Here, Bill, I found your boy
+and these young demons fightin' down 't the circus ground, and I took
+'em in charge. You 'tend to 'em, will you?"
+
+Mr. Pennington's glance at his son showed that Piggy was unharmed. A
+swift survey of the others gave each, save Bud, a bill of health. But
+when Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and
+laughed till he shook all over; for Bud, with a rimless hat upon a
+towselled head, with a face scratched till it looked like a railroad
+map, with a torn shirt that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled
+back, with trousers so badly shattered that two hands could hardly
+hold them together,--as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a
+second-hand boy. The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed his
+laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack clamoring to
+tell all in one breath, the history of the incident that had led to
+Bud's dilapidation. Also they were drawing gloomy pictures of the
+appearance of his assailants, after the custom of boys in such cases.
+Because his son was not involved in the calamity, Piggy's father was
+not moved deeply by the story of the raid of the North-enders and
+their downfall. So he put the young gentlemen of the Court of Boyville
+into the back room of his grocery store, where coal-oil and molasses
+barrels and hams and bacon and black shadows of many mysterious
+things were gathered. He gave the royal party a cheese knife and a
+watermelon, and bade them be merry, a bidding which set the hearts of
+Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy to dancing, while Bud's heart, which
+had been sinking lower and lower into a quagmire of dread, beat
+on numbly and did not join the joy. As the time for going home
+approached, Bud shivered in his soul at the thought of meeting Miss
+Morgan. Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon
+will not help a boy his extremity is dire. Still he laughed and
+chatted with apparent merriment, but he knew how hollow was his
+laughter and what mockery was in his cheer. When the melon was eaten
+business took its regular order.
+
+[Illustration: _When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a
+show-case and laughed till he shook all over_.]
+
+"Say, Bud, how you goin' to get home?" asked Abe.
+
+Bud grinned as he looked at his rags.
+
+"Gee," said Mealy, "I'm glad it ain't me."
+
+"Aw, shucks," returned Bud, and he thought of the stricken Ananias in
+the Sunday-school lesson leaf as he spoke; "run right through like I
+always do. What I got to be 'fraid of?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Bud, you can laugh, but you know you'll catch it when you
+get home."
+
+This shaft from Jimmy Sears put in words the terror in Bud's heart.
+But he replied: "I'll bet you I don't."
+
+Bud's instinct piloted him by a circuitous route up the alley to the
+kitchen door. Miss Morgan sat on the front porch, waiting for the boy
+to return before serving supper. He stood helplessly in the kitchen
+for a minute, with a weight of indecision upon him. He feared to go
+to the front porch, where Miss Morgan was. He feared to stay in the
+kitchen. But when he saw the empty wood-box a light seemed to dawn.
+Instinct guided him to the woodpile, and the law of self-preservation
+filled his arms with wood, and instinct carried him to the kitchen
+wood-box time and again, and laid the wood in the box as gently as if
+it had been glass and as softly as if it had been velvet. Not until
+the pile had grown far above the wainscoting on the kitchen wall, did
+a stick crashing to the floor tell Miss Morgan that Bud was in the
+house.
+
+But there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and just as the falling
+wood attracted Miss Morgan's attention, it was diverted by a
+belligerent party at her front gate. This belligerent party was
+composed of two persons, to wit: one mother from the north end of
+Willow Creek, irate to the spluttering point, and one boy lagging as
+far behind the mother as his short arm would allow him to lag. The
+mother held the short arm, and was literally dragging her son to Miss
+Morgan's gate to offer him in evidence as "Exhibit A" in a possible
+cause of the State of Kansas vs. Henry Perkins. Exhibit A was black
+and blue as to the eyes, torn as to the shirt, bloody as to the nose,
+tumbled and dusty as to the hair, and as to the countenance, clearly
+and unquestionably sheep-faced. The mother opened the bombardment
+with: "Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy."
+
+[Illustration: "_Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy_."]
+
+Miss Morgan looked in horror, and exclaimed: "Well, for mercy sakes!
+Where on earth's he been?"
+
+And the leader of the war party returned: "Where's he been? Well, I'll
+tell you where he's been. And I just want you to know who done this."
+Here Exhibit A got behind a post. The recital of the details of his
+catastrophe was humiliating. But the mother continued: "Henry Perkins
+done this. I don't believe in stirring up neighborhood quarrels and
+all that, but I've just stood this long enough. My boy can't stick his
+nose out of the door without that Perkins boy jumpin' on him. If you
+can't do anything with that Perkins boy, I'll show him there's a law
+in this land."
+
+Miss Morgan wilted as the speech proceeded. She had voice only to say,
+"I'm sure there's some mistake;" and then remembering the crash of the
+wood on the kitchen floor, she called: "Henry, come here!"
+
+As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the belligerents
+replied: "No, there isn't no mistake either. My boy is a good little
+boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in this town. And because
+I don't allow him to fight, that Perkins boy picks on him all the
+time. I've told him to keep out of his way and not to play with Henry
+Perkins, but he can't be runnin' all over this town to keep--"
+
+And then Exhibit B, with scratched face, tattered raiment, and grimy
+features, stood in the doorway. The witness for the State looked in
+dumb amazement at the wreck. Miss Morgan saw Bud, and her temper
+rose--not at him, but at his adversary. Exhibit A sulkily turned his
+face from Exhibit B, and Exhibit B seemed to be oblivious of the
+presence of Exhibit A; for the boys it was a scene too shameful for
+mutual recognition. Miss Morgan broke the heavy silence with: "Henry,
+where on earth have you been?"
+
+"Been t' the circus," replied the boy.
+
+"Henry, did you blacken that little boy's eyes, and tear his clothes
+that way?" inquired Miss Morgan when her wits returned.
+
+"Why--no'm--I didn't. But he was one of four fellers that picked on me
+comin' home from the circus, and tried to lick me."
+
+"Willie," demanded the head of the attacking posse, "did you pick a
+fight with that Perkins boy?"
+
+"Oh, no 'm, no 'm! I was just playin' round the tent, me and
+another boy, and Bud he come up and jumped on us." And then to add
+verisimilitude to his narrative, he appended: "Him and four other
+boys."
+
+"Henry," asked Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of Henry's
+Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer of them began
+to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this little boy telling the
+truth? Now, don't you story to me, Henry."
+
+"Honest injun, Miss Morgan, I cross my heart and hope to drop dead
+this minute if I ain't tellin' you the way it was. Him and them
+North-enders, why they come along and called me names, and he tried to
+hit me, and I just shoved him away like this," and Henry executed a
+polite pantomime. "And I was swingin' my arms out to keep 'em all from
+hittin' me, and he got in the way, and I couldn't help it. And they
+was all a pickin' on me, and I told 'em all the time I didn't want to
+fight."
+
+But Exhibit A kept looking at his mother and shaking his head in
+violent contradiction of Bud, as the story was told.
+
+Miss Morgan asked: "Who scratched your face so, Henry?"
+
+"Him; he's all the time fightin' me."
+
+"No, ma, I didn't. You know I didn't."
+
+Exhibit A and Exhibit B were still back to back. Then Exhibit B
+responded: "Miss Morgan, you ast him if he didn't cuss and damn me,
+and say he was goin' to pound me to death if I ever come north of
+Sixth."
+
+To which the leader of the raiders returned in great scorn: "The very
+idea! Just listen at that! Why, Miss Morgan, that Perkins boy is the
+bully of this town. Come on, Willie, your pa will see if there is no
+law to protect you from such boys as him." Whereupon the war party
+faced about, and walked down the sidewalk and away.
+
+Miss Morgan and Bud watched the North End woman and her son depart.
+Miss Morgan turned to Bud, and spoke spiritedly: "Now, Henry, don't
+ever have anything to do with that kind of trash again. Now, you won't
+forget, will you, Henry?"
+
+[Illustration: "_Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that
+kind of trash again_."]
+
+Bud examined his toes carefully, and replied, "No 'm."
+
+In the threshold she put her hand on the boy's shoulder, and
+continued: "Now, don't you mind about it, Henry. They sha'n't touch
+you. You come and wash, and we'll have supper."
+
+When a boy has a woman for a champion, if he is wise, he trusts her to
+any length. So Bud went to the kitchen, picked up the water-bucket,
+and went to the well, partly to keep from displaying a gathering wave
+of affection for his foster-mother, and partly to let the magnificence
+of the wood-box burst upon her in his absence. When he returned, he
+found Miss Morgan pointing toward the wood-box and beaming upon him.
+Bud grinned, and fished in his pocket for the coin.
+
+[Illustration: "_Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule.... I
+thought it would be nice for the missionary society_."]
+
+"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule," he faltered. "I
+thought it would be nice for the missionary society." That he might
+check any weak feminine emotions, he turned his attention to the
+supper-table, and blurted: "Gee, we're goin' to have pie, ain't we? I
+tell you, I'm mighty pie hungry."
+
+[Illustration: "_Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we_."]
+
+The glow of Miss Morgan's melted heart shone upon her face. Through a
+seraphic smile she spoke: "It's apple pie, too, Henry--your kind." As
+she put the supper upon the table, she asked: "Did you have a good
+time at the circus, Henry?"
+
+The boy nodded vehemently, and said: "You bet!" and then went on,
+after a pause, "I guess I tore my pants a little gettin' off of that
+mule; but I thought you'd like the dollar."
+
+It was the finest speech he could make. "I guess I can mend them,
+Henry," she answered; and then she asked, with her face in the
+cupboard, "Sha'n't we try some of the new strawberry preserves,
+Henry?"
+
+As she was opening the jar she concluded that Henry Perkins was an
+angel--a conclusion which, in view of the well-known facts, was
+manifestly absurd.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"
+
+
+Did you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a merrier life and wears
+more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom than he that is clad
+in silk and velvet.--_From the Observations of "Mr. Great Heart_."
+
+It was dusk in Boyville. The boys at a game of hide-and-seek filled
+the air with their calls:
+
+          "Bushel of wheat, and a
+            Bushel of rye--
+          All t' ain't ready
+            Holler aye.
+    All in ten feet of my base is caught: All eyes open."
+
+Or
+
+    "One--two--three for me."
+
+Or
+
+    "All's out's in free."
+
+Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed; over
+barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the sunflowers and
+the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the moon rose it merged
+into pull-away. That game flourished for a while and transformed
+itself by an almost imperceptible evolution into a series of races
+down the dusty road. But when the moon's silver had marked itself upon
+the grass, the boys were lying prone on a hay-cock behind the royal
+castle. They chattered idly, and the murmur of their talk rose on
+the just-felt breeze that greets the rising moon, like the ripple of
+waters. But the chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were
+absorbing the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their
+being were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their
+souls--fresher from God than are the souls of men--were a-quiver with
+joy, and their lips babbled to hide their ecstasies. In Boyville it
+is a shameful thing to flaunt the secrets of the heart. As the night
+deepened, and the shy stars peeped at the bold moon, the boys let
+their prattle ebb into silence. Long they lay looking upward--with the
+impulse in their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam
+left unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the
+wise men of the world have left locked in mystery--the question of the
+Whence, the Why, and the Whither.
+
+As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the company upon
+the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary boy remained.
+
+After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer madness set
+him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay. Life was full of
+gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a delicious longing for
+he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it were not something new
+and unimaginably good to eat. It was the nearest he could come to a
+defining of the longing. Of course no one can define it. It is that
+which quickens the blood of all young creatures--the rosebud, the
+meadow-lark, the dragon-fly, the colt, the boy and the maiden, bidding
+them glorify God with the show and the example of their comeliness.
+The boy rose from the hay and skipped under the trees, over the
+fantastic figures of the moon-spun carpet. He waved his arms, and
+there came to his throat a simple song, which he chanted croakingly,
+lest some one should hear him and laugh. He stopped, and sitting on a
+fence looked at a great white cloud that was mounting the western sky.
+His soul was listening to the faraway music from the breakers of the
+restless rising sea of ambition, and the rush of life and action, that
+were flooding into the distant rim of his consciousness. The music
+charmed him. Tears came to his eyes, he knew not why. But we, whom
+this mighty tide has carried away from that bourne whereon the boy's
+feet strayed so happily--we know why the far-seeing angels gave him
+tears.
+
+A dog in some distant farm-yard was baying at the moon. A whining
+screech owl sent a faint shudder of superstitious fear over the boy.
+For a long time he sat on the fence absorbing the night sounds--the
+claque of the frogs, the burring of the crickets, the hum of the water
+on the mill-dam far down the valley, and the occasional call of some
+human voice, ringing like a golden bell in the hush of the night. It
+was after nine and the boy was deep in his trackless revery. A woman
+called,--
+
+"Win-nee, Win-nee, oh, Winnie."
+
+The spell upon him was almost too delicious to break; but he roused
+himself to reply,--
+
+"Yessum. All right."
+
+Then the mother's voice continued: "Now wash your feet, Winnie, and
+wipe 'em dry; don't come to bed with dirty feet."
+
+Slowly the boy climbed to the earth. He shuffled through dew, but his
+feet were still too dirty. He stood in the tub of water by the pump,
+rubbing one foot with the other, and his eyes turned moonward. The
+thrall of the night caught him again. In a hazy stupor he sat on the
+kitchen step drying his feet. When he got up, Piggy Pennington gazed
+for a moment at a star--a pale star which hovered timidly over the
+chimney of the home which sheltered his Heart's Desire. With the
+lunacy upon him, he flung to the star a bashful kiss. Then he grinned
+foolishly and came to himself with a grunt, as he ran up stairs to his
+room. He was ashamed to face the south breeze that fanned his bed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12377 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12377 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Court of Boyville, by William Allen
+White, Illustrated by Orson Lowell and Gustav Verbeek</h1>
+<br />
+<br />
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Christine Gehring, Tim Koeller,<br />
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br />
+<br />
+  <hr class="full" />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+  <h1>THE COURT OF BOYVILLE</h1>
+
+  <p class="center">By</p>
+
+  <h3>William Allen White</h3>
+
+  <p class="center">Author Of The Real Issue, etc.</p>
+
+  <p class="center">1898</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+  <hr />
+
+  <h4><b>Contents</b></h4>
+
+  <ul>
+    <li><a href="#Prologue">PROLOGUE</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#I">THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#II">A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#III">"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#IV">JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#V">MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#VI">"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"</a></li>
+  </ul>
+  <hr />
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>Where is Boyville</i>? <i>By what track</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>May we trace our journey back</i>;</p>
+
+      <p><i>Up what mountains, thro' what seas</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>By what meadow-lands and leas</i>,</p>
+
+      <p><i>Must we travel to the bourne</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>Of the shady rows of corn</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>That lead down to the Willows</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>Where the day is always morn</i>?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+
+  <p>COURT OF BOYVILLE</p>
+
+  <p><i>Illustrated by</i> ORSON LOWELL (<i>with the exception of
+  the first story, the illustrations for which are by</i> GUSTAV
+  VERBEEK).</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="images/001.gif">"Say, boys, where's its
+  bottle?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/036.gif">The three boys were scuffling for the
+  possession of a piece of rope</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/042.gif">He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his
+  head under water</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/058.gif">He felt his father's finger under his
+  collar and his own feet shambling</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/064.gif">Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and
+  took her child by an arm</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/076.gif">His feet hanging out of the back of
+  the wagon that had held the coffin</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/080.gif">His luck was bad</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/084.gif">He withdrew from the game and sat
+  alone against the barn</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/088.gif">As she turned to her
+  turkey-slicing</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/092.gif">The new preacher, for whom the party
+  was made</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/100.gif">The first long dress</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/104.gif">"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake,
+  keep still"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/108.gif">"Did you know my dad was a
+  soldier?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/112.gif">During the next two hours the boy
+  wandered on the prairie</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/116.gif">"Mary Pennington, aged two years,
+  three months, and ten days"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/120.gif">Piggy went to get his flying
+  hat</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/124.gif">She stroked his hand and snuggled
+  closer to him</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/128.gif">Miss Morgan smiled happily at the
+  clouds</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/136.gif">Chased the little girls around the
+  yard with it</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/140.gif">She would not have invited Harold
+  Jones to sit and sing with her during the opening hour</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/144.gif">Harold Jones</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/148.gif">To study his tastes</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/152.gif">... The comradeship ... was beautiful
+  to see</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/156.gif">The red-headed Pratt girl</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/160.gif">He could only snap chalk in a
+  preoccupied way and listen to his Heart's Desire</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/164.gif">Piggy was piling up the primary
+  urchins in wiggling, squealing piles</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/168.gif">He watched the teacher's finger crook
+  a signal for the note to be brought forward</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/172.gif">... fought boys who were three
+  classes above him ... whipped groups of boys of assorted
+  sizes</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/176.gif">Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw
+  the hired girl giggle</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/180.gif">Her son ate rapidly in
+  silence</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/184.gif">His cleanliness pleased his mother
+  and she boasted of it to the mothers of other boys</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/188.gif">A little maid in a black-and-red
+  check</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/192.gif">Piggy sat on the front porch, and
+  reviewed the entire affair</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/196.gif">It began when his Heart's Desire had
+  fluttered into his autograph album</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/200.gif">At this important bit of
+  repartee</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/210.gif">His heart was full of
+  bitterness</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/214.gif">Throwing sticks in the water to scare
+  the fish</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/218.gif">A crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a
+  stumbler, and a sneaker</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/222.gif">James</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/226.gif">Mrs. Jones came out to take care of
+  the butter</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/230.gif">The sort of boy who would unsex
+  himself by looking at a baby</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/234.gif">Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his
+  little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the
+  baby</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/238.gif">His father strutting around town ...
+  bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/242.gif">He jumped for the slanting boards
+  with his bare feet, and his heart was glad</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/246.gif">He sat on a log and slowly lifted up
+  his foot, twisting his face into an agonized knot</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/250.gif">"Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my
+  chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/256.gif">"I'll pay for your chicken, I say.
+  Now you keep away from me"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/266.gif">An irregular circumference that
+  touched his ears and his chin and his hair</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/270.gif">"Got anything here fit to
+  eat?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/274.gif">"What'd you want to take Annie's doll
+  away from her for?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/278.gif">She drew him down and kissed his
+  cheek while he pecked at her lips</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/282.gif">Piggy Pennington ... galloped his
+  father's fat delivery horse up and down the alley</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/289.gif">Mammoth Consolidated Shows
+  (left)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/290.gif">Mammoth Consolidated Shows
+  (right)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/296.gif">Oil made by hanging a bottle of
+  angle-worms in the sun to fry</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/302.gif">How many bags of carpet rags went to
+  the ragman</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/306.gif">Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing
+  Nemesis</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/310.gif">Dressed-up children were flitting
+  along the side streets, hurrying their seniors</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/316.gif">The Balloon-Vender wormed his way
+  through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue
+  trail behind him</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/320.gif">The Blue Sash about the country
+  girl's waist and the flag in her Beau's hat</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/326.gif">"One's a trick elephant. You'd die
+  a-laughing if you saw him"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/330.gif">"It's an awful good one. Can't he go
+  just this once?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/335.gif">8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8
+  (left)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/336.gif">8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8
+  (right)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/342.gif">"Well, son, you're a daisy. They
+  generally drop the first kick"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/348.gif">The other wranglers ... dropped out
+  for heavy repairs</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/352.gif">When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on
+  Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all
+  over</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/356.gif">"Miss Morgan, I just want you to look
+  at my boy"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/360.gif">"Now, Henry, don't ever have anything
+  to do with that kind of trash again"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/364.gif">"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the
+  trick mule ... I thought it would be nice for the missionary
+  society"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/368.gif">"Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't
+  we"</a></p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h4><a name="Prologue" id="Prologue"></a>PROLOGUE</h4>
+
+  <p><i>We who are passing "through the wilderness of this world"
+  find it difficult to realize what an impenetrable wall there is
+  around the town of Boyville. Storm it as we may with the
+  simulation of light-heartedness, bombard it with our heavy guns,
+  loaded with fishing-hooks and golf-sticks, and skates and
+  base-balls, and butterfly-nets, the walls remain. If once the
+  clanging gates of the town shut upon a youth, he is banished
+  forever. From afar he may peer over the walls at the games
+  inside, but he may not be of them. Let him try to join them, and
+  lo, the games become a mockery, and he finds that he is cavorting
+  still outside the walls, while the good citizens inside are
+  making sly sport of him. Who, being recently banished from
+  Boyville, has not sought to return? In vain does he haunt the
+  swimming hole; the water elves will have none of him. He hushes
+  their laughter, muffles their calls, takes the essence from their
+  fun, and leaves it dust upon their lips</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>But we of the race of grown-ups are a purblind people.
+  Otherwise, when we acknowledge what a stronghold this Boyville
+  is, we the banished would not seek to steal away the merry
+  townsmen, and bruise our hearts and theirs at our hopeless task.
+  We have learned many things in our schools, and of the making of
+  books there has been no end; so it is odd that we have not
+  learned to let a boy be a boy. Why not let him feel the thrill
+  from the fresh spring grass under his feet, as his father felt it
+  before him, and his father's father, even back to Adam, who
+  walked thus with God! There is a tincture of iron that seeps into
+  a boys blood with the ozone of the earth, that can come to him by
+  no other way. Let him run if he will; Heavens air is a better
+  elixir than any that the alchemist can mix. What if he roams the
+  woods and lives for hours in the water? What if he prefers the
+  barn to the parlor? What if he fights? Does he not take the risk
+  of the scratched face and the bruises? Should he not be in some
+  measure the judge of the situation before him when the trouble
+  begins? Boys have an ugly name for one of their kind who
+  discovers suddenly, in a crisis of his own making, that he is not
+  allowed to fight. And it were better to see a boy with a dozen
+  claw-marks down his face than to see him eat that name in
+  peace</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Now this conclusion may seem barbaric to elders who have to
+  pay for new clothes to replace the torn ones, And according to
+  their light perhaps the elders see clearly. But the grown-up
+  people forget that their wisdom has impaired their vision to see
+  as boys see and to pass judgment upon things in another
+  sphere</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>For Boyville is a Free Town in the monarchy of the world.
+  Its citizens mind their own business, and they desire travellers
+  in this waste to do likewise. The notion that spectacled gentry
+  should come nosing through the streets and alleys of Boyville,
+  studying the sanitation, which is not of the best, and objecting
+  to the constitution and by laws,&mdash;which were made when the
+  rivers were dug and the hills piled up,&mdash;the notion of an
+  outsider interfering with the Divine right of boys to eat what
+  they please, to believe what they please, and, under loyalty to
+  the monarchy of the world, to do what they please, is repugnant
+  to this free people. Nor does it better matters when the man
+  behind the spectacles explains that to eat sheep-sorrel is
+  deleterious; to feed younkers Indian turnip is cruel; to suck the
+  sap of the young grapevine in spring produces malaria; to smoke
+  rattan is depraving, and to stuff one's stomach with paw-paws and
+  wild-grapes is dangerous in the extreme</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>For does not the first article of the law of this Free Town
+  expressly state, that boys shall be absolved from obeying any and
+  all laws regulating the human stomach, and be free of the
+  penalties thereto attaching? And again when Wisdom says that the
+  boy shall give up his superstitions, the boy points to hoary
+  tradition, which says that the snakes tail does not in fact and
+  in truth die till sundown; that if a boy kills a lucky bug he
+  shall find a nickel; that to cross one's heart and lie, brings on
+  swift and horrible retribution; that letting the old cat die
+  causes death in the family; that to kill a toad makes the cow
+  give bloody milk; that horsehairs in water turn to snakes in nine
+  days; that spitting on the bait pleases the fish, and that to
+  draw a circle in the dust around a marble charms it against being
+  hit. What tradition, ancient and honorable in Boyville, declares
+  is true, that is the Law everlasting, and no wise mans word shall
+  change the law one jot nor one tittle. For in the beginning it
+  was written, to get in the night wood, to eat with a fork at
+  table, to wear shoes on Sunday, to say "sir" to company, and
+  "thank you" to the lady, to go to bed at nine to remember that
+  there are others who like gravy, to stay out of the water in dog
+  days, to come right straight home from school, to shinny on your
+  own side, and to clean those feet for Heaven's sake,&mdash;that
+  is the whole duty of boys. As it was in the beginning, so it
+  shall be ever after</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Now most of us grown-ups do not admit these things, and not
+  being able to speak the language of the people whose rights we
+  are seeking to destroy, we will never know how utterly futile are
+  our conspiracies. But that is immaterial</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The main point that the gentle reader should bear in mind
+  is this: The town of Boyville is free and independent; governed
+  only by the ancient laws, made by the boys of the elder
+  days&mdash;by the boys who found bottom in the rivers that flowed
+  out of Eden; by little Seth, little Enoch, little Methuselah, and
+  little Noah; by the boys who threw mud balls from willow withes
+  broken from trees whereon David hung his harp a thousand years
+  thereafter. For Boyville was old when Nineveh was a frontier
+  post</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Boyville hears from afar the buzz about principalities and
+  powers, the clatter of javelins and the clash of arms, the hubbub
+  of the "Pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war." The
+  courtiers of Boyville cheer for each new hero, and claim
+  fellowship with all "like gentlemen unafraid." But the Free Town
+  has its own sovereign, makes its own idols. And the clatter and
+  clash and hubbub that attend the triumphs of the kingdoms of the
+  earth pass by unconquered Boyville as the shadow of a
+  dream</i>.</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES</h3>
+
+  <p>A WAIL IN B MINOR</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Oh, what has become of the ornery boy,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Who used to chew slip'ry elm, "rosum" and
+      wheat:</p>
+
+      <p>And say "jest a coddin'" and "what d'ye soy;"</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And wear rolled-up trousers all out at the
+      seat?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>And where is the boy who had shows in the barn,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And "skinned a cat backards" and turned
+      "summersets;"</p>
+
+      <p>The boy who had faith in a snake-feeder yarn,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And always smoked grape vine and corn
+      cigarettes?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Where now is the small boy who spat on his bait,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And proudly stood down near the foot of the
+      class,</p>
+
+      <p>And always went "barefooted" early and late,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And washed his feet nights on the dew of the
+      grass?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Where is the boy who could swim on his back,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And dive and tread water and lay his hair,
+      too;</p>
+
+      <p>The boy who would jump off the spring-board ker-whack,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And light on his stomach as I used to do?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Oh where and oh where is the old-fashioned boy?</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Has the old-fashioned boy with his
+      old-fashioned ways,</p>
+
+      <p>Been crowded aside by the Lord Fauntleroy,&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">The cheap tinselled make-believe, full of
+      alloy</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Without the pure gold of the rollicking joy</p>
+
+      <p>Of the old-fashioned boy in the old-fashioned days?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:90%;">
+    <a href="images/030.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/030.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Chapter title: The Court of Boyville The Martyrdom of Mealy Jones" />
+    </a>
+  </div>:
+
+  <p>His mother named him Harold, and named him better than she
+  knew. He was just such a boy as one would expect to see bearing a
+  heroic name. He had big, faded blue eyes, a nubbin of a chin,
+  wide, wondering ears, and freckles&mdash;such brown blotches of
+  freckles on his face and neck and hands, such a milky way of them
+  across the bridge of his snub nose, that the boys called him
+  "Mealy." And Mealy Jones it was to the end. When his parents
+  called him Harold in the hearing of his playmates, the boy was
+  ashamed, for he felt that a nickname gave him equal standing
+  among his fellows. There were times in his life&mdash;when he was
+  alone, recounting his valorous deeds&mdash;that Mealy more than
+  half persuaded himself that he was a real boy. But when he was
+  with Winfield Pennington, surnamed "Piggy" in the court of
+  Boyville, and Abraham Lincoln Carpenter, similarly knighted "Old
+  Abe," Mealy saw that he was only Harold, a weak and
+  unsatisfactory imitation. He was handicapped in his struggle to
+  be a natural boy by a mother who had been a "perfect little lady"
+  in her girlhood and who was moulding her son in the forms that
+  fashioned her. If it were the purpose of this tale to deal in
+  philosophy, it would be easy to digress and show that Mealy Jones
+  was a study in heredity; that from his mother's side of the house
+  he inherited wide, white, starched collars, and from his father's
+  side, a burning desire to spit through his teeth. But this is
+  only a simple tale, with no great problem in it, save that of a
+  boy working out his salvation between a fiendish lust for
+  suspenders with trousers and a long-termed incarceration in
+  ruffled waists with despised white china buttons around his
+  waist-band.</p>
+
+  <p>No one but Piggy ever knew how Mealy Jones learned to swim;
+  and Harold's mother doesn't consider Piggy Pennington any one,
+  for the Penningtons are Methodists and the Joneses are Baptists,
+  and Very hard-shelled ones, too. However, Mealy Jones did learn
+  to swim "dog-fashion" years and years after the others had become
+  post-graduates in aquatic lore and could "tread water," "swim
+  sailor-fashion," and "lay" their hair. Mrs. Jones permitted her
+  son to go swimming occasionally, but she always exacted from him
+  a solemn promise not to go into the deep water. And Harold, who
+  was a good little boy, made it a point not to "let down" when he
+  was beyond the "step-off." So of course he could not know how
+  deep it was; although the bad little boys who "brought up bottom"
+  had told him that it was twelve feet deep.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/036.gif" target="blank"><img width="100%" src=
+    "images/036.gif" alt=
+    "The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a piece of rope." />
+    </a> <i>The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a
+    piece of rope</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>One hot June afternoon Mealy stood looking at a druggist's
+  display window, gazing idly at the pills, absently picking out
+  the various kinds which he had taken. He had just come from his
+  mother with the expressed injunction not to go near the river.
+  His eyes roamed listlessly from the pills to the pain-killer,
+  and; turning wearily away, he saw Piggy and Old Abe and Jimmy
+  Sears. The three boys were scuffling for, the possession of a
+  piece of rope. Pausing a moment in front of the grocery store,
+  they beckoned for Mealy. The lad joined the group. Some one
+  said,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Come on, Mealy, and go swimmin'."</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, Mealy can't go," put in Jimmy; "his ma won't let
+  him."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I kin, <i>too</i>, if I want to," replied Mealy,
+  stoutly&mdash;but, alas! guiltily.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then come on," said Piggy Pennington. "You don't dast. My ma
+  don't care how often I go in&mdash;only in dog days."</p>
+
+  <p>After some desultory debate they started&mdash;the four
+  boys&mdash;pushing one another off the sidewalk,
+  "rooster-fighting," shouting, laughing, racing through the
+  streets. Mealy Jones longed to have the other boys observe his
+  savage behavior. He knew, however, that he was not of them, that
+  he was a sad make-believe. The guilt of the deed he was doing,
+  oppressed him. He wondered how he could go into crime so
+  stolidly. Inwardly he quaked as he recalled the stories he had
+  read of boys who had drowned while disobeying their parents. His
+  uneasiness was increased by the ever-present sense that he could
+  not cope with the other boys at their sports. He let them jostle
+  him, and often would run, after his self-respect would goad him
+  to jostle back. Mealy was glad when the group came to the deep
+  shade of the woods and walked slowly.</p>
+
+  <p>It was three o'clock when the boys reached the swimming-hole.
+  There the great elm-tree, with its ladder of exposed roots,
+  stretched over the water. Piggy Pennington, stripped to the skin,
+  ran whooping down the sloping bank, splashed over the gravel at
+  the water's edge, and plunged into the deepest water. Old Abe
+  followed cautiously, bathing his temples and his wrists before
+  sousing all over. Jimmy Sears threw his shirt high up on the bank
+  as he stood ankle-deep in the stream. Piggy's exhilaration having
+  worn off by this time, he picked up a mussel-shell and threw it
+  at Jimmy's feet. The water dashed wide of its mark and sprinkled
+  Mealy, who was sitting on a log, taking off his shoes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Here, Piggy, you quit that," said Mealy.</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy said nothing. He sprang into the air head foremost
+  toward Piggy, who dived from sight. His pursuer saw the direction
+  Piggy took and followed him. The boys were a few feet apart when
+  Jimmy came to the surface, puffing and spouting and shaking the
+  water from his eyes and hair. He hesitated in his pursuit. Piggy
+  observed the hesitation, and with a quick overhand movement shot
+  a stinging stream of water from the ball of his hand into his
+  antagonist's face. Then Piggy turned on his side and swam swiftly
+  to shallow water, where he stood and splashed his victim, who was
+  lumbering toward shore with his eyes shut, panting loudly. With
+  every splash Piggy said, "How's that, Jim?" or "Take a bite o'
+  this," or "Want a drink?" When Jimmy got where he could walk on
+  the creek bottom, he made a feint of fighting back, but he soon
+  ceased, and stood by, gasping for breath, before saying, "Let's
+  quit."</p>
+
+  <p>Then followed the fun of ducking, the scuffling and the capers
+  of the young human animals at play&mdash;at play even as gods in
+  the elder days. Mealy saw it all through envious eyes and with a
+  pricking conscience, as he doggedly fumbled the myriad buttons
+  which his mother had fastened upon his pretty clothes. He heard
+  Piggy dare Abe across the creek, and call him a cowardly calf,
+  and say, "Any one't 'ull take a dare'll steal sheep." Mealy saw
+  Jimmy grin as he cracked rocks under water while the other boys
+  were diving, and watched Old Abe, as he made the waves rise under
+  his chin, swimming after the fleeing culprit. He saw Abe catch
+  Jimmy and hold his head under water until Mealy's smile faded to
+  a horrified grin. Then he saw the victim and the victor come
+  merrily to the shallows, laughing as though nothing unusual had
+  occurred. It was high revel in Boyville, and the satyrs were in
+  the midst of their joy.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/042.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/042.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water." /></a>
+    <i>He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Then Mealy heard Piggy say, "Aw, come in, Mealy; it won't hurt
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>"Is it cold?" asked Mealy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw," replied Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw, course it ain't," returned Jimmy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Warm as dish-water," cried Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy's ribs shone through his skin. His big milky eyes made
+  him seem uncanny, standing there shivering in the shade. He
+  hobbled down the pebbly bank on his tender feet, his bashful grin
+  breaking into a dozen contortions of pain as he went. The boys
+  stood watching him like tigers awaiting a Christian martyr. He
+  paused at the water's edge, put in a toe and jerked it out with a
+  spasm of cold.</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, that ain't cold," said Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw, when you get in you won't mind it," insisted Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy replied, "Oo, oo! I think that's pretty cold."</p>
+
+  <p>"Wet your legs and you won't get the cramp," advised Jimmy
+  Sears.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy stooped over to scoop up some water in his hands. He
+  heard the boys laugh, and the next instant felt a shower of water
+  on his back. It made the tears come.</p>
+
+  <p>"Uhm-m-m&mdash;no fair splashin'," he whined.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy put one foot in the water and drew it out quickly,
+  gasping, "Oo! I ain't goin' in. It's too cold for me. It'll bring
+  my measles out." He started&mdash;trembling&mdash;up the bank;
+  then he heard a splashing behind him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come back here," cried Piggy, whose hands were uplifted;
+  "come back here and git in this water or I'll muddy you." Piggy's
+  hands were full of mud. He was about to throw it when the Jones
+  boy pretended to laugh and giggled, "Oh, I was just
+  a-foolin'."</p>
+
+  <p>But he paused again at the water's edge, and Piggy, who had
+  come up close enough to touch the rickety lad, reached out a
+  muddy hand and dabbed the quaking boy's breast. The other boys
+  roared with glee. Mealy extended a deprecatory hand, and took
+  Piggy's wet, glistening arm and stumbled nervously into the
+  stream, with an "Oo-oo!" at every uncertain step. When the water
+  came to Mealy's waist Abe cried, "Duck! duck, or I'll splash
+  you!" The boy sank down, with his teeth biting his tongue as he
+  said, "Oo! I wouldn't do you that way."</p>
+
+  <p>When the shock of the tepid water had spent itself, Mealy's
+  grin returned, and he shivered happily, "Oo&mdash;it's good,
+  ain't it?"</p>
+
+  <p>Ten minutes later the boys were diving from the roots of the
+  elm-tree into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten
+  minutes after that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which
+  they had revived by splashing water upon the incline made and
+  provided by the town boys for scudding. Ten minutes afterward
+  they were covering themselves with coats of mud,
+  adorned&mdash;one with stripes made with the point of a stick,
+  another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with
+  snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the
+  path to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger
+  train. When it came they jumped up and down and waved their
+  striped and spotted arms like the barbarian warriors which they
+  fancied they were. They swam up the stream leisurely, and, as
+  they rounded the bend that brought their landing-place into view,
+  the quick eye of Piggy Pennington saw that some one had been
+  meddling with their clothes. He gave the alarm. The boys
+  quickened their strokes. When they came to the shallows of the
+  ford they saw the blue-and-white starched shirt of Mealy Jones
+  lying in a pool tied into half a dozen knots, with the water
+  soaking them tighter and tighter. The other boys' clothes were
+  not disturbed.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other
+  boys echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up
+  people, but there is never a moment in after-life more poignant
+  with grief than, that which stabs a boy when he learns that he
+  must wrestle with a series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As
+  Mealy sat in the broiling sun, gripping the knots with his teeth
+  and fingers, he asked himself again and again how he could
+  explain his soiled shirt to his mother. Lump after lump rose in
+  his throat, and dissolved into tears that trickled down his nose.
+  The other boys did not heed him. They were following Piggy's
+  dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging limb of the
+  elm-tree.</p>
+
+  <p>They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham
+  shirt, blue overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone
+  back of Mealy, smiling complacently. Not until the stranger
+  walked down to the water's edge where Mealy sat did the other
+  boys spy him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who is it?" asked Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>"I never saw him before," replied Jimmy Sears.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I'll tell you who it is," returned Abe, after looking the
+  stranger over. "It's the new boy. Him an' his old man come to
+  town yesterday. They say he's a fighter. He licked every boy in
+  the Mountain Jumpers this mornin'."</p>
+
+  <p>By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, "How
+  you gittin' along?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled
+  child, "Hush your mouth, you old smartie! What good d't do you to
+  go an' tie my clo'es?"</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing. They
+  heard the new boy retort, "Who said I tied your clo'es?" Mealy
+  made no reply. The new boy repeated the query. Mealy saw the boys
+  in the water looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in
+  the primary department of life, and had not yet learned that one
+  must fight alone. He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the
+  "I," as he tugged at the last knot. The new boy had been looking
+  Mealy over, and he replied quickly, "You're a liar!"</p>
+
+  <p>There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for
+  some one to defend him. He was sure that his companions would not
+  stand there and see him whipped. One of the boys in the water
+  said diplomatically, "Aw, Mealy, I wouldn't take that!"</p>
+
+  <p>"You're another," faltered Mealy, who looked supplication and
+  surprise at his friends, and wondered if they were really going
+  to desert him. The new boy waded around Mealy, and leaned over
+  him, and said, shaking his fist in the freckled face, "You're a
+  coward, and you don't dast take it up and fight it out."</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy's cheeks flushed. He felt anger mantling his frame. He
+  was one of those most pitiable of mortals whose anger brings
+  tears with it. The last knot in the shirt was all but conquered,
+  when Mealy bawled in a scream of passionate sobs,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"When I git this shirt fixed I'll show you who's a
+  coward."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/001.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/001.gif"
+    alt="Say, boys, where's its bottle?" /></a> "<i>Say, boys,
+    where's its bottle</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The new boy sought a level place on the bank for a fight, and
+  sneered, "Oh, cry baby! cry baby! Say, boys, where's its
+  bottle?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy rose with a stone in each hand, and hobbled over the
+  pebbles, trying, "Touch me now! Touch me if you dare!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, you coward! drop them rocks," snarled the new boy.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy looked at his friends imploringly. He felt lonely,
+  deserted, and mistreated, but he saw in the faces of his comrades
+  the reflection of the injunction to put down the stones. He did
+  so, and his anger began to cool. But he whimpered again, "Well
+  now, touch me if you dare!"</p>
+
+  <p>The new boy came over briskly, and made a feint to slap the
+  naked lad, who warded off the blow, sniffling, "You just leave me
+  alone. I ain't hurtin' you." The boys in the water
+  laughed&mdash;it seemed to Mealy such a cruel laugh. Anger
+  enveloped him again, and he struck out blindly through his tears,
+  hand over hand, striking the new boy in the mouth and making it
+  bleed, before he realized that the fight had begun. The new boy
+  tried to clinch Mealy, but the naked body slipped away from him;
+  and just then the combatants saw the satisfied grin freeze on the
+  faces of the boys in the water. A step crunched the gravel near
+  them, and in a moment that flashed vividly with rejoicing that
+  the fight was ended, then with abject, chattering terror, Mealy
+  Jones saw his father approaching. Mealy did not run. The uplifted
+  cane and the red, perspiring face of his father transfixed the
+  lad, yet he felt called upon to say something. His voice came
+  from a dry throat, and he spoke through an idiotic grin as he
+  said, "I didn't know you wanted me, pa."</p>
+
+  <p>After the burst of his father's anger ten awful minutes of
+  shame passed for Mealy while he was putting on his wet clothes.
+  The boys in the water swam noiselessly upstream to the roots of
+  the elm-tree, where he saw them looking at his disgrace. During
+  those ten minutes Mealy realized that his father's deepening
+  silence portended evil; so he tried to draw his father into a
+  discussion of the merits of the case by whimpering from time to
+  time, "Well, I guess they ast me to come," or "Piggy said it
+  wouldn't hurt, 'cause 't ain't in dog days," or "I wasn't in
+  where it was deep. I was only a-wadin'." The new boy, who was
+  seated upon a log near by with a stone in his hand, which he had
+  picked up fearing the elder Jones would join the fray, sniffed
+  audibly. He called to the other boys derisively, "Say, any of you
+  boys got the baby's blocks?" It did not lift the mantle of
+  humiliation that covered Mealy to hear his father reply to the
+  new boy, "That will do for you, sir." While Mealy wept he wiped
+  away his tears first with one hand and then with the other,
+  employing the free hand in fastening his clothes together. He did
+  not fear the punishment that might be in store for him. He was
+  thinking of the agony of his next meeting with Piggy Pennington.
+  Mealy fancied that Abe Carpenter, who was a quiet, philosophical
+  boy, would not tease him, but horror seized him when he thought
+  of Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>As Mealy fastened his last button, he felt his father's finger
+  under his collar, and his own feet shambling blindly over the
+  pebbles, up the path, into the bushes; he heard the boys in the
+  water laugh with the new boy, and then&mdash;stories differ. The
+  boys say that he howled lustily, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any
+  more," over and over again. Mealy Jones says that it didn't hurt
+  a bit.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/058.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/058.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He felt his father's finger under his collar and his own feet shambling." />
+    </a> <i>He felt his father's finger under his collar and his
+    own feet shambling</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>This much is certain: that Master Harold Jones walked through
+  the town that day a few feet ahead of his fathers who tapped the
+  boy's legs with a hooked cane whenever his steps lagged. At the
+  door of the Jones home Mrs. Jones stood to welcome the martial
+  procession, which she saw, and then heard, approaching some time
+  before it arrived. To his wife, whose face pictured anxious
+  grief, Mr. Jones said, as he turned the captive over to her: "I
+  found this young gentleman in swimming&mdash;swimming and
+  fighting. I have attended to his immediate wants, I believe. I
+  leave him to you."</p>
+
+  <p>Harold Jones was but a lad&mdash;a good lad whose knowledge of
+  the golden text was his Sunday-school teacher's pride. Yet he had
+  collected other scraps of useful information as he journeyed
+  through life. One of these was a perfectly practical familiarity
+  with the official road map to his mother's heart. Therefore, when
+  he crossed the threshold of the Jones home Harold began at once
+  to weep dolefully.</p>
+
+  <p>"Harold Jones, what do you mean by such conduct?" asked his
+  mother.</p>
+
+  <p>The boy stood by the window long enough to see that his father
+  had turned the corner toward the town. Then he fell on the floor,
+  and began to bewail his lot, refusing to answer the first
+  question his mother asked, but telling instead how "all the other
+  boys in this town can go swimmin' when they want to," hinting
+  that he wouldn't care, if papa had only just come and brought him
+  home, but that papa&mdash;and this was followed by a vocal
+  cataract of woe that made the dish-pans ring.</p>
+
+  <p>He noted that his mother bent over him and said, "My poor
+  boy;" at which sign little Harold punctured the levees of his
+  grief again, and said he "never was goin' to face any of the boys
+  in this town again"&mdash;he "just couldn't bear it." Mrs. Jones
+  paused in her work at this, put down a potato that she was
+  peeling, and stood up stiffly, saying in a freezing tone, "Harold
+  Jones, you don't mean to tell me that your father punished you in
+  front of those other little boys?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/064.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/064.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an arm." />
+    </a><i>Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an
+    arm.</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Her son only sobbed and nodded an affirmative, and gave lusty
+  voice to the tearful wish that he was dead. Mrs. Jones stooped to
+  the floor and took her child by an arm, lifting him to his feet.
+  She smoothed his hair and took him with her to the big chair in
+  the dining-room, where she raised his seventy pounds to her lap,
+  saying as she did so, "Mama's boy will soon be too big to hold."
+  At that the spoiled child only renewed his weeping and clutched
+  her tightly. There, little by little, he forgot the mishaps of
+  the day. There the anguish lifted from his heart, and when his
+  mother asked, "Harold, why did you go into the water when we told
+  you not to?" the child only shook his head, and, after repeated
+  questioning, his answer came,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, they asked me, mom."</p>
+
+  <p>"Who asked you?" persisted Mrs. Jones.</p>
+
+  <p>"Piggy Pennington and Jimmy Sears," returned the lad.</p>
+
+  <p>To the query, "Well, do you have to do everything they ask you
+  to, Harold?" the lad's answer was a renewal of the heart-breaking
+  sobs. These softened the mother's heart, as many and many a
+  woman's heart has been melted through all the ages. She soothed
+  the truant child and petted him, until the cramping in his throat
+  relaxed sufficiently to admit of the passage of an astonishingly
+  large slice of bread and butter and sugar. After it was disposed
+  of, Harold busied himself by assorting his old iron scraps on the
+  back porch, and his mother smiled as she fancied she heard the
+  boy trying to whistle a tune.</p>
+
+  <p>Harold had left the porch before his father came home with the
+  beefsteak for supper, and Mrs. Jones met her husband with: "Pa
+  Jones, what could you be thinking of&mdash;punishing that boy
+  before the other children? Do you want to break what little
+  spirit he has? Why, that child was nearly in hysterics for an
+  hour after you left!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Jones hung up his crooked cane, put a stick of wood in the
+  stove, scraped his pipe with his knife, and blew through the
+  stem.</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess he wasn't hurt much," replied the father. Then he
+  added, as he put a live coal in the pipe: "I s'pose you went an'
+  babied him an' spoiled it all." There was a puffing pause, after
+  which Mr. Jones added, "If you'd let him go more, an' didn't
+  worry your head off when he was out of sight, he'd amount to
+  more."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. Jones always gave her husband three moves before she
+  spoke. "Yes! yes! you'd make that boy a regular little rowdy if
+  you had your way, William Jones."</p>
+
+  <p>In the mean time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle
+  in the alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his
+  spindling legs would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They
+  were grinning broadly when he came to them. It was Piggy
+  Pennington who first spoke, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any more,"
+  repeating the phrase several times in a suppressed voice, and
+  leering impishly at Mealy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, you're makin' that up," answered Mealy in embarrassment.
+  But Piggy continued his teasing until Abe Carpenter said: "Say,
+  Mealy, we want you to go to the cave with us to-morrow; can
+  you?"</p>
+
+  <p>The "can you" was an imputation on his personal liberty that
+  Mealy resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom
+  dollar I can." Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him,
+  and the boys sat in the dirt behind the barn, chattering about
+  the new boy, whose name, according to the others, was "Bud"
+  Perkins. Mealy entered the conversation with much masculine
+  pomp&mdash;too much, in fact; for when he became particularly
+  vain-glorious some one in the group was certain to glance at his
+  shoes&mdash;and shoes in June in Boyville are insignia of the
+  weaker sex, the badges of shame.</p>
+
+  <p>But Mealy did not feel his disgrace. He walked up the ash path
+  to the kitchen with an excellent imitation of manly pride in his
+  gait. He kicked at a passing cat, and shook his head bravely,
+  talking to himself about the way he would have whipped the new
+  boy if his father had not interrupted the fight.</p>
+
+  <p>As Mrs. Jones heard the boy's step on the porch, she said to
+  his father, "Now, pa, that boy has been punished enough to-day.
+  Don't you say a word to him." Harold walked by his father with
+  averted face. At supper the boy did not look at his father, and
+  when the dishes were put away, Mr. Jones, who sat in the kitchen
+  smoking, heard his wife and the child in a front room, chatting
+  cheerily. The lonesome father smoked his pipe and recalled his
+  youth. The boy's voice brought back his own shrill treble, and he
+  coughed nervously. After Mrs. Jones had put the lad to bed, and
+  was in the pantry arranging for breakfast, the father knocked the
+  ashes from his briar into the stove, and, humming an old tune,
+  went to the boy's bedroom door. He paused awkwardly on the
+  threshold. The boy turned his face toward the wall. The action
+  cut the father to the quick. He walked to the bed and bent over
+  the child, touching a father's rough-bearded face to the soft
+  cheek. He found the soft hand&mdash;with a father's large
+  hand&mdash;under the sheet, and he held the little hand tightly
+  as he said:</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Harold"&mdash;there he paused for a second. But he
+  continued, "Do you think you'd a-licked that
+  boy&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;I hadn't a-come?"</p>
+
+  <p>Then the two laughed, and a little throb of joyous pain
+  tingled in their throats&mdash;such as only boys may feel.</p>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>A LITTLE DREAM-BOY</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,</p>
+
+      <p>And wake up a little man lying forlorn,</p>
+
+      <p>Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Little Boy Blue, blow a merry, sweet note,</p>
+
+      <p>Over the pool where the white lilies float,&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Fill out the sails of a little toy boat.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Blow on my dream of a little boy there,&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Blow thro' his little bark-whistle, and snare</p>
+
+      <p>Your breath in a tangle of curly brown hair.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Blow and O blow from your fairy land far,</p>
+
+      <p>Blow while my little boy wears a tin star,</p>
+
+      <p>And rides a stick-horse to a little boy's war.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Blow for the brave man my dream-boy would be,</p>
+
+      <p>Blow back his tears when he wakes up to see</p>
+
+      <p>His knight errant gone and instead&mdash;only me.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,</p>
+
+      <p>Blow for a little boy lying forlorn,</p>
+
+      <p>Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:65%;">
+    <a href="images/074.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/074.gif"
+    alt="Chapter title: A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>In a small town, every man who has been in the community long
+  enough to become thoroughly known to the townsmen has a place in
+  the human mosaic; that place seldom changes. Occasionally a man
+  is a year in finding his place. The town of Willow Creek located
+  Calhoun Perkins in two days. Wednesday he arrived in town with
+  his son, whom he called "Bud;" Thursday night it was reported
+  that he had been fishing the second time. That settled it. After
+  that the boasting of Perkins about his family in Tennessee and
+  his assertion that he expected to go into business only made the
+  men laugh when Perkins left a group of them. They were not
+  interested in Perkins by the following Saturday; and Monday every
+  man in the town felt that his judgment of a man who would go
+  fishing every day had been handsomely vindicated, when it was
+  learned that Perkins had served in the Confederate army. When
+  Perkins had been in the town three years, the anecdotes
+  illustrating his shiftlessness multiplied, and his name was a
+  synonym for that trait of character known in the vernacular as
+  "no-'count." In the third spring, after a winter's tussle with
+  rheumatism, Perkins died. His funeral was of so little importance
+  that none of the corpulent old ladies in black alpaca, holding
+  their handkerchiefs carefully folded in their hands, came panting
+  across the town to attend it. No women came at all. And the
+  Perkins boy stood by stolidly while the dry clods were rumbling
+  upon the pine box in the grave. The boy wished to be alone, and
+  he would not sit on the seat with the driver. He wiped a little
+  moisture from his eyes, and rode to town with his feet hanging
+  out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/076.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/076.gif"
+    alt=
+    "His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin." />
+    </a> <i>His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had
+    held the coffin</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>When the wagon came to the thick of the town, Bud Perkins
+  quietly slid to the ground, and joined a group of afternoon
+  idlers who were playing marbles on the south side of a livery
+  barn. Here and there in the group a boy said: "H'lo, Bud," when
+  the Perkins boy joined the coterie, but many of the youngsters,
+  being unfamiliar with the etiquette of mourning, were silent, and
+  played on at their game. When the opportunity came the Perkins
+  boy put a marble in the ring without saying a word. He went back
+  to "taws," and "lagged for goes," with the others. He spoke only
+  when he was addressed. A black sense of desolation lowered over
+  him, and he could not join in the ejaculations and responses of
+  the game. His luck was bad, and he lost marble after marble. In
+  an hour, when the sun was still in the south, he withdrew from
+  the game and sat alone against the barn, drawing figures on the
+  earth with a broken piece of hoop-iron. The boy could not fight
+  off the thought of the empty home waiting for him down by the
+  river. He saw, as he sat there, all the furniture, his father's
+  clothes hanging at the foot of the bed, the stove in disorder;
+  and then he realized that in the whole town not one hand was held
+  out to him. He was a child, yet the heartlessness of it all cut
+  him to the quick. This thought overwhelmed him, again and again,
+  each time with more agonizing force, like an increasing wave, and
+  as one flood washed over him with fiercer passion than the
+  others, the boy rose hurriedly, ran around the barn, and flung
+  himself upon a pile of hay. There he gave way to a storm of sobs.
+  One of the group, who had been watching him more closely than the
+  others, soon withdrew from the game, and going in the opposite
+  direction from that taken by Bud Perkins, came tiptoeing around
+  the haystack.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/080.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/080.gif"
+    alt="His luck was bad." /></a> <i>His luck was bad</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/084.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/084.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the barn" /></a>
+    <i>He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the
+    barn</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The paroxysm of sobs had ceased, and Bud was lying face
+  downward as if asleep. He heard the step, but pretended not to
+  hear it. He felt some one pressing the hay beside him. He knew
+  who it was, and the two boys lay upon the hay without speaking.
+  The Perkins boy turned his head away from the new-comer; but try
+  as he would, Bud could not keep from sniffling. In a few moments
+  the other boy tried to roll the Perkins boy over. It was a vain
+  attempt. Then the sobbing began anew. But it was a short attack,
+  and, at length, the other boy said: "Bu-ud?" Again he said,
+  "Bu-ud?" There came no response. "O, Bud&mdash;I got somethin' to
+  tell you!" The sniffling continued, and the other boy kept on
+  pleading. "Ah, Bud, come on; I got somethin' real good," he said.
+  Silence answered. The teasing went on: "Say, Bud, I won back all
+  your marbles." That was repeated twice. Then a hand went over
+  toward the other boy. He filled it with marbles, and it went
+  back. Another silence was followed by a rustle of hay, and a
+  dirty face turned over, and a voice said through a pathetic,
+  apologetic smile: "This old nicked glassey ain't mine." The two
+  heads nestled together, and four eyes gazed at the blue sky and
+  the white clouds for a long time. It was the Perkins boy who
+  spoke: "Say, Piggy, I bet you'd cry, too, if you was me."</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy wormed his arm under the hay around the Perkins boy's
+  neck, as he asked, "What you goin' to do to-night, Bud?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I dunno. Why?" replied Bud.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, I'm comin' out to stay all night. They're goin' to have
+  a party at our house, and ma said I could."</p>
+
+  <p>Bud drew himself up slowly; then threw himself with a quick
+  spring on top of Piggy, and the two began to wrestle like kittens
+  in the hay.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/088.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/088.gif"
+    alt="As she turned to her turkey-slicing" /></a> <i>As she
+    turned to her turkey-slicing</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Even while Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins were sitting at
+  dusk on the back-porch steps of the Pennington house, eating
+  turkey-wings which Mrs. Pennington had given to them, and
+  devouring ham sandwiches which Piggy had taken from the big
+  platterful in the pantry, looking the hired girl boldly in the
+  face as he did it, even then the preparations for the Pennington
+  entertainment were progressing indoors. The parlor, the
+  sitting-room, and the dining-room, which had been decorated
+  during the warm afternoon with borrowed palms and with roses from
+  the neighbor's vines, were being ventilated. Windows were rising,
+  and doors opening. The velvety air of May was fluttering
+  everywhere. And there was so much life in it, that when Mrs.
+  Pennington saw the two boys pass out of the alley gate, she saw
+  the Perkins boy grab her son's hat and run away whooping, while
+  Piggy followed, throwing clods at his companion's legs and feet.
+  She thought, as she turned to her turkey-slicing, that the
+  Perkins child was not taking his father's death "very hard." But
+  she did not know that the boyish whoop was the only thing that
+  saved him from sobbing, as he left the home where he saw such a
+  contrast to his own. How could a woman carrying the
+  responsibilities of the social honor of the Methodist church in
+  Willow Creek have time to use her second sight?</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/092.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/092.gif"
+    alt="The new preacher, for whom the party was made" /></a>
+    <i>The new preacher, for whom the party was made</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The guests at the Pennington house that evening divided the
+  honors equally between the new preacher, for whom the party was
+  made, and Miss Morgan, whose last niece had married and left her
+  but two days before. Most of the guests had met the new preacher;
+  but none of them&mdash;save one or two of her intimate
+  friends&mdash;could know how the lonely little old woman was
+  faring in the cottage whence one by one her adopted birds had
+  flown. They called her "little Miss Morgan" in the town, and the
+  story of her life of devotion to her brothers' and sisters'
+  children was familiar to every one about her. For ten years she
+  had lived in Willow Creek caring for her brothers' orphans. She
+  came to the community from the East, and found what she
+  brought&mdash;culture, friends, and kindness at every turn. The
+  children whom she had cared for had grown up, filed through the
+  town's real estate college, and then mating had left the little
+  spinster alone.</p>
+
+  <p>At the Penningtons' that evening she was cheerful
+  enough&mdash;so cheerful, indeed, in her little bird-like way,
+  that many of those who talked with her fancied that the
+  resourceful little body was beyond the reach of petty grief. The
+  modest, almost girlish smile beamed through the wrinkles of fifty
+  autumns as brightly that evening at the Penningtons' as the town
+  had ever seen it. From her place in a high-backed chair in the
+  corner, Miss Morgan, in her shy, self-deprecatory way, shed her
+  faint benediction about her as she had done for a decade. There
+  was a sweetness in Miss Morgan's manner that made the old men
+  gallant to her in a boyish way; and the wives, who loved her,
+  were proud of their husbands' chivalry. During the evening at the
+  Penningtons' the conversation found much of its inspiration in
+  the Memorial Day services on the morrow and in anecdotes about
+  the thriftlessness of Calhoun Perkins. Memorial Day was one of
+  the holidays which Miss Morgan kept in her heart. Then she
+  decorated each year a lover's grave&mdash;a grave she had never
+  seen. The day had been sacred in her heart to the memory of a
+  spring night, and the moon and the lilacs and the blue uniform of
+  a soldier. Upon other days she waved this memory away with a gay
+  little sigh, and would have none of it. But on Memorial Day she
+  bade the vision come into her heart and bide a while.</p>
+
+  <p>But she did not open the door there at the party. They said to
+  one another, going home that night: "Well, I don't see's she
+  minds it a bit. Isn't that pluck for you&mdash;not lonesome, not
+  grumpy&mdash;just the same little body she was when we first saw
+  her. Well&mdash;I know one thing&mdash;I couldn't do it."</p>
+
+  <p>As for Miss Morgan, while she was walking home that night, she
+  was thinking of the women of her age whom she had just left; the
+  romance seemed to be gone completely from their lives, their
+  faces seemed a trifle hard to her, and she was wondering if life
+  would have gone so with her if there had been no Shiloh.</p>
+
+  <p>The town clock in the schoolhouse was tolling eleven, as Miss
+  Morgan turned the key in the front door. The night was starry and
+  inviting, and as her house stood among the trees, somewhat back
+  from the street, Miss Morgan did not feel afraid to sit in a
+  porch chair, refreshing herself, before going indoors. The wind
+  brought the odor of the lilacs from the bush at the house corner,
+  and the woman sat drinking in the fragrance. She saw a pair of
+  lovers strolling by, who did not observe her. She could hear the
+  murmur of their voices; she did not try to catch their words. She
+  sat silently dreaming and wondering. Again and again her eyes
+  went to the stars in a vain questioning, and her lips moved.
+  Maybe she was asking "where," maybe she was asking "why." As the
+  moments slipped by, the years fell away from her. She had carried
+  her little romance in her heart unsullied by reality. To-night
+  the talk of Memorial Day had brought it all back, and the thrill
+  of other days returned with the odor of the lilacs. She yielded
+  to a vague, crazy notion, and in an impulsive, girlish run she
+  went to the corner of the porch and broke a sprig from the
+  lilac-tree.</p>
+
+  <p>Then with a short sigh, that had just the hint of a smile in
+  it, she took the lilac sprig into the house. Perhaps she fancied
+  that no one would see the flowers but she. Maybe the oppressive
+  stillness of the empty house burdened her. Certainly something
+  was heavy upon her, for there was no smile in the sigh that came
+  deeply from her heart, as she locked the door. It must have
+  seemed lonely for Miss Morgan, coming from the crowded parlor,
+  and the questions that her friends asked about her plans may have
+  followed her. Perhaps it was the answer to these questions that
+  kept her awake. She sat by her window and went over and over
+  again the question, what should she do. The wedding that had so
+  recently livened the cottage kept coming to the little old
+  woman's mind, and with it came the bride. When the other children
+  had gone away, Miss Morgan let them go with her blessing, and was
+  glad of their good fortunes. But this last child to go had been
+  Miss Morgan's pet. As the lonely spinster sat there she recalled
+  how the child had been moulded by her; how she had fancied the
+  child's heart was hers, cherishing in it the ideals, the
+  sentiment, the tendernesses that the older heart had held sacred
+  for a lifetime. Miss Morgan recalled how she and the girl had
+  mingled their tears over the first long dress that their hands
+  made, knowing, each of them, that it meant the coming of the
+  parting. As she looked into the awful vistas of the stars, the
+  woman knew that she was one of God's creatures, all
+  alone&mdash;without one soul that she might even signal to.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/100.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/100.gif"
+    alt="The first long dress." /></a> <i>The first long dress</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The word "alone" came to her so strangely that she repeated it
+  in a whisper. Its sound touched some string within her bosom, and
+  she put her head upon the open window sill and wept, sobbing the
+  word "alone" until sleep soothed her.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/104.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/104.gif"
+    alt="Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still." /></a>
+    "<i>Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The morning sunlight helped Miss Morgan to put aside the
+  problems of the night; she hummed an old war tune as she went
+  about her work, but it did not lift the silence from the house.
+  The rooms that a few days before had been vocal with life, were
+  so dead that the clock ticking in the parlor might be heard in
+  the kitchen. The canary's cheerful song echoed shrilly through
+  the silent place. Miss Morgan said to him, "Dickey, Dickey, for
+  gracious sake, keep still&mdash;you'll drive me wild." But her
+  voice only increased the bird's vehemence, and the throbbing in
+  her ears brought on a headache. When she put a paper over the
+  cage, the clock annoyed her. She was irritated by a passing boy
+  whistling "The Girl I Left Behind Me" with all his might, but
+  sadly off the key. She went to the window and saw Bud
+  Perkins.</p>
+
+  <p>She did not know that the child had just arisen from a
+  cheering breakfast at the Penningtons'&mdash;even if she knew how
+  much a hearty breakfast cheers up any boy. But the spectacle of
+  the orphan facing the world so bravely moved Miss Morgan. She
+  felt a sudden wave of pity, and with it came the conviction of
+  guilt&mdash;that she had been selfish while the boy was
+  suffering. She had heard at the Penningtons' that the county
+  would probably take charge of him; but she recalled what she had
+  heard in its full meaning to the child only when she saw him turn
+  the corner, going toward the centre of the town. There was a
+  feeling of keen joy in her heart as she realized that she was not
+  useless in the world, and she went about her morning's work with
+  the lightest heart in all Willow Creek beating in her breast.</p>
+
+  <p>Bud Perkins had seen but two Memorial Days in Kansas&mdash;and
+  upon each of these days he and his father had gone fishing. The
+  boy knew it was a soldiers' holiday, and from Piggy Pennington
+  Bud had found out what were the purposes of the day. He knew that
+  his father had been a soldier&mdash;a soldier on the wrong side.
+  But he did not know that graves of Confederate soldiers were not
+  included in the day's sacrament.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mornin', Captain," said Bud to a slight, gray-haired old man,
+  stooping over a basket of flowers in a vacant store-room in the
+  main street of the town.</p>
+
+  <p>When the man replied kindly the boy took heart to say: "You
+  must be kind o' runnin' things here, I guess."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/108.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/108.gif"
+    alt="Did you know my dad was a soldier?" /></a> "<i>Did you
+    know my dad was a soldier</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"I'm in charge of the flowers, Bud, just for to-day," replied
+  Captain Meyers, who did not wish to seem as vain-glorious as he
+  was.</p>
+
+  <p>"Goin' to put flowers on all the soldiers' graves&mdash;are
+  you?" queried Bud. The elder replied that the Post aimed to do
+  so.</p>
+
+  <p>"Did you know my dad was a soldier?" was the boy's next
+  question.</p>
+
+  <p>The captain's heart was pricked when he saw what was in Bud's
+  mind. The captain knew what the next query would be. He was a
+  gentle man and kind. So, looking about to see if any comrades of
+  a sterner sect than he were in hearing before replying, he said:
+  "You mustn't feel bad now, Buddie, but it's only them on the
+  Union side&mdash;whose graves we decorate to-day. I wouldn't
+  mind, if I was you." Captain Meyers was not a diplomat, and he
+  said the words poorly.</p>
+
+  <p>In an instant the boy's eyes filled with tears. They dried in
+  anger before they reached his flushed cheek. He clinched his
+  hands, turned, and walked hotly out of the room. In the door he
+  paused, whirled around, and cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Yank! Yank! Rick-stick-stank!</p>
+
+      <p>High ball, low ball, dirty-faced Yank!"</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Then he ran wildly down the street to escape the infuriated
+  mob which he believed would pursue him. The knowledge that he was
+  cut off from the day's festivities made him wince with pain as he
+  ran. Not until he came out upon the road across the prairie did
+  he stop&mdash;breathless, worn out, crying. During the next two
+  hours the boy wandered on the prairie and in the woods gathering
+  wild flowers. By the time the exercises in the Willow Creek opera
+  house were finished and the procession was formed, Bud Perkins
+  had a heaping armful of field blossoms. He was coming over the
+  hill to the cemetery when he heard the band strike up the "Dead
+  March" down in the village. His impulse was to run away. He
+  checked himself and walked across the place, past the shafts and
+  monuments, toward his father's grave under the hill furthest from
+  the town. In the middle of the cemetery the boy stopped. His eyes
+  were caught by a marble lamb over a child's grave. The
+  inscription he read was "Mary Pennington, aged two years, three
+  months, and ten days." The date line upon the stone, told of a
+  year that had passed before the Perkins boy was born. He gazed at
+  it a moment, and put there a handful of his choicest flowers.
+  Looking up he saw some early visitor to the silent place stepping
+  from behind a monument. Bud had scattered his flowers before he
+  saw that he was being watched; so he pretended to hunt for stones
+  to throw. He gathered several, and peppered them at shafts and at
+  birds.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/112.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/112.gif"
+    alt=
+    "During the next two hours the boy wandered on the prairie." /></a>
+    <i>During the next two hours the boy wandered on the
+    prairie</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/116.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/116.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten days." />
+    </a> "<i>Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten
+    days</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Bud Perkins walked to the freshly-made mound where his father
+  lay, and scattered his posies over it. The village "cornet band"
+  was coming nearer and nearer to the hill. The boy curbed a
+  temptation to leave. He walked lazily about the grave until the
+  Memorial Day procession had entered the big iron gate a hundred
+  yards away. Calhoun Perkins's grave could not be seen from the
+  plot where the townspeople had gathered. The boy sat down with
+  his back to the crowd. He did not know how near the people were
+  to him. He felt that they were staring down, perhaps laughing, at
+  him. So he tried to assume a careless air. He picked up clods and
+  tossed them at adjacent objects. Tiring of this, he chewed the
+  grass stems, and sucked the nectar from the corolla of wild
+  honeysuckles. But this did not keep the lump out of his throat,
+  and it did not subdue the turmoil of sorrow in his heart at the
+  thought that his father was scorned in the town. Once his small
+  frame shook with a strangled sob, but immediately afterward he
+  threw an unusually big clod at a post near by. He had been
+  hearing voices and footsteps on the brow of the hill for several
+  minutes. Occasionally he picked out a familiar voice, and once he
+  heard Mealy Jones call his name. He did not answer, but a woman
+  standing a little further up the hill asked Mealy, "Who is it,
+  Harold?" "Bud," said the youngster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bud who?" asked the woman's voice.</p>
+
+  <p>The Perkins boy heard the dialogue. He was sitting down,
+  throwing clods into the air, and catching them as they fell, and
+  this appeared to be an engrossing task.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bud Perkins. He's settin' down by his pa's grave," replied
+  the boy on the hill. The child by the fresh mound pictured
+  himself as the other boy saw him, and his eyes brimmed over with
+  tears. He seemed so desolate.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why don't you go to him?" insisted the woman, coming
+  nearer.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, Miss Morgan," said the boy whom she addressed, lowering
+  his voice, but not lowering it sufficiently, "Miss Morgan,
+  <i>you</i> don't know <i>him</i>"</p>
+
+  <p>Just then Bud was startled by a footstep at his side. He
+  looked up and saw Piggy Pennington, who had a big bunch of roses
+  in his hands, and who, seeing the stained face of his friend,
+  said in embarrassed confusion: "Ma sent 'em." Piggy put the roses
+  by the new pine head-board, and lay down&mdash;lying across his
+  companion's feet.</p>
+
+  <p>"Get off me," said Bud, when he had treated himself to a long,
+  trembling sniff, after a painful silence. "I ain't no
+  sidewalk."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/120.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/120.gif"
+    alt="Piggy went to get his flying hat." /></a> <i>Piggy went to
+    get his flying hat</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>When Piggy went to get his flying hat, he said under his
+  breath to Bud, "Wipe your face, quick; some one's comin'." Then
+  he stood awkwardly at Bud's back and shielded him. Piggy spoke
+  first to the little woman, now only a few paces away.</p>
+
+  <p>"H'lo, Miss Morgan; lookin' for old Tom? He's buried off to
+  the right yonder."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, my dear. I want to speak to Henry Perkins," replied the
+  woman, beaming the kindest of smiles into the guardsman's face.
+  He stepped from the line between Miss Morgan and the Perkins boy,
+  not sure that the intruder would find a welcome. Bud was glaring
+  steadfastly at the earth, between his hands and knees. Piggy
+  said, "Bu-ud?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Whut," was the response.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Morgan wants to talk with you," replied Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's she want?" inquired the Perkins boy, with his head
+  still between his knees.</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan had been coming nearer and nearer to him as the
+  dialogue had progressed. She was standing in front of Bud when he
+  added, "I ain't done nothin'."</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/124.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/124.gif"
+    alt="She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him." /></a>
+    <i>She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan bent down and touched his head with her hands.
+  Piggy was shaking his head warningly at her with much
+  earnestness. He feared that such a feminine proceeding would
+  anger his comrade. When Miss Morgan sat upon the ground beside
+  Bud and took one of his hands, stroking it without the boy's
+  resisting, Piggy Pennington was dumb with wonder. He could not
+  hear the gentle breaking of the agonizing lump in the child's
+  throat. Even little Miss Morgan could not see the tears that had
+  burst over the brims of the orphan's eyes. His face was averted.
+  She stroked his hand, and snuggled closer to him. Then she heard
+  a faint whimper, and her heart could stand the strain no longer;
+  she leaned upon the child's shoulder, and mourned with him. The
+  Pennington boy did not comprehend it all; but as he looked
+  politely away from his friends, he felt the moisture in his eyes.
+  He wiped it away quickly, glancing to see if his weakness had
+  been detected. The woman recovered in a few moments, and arose
+  with the boy's hand gripping hers warmly. He had felt her tears
+  through his thin clothing, and was conquered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come on, Henry; we're going now," said Miss Morgan, and drew
+  the lad up with her hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"Whur to?" asked Bud, who knew the answer instinctively.</p>
+
+  <p>"Home," replied the little woman, who knew that the boy knew,
+  and who was sure that he had consented. "Our home&mdash;yours and
+  mine."</p>
+
+  <p>The boy arose, still holding her hand, and looked toward the
+  grave with the flowers strewn over it. He gripped her hand
+  tightly&mdash;so tightly that it pained her&mdash;and sobbed, as
+  he faced away from her: "O pop!"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/128.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/128.gif"
+    alt="Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds" /></a> <i>Miss
+    Morgan smiled happily at the clouds</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Then they walked on in silence, till they came up with Piggy,
+  who had gone a few steps ahead. It was Bud who spoke first. He
+  said: "You don't live far from Piggy's, do you, Miss Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <p>And Piggy Pennington pointed his finger at Bud's dripping eyes
+  and grinned, while Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds.</p>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p><br clear="right" />
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME
+  NOT"</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>THE RHYME OF MIGNONETTE</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>When dandelions fleck the green,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And plum-blooms scent the evening breeze,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And robin's songs throb through the trees;</p>
+
+      <p>And when the year is raw thirteen,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And Spring's a gawky hoyden yet,</p>
+
+      <p>The season mirrors in its mien</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And in its tom-boy etiquette,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Maid Mignonette, my Mignonette.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>When bare-feet lisp along the path,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And boys and jays go whistling by,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And girls and thrushes coyly cry</p>
+
+      <p>Their fine joys through the aftermath&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Then laid ghosts know their amulet</p>
+
+      <p>Which fickle siren mem'ry hath;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">So laughing comes that sad coquette,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Comes Mignonette,&mdash;my Mignonette.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>The wild rose is a conjurer,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">It charms the heavy years away,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Unshoes my feet and bids them stray</p>
+
+      <p>O'er playgrounds where our temples were.</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">To some pale star I owe a debt</p>
+
+      <p>For harboring the soul of her</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">With whom I learned love's alphabet&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">With Mignonette, my Mignonette.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p><b>"While the Evil Days come not"</b></p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>We duck through the court, reminded a</p>
+
+      <p>bit by our feelings of our first love, who hadn't</p>
+
+      <p>the cleanest of faces, or the nicest of manners;</p>
+
+      <p>but she takes her station in our memory because</p>
+
+      <p>we were boys then, and the golden halo</p>
+
+      <p>of youth is upon her.&mdash;<i>George Meredith</i>.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>What little things turn great events! Tragedies swing on such
+  inconsequential hinges. It is so exasperating to look back over
+  the path of a calamity and see how easily it might have been
+  averted! If one man in the little town of Lawrence a generation
+  ago had eaten two pieces of pie-plant pie instead of three for
+  supper, the night of a certain party caucus, he would have
+  attended that caucus and another set of delegates would have gone
+  to the County convention, another would have been sent to the
+  State Convention, another Governor of Kansas would have been
+  nominated and elected, and he would have chosen another United
+  States Senator, who would have voted for, instead of against, the
+  impeachment of a President of the United States, and the history
+  of the civilized world would have been an entirely different
+  affair from the one now in use. Similarly, if Winfield Hancock
+  Pennington, of the town of Boyville, had slipped his shoes off in
+  the second block from his home, instead of slipping them off in
+  the first block, on his way to school, a great shadow that
+  settled over his life might have been lifted. For if he had not
+  been sitting exactly where he sat on the curbing of the street,
+  on that bright, beautiful Monday morning in September, removing
+  his shoes and stockings, he would have found no garter snake to
+  kill; and not having killed the snake, he could not have brought
+  it to school on a stick; and not having brought it to school on a
+  stick, he could not have chased the little girls around the yard
+  with it before the teacher came. And if he had not been doing
+  that, he would not have conceived the chivalrous notion that he
+  might gain the esteem of his Heart's Desire by frightening her
+  with a snake. And if Winfield Hancock Pennington had not made his
+  Heart's Desire angry&mdash;without giving her a chance to cool
+  off&mdash;she would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing
+  with her during the opening hour. But probably all that happened
+  had to happen in the course of things; so speculation is idle.
+  But when it did happen, it seemed to be a hopeless case. Young
+  Mr. Pennington had lived through the day, a week before, when the
+  teacher changed his seat so that he could not see his Heart's
+  Desire smile; but he knew that she was sorry with him, and that
+  helped a little. But when he saw Harold Jones singing from the
+  same book with his Heart's Desire, he tried in vain to catch the
+  fragment of a smile from her. Instead of a smile, he found her
+  threatening to make a face if he persisted. Piggy seemed to be
+  buried in an avalanche of woe. Then it was that he saw what a
+  small thing had started the avalanche of calamity thundering down
+  upon him, and he smarted with remorse. In his anguish he tried to
+  sing alto, and made a peculiar rasping sound that tore a reproof
+  for him off the teacher's nerves.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/136.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/136.gif"
+    alt="Chased the little girls around the yard with it" /></a>
+    <i>Chased the little girls around the yard with it</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/140.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/140.gif"
+    alt=
+    "She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her during the opening hour." />
+    </a> <i>She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing
+    with her during the opening hour</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>From the hour of the Jones boy's triumph, he and Winfield
+  Hancock Pennington&mdash;familiarly known as "Piggy"&mdash;became
+  boon companions. A grown-up outsider might have wondered at such
+  a friendship, for Harold Jones was a pale, thin youth, with a
+  squeaky voice. His skimmed-milk eyes popped out over a waste of
+  freckles which blurred his features and literally weighted down a
+  weak, loosely-wired jaw and kept an astonished mouth opened for
+  hours at a time. Piggy, on the other hand, was a sturdy, chunky,
+  blue-eyed boy, who had fought his way up to glory in the school,
+  and who had run and jumped, and tumbled and dived, and bantered
+  himself into the right to be King of Boyville. Chummery between
+  the two boys seemed impossible, yet it was one of the things
+  which every school expects in a certain crisis. When the affair
+  is reversed, the two little girls go about breathing undying
+  hatred for one another. But a boy begins to consume his rival
+  with politeness, to seek him out from all other beings on earth,
+  to study his tastes and cater to his humors. And so, while the
+  comradeship between Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones was built on
+  ashes, its growth was beautiful to see.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/144.gif"><img width="7%" src="images/144.gif"
+    alt="Harold Jones" /></a> <i>Harold Jones</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/148.gif"><img width="15%" src="images/148.gif"
+    alt="To study his tastes" /></a> <i>To study his tastes</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/152.gif"><img width="25%" src="images/152.gif"
+    alt="... the comradeship ... was beautiful to see" /></a> ...
+    <i>the comradeship ... was beautiful to see</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/156.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/156.gif"
+    alt="The red-headed Pratt girl." /></a> <i>The red-headed Pratt
+    girl</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>In all their hours of close communion neither boy mentioned to
+  the other the name of the little girl in the red shawl and the
+  paint-brush pig-tails whose fitful fancy had brought on all his
+  trouble. In some mysterious way each managed to shower her with
+  picture cards, to compass her about with oranges, to embower her
+  desk with flowers; but it was all done in stealth, and she who
+  was the object of this devotion rewarded it openly and&mdash;alas
+  for the vanity of her sex&mdash;impartially. All the school
+  watched the battle of the hearts eagerly. The big boys, who
+  usually know as little about the social transactions beneath them
+  as the teacher knows, felt an inkling of the situation. The
+  red-headed Pratt girl became deeply interested in the affair,
+  though she was never invited to a party in the school's
+  aristocracy. She did not even get an invitation to Bud Perkins's
+  surprise party, where every one who had any social standing was
+  expected. Yet she saw all that went on in the school, and once
+  she all but smiled sympathetically at Piggy, when she met him
+  slipping away from his Heart's Desire's desk, in which he had
+  left a flock of Cupids nestling on a perfumed blotter, and a
+  candy sheep. Mealy Jones would have snubbed the Pratt girl if she
+  had caught him thus, but Piggy gave her a wink that made her his
+  partner. After that hour the Pratt girl became his scout. The
+  next day she blundered. That Friday was burned into Piggy
+  Pennington's memory with a glowing brand.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:23%;">
+    <a href="images/160.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/160.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way andlisten to his Heart's Desire" />
+    </a> <i>He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and
+    listen to his Heart's Desire</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The trouble occurred in this way: On the Friday following
+  Piggy's black Monday, the King of Boyville, decided to resort to
+  an heroic measure. In his meditative moments Piggy had made up
+  speeches addressed to his Heart's Desire wherein he had proposed
+  reconciliation at any sacrifice save that of honor. Twice during
+  those four days he had stood by his Heart's Desire during recess,
+  while they had looked out at the play-ground. But the words next
+  to his heart had sputtered and bubbled into nothing on his lips.
+  He could only snap chalk at the young gentlemen in the yard below
+  him, in a preoccupied way, and listen to his Heart's Desire
+  rattle on about the whims of her fractions and the caprices of
+  her spelling-lesson. Friday noon, Winfield Hancock Pennington
+  took a header into the Rubicon. In the deserted school-room, just
+  after the other youngsters had gone to dinner or to play, Piggy,
+  with much wiggling of his toes, with much hard breathing, and
+  with many facial contortions, wrote a note. He gave it to the
+  Pratt girl to deliver. When the first bell was ringing that noon,
+  Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing
+  piles at "crack the whip." During the fifteen minutes that
+  followed, he was charging up and down the yard, howling like a
+  Comanche, at "pull-away." But run as he would, yell as he would,
+  and wrestle as he would, Piggy could not escape the picture that
+  rose in his mind of a boy wearing his features and using his
+  body, writing the note that he had written. When dismembered
+  words and phrases from that note came to his mind on the
+  play-ground, the quaver of terror that rose in Piggy's whoop was
+  not dissembled. Sometimes fear froze his vitals, then a flush of
+  self-abasement burned him with its flames. And all the time he
+  knew that the Pratt girl had that note. He almost hoped that an
+  earthquake would swallow her with it before she could deliver it.
+  When Piggy came straggling in, hot, sweaty, and puffing, just as
+  the teacher was tapping the tardy-bell, a wave of peace swept
+  over him. His Heart's Desire was not at her desk. He knew that he
+  had still a few moments' reprieve.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/164.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/164.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing piles" />
+    </a> <i>Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling,
+    squealing piles</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>They were singing when his Heart's Desire came in. Piggy's
+  head was tilted back to give his voice full volume as he shouted,
+  "All his jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own." His
+  eyes were half closed in an ecstasy, and he did not turn his face
+  toward the paint-brush pig-tails, nor give any sign that he knew
+  of their owner's presence. Yet when she passed his desk, his
+  voice did not quaver, nor his eyes blink, nor his countenance
+  redden, as his foot darted out for her to trip over. She tripped
+  purposely, thereby accepting affection's tribute, and he was
+  glad.</p>
+
+  <p>To elaborate the tale of how the Pratt girl blundered with
+  Piggy Pennington's note would be depressing. For it holds in its
+  barbed meshes a record of one agonizing second in which Piggy saw
+  the folded paper begin to slip and slide down the incline of his
+  Heart's Desire's desk, whereon the Pratt girl had dropped it; saw
+  the two girls grab for it; heard it crash from the seat to the
+  floor with what seemed to him a deafening roar. Nor is this all
+  that the harrowing tale might disclose. It might dilate upon the
+  horror that wrenched Piggy's spine as he watched the teacher's
+  finger crook a signal for the note to be brought forward. It
+  would be manifestly cruel and clearly unnecessary to describe the
+  forces which impelled the psychic wave of suggestion that
+  inundated the school&mdash;even to the youth of the "B" class,
+  with his head under the desk, looking for a pencil&mdash;and gave
+  every demon there gleeful knowledge that the teacher had nabbed a
+  note and would probably read it aloud. It is enough to submit the
+  plain, but painful, statement that, when the teacher tapped her
+  pencil for attention, a red ear, a throbbing red ear, flared out
+  from either side of Piggy Pennington's Fourth Reader, while not
+  far away a pair of pig-tails bristled up with rage and
+  humiliation from a desk where a little girl's head lay buried in
+  her arms. Then the teacher unfolded the crackling paper and read
+  this note:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>FRIEND MARY.&mdash;Did you mean anything</p>
+
+      <p>by letting Him sing with you. I</p>
+
+      <p>dont care if you did but I never don</p>
+
+      <p>anything to deserve it, but if you dident</p>
+
+      <p>I am very sorry, will tell you bout it at</p>
+
+      <p>the partey. Well that is all I can think</p>
+
+      <p>of today, from</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Yourse Ever,</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>WIN PENNINGTON.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>P.S. If you still meen what you sed</p>
+
+      <p>about roses red and vilets blue all right</p>
+
+      <p>and so do I. WHP.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/168.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/168.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be brought forward" />
+    </a> <i>He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the
+    note to be brought forward</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Piggy waded home through blood that night. The boys could not
+  resist calling out "Friend Mary" or "Hello, Roses Red," though
+  each boy knew that his taunt would bring on a fight. Piggy fought
+  boys who were three classes above him. He whipped groups of boys
+  of assorted sizes from the lower grades; but the fighting took
+  him away from his trouble, and in most cases he honored his
+  combatants. He was little the worse for wear when he chased the
+  last swarm of primary urchins into his father's cow lot, fastened
+  them in, and went at them one by one with a shingle. A child
+  living next door to the Penningtons had brought the news of
+  Piggy's disgrace to the neighborhood, and by supper-time Mrs.
+  Pennington knew the worst. While the son and heir of the house
+  was bringing in his wood and doing his chores about the barn, he
+  felt something in the air about the kitchen which warned him that
+  new tortures awaited him.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/172.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/172.gif"
+    alt=
+    "... fought boys who were three classes above him ... whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes." />
+    </a> ... <i>fought boys who were three classes above him
+    ... whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>A boy would rather take a dozen whippings at school than have
+  the story of one of them come home; and Piggy thought with inward
+  trembling that he would rather report even a whipping at home
+  than face his mother in the dishonor which covered him. At supper
+  Mrs. Pennington repeated the legend of the note with great
+  solemnity. When her husband showed signs of laughing, she glared
+  at him. Her son ate rapidly in silence. Over his mother's
+  shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle. The only reply that
+  Mrs. Pennington could get to her questions was, "Aw, that ain't
+  nothin'," or "Aw, gee whiz, ma, you must think that's somethin'."
+  But she proclaimed, in the presence of the father, the son, and
+  the hired girl, that if she ever caught a boy of hers getting
+  "girl-struck" she would "show him," which, being translated,
+  means much that no dignified young gentleman likes to
+  contemplate. But when the son was out of hearing, Mrs. Pennington
+  told her husband, in the repressed tone which she used when
+  expressing her diplomatic communications, that he would have "to
+  take that boy in hand." Whereupon the father leaned back in his
+  chair and laughed, laughed until he grew red in the face, laughed
+  till the pans in the kitchen rattled, laughed&mdash;to use the
+  words of his wife in closing the incident&mdash;"like a natural
+  born simpleton."</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:27%;">
+    <a href="images/180.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/180.gif"
+    alt="Her son ate rapidly in silence." /></a> <i>Her son ate
+    rapidly in silence</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/176.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/176.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle." />
+    </a> <i>Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl
+    giggle</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Alas for Piggy Pennington&mdash;he might affect great pride in
+  his amours when the hired girl teased him; he might put on a
+  brave face and even lure himself into the belief that this arch
+  tormentor saw him only as a gay deceiver; but when the lights
+  were out, Piggy covered his head with the bedclothes, and grew
+  hot and cold by turns, till sleep came and bore him away from his
+  humiliation.</p>
+
+  <p>All day Saturday, before the Bud Perkins' surprise party,
+  Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones were inseparable. And Piggy, who
+  was King of Boyville, came down from his throne and walked humbly
+  beside Mealy, the least of all his courtiers. In fact, since the
+  reading of his note Piggy had become needlessly deferential and
+  considerate of the feelings of his rival.</p>
+
+  <p>If the two entered a crowd and played "foot and a half" or
+  "slap and a kick" or "leap-frog," and if Mealy was "it"&mdash;and
+  poor Mealy was generally "it" in any game&mdash;Piggy did not
+  jump viciously on Mealy's wobbly back, nor did he slap hard, nor
+  kick hard, as he would have slapped and kicked on other days,
+  before he descended from his throne to dwell with the beasts of
+  the field on that fatal Friday. Pride kept Mealy on the rack.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/184.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/184.gif"
+    alt=
+    "His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of it to the mothers of other boys." />
+    </a> <i>His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of
+    it to the mothers of other boys</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Time and again his little, freckled, milky face hit the moist
+  springy ground as Bud or Abe or Jim bumped into him at their
+  play. He was glad when the day ended and he could go home. For
+  Mealy Jones abhorred the dirt that begrimed his face and soiled
+  his white starched collar. He liked to play in lukewarm water, to
+  slosh in the suds, and to rub his soft little hands whiter and
+  whiter in the foam. His cleanliness pleased his mother, and she
+  boasted of it to the mothers of other boys&mdash;mothers of boys
+  with high-water marks just above their shirt collars; of boys who
+  had to be yanked back to the roller-towel after washing to have
+  their ears rubbed; of bad, bad, bad boys who washed their feet in
+  the dew of the grass at night and told their mothers that they
+  had washed them in the tub at the pump; of wicked and sinful boys
+  who killed toads and cried noisily when their warts bled in the
+  hot water; in fact, to the mothers of nearly all the boys in
+  Boyville. And thus it came about that Boyville having Mealy Jones
+  set before it as a model child, contracted a cordial hate for
+  him, and rose against him when he presumed to contest with Piggy
+  for his Heart's Desire. Yet all Boyville loved a fight, and all
+  Boyville goaded the King to wrath, teased him, bantered him, and
+  even pretended to doubt his worth. Therefore, when Piggy
+  Pennington, the King of Boyville, dressed for the party that
+  night in his Sunday clothes and his Sunday shoes and limped down
+  the sidewalk to the Jones's, where the boys and girls were to
+  meet before descending upon Bud Perkins, there was rancor in the
+  royal heart and maternal hair-oil on the royal head. But a
+  strange throb of glad pain in the pit of the royal stomach came
+  at the thought of the two bright eyes that would soon meet his
+  own. The eyes made him forget his blistering shoes, and a smile
+  at the door divested his mind of the serrated collar upon which
+  his head had been pivoting for five distracted minutes. The last
+  thing of all to go was his pride in the hair-oil, but it fell
+  before a voice that said: "Well, you got here, did you?"</p>
+
+  <p>That was all. But it was enough to make Piggy Pennington feel
+  the core of a music-box turning inside him, while outside the
+  company saw the King of Boyville transformed into a very red and
+  very sweaty youth holding madly to the back of his cuffs and
+  chuckling deliriously. In a daze he took off his hat, and put a
+  sack of oranges, his part in the evening's refreshment, on a
+  table in the next room. When he regained consciousness, Piggy
+  noticed that Mealy Jones, who had pranced into the room with much
+  unction, was sitting next to his Heart's Desire. The children
+  were making merry chatter. Piggy took his place on the end of a
+  lounge, and turning his back to the guilty pair, gave an "injin"
+  pinch to Jimmy Sears, with orders to "pass it on."</p>
+
+  <p>Indeed, so unconcerned was Piggy in the progress of the affair
+  behind him that he began to shove the line of the boys on the
+  lounge; the shoving grew into a scuffle, and the scuffle into a
+  wrestle, which ended on the front porch. At length Piggy stalked
+  through the room where the girls were sitting, saying, when he
+  returned with his oranges and his hat: "Come on, fellers,
+  everybody's here."</p>
+
+  <p>The boys on the porch followed Piggy's example, and in a
+  minute or two they stood huddled at the gate calling at the girls
+  in the house to hurry. When the girls were on the porch, the boys
+  struck out, and the two groups, a respectful distance apart,
+  walked through the town. Mealy Jones was enjoying the triumph of
+  his life, walking proudly between the noisy boys and giggling
+  girls, beside&mdash;but why linger over the details of this
+  instance of man's duplicity and woman's worse than weakness!</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/188.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/188.gif"
+    alt="A little maid in a black-and-red check." /></a> <i>A
+    little maid in a black-and-red check</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The young blades of the Court of Boyville waited politely at
+  the gate before the house where Bud Perkins lived with Miss
+  Morgan, his foster mother. When the maidens arrived, all the
+  company went trooping up Miss Morgan's steps. After Piggy had
+  chased Bud from the front door into a closet, from which the host
+  fought his way gallantly into the middle of the parlor floor, the
+  essential preliminaries of the evening's entertainment were over.
+  A little later the games began. First, there was "forfeits." Then
+  came "tin-tin." "Clap in and clap out" followed, and finally,
+  after much protestation from the girls, but at the earnest
+  solicitation of Mealy Jones, "post-office" started. Piggy did not
+  urge, nor protest. He had gone through the games listlessly,
+  occasionally breaking into a spasm of gayety that was clearly
+  hollow, and afterwards sinking into profound indifference. For
+  how could a well-conditioned boy be gay with a heartache under
+  his Sunday shirt and the spectacle before his eyes of a freckled
+  human cock-sparrow darting round and round the bower of his
+  Heart's Desire? Under such circumstances it was clearly
+  impossible for him to see the eyes that sought his in vain across
+  the turmoil of the room. Indeed, a voice pitched a trifle high to
+  carry well spoke for him to hear, but met deaf ears. A little
+  maid in a black-and-red check which the King of Boyville once
+  preferred to royal purple, even made her way across the
+  throng&mdash;undesignedly, he thought, but Piggy basked in the
+  joy of her presence and made no sign to show his pleasure. A
+  little later, in the shuffle of the game, Piggy and his Heart's
+  Desire were far apart. Half an hour passed, but still he did not
+  revive. Mealy Jones called her out in "post-office," and Piggy
+  thought he saw her smile. That was too much. When the dining-room
+  door closed behind the black-and-red checked dress, the pitcher
+  that enclosed his woe broke and the wheel at the cistern of his
+  endurance stopped. Mealy Jones came into the room, and the boy
+  who kept the "post-office" called out, "Piggy Pennington." But
+  the slam of the front door was his answer.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/192.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/192.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair." />
+    </a> <i>Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire
+    affair</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair.
+  It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph
+  album with a coy:</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p style="margin-left:34%">"When this you see</p>
+
+      <p style="margin-left:36%">Remember me."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/196.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/196.gif"
+    alt=
+    "It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph album." />
+    </a> <i>It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his
+    autograph album</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>He followed the corrugated course of true love, step by step
+  up to its climax, where, a week before, she had given him his
+  choice of her new pack of assorted visiting-cards. He rose at the
+  end of five minutes' sombre meditation, holding the curling
+  gelatine card of his choice in his warm hand. After venting a
+  heavy sigh, he checked a motion to throw away the token of his
+  undoing and put it back into his pocket. While he was plotting
+  dark things against the life and happiness of Mealy Jones, Piggy
+  heard the sound of the merriment within, and a mischievous smile
+  spread over his angry countenance. He tiptoed to the window, and
+  peeped in. He saw his Heart's Desire sitting alone. He cheered up
+  a little, not much&mdash;but sufficiently to reach in his pocket
+  for his tick-tack.</p>
+
+  <p>Now, it may be clearly proved, if necessary, that the
+  tick-tack was invented by the devil. Any wise man's son knows
+  that every boy between the ages of ten and fourteen carries with
+  him at all times a complete outfit of the mechanical devices on
+  which the devil holds the patent and demands a royalty. So there
+  is nothing really strange in the statement that Piggy Pennington
+  took from his Sunday clothes, beneath a pocketful of Rewards of
+  Merit for regular attendance at Sunday-school&mdash;all dated
+  before the Christmas-tree&mdash;a spool with notched wheels, a
+  lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound round the
+  spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the spool, and
+  held the notched rims of the spool against the window pane by
+  pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the cord a quick jerk; a
+  rattle, a wail, and a shriek were successively produced by the
+  notches whirring on the glass. The company within doors screamed.
+  Everyone knew it was Piggy, but no one ever lived with nerves
+  strong enough to withstand the shock of a tick-tack. At the first
+  shock those in-doors decided to ignore the disturbance. But it
+  occurred twice afterwards, and a third tick-tack at a party is a
+  dare. So the boys took it up. As Piggy ran he forgot his hot,
+  heavy shoes; he felt the night wind on his face and in his hair.
+  He cared nothing for his pursuers; he ran for the gladness that
+  came with running. Now he slackened his pace and let the boys
+  catch up with him, and again he spread the mocking distance
+  between them. He turned down an alley, and eluded the pack.</p>
+
+  <p>All the youngsters at the party, even the girls, had scampered
+  out of the house to watch the race. When Piggy vaulted the
+  back-yard fence into Miss Morgan's garden, he heard the pursuers
+  half a block away. He saw, a hundred feet distant, a bevy of
+  girls standing on the sidewalk. And he saw, too, as he came
+  skipping down the lot, something that made him fairly skim over
+  the earth; his Heart's Desire, standing alone, near the porch, in
+  his path, under an apple-tree. The exhilaration of the chase had
+  made him forget his trouble. He was so surefooted in the race
+  that he forgot to be abashed for the moment and came bounding
+  down by the apple-tree. He was full of pride. When he stopped he
+  was the King of Boyville and every inch a king. The
+  king&mdash;not Piggy&mdash;should be blamed. It was all over in a
+  second&mdash;almost before he had stopped. He aimed at her cheek,
+  but he got her ear. That was the first that he knew of it. Piggy
+  seemed to return to life then. In his confusion he felt himself
+  shrivelling up to his normal size&mdash;shrivelling and frying.
+  In an instant he was gone, and Piggy Pennington ran into the
+  group of girls on the sidewalk and let them catch him and hold
+  him. The breathless youths went into the house telling their
+  adventures in the race between gasps. But Piggy did not dare to
+  look at his Heart's Desire for as much as five minutes&mdash;a
+  long, long time. No one had seen him beneath the apple-tree. He
+  was not afraid of the teasing, but he was afraid of a withering
+  look from his Heart's Desire,&mdash;a look that he felt with a
+  parching fear in his throat would throw the universe into an
+  eclipse for him. He observed that she got up and changed her seat
+  to be rid of Mealy Jones. At first Piggy thought that was a good
+  sign, but a moment later he reasoned that the avoidance of Mealy
+  was inspired probably by a loathing for all boys. He dared not
+  seek her eyes, but he mingled noisily in the crowd for a while,
+  and then, on a desperate venture, carelessly snapped a peanut
+  shell and hit his Heart's Desire on the chin. He seemed to be
+  looking a thousand miles away in another direction than that
+  which the missile took. He waited nearly a minute&mdash;a long,
+  uncertain minute&mdash;for a response.</p>
+
+  <p>Then the shell came back; it did not hit him&mdash;but it
+  might have done so&mdash;that was all he could ask. He snapped
+  shells slyly for a quarter of an hour, and was happy. Once he
+  looked&mdash;not exactly looked; perhaps peeked is the better
+  word; took just the tiniest lightning peek out of the tail of his
+  eye, and found a smile waiting for him. At supper, if any one
+  save Piggy had tried to take a chair by his Heart's Desire when
+  the plates came around, there would have been a fight. Mealy
+  Jones knew this, and he knew what Piggy did not know, that it
+  would have been a fight of two against one. So Piggy sat bolt
+  upright in his chair beside the black-and-red checked dress, and
+  talked to the room at large; but he spoke no word to the maiden
+  at his side. She noticed that Piggy kept dropping his knife, and
+  the solicitude of her sex prompted her to ask: "Are your hands
+  cold, Winfield?"</p>
+
+  <p>And the instinct of his sex to hide a fault with a falsehood
+  made Piggy nod his head.</p>
+
+  <p>Then she answered: "Cold hands, a warm heart!"</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/200.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/200.gif"
+    alt="At this important bit of repartee ..." /></a> <i>At this
+    important bit of repartee</i> ...
+  </div>
+
+  <p>At this important bit of repartee, the King of Boyville so
+  forgot his royal dignity that he let an orange-peel drive at
+  Jimmy Sears, and pretended not to hear her. His only reply was to
+  joggle her arm when she reached for the cake. Piggy was so
+  exuberant and in such high spirits that he put his plate on his
+  chair and made Bud Perkins walk turkey fashion three times around
+  the room. He forgot the disgrace which his note had brought to
+  him in the school; he forgot the pretensions of Mealy Jones; he
+  did not wish to forget the episode of the apple-tree, and for the
+  time Piggy Pennington lived in a most peculiar world, made of
+  hazel eyes and red-ribboned pig-tails, all circling around on a
+  background of black-and-red checked flannel.</p>
+
+  <p>After that nothing mattered very much. It didn't matter that
+  Piggy's bruised feet began to sting like fire. It didn't matter
+  much if Mealy Jones's mother did come for him with a lantern and
+  break up the party. It didn't matter if Jimmy Sears did call out,
+  "Hello, Roses Red," when the boys reached the bed-room where
+  their hats were; for a voice that Piggy knew cried back from the
+  adjoining room, "You think you're cute, don't you, old smarty?"
+  Nothing in the world could matter then, for had not Piggy
+  Pennington five minutes before handed a card to his Heart's
+  Desire which read:</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>If I may not C U home</i></p>
+
+      <p class="i2"><i>may I not sit on the fence</i></p>
+
+      <p class="i4"><i>and C U go by</i>?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>And had not she taken it, and said merrily, "I'm going to keep
+  this"? What could matter after that open avowal?</p>
+
+  <p>And so it came to pass in a little while that the courtly
+  company, headed by the King of Boyville, filed gayly down the
+  path. They walked two by two, and they started on a long, uneven
+  way. But the King of Boyville was full of joy&mdash;a kind of joy
+  so strange that wise men may not measure it; a joy so rare that
+  even kings are proud of it.</p>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>LITTLE SISTER'S LULLABY</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Zhere, zhere, 'ittul b'o', sistuh 'll wock you to
+      s'eep</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye, b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>An' tell you the stowy about the b'ack sheep&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+
+      <p>A boy onct said "b'ack sheep, you dot any wool?"</p>
+
+      <p>"Uh-huhm," said the lambie, "I dot free bags full."</p>
+
+      <p>An' where Murry went w'y the lamb's sure to doe,</p>
+
+      <p>They's mowe of zis stowy&mdash;I dess I don' know;</p>
+
+      <p>But hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>O, mama says buddy tomed stwaight down from Dod;</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>At doctuh mans bwunged him, now is n't zhat odd&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+
+      <p>For papa says, "doctuhs is thiefs so zhey be."</p>
+
+      <p>An' thiefs tain't det up into Heaven you see:</p>
+
+      <p>I dess w'en one comes up an' dets sent below,</p>
+
+      <p>He's dot to bwing wif him a baby or so;</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>But sistuh loves b'o' anyhow if he's dood,</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Better 'n tandy er infalid's food&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.</p>
+
+      <p>An' some day when buddy drows up to a man,</p>
+
+      <p>W'y sistuh an' him 'ull 'ist harness ol' Fan,</p>
+
+      <p>An dwive off to Heaven the fuist zhing you know,</p>
+
+      <p>An' bwing ever' baby back what wants to doe.</p>
+
+      <p>Zhen hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/208.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/208.gif"
+    alt="Chapter title: James Sears: A Naughty Person" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>A naughty person ... walketh with a forward mouth.</p>
+
+      <p>He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he
+      teacheth with his fingers;<br />
+      ... he deviseth mischief continually;...</p>
+
+      <p>Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall
+      he be broken without remedy.&mdash;<i>Proverbs</i>, vi.
+      12-15.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/210.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/210.gif"
+    alt="His heart was full of bitterness." /></a> <i>His heart was
+    full of bitterness</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>It was morning&mdash;the cool of the morning. The pigeons were
+  gossiping under the barn eaves. In the apple-tree a robin's song
+  thrilled at intervals, and the jays were chattering incessantly
+  in the cherry-trees by the fence. The dew was still on the grass
+  that lay in the parallelogram of shade made by the Sears'
+  dwelling, and in the twilight of grass-land all the elf-people
+  were whispering and tittering and scampering about in
+  surreptitious revel. The breeze of dawn, tired and worn out, was
+  sinking to a fitful doze in the cottonwood foliage near by. In
+  the lattice of the kitchen porch two butterflies were chasing the
+  sun flecks in and out among the branches of the climbing rose.
+  Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers lining the path that
+  led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the breath of the morning
+  air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high chord of ecstasy
+  that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that hour, James
+  Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his neck,
+  stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle.
+  His back ached, and his heart was full of bitterness at the
+  scheme of creation. For it was Saturday morning&mdash;his by
+  every law, precedent, or tradition known or reported in the Court
+  of Boyville. But instead of inhaling the joys of the new day,
+  James, whose Courtly name was "Jimmie," looked for yellow
+  granules on the dasher, and promised God if He would let him grow
+  up that his little boy should never have to churn.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/214.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/214.gif"
+    alt="Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish" /></a>
+    <i>Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Any boy knows that it is a degrading thing to churn, and he
+  further knows that to wear a green-checked gingham apron is
+  odious beyond description; however, if the disgusting thing is
+  tied under a boy's arms, from whence it may be slipped down over
+  the hips and the knees to the ground, by a certain familiar twist
+  of the body, the case is not absolutely hopeless. But Jimmy
+  Sears's apron strings were tied about his neck; so his despair
+  was black and abysmal. Once in a while Jimmy's bosom became too
+  heavily freighted, and he paused to sigh. He cheered himself up
+  on these occasions by slyly licking the churn-dasher; but the
+  good cheer on the dasher was a stimulant that left him more
+  miserable than it found him. Ever and anon from some remote
+  chamber in the house behind him came the faint, gasping cry of a
+  day-old baby. That cry drowned the cooing of the doves, the song
+  of the robin, and the chirping of the dwellers in the grass; to
+  Jimmy the bleat of the little human lamb sounded like the roar of
+  a lion. He could endure penal servitude on his Saturday, with a
+  patience born of something approaching a philosophy; he could
+  wear a checked gingham apron, even as a saint wears an unbecoming
+  halo; but the arrival of the new baby&mdash;the fifth addition to
+  the family in the short period of years covered by Jimmy Sears's
+  memory&mdash;brought a bitter pill of wrath and dropped it in the
+  youth's brimful cup of woe. As the minutes dragged wearily along,
+  Jimmy Sears reviewed the story of his thraldom. He thought of
+  how, in his short-dress days, he had been put to rocking a
+  cradle; how in his kilted days, there had been ever a baby's
+  calico dress to consider; how, from his earliest fishing-days,
+  there had been always a tot tagging after him, throwing sticks
+  and stones in the water to scare the fish; and how, now in his
+  swimming and cave-dwelling days, there was a swarm of tow-headed
+  Searses, a crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a
+  sneaker to run away from.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/218a.gif"><img width="15%" src=
+    "images/218a.gif" alt="A crawler" /></a> <a href=
+    "images/218b.gif"><img width="18%" src="images/218b.gif" alt=
+    "A creeper" /></a> <a href="images/218c.gif"><img width="20%"
+    src="images/218c.gif" alt="A toddler" /></a> <a href=
+    "images/218d.gif"><img width="28%" src="images/218d.gif" alt=
+    "A stumbler" /></a> <a href="images/218e.gif"><img width="29%"
+    src="images/218e.gif" alt="A sneaker" /></a>
+
+    <p><i>A crawler, a creeper, toddler, a stumbler and a
+    sneaker</i></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/226.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/226.gif"
+    alt="Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter" /></a>
+    <i>Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>As the churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup
+  began to sputter, dissolving into that which in his older
+  sister's heart would have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took
+  the form of convulsive sniffling. The boy could hear his sister
+  clattering the breakfast dishes in the kitchen. The thing that
+  ground upon his heart was the firm footfall of Mrs. Jones, a
+  neighbor woman, who was overseeing the affairs of the household.
+  Jimmy could not remember hearing that footstep except in times of
+  what seemed to him to be the family's disgrace. He hated Mrs.
+  Jones because she tried to cool his ire by describing the
+  superior points of the particular new baby that had arrived each
+  time she came upon her errands of neighborly mercy. Just as the
+  yellow granules began to appear in the buttermilk pool on the
+  churn-top, Jimmy heard a step on the gravel walk behind him. The
+  step came nearer; when Jimmy lifted his eyes, they glared into
+  the face of Harold Jones. Choler cooled into surprise, and
+  surprise exploded into a vapid, grinning "Huh!" which was
+  followed by another "Huh!" that gurgled out into a real laugh as
+  Jimmy greeted the visitor. The Jones boy giggled, and Jimmy found
+  his tongue and asked: "Did you ever churn?" When Harold admitted
+  that he, too, was a slave of the churn, the freemasonry of
+  Boyville was established. A moment later Mealy&mdash;Harold's
+  title in the Court&mdash;was exemplifying the work. When Mrs.
+  Jones came out of the house to take care of the butter, she saw
+  her son and Jimmy lying on the grass. Half an hour later the boys
+  in the barn heard Mrs. Jones's voice calling,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/230.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/230.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby." />
+    </a> <i>The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a
+    baby</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Harold, O Harold, don't you want to come and look at the
+  baby?" Now James Sears in the twenty-four hours of his new
+  sister's life had not let the fact of her existence form
+  expression on his lips. Much less had he lowered his hostile flag
+  to salute her; but he knew instinctively that Harold Jones was
+  the sort of a boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby.
+  When Mealy answered, "Yes'm," and trotted down the back-yard path
+  to the kitchen, Jimmy Sears scorned him heartily enough to fancy
+  Mealy in the act of holding the loathsome thing in his arms.
+  Further contumely was beyond Jimmy's imagination.</p>
+
+  <p>When Mealy Jones came back, the barn wherein he had left Jimmy
+  was empty; and only when Mealy had started homeward, and a clod
+  came whizzing down the alley, hitting him under the ear, did
+  Mealy know how Jimmy Sears resented an insult. Mealy looked
+  around; no one was in sight.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:12%;">
+    <a href="images/222.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/222.gif"
+    alt="James" /></a> <i>James</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Right here the reader should know that Jimmy Sears was not
+  alone in his displeasure. There was mutiny in the Sears
+  household. When the baby came, the four elder of the seven Sears
+  children joined Jimmy in informal, silent sedition. They looked
+  upon the newcomer as an intruder. For all who extended sympathy
+  to the pretender, the insurgents developed a wholesome scorn.
+  This scorn fell most heavily upon kind Mrs. Jones. The Sears
+  children regarded her familiar jocularity with undisguised
+  repugnance; and when Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little
+  sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the baby,
+  Jimmy's rage at what he considered a fiendish thrust at the
+  innocent and forsaken child passed the bounds of endurance. He
+  hurled a bit of that anger in the clod that hit Mealy Jones, then
+  Jimmy walked doggedly back to the house. He coaxed the little
+  sister from the kitchen, took the child's chubby hand and led her
+  to the barn. There Jimmy nursed his sorrow. He assured the
+  younker as they sat on the hay that he for one would not desert
+  her, "even if mamma had forgotten her." He hugged the wondering
+  tot until her ribs hurt, and in his lamentations referred to the
+  new baby as "that old thing." The evening before, when Mrs. Jones
+  had marshalled the other Sears children and had taken them into
+  the bedroom to see their new sister, Jimmy was not to be found.
+  None of the older children had looked at the baby. They had
+  turned their heads away deliberately, and had responded in
+  gutteral affirmatives when they were asked if it were not a
+  pretty baby. But Jimmy had escaped that humiliation, and since
+  then he had avoided all snares set to lure him to his mother's
+  bed-side. He sat there in the barn, fuming as he recalled what he
+  had heard while Annie was in his mother's room early that
+  morning.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/234.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/234.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the baby." />
+    </a> <i>Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie
+    that morning that she was no longer the baby</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"See little sister's hands. Oh, what pretty hands!" Jimmy had
+  reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by
+  the child's big-eyed astonishment. Mrs. Jones
+  continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Weenty teenty little feets! See little sister's toeses. What
+  little bitsey toeses. Baby touch little sister's toeses."</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene
+  came to him after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was
+  to dupe the child into an affection for her inevitable enemy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Does baby love little sister?" continued the voice. "Love
+  nice, pretty little sister! Sweet little sister! Zhere! Zhere!
+  Zhat's right; love little sister!" As he toyed with a wisp of
+  hay, Jimmy Sears's blood froze in his veins at the recollection
+  that his own mother had lent her countenance to this baseness. He
+  knew, and he knew that his mother knew, that the baby would take
+  all the care due to his toddling sister. He saw, from the
+  elevation of the hay-cock on which he and the little one sat,
+  that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner while she
+  smiled. It seemed deliberately cruel. A lump of pity for the
+  child filled his throat. Still, in his heart, he forgave his
+  mother for her part in the duplicity. He did not feel for her the
+  contempt he felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew
+  that Henry Sears was actually proud of the family's ignominy.
+  Jimmy blushed at the picture in his mind of his father strutting
+  around town, with his vest pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs
+  in the armpits, bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy
+  with shame. Jimmy felt that secretly his mother did not consider
+  the baby's arrival an occasion for vainglory. He felt that his
+  mother was merely putting a good face upon the misfortune. These
+  reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/238.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/238.gif"
+    alt=
+    "His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame" />
+    </a> <i>His father strutting around town ... bragging of the
+    occurrence that filled the boy with shame</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>At the end thereof a calamitous fate took him up and made him
+  its toy. Tragedy is the everlasting piling up of little things.
+  So Jimmy Sears could not know that an evil destiny had come to
+  guide his steps when he started townward, for it came so gently.
+  To meet Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins and Abe Carpenter coming
+  out of the Pennington yard was not such a dreadful thing. Jimmy
+  had met them a score of times before at that particular gate,
+  with no serious consequences. It was not in the least ominous
+  that the four boys started for the Creek of the Willows, for
+  Jimmy had gone to the Creek times without number in that very
+  company. It did not augur evil for Jimmy Sears that the lot fell
+  to him to go forth and forage a chicken, for the great corn feast
+  of the Black Feet, a savage tribe of four warriors, among whom
+  Jimmy was known as the "Bald Eagle." Perhaps there were signs and
+  warnings in all these things; and then, on the other hand,
+  perhaps Jimmy Sears was so intent upon escaping from the shadow
+  that lowered over his family that he did not read the signs, and
+  so rushed into his misfortunes blindly. These, however, are idle
+  speculations; they are the materials from which sages spin their
+  dry and ethereal webs. But this narrative is concerned only with
+  the facts in the case. Therefore it is necessary to know only
+  that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up his nail-pointed arrow,
+  lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the sharp nasal "sping"
+  of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow and arrow in
+  hand, he began to run, not looking back.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/242.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/242.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart was glad" />
+    </a> <i>He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet,
+    and his heart was glad</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/246.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/246.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into an agonized knot" />
+    </a> <i>He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot,<br />
+    twisting his face into an agonized knot</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Here, here, Jimmy Sears, hold on there!" cried a voice. Jimmy
+  knew the voice. It and the chicken belonged to the same person.
+  So Jimmy quickened his speed. He heard the clattering thump of
+  pursuing feet. It was two hundred yards to the end of the
+  cob-strewn cow lot. The boy fixed his course toward the lowest
+  length of fence. Then he kept his eyes upon the ground. He
+  clenched his teeth and skimmed over the earth. The feathers in
+  his hat&mdash;stuck there to satisfy the verities of his assumed
+  Indian character&mdash;caught the breeze; so, rather than lose
+  his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He
+  cleared the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his
+  shoulder, he saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud
+  of boots on the sod and the crash of branches behind him sent
+  terror through the boy's frame, and he turned towards the creek
+  that flowed sluggishly near by. He took great bounding strides,
+  throwing his head from side to side as he ran. The boy knew the
+  path. It led to a rickety fence&mdash;a cattle guard&mdash;across
+  the river. Jimmy's heart beat wildly, and the trees danced by him
+  on the sloping path. But he was not "the champeen fence-walker of
+  Willow Creek," late of "Pennington &amp; Carpenter's Circus &amp;
+  Menagerie, price ten pins," without having won his proud place by
+  prowess. He came to the water's edge with sure feet. He knew that
+  he could cross. He had crossed the creek there a score of times.
+  He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his
+  heart was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow
+  him, even if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried
+  up the bank before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had
+  leaped from so lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again
+  and again did the "champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he
+  slackened his pace to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and
+  again did James Sears&mdash;an exemplary youth for the most part,
+  who knew his Ten Commandments by heart&mdash;look exultingly at
+  his pullet. He gloried in his iniquity. Lentulus returning to
+  Capua with victorious legions was not so proud. But there the
+  evil spirit swooped low upon him&mdash;the spirit of destruction
+  that always follows pride. Jimmy tripped, and lunged forward; the
+  chicken, the hat, the bow and arrow, and the boy all parted
+  company. Then Jimmy felt a pain&mdash;a sharp pain that he
+  recognized too well. He feared to make sure of the extent of his
+  injury. Instinctive knowledge told him he had "stumped" his toe.
+  This knowledge also brought the sense of certainty that his day's
+  pleasure was spoiled. He knew that he would go hobbling along,
+  the last brave in the Indian file. The pain in his foot began to
+  throb as he gathered up his weapons. He walked for a few moments
+  without looking at the wound. He felt the oozing blood, and he
+  bent his body and went along, grunting at every step. Finally
+  coming into a flood of sunlight on the path, he sat on a log and
+  slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into an agonized
+  knot. He peeked at his toe at first stealthily; then little by
+  little uncovering it with his nursing hand, he gazed fixedly at
+  the wound. The flesh on the end of the toe was hanging loosely by
+  the skin. It was a full minute before the boy could find courage
+  to press the hanging flesh back to its place. In the mean time
+  the chicken, which lay behind him under the log, had regained its
+  senses, squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When
+  Jimmy's mind turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been
+  in the depths as he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet
+  brought with it a still further depression, and Jimmy forgot all
+  about his impersonation of the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit
+  in the red ochre stripes on his face, and the iridescent feathers
+  in his hat, and the blue-black mud on his nimble feet. For a few
+  moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who saw the hand of the whole
+  world raised against him. The cry of the new baby rang in his
+  ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about the number
+  of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of wrongs
+  grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all the
+  world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying
+  chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand,
+  saying, before he came down with his index finger,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Spit, spit, spy,</p>
+
+      <p>Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the
+      eye."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+    <a href="images/250.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/250.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye." />
+    </a> <i>Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll
+    hit ye in the eye</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have
+  taken, but he knew that luck&mdash;like all the world&mdash;was
+  against him, and he had no heart in the rites that on another day
+  might have brought fortune to him. His stubbed toe was hurting
+  him, and the murmur of a ripple in the stream a few rods below
+  the cattle guard called to him enticingly. As soon as the boy
+  deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he hobbled down to
+  the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the shade, with the
+  cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that the other
+  boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying the
+  gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost
+  imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the
+  conviction of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he
+  was a thief swept over him, covering his sense of personal
+  grievance like a mantle. For another hour he wrestled with a
+  persistent devil that was tempting him to strangle his scruples;
+  he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in his cast-iron bank at
+  home&mdash;the result of a year's careful saving. He crossed the
+  creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was walking
+  in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go
+  straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to
+  offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had
+  done. Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he
+  progressed slowly. So the afternoon was old when he turned the
+  corner and trudged into Baker's store. The speech he was going to
+  make, Jimmy had recited to himself over and over. He intended to
+  walk up to the counter and say,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker."</p>
+
+  <p>To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not
+  seem completely abject. He fancied the grocer would
+  reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents."</p>
+
+  <p>To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong
+  voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have
+  that, and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are
+  ripe."</p>
+
+  <p>With that agreement reached, Jimmy saw himself limping out of
+  the store. He harbored a hope that maybe the grocer, pitying the
+  poor, lame boy, would call him back, cancel the debt, and perhaps
+  give him a stick of licorice. Jimmy knew his part by heart. He
+  was sure there would be no halt nor break in this dialogue. But
+  the demon that was torturing his destiny that day probably
+  chuckled as Jimmy crossed the threshold of the grocery store.</p>
+
+  <p>The boy that the grocer saw when he looked up from the pickle
+  barrel certainly had a badly freckled face; the grocer thought
+  the boy had bold, mean eyes. The youthful jaw set firmly, and the
+  pain in his foot engraved ugly lines in his face. The button was
+  off one wristband. A long tear down the lower part of his
+  trousers' leg revealed a glimpse of brown, tanned skin. He was
+  not a boy that looked like a creature of dreams and of high
+  resolve. No boy that amounts to much ever does look the part, as
+  the actors say. So when Jimmy Sears&mdash;ragged and
+  brazen&mdash;stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded
+  the man's bosom. He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at
+  the boy. The instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out
+  of Jimmy's head. He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the
+  grocer grab a butter paddle,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Dern you, don't you touch me; I'll pay for your old chicken.
+  Watch out now!"</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/256.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/256.gif"
+    alt=
+    "I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me." />
+    </a> "<i>I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away
+    from me</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Two scale weights slipped involuntarily into Jimmy's hands,
+  and he backed from the counter to the sidewalk. His hands were
+  uplifted as if to throw the weights. The grocer had not come up
+  to the boy who shouted in a burst of fear and anger,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from
+  me!"</p>
+
+  <p>The grocer hesitated, dismayed for a second by the threatening
+  weights in the boy's hand. But pride urged the man on. He stepped
+  up quickly, and planted a smarting blow on Jimmy's leg. It was
+  well for the grocer that he ducked his head; for when the paddle
+  struck, the boy did not flinch, but let drive one weight after
+  another, and cried before each crash of glass that the flying
+  irons made inside the store, "Yes, you will!" and again, "Yes,
+  you will!"</p>
+
+  <p>He forgot the ache in his cramped heel and the burning in his
+  bruised toe as he ran to the middle of the street.</p>
+
+  <p>"You old coward, why don't you pick on some one your
+  size?"</p>
+
+  <p>The tears were rising to his eyes; he had to run to escape
+  from the tide. Just as he turned, he caught a glimpse of his
+  father joining the gathering crowd. After that his feet grew
+  wings.</p>
+
+  <p>A freight train stood on the track in front of the boy, a
+  quarter of a mile away. A mad impulse came to him as he ran, and
+  he yielded to it. A boy with a grievance, or a boy with a sore
+  toe, or a boy with fear at his back, cannot fashion his conduct
+  after the beautiful principles laid down in Mr. Herbert Spencer's
+  "Data of Ethics." So when Jimmy Sears came to the freight train
+  that blocked his flight, he darted down the track until he was
+  out of sight of any possible pursuers in the street. He clambered
+  breathlessly into a coal car, and snuggled down into a corner
+  inside a little strip of shade, and panted like a hunted rabbit.
+  A sickening pain throbbed up from his toe. The train moved slowly
+  at first, and Jimmy knew that he could not hide from the train
+  men in a coal car. On a banter from Piggy Pennington and Bud
+  Perkins Jimmy had ridden on the brake-beam while the switch
+  engine was pulling freight cars about the railroad yards. He had
+  a vague idea that midway of the train, between two box cars,
+  would be a safe place. When the train began to increase its
+  speed, Jimmy climbed up the side of a cattle car and ran along
+  the roof. He had gone three car-lengths and was about to make his
+  third jump, when he saw the angry face of his father, who
+  appeared on the depot platform. Instinctively the boy darted to
+  the other side of the car-roof. His jump fell short. The father
+  saw his son's head go down, and for an awful minute Henry Sears
+  heard the lumbering train rumble by. In the first second of that
+  minute, the frantic man listened for a scream. He heard none.
+  Then slowly he sank upon a baggage truck. He was helpless. A
+  paralysis of horror was upon him. Car after car jolted along. At
+  last the yellow caboose flashed by him. Half of the longest
+  second Henry Sears ever knew passed before he dared turn his eyes
+  toward the place on the track where his son went down. Then he
+  looked, and saw only the cinder track and the shining rails. But
+  an instant later he heard a familiar whoop, and, staring around,
+  saw Jimmy sitting on a load of wheat that was standing between
+  the railroad tracks. In this the boy had fallen after his
+  sidewise jump had thrown him from the moving train. When Henry
+  Sears saw his son, Jimmy was holding his foot, jiggling it
+  vigorously and roaring, moved half by the hysteria of fright and
+  half by the pain of a fresh laceration of his bruised toe. The
+  boy's face was black with coal-dust and wheat chaff, and tears
+  were striping his features grotesquely. The palsy of terror
+  loosened its steel bands from the father's limbs, and he ran to
+  the wheat-wagon. Jimmy Sears, for all he or his father know, may
+  have floated to the ground from the wagon bed. But a moment
+  later, in a frenzy wherein anger furnished only a sub-conscious
+  motor, and joy pumped wildly at the expanding valves of his
+  blissful heart, Henry Sears took his thirteen-year-old son across
+  his knee, and spanked him in a delirium of ecstasy; spanked him
+  merrily, while a heavenly peace glorified his paternal soul;
+  spanked him, caring not how many times the little body wriggled,
+  and the little voice howled, and the dirty little fingers foiled
+  his big, bony hand as it fell. At the end of the felicitous
+  occasion, the father found his voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Haven't I told you enough, sir, to keep off the cars? Haven't
+  I? Haven't I? Answer me, sir. Do you hear me? Haven't I?"</p>
+
+  <p>And Jimmy Sears knew by that turn of the conversation that the
+  episodes of the stolen chicken and of the broken showcases were
+  forgotten, so he nodded a contrite head, His father returned to
+  earth by giving his son a few casual cuffs, with, "Will you try
+  that again, sir?" and continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, sir, let me see you walk right straight home. And just
+  you let me catch you down here again!"</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy was wise enough to hurry along as fast as his bleeding
+  foot would take him. He saw the advantage of a motion to adjourn
+  without further debate, and the motion prevailed.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/266.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/266.gif"
+    alt=
+    "An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his hair." />
+    </a> <i>An irregular circumference that touched his ears<br />
+    and his chin and his hair</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>An hour later, Jimmy Sears had washed the dirt from the
+  interior of an irregular circumference that touched his ears and
+  his chin and his hair. Until the twilight fell he stayed in the
+  conning-tower in the Penningtons' barn, and watched his home
+  through a crack between two boards. When he saw his father leave
+  the house for town after supper, Jimmy hurried down a lane in
+  sight of his father, yet out of his father's reach. At the close
+  of twilight, Jimmy Sears came up the hard-beaten path that led to
+  his home, through burdock weeds and sunflowers. There was a light
+  in the kitchen, and through the window he could see Mrs. Jones
+  moving about. He observed that the supper dishes were being put
+  away. He saw his eldest sister, with the tea towel in her hands,
+  chatting happily with Mrs. Jones. The spectacle filled him with
+  rage. He felt that the other children had deserted him, and that,
+  in the war against the new baby, they had left him to fight
+  unaided. He met a little brother, who greeted him
+  with,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Uh-hu, Mr. Jimmy, you just wait till pa gets you!"</p>
+
+  <p>A prolonged and scornful "Aw!" was Jimmy's reply to this
+  welcome. On the step of the back porch, his favorite little
+  sister sat playing with the house-cat. She toddled to Jimmy; he
+  let her take his finger, and they went into the kitchen.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, Jimmy!&mdash;where&mdash;you&mdash;been?" demanded the
+  eldest sister. "Mamma's been asking for you all day. I'd be
+  ashamed if I was you."</p>
+
+  <p>The boy did not deign to speak to Mrs. Jones, and kept his
+  back to her when he could. He did not answer his sister's
+  question.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/270.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/270.gif"
+    alt="Got anything here fit to eat?" /></a> "<i>Got anything
+    here fit to eat</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Got anything here fit to eat?" he asked, as he threw open the
+  cupboard doors. The insult to Mrs. Jones was not accidental.
+  Jimmy supposed that she had cooked the supper. He put two or
+  three plates of food on the table, and drew up a chair, sneering
+  bumptiously, "What's this?" as he dived into each dish.</p>
+
+  <p>His sister's "Why, Jimmy!" and her warning frowns did not
+  change his course. Mrs. Jones went to the front of the house,
+  diplomatically leaving all the doors open behind her, that Mrs.
+  Sears might hear her son's voice. In a moment the boy caught the
+  faint sound of his mother calling from the distant bedroom,
+  "Jimmy, Jimmy, come here; I want you."</p>
+
+  <p>The boy pretended not to hear. She called his name again. "Yes
+  'm," he answered. When she repeated her request, he filled his
+  mouth with pie, and replied, "I'm a-eatin' now." He slipped a
+  piece of ice down the back of his adoring little sister's dress,
+  who sat near him. When she wept noisily, he laughed under his
+  breath, and spoke aloud to his sister at the dish-pan,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for? Give
+  it back, why don't you?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/274.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/274.gif"
+    alt=
+    "What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for?" /></a>
+    "<i>What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her
+    for</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Why&mdash;Jimmy&mdash;Sears!" retorted the girl. Then lifting
+  her voice, "Mamma, Jimmy's put ice down&mdash;" But the lad
+  pressed the ice against the child's back, pretending to be
+  removing the source of the trouble, and the child's lusty howls
+  drowned the girl's protest. When he heard the bedroom door close
+  to shield his mother from the turmoil, Jimmy knew that he had
+  outwitted Mrs. Jones, so he quelled the disturbance he had
+  caused. When Mrs. Jones returned to the kitchen, the boy was
+  sitting on the porch steps with his little sister, telling her
+  about "raw head and bloody bones," greatly to the child's horror
+  and delight.</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy heard his elder sister inquire, "Did Mamma eat her
+  supper?" He heard Mrs. Jones respond, "Not very much of it; but
+  she will after a while, I guess. She said to leave it in
+  there."</p>
+
+  <p>"Couldn't she eat any of that nice chicken Mrs. Pennington
+  sent?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No, nor Mrs. Carpenter's lemon jelly."</p>
+
+  <p>"Poor mamma!" sighed the girl.</p>
+
+  <p>But Jimmy had other reflections. Two minutes later he walked
+  past his mother's open door, and fumbled around in the
+  sitting-room.</p>
+
+  <p>"Is that you, Jimmy?" asked his mother.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes 'm," rejoined the boy.</p>
+
+  <p>"What are you doing?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Lookin' for my other coat."</p>
+
+  <p>"Won't you come in and see me, Jimmy? I haven't seen you for
+  two whole days."</p>
+
+  <p>"In a minute," returned Jimmy.</p>
+
+  <p>Standing awkwardly in the doorway, he asked, "What 'd you
+  want?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/278.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/278.gif"
+    alt=
+    "She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked at her lips." />
+    </a> <i>She drew him down and kissed his cheek<br />
+    while he pecked at her lips</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Come over here, Jimmy," returned the mother. "My poor,
+  neglected boy!" He would not let his eyes find the new baby. He
+  stood stiffly on one foot, and gave his mother his hand. She drew
+  him down and kissed his cheek, while he pecked at her lips. As
+  Jimmy rose, his mother smiled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Are you hungry, Jimmy?"</p>
+
+  <p>The boy nodded a vociferous affirmative. Being a boy, one of
+  the lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions,
+  Jimmy could not know that his mother understood the rankle in her
+  son's heart. Nor could he divine that she kept the supper
+  dainties as peace offerings.</p>
+
+  <p>"Won't you have some of my supper?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't you want it?" returned the boy, to justify his
+  greed.</p>
+
+  <p>"No, Jimmy; I'm not hungry. I kept it all for you."</p>
+
+  <p>While her son was sitting on the floor, eating off the tray on
+  the chair by the bed, his mother's hand was in his hair, stroking
+  it lovingly. His sister and the other children looked in and saw
+  him. Jimmy knew they were whispering "Hoggy!" but he did not heed
+  them. His mother avoided mentioning the new baby to him; she made
+  him tell her about his sore toe, and in return she told him how
+  lonely she had been without him.</p>
+
+  <p>As his stomach filled, his heart overflowed,&mdash;a common
+  coincidence even with older and better boys than Jimmy, and the
+  tears came to his eyes. At last, when the plate was cleared, he
+  rose, and went to the place where the new-comer lay. He bent over
+  the little puff in the bedclothes, and grinned sheepishly as he
+  lifted the cover from the sleeping baby's face. He looked at the
+  red features a moment curiously, and said in his loud, husky,
+  boyish voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo there, Miss Sears; how are you this evenin'?"</p>
+
+  <p>Then he pinched his mother's arm and walked out of the room,
+  his soul at peace.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:15%;">
+    <a href="images/281.gif"><img width="100%" src=
+    "images/281.gif" alt="cameo" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL
+  CIRCUMSTANCES</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>Back of Pennington's barn, which was the royal castle of the
+  Court of Boyville, ran a hollow. In the hollow grew a gnarly
+  box-elder tree. This tree was the courtiers' hunting-lodge. In
+  the crotches of the rugged branches Piggy Pennington, Abe
+  Carpenter, Jimmy Sears, Bud Perkins, and Mealy Jones were wont to
+  rest of a summer afternoon, recounting the morning's adventures
+  in the royal tourney of the marble-ring, planning for the
+  morrow's chase, meditating upon the evil approach of the fall
+  school term, and following such sedentary pursuits as to any
+  member of the court seemed right and proper. One afternoon late
+  in August the tree was alive with its arboreal aristocracy. Abe
+  Carpenter sat on the lowest branch, plaiting a four-strand,
+  square-braided "quirt"; Jimmy Sears was holding the ends. Piggy
+  was casually skinning cats, hanging by his legs, or chinning on
+  an almost horizontal limb, as he took his part in the lagging
+  talk. Hidden by the foliage in the thick of the tree, in a
+  three-pronged seat, Bud Perkins reclined, his features drawn into
+  a painful grimace, as his right hand passed to and fro before his
+  mouth, rhythmically twanging the tongue of a Jew's-harp, upon
+  which he was playing "To My Sweet Sunny South Take Me Home." He
+  breathed heavily and irregularly. His eyes were on the big white
+  clouds in the blue sky, and his heart was filled with the poetry
+  of lonesomeness that sometimes comes to boys in pensive moods.
+  For the days when he had lived with his father, a nomad of the
+  creeks that flowed by half a score of waterways into the
+  Mississippi, were upon the far horizon of his consciousness, and
+  the memory of those days made him as sad as any memory ever can
+  make a healthy, care-free boy. He played "Dixie," partly because
+  it was his dead father's favorite tune, and partly because, being
+  sprightly, it kept down his melancholy. Later he took out a new
+  mouth-organ, which his foster mother had given to him, and to
+  satisfy his boyish idea of justice played "We shall Meet, but We
+  shall Miss Him," because it was Miss Morgan's favorite. While he
+  played the Jew's-harp his tree friends flung ribald remarks at
+  him. But when Bud began to waver his hand for a tremulo upon the
+  mouth-organ as he played "Marsa's in de Col', Col' Groun'," a
+  peace fell upon the company, and they sat quietly and heard his
+  repertoire,&mdash;"Ol' Shadey," "May, Dearest May," "Lilly Dale,"
+  "Dey Stole My Chile Away," "Ol' Nicodemus," "Sleeping, I Dream,
+  Love," and "Her Bright Smile." He was a Southern boy&mdash;a bird
+  of passage caught in the North&mdash;and his music had that
+  sweet, soothing note that cheered the men who fought under the
+  Stars and Bars.</p>
+
+  <p>Into this scene rushed Mealy Jones, pell mell, hat in hand,
+  breathless, bringing war's alarms. "Fellers, fellers," screamed
+  Mealy, half a block away, "it's a-comin' here! It's goin' to be
+  here in two weeks. The man's puttin' up the boards now, and you
+  can get a job passin' bills."</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/289.gif"><img width="45%" src="images/289.gif"
+    alt="Mommoth Consolidated Shows. (left)" /></a> <a href=
+    "images/290.gif"><img width="45%" src="images/290.gif" alt=
+    "Mommoth Consolidated Shows. (right)" /></a>
+
+    <p><i>Mommoth Consolidated Shows.</i></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>An instant later the tree was deserted, and five boys were
+  running as fast as their legs would carry them toward the thick
+  of the town. They stopped at the new pine bill-board, and did not
+  leave the man with the paste bucket until they had seen "Zazell"
+  flying out of the cannon's mouth, the iron-jawed woman performing
+  her marvels, the red-mouthed rhinoceros with the bleeding native
+  impaled upon its horn and the fleeing hunters near by, "the
+  largest elephant in captivity," carrying the ten-thousand dollar
+  beauty, the acrobats whirling through space, James Robinson
+  turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last and most
+  ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his three
+  charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture
+  followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been
+  pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of
+  cynicism, the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in
+  the night wood and dream of a wilderness of monkeys.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+    <a href="images/282.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/282.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and down the alley." />
+    </a> <i>Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery
+    horse up and down the alley</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:33%;">
+    <a href="images/296.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/296.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry." />
+    </a> <i>Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun
+    to fry</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>During the two weeks after the appearance of the glad tidings
+  on the bill-boards, the boys of Willow Creek spent many hours in
+  strange habiliments, making grotesque imitations of the
+  spectacles upon the boards. Piggy Pennington rolled his trousers
+  far above his knees for tights, and galloped his father's fat
+  delivery horse up and down the alley, riding sideways, standing,
+  and backwards, with much vainglory. To simulate the motley of the
+  tight-rope-walking clown, Jimmy Sears wore the calico lining of
+  his clothes outside, when he was in the royal castle beyond his
+  mother's ken. Mealy donned carpet slippers in Pennington's barn,
+  and wore long pink-and-white striped stockings of a suspiciously
+  feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt waist with
+  stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a
+  bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud
+  Perkins, who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging
+  a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico
+  base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen
+  different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters
+  appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They revelled in the
+  pictured visions of the circus, but were sceptical about the
+  literal fulfilment of some of the promises made on the bills.
+  Certain things advertised were eliminated from reasonable
+  expectation: for instance, the boys all knew that the giraffe
+  would not be discovered eating off the top of a cocoanut-tree;
+  nor would the monkeys play a brass band; and they knew that they
+  would not see the "Human Fly" walk on the ceiling at the
+  "concert." For no boy has ever saved enough money to buy a ticket
+  to the "concert." Nevertheless, they gloated over the pictures of
+  the herd of giraffes and the monkey-band and the graceful "Human
+  Fly" walking upside down "defying the laws of gravitation;" and
+  they considered no future, however pleasant, after the day and
+  date on the bills. Thus the golden day approached, looming larger
+  and larger upon the horizon as it came. In the interim, how many
+  a druggist bought his own bottles the third and fourth time, how
+  many a junk-dealer paid for his own iron, how many bags of carpet
+  rags went to the ragman, the world will never know.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+    <a href="images/302.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/302.gif"
+    alt="How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman?" /></a>
+    <i>How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman</i>?
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Now, among children of a larger growth, in festive times
+  hostile demonstrations cease; animosities are buried; but in
+  Boyville a North-ender is a North-ender, a South-ender is a
+  South-ender, and a meeting of the two is a fight. Boyville knows
+  no times of truce. It asks nor offers quarter. When warring clans
+  come together, be it workday, holiday, or even circus day, there
+  is a clatter of clods, a patter of feet, and retreating hoots of
+  defiance. And because the circus bill-boards were frequented by
+  boys of all kiths and clans, clashes occurred frequently, and Bud
+  Perkins, who was the fighter of the South End, had many a call to
+  arms. Indeed, the approaching circus unloosed the dogs of war
+  rather than nestled the dove of peace. For Bud Perkins, in a
+  moment of pride, issued an ukase which forbade all North End boys
+  to look at a certain bill-board near his home. This ukase and his
+  strict enforcement of it made him the target of North End wrath.
+  Little Miss Morgan, his foster-mother, who had adopted him at the
+  death of his father the summer before the circus bills were
+  posted, could not understand how the lad managed to lose so many
+  buttons, nor how he kept tearing his clothes. She ascribed these
+  things to his antecedents and to his deficient training. She did
+  not know that Bud, whom she called Henry, and whose music on the
+  mouth-organ seemed to come from a shy and gentle soul, was the
+  Terror of the South End. Her guileless mind held no place for the
+  important fact that North End boys generally travelled by her
+  door in pairs for safety. Such is the blindness of women. Cupid
+  probably got his defective vision from his mother's side of the
+  house.</p>
+
+  <p>The last half of the last week before circus day seemed a
+  century to Bud and his friends. Friday and Saturday crept by, and
+  Mealy Jones was the only boy at Sunday-school who knew the Golden
+  Text, for an inflammatory rumor that the circus was unloading
+  from the side-track at the depot swept over the boys' side of the
+  Sunday-school room, and consumed all knowledge of the fifth
+  chapter of Acts, the day's lesson. After Sunday-school the boys
+  broke for the circus grounds. There they feasted their gluttonous
+  eyes upon the canvas-covered chariots, and the elephants, and the
+  camels, and the spotted ponies, passing from the cars to the
+  tents. The unfamiliar noises, the sight of the rising "sea of
+  canvas," the touch of mysterious wagons containing so many
+  wonders, and the intoxicating smell that comes only with much
+  canvas, many animals, and the unpacking of Pandora's box, stuffed
+  the boys' senses until they viewed with utter stoicism the
+  passing dinner hour and the prospect of finding only cold mashed
+  potatoes and the necks and backs of chickens in the cupboards.
+  They even affected indifference to parental scoldings, and
+  lingered about the enchanting spot until the shadows fell
+  eastward and the day was old.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:16%;">
+    <a href="images/306.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/306.gif"
+    alt="Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing Nemesis." /></a>
+    <i>Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing Nemesis</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>When a boy gets on his good behavior he tempts Providence. And
+  the Providence of boys is frail and prone to yield. So when Bud
+  Perkins, who was burning with a desire to please Miss Morgan the
+  day before the circus, went to church that Sunday night, any one
+  can see that he was provoking Providence in an unusual and cruel
+  manner. Bud did not sit with Miss Morgan, but lounged into the
+  church, and took a back seat. Three North End boys came in and
+  sat on the same bench. Then Jimmy Sears shuffled past the North
+  Enders, and sat beside Bud. After which the inevitable happened.
+  It kept happening. They "passed it on," and passed it back again;
+  first a pinch, then a chug, then a cuff, then a kick under the
+  bench. Heads craned toward the boys occasionally, and there came
+  an awful moment when Bud Perkins found himself looking brazenly
+  into the eyes of the preacher, who had paused to glare at the
+  boys in the midst of his sermon. The faces of the entire
+  congregation seemed to turn upon Bud automatically. A cherub-like
+  expression of conscious innocence and impenetrable unconcern
+  beamed through Bud Perkins's features. The same expression rested
+  upon the countenances of the four other malefactors. At the end
+  of the third second Jimmy Sears put his hand to his mouth and
+  snorted between his fingers. And four young men looked down their
+  noses. In the hush, Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing
+  Nemesis&mdash;stalked the full length of the church toward the
+  culprits. When he took his seat beside the boys the preacher
+  continued his discourse. Brother Baker's unctuousness angered Bud
+  Perkins. He felt the implication that his conduct was bad, and
+  his sense of guilt spurred his temper. Satan put a pin in Bud's
+  hand. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Satan moved the boy's arm on
+  the back of the pew, around Jimmy Sears. Then an imp pushed Bud's
+  hand as he jabbed the pin into the back of a North Ender. The boy
+  from the North End let out a yowl of pain. Bud was not quick
+  enough. Brother Baker saw the pin; two hundred devout Methodists
+  saw him clamp his fingers on Bud Perkins's ear, and march him
+  down the length of the church and set him beside Miss Morgan. It
+  was a sickening moment. The North End grinned as one boy under
+  its skin, and was exceeding glad. So agonizing was it for Bud
+  that he forgot to imagine what a triumph it was for the North
+  End&mdash;and further anguish is impossible for a boy.</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan and Bud Perkins left the church with the
+  congregation. Bud dreaded the moment when they would leave the
+  crowd and turn into their side street. When they did turn, Bud
+  was lagging a step or two behind. A boy's troubles are always the
+  fault of the other boy. The North End boy's responsibility in the
+  matter was so clear&mdash;to Bud&mdash;that, when he went to
+  justify himself to Miss Morgan, he was surprised and hurt at what
+  he considered her feminine blindness to the fact. After she had
+  passed her sentence she asked: "Do you really think you deserve
+  to go, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>The blow stunned the boy. He saw the visions of two weeks
+  burst like bubbles, and he whimpered: "I dunno." But in his heart
+  he did know that to deny a boy the joy of seeing Willie Sells on
+  his three Shetland ponies, for nothing in the world but showing a
+  North-ender his place, was a piece of injustice of the kind for
+  which men and nations go to war. At breakfast Bud kept his eyes
+  on his plate. His face wore the resigned look of a martyr. Miss
+  Morgan was studiously gracious. He dropped leaden monosyllables
+  into the cheery flow of her conversation, and after breakfast put
+  in his time at the woodshed.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/316.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/316.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him." />
+    </a> <i>The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing
+    crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind
+    him</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/310.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/310.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets, hurrying their seniors" />
+    </a> <i>Dressed-up children were flitting along the side
+    streets, hurrying their seniors</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>At eight o'clock that morning the town of Willow Creek was in
+  the thrall of the circus. Country wagons were passing on every
+  side street. Delivery carts were rattling about with unusual
+  alacrity. By half-past nine dressed-up children were flitting
+  along the side streets hurrying their seniors. On the main
+  thoroughfare flags were flying, and the streams of strangers that
+  had been flowing into town were eddying at the street corners.
+  The balloon-vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd,
+  leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him. The bark of
+  the fakir rasped the tightening nerves of the town. Everywhere
+  was hubbub; everywhere was the dusty, heated air of the festival;
+  everywhere were men and women ready for the marvel that had come
+  out of the great world, bringing pomp and circumstance in its
+  gilded train; everywhere in Willow Creek the spirit which put the
+  blue sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her
+  beau's hat ran riot, save at the home of Miss Morgan. There the
+  bees hummed lazily over the old-fashioned flower garden; there
+  the cantankerous jays jabbered in the cottonwoods; there the
+  muffled noises of the town festival came as from afar; there Miss
+  Morgan puttered about her morning's work, trying vainly to croon
+  a gospel hymn; and there Bud Perkins, prone upon the sitting-room
+  sofa, made parallelograms and squares and diamonds with the dots
+  and lines on the ceiling paper. When the throb of the drum and
+  the blare of the brass had set the heart of the town to dancing,
+  some wave of the ecstasy seeped through the lilac bushes and into
+  the quiet house. The boy on the sofa started up suddenly, checked
+  himself ostentatiously, walked to the bird cage, and began to
+  play with the canary. The wave carried the little spinster to the
+  window. The circus had a homestead in human hearts before John
+  Wesley staked his claim, and even so good a Methodist as Miss
+  Morgan could not be deaf to the scream of the calliope nor the
+  tinkle of cymbals.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/320.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/320.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her Beau's hat." />
+    </a> <i>The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the
+    flag in her Beau's hat</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>To emphasize his desolation, Bud left the room, and sat down
+  by a tree in the yard, with his back to the kitchen door and
+  window. There Miss Morgan saw him playing mumble-peg in a
+  desultory fashion. When the courtiers of Boyville came home from
+  the parade they found him; and because he sat playing a silent,
+  sullen, solitary game, and responded to their banter only with
+  melancholy grunts, they knew that the worst had befallen him.
+  Much confab followed, in which the pronoun "she" and "her" were
+  spoken. Otherwise Miss Morgan was unidentified. For the
+  conversation ran thus, over and over:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"You ask her."</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw, I've done ast 'er."</p>
+
+  <p>"'T won't do no good for me to ast 'er. She don't like
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>"I ain't 'fraid to ast 'er."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, then, why don't you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why don't <i>you</i>?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Let's all ast 'er."</p>
+
+  <p>"S'pose she will, Bud?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I dunno."</p>
+
+  <p>Then Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy came trapesing up to
+  Miss Morgan's kitchen door. Bud sat by the tree twirling his
+  knife at his game. Piggy, being the spokesman, stood in the
+  doorway. "Miss Morgan," he said, as he slapped his leg with his
+  hat.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Winfield?" replied the little woman, divining his
+  mission, and hardening her heart against his purpose.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Morgan," he repeated, and then coaxed sheepishly, "can't
+  Bud go to the show with us, Miss Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm afraid not to-day," smiled back Miss Morgan, as she went
+  about her work. A whisper from the doorstep prompted Piggy to
+  "ask her why;" whereat Piggy echoed: "Why can't he, Miss
+  Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/326.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/326.gif"
+    alt=
+    "One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you saw him." />
+    </a> "<i>One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you
+    saw him</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Henry misbehaved in church last night, and we've agreed that
+  he shall stay home from the circus."</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy advanced a step or two inside the door, laughing
+  diplomatically: "O&mdash;no, Miss Morgan; don't you think he's
+  agreed. He's just dyin' to go."</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan smiled, but did not join in Piggy's
+  hilarity&mdash;a bad sign. Piggy tried again: "They got six
+  elephants, and one's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughin' if
+  you saw him." And Piggy went into a spasm of laughter.</p>
+
+  <p>But it left Miss Morgan high and dry upon the island of her
+  determination.</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy prepared for an heroic measure, and stepped over to the
+  kitchen table, leaning upon it as he pleaded: "This is the last
+  circus this year, Miss Morgan, and it's an awful good one. Can't
+  he go just this once?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/330.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/330.gif"
+    alt=
+    "It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once." /></a>
+    "<i>It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The debate lasted ten minutes, and at the end four boys walked
+  slowly, with much manifestation of feeling, back to the tree
+  where the fifth sat. There was woe and lamentation after the
+  manner of boy-kind. When the boys left the yard it seemed to Miss
+  Morgan that she could not look from her work without seeing the
+  lonesome figure of Bud. In the afternoon the patter of feet by
+  her house grew slower, and then ceased. Occasionally a belated
+  wayfarer sped by. The music of the circus band outside of the
+  tent came to Miss Morgan's ears on gusts of wind, and died away
+  as the wind ebbed. She dropped the dish-cloth three times in five
+  minutes, and washed her cup and saucer twice. She struggled
+  bravely in the Slough of Despond for awhile, and then turned back
+  with Pliable.</p>
+
+  <p>"Henry," she said, as the boy walked past her carrying
+  peppergrass to the bird, "Henry, what made you act so last
+  night?"</p>
+
+  <p>The boy dropped his head and answered: "I dunno."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Henry, didn't you know it was wrong?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I dunno."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why did you stick that little boy with the pin?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well&mdash;well&mdash;" he gasped, preparing for a defence.
+  "Well&mdash;he pinched me first."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Henry, but don't you know that it's wrong to do those
+  things in church? Don't you see how bad it was?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I was just a-playin', Miss Morgan; I didn't mean to."</p>
+
+  <p>Bud did not dare to trust his instinctive reading of the
+  signs. He went on impulsively: "I wanted him to quit, but he just
+  kept right on, and Brother Baker didn't touch him."</p>
+
+  <p>The wind brought the staccato music of the circus band to the
+  foster-mother's ears. The music completed her moral decay, for
+  she was thinking, if Brother Baker would only look after his own
+  children as carefully as he looked after those of other people,
+  the world would be better. Then she said: "Now, Henry, if I let
+  you go, just this once&mdash;now just this once, mind
+  you&mdash;will you promise never to do anything like that
+  again?"</p>
+
+  <p>Blackness dropped from the boy's spirit, and by main strength
+  he strangled a desire to yell. The desire revived when he reached
+  the alley, and he ran whooping to the circus grounds.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/335.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/335.gif"
+    alt="8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8 (left)" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/336.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/336.gif"
+    alt="8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8 (right)" /></a> <i>"8
+    Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8"</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>There is a law of crystallization among boys which enables
+  molecules of the same gang to meet in whatever agglomeration they
+  may be thrown. So ten minutes after Bud Perkins left home he
+  found Piggy and Jimmy and old Abe and Mealy in the menagerie
+  tent. Whereupon the South End was able to present a bristling
+  front to the North End&mdash;a front which even the pleasings of
+  the lute in the circus band could not break. But the boys knew
+  that the band playing in the circus tent meant that the
+  performance in the ring was about to begin. So they cut short an
+  interesting dialogue with a keeper, concerning the elephant that
+  remembered the man who gave her tobacco ten years ago, and tried
+  to kill him the week before the show came to Willow Creek. But
+  when the pageant in the ring unfolded its tinselled splendor in
+  the Grand Entry, Bud Perkins left earth and walked upon clouds of
+  glory. His high-strung nerves quivered with delight as the ring
+  disclosed its treasures&mdash;Willie Sells on his spotted ponies,
+  James Robinson on his dapple gray, the "8 funny
+  clowns&mdash;count them 8," the Japanese jugglers and tumblers,
+  the bespangled women on the rings, the dancing ponies, and the
+  performing dogs. The climax of his joy came when Zazell, "the
+  queen of the air," was shot from her cannon to the trapeze. Bud
+  had decided, days before the circus, that this feature would
+  please him most. Zazell's performance was somewhat tame, but
+  immediately thereafter a really startling thing happened. A clown
+  holding the trick mule called to the boys near Bud, who nudged
+  him into the clown's attention. The clown, drawing from the wide
+  pantaloons a dollar, pantomimed to Bud. He held it up for the boy
+  and all the spectators to see. Alternately he pointed to the
+  trick mule and to the coin, coaxing and questioning by signs, as
+  he did so. It took perhaps a minute for Bud's embarrassment to
+  wear off. Then two motives impelled him to act. He didn't propose
+  to let the North-enders see his embarrassment, and he saw that he
+  might earn the dollar for Miss Morgan's missionary box, thus
+  mitigating the disgrace he had brought upon her in church. This
+  inspiration literally flashed over Bud, and before he knew it, he
+  was standing in the ring, with his head cocked upon one side to
+  indicate his utter indifference to everything in the world. Of
+  course it was a stupendous pretence. For under his pretty
+  starched shirt, which Miss Morgan had forced on him in the hurry
+  of departure, his heart was beating like a little windmill in a
+  gale. As Bud bestrode the donkey the cheers of the throng rose,
+  but above the tumult he could hear the North End jeering him. He
+  could hear the words the North-enders spoke, even their
+  "ho-o-oho-os," and their "nyayh-nyayh-nyayahs," and their
+  "look&mdash;at&mdash;old&mdash;pretty&mdash;boy's," and their
+  "watch-him-hit-the-roof's," and their "get-a-basket's," and
+  similar remarks less desirable for publication. As the donkey
+  cantered off, Bud felt sure he could keep his seat. Once the
+  animal bucked. Bud did not fall. The donkey ran, and stopped
+  quickly. Bud held on. Then the donkey's feet twinkled&mdash;it
+  seemed to Bud in the very top of the tent&mdash;and Bud slid off
+  the animal's neck to the ring. The clown brought the boy his hat,
+  and stood over him as he rose. Bud laughed stupidly into the
+  chalked face of the clown, who handed Bud a dollar, remarking in
+  a low voice, "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the
+  first kick."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/342.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/342.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick." />
+    </a> "<i>Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the
+    first kick</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>What passed in the ring as Bud left it, bedraggled and dusty,
+  did not interest him. He brushed himself as he went. The band was
+  playing madly, and the young woman in the stiff skirts was
+  standing by her horse ready to mount. The crowd did not stop
+  laughing; Bud inclined his head to dust his knickerbockers, and
+  then in a tragic instant he saw what was convulsing the multitude
+  with laughter. The outer seam of the right leg of his velveteen
+  breeches was gone, and a brown leg was winking in and out from
+  the flapping garment as he walked. Wildly he gathered the parted
+  garment, and it seemed to him that he never would cover the
+  ground between the ring and the benches. In the course of several
+  &aelig;ons&mdash;which the other boys measured by fleeting
+  minutes&mdash;the wave of shame that covered Bud subsided. Pins
+  bound up the wounds in his clothes. He drew a natural breath, and
+  was able to join the mob which howled down the man who announced
+  the concert.</p>
+
+  <p>After that the inexorable minutes flew by until the
+  performance ended. In the menagerie tent Bud and his friends
+  looked thirstily upon the cool, pink "schooners" of lemonade, and
+  finally, when they had spent a few blissful moments with the
+  monkeys and had enjoyed a last, long, lingering look at the
+  elephants, they dragged themselves unwillingly away into the
+  commonplace of sunshine and trees and blue sky. Only the romantic
+  touch of the side-show banners and the wonder of the gilded
+  wagons assured them that their memories of the passing hour were
+  not empty dreams.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:65%;">
+    <a href="images/348.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/348.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repair." /></a>
+    <i>The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repair</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The boys were standing enraptured before the picture of the
+  fat woman upon the swaying canvas. Bud had drifted away from them
+  to glut his eyes upon the picture of the snakes writhing around
+  the charmer. The North-enders had been following Bud at a
+  respectful distance, waiting for the opportunity which his
+  separation from his clan gave to them. They were enforced by a
+  country boy of great reputed prowess in battle. Bud did not know
+  his danger until they pounced upon him. In an instant the fight
+  was raging. Over the guy ropes it went, under the ticket wagon,
+  into the thick of the lemonade stands. And when Piggy and Abe and
+  Jimmy had joined it, they trailed the track of the storm by torn
+  hats, bruised, battle-scarred boys, and the wreckage incident to
+  an enlivening occasion. When his comrades found Bud, the argument
+  had narrowed down to Bud and the boy from the country, the other
+  wranglers having dropped out for heavy repairs. The fight, which
+  had been started to avenge ancient wrongs, particularly the
+  wrongs of the bill-board, only added new wrongs to the list. The
+  country boy was striking wildly, and trying to clinch his
+  antagonist, when the town marshal&mdash;the bogie-man of all
+  boys&mdash;stopped the fight. But of course no town marshal can
+  come into the thick of a discussion in Boyville and know much of
+  the merits of the question. So when the marshal of Willow Creek
+  saw Bud Perkins putting the finishing touches of a good trouncing
+  on a strange boy, and also saw Bill Pennington's boy, and Henry
+  Sears's boy, and Mrs. Carpenter's boy, and old man Jones's boy
+  dancing around in high glee at the performance, he quietly
+  gathered in the boys he knew, and let the stranger go.</p>
+
+  <p>Now no boy likes to be marched down the main street of his
+  town with the callous finger of the marshal under his shirt-band.
+  The spectacle operates distinctly against the peace and dignity
+  of Boyville for months thereafter. For passing youths who forget
+  there is a morrow jibe at the culprits and thus plant the seeds
+  of dissensions which bloom in fights. It was a sweaty, red-faced
+  crew that the marshal dumped into Pennington's grocery with,
+  "Here, Bill, I found your boy and these young demons fightin'
+  down 't the circus ground, and I took 'em in charge. You 'tend to
+  'em, will you?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:65%;">
+    <a href="images/352.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/352.gif"
+    alt=
+    "When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over." />
+    </a> <i>When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a
+    show-case and laughed till he shook all over</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pennington's glance at his son showed that Piggy was
+  unharmed. A swift survey of the others gave each, save Bud, a
+  bill of health. But when Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he
+  leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over; for
+  Bud, with a rimless hat upon a towselled head, with a face
+  scratched till it looked like a railroad map, with a torn shirt
+  that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled back, with trousers
+  so badly shattered that two hands could hardly hold them
+  together,&mdash;as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a
+  second-hand boy. The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed
+  his laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack
+  clamoring to tell all in one breath, the history of the incident
+  that had led to Bud's dilapidation. Also they were drawing gloomy
+  pictures of the appearance of his assailants, after the custom of
+  boys in such cases. Because his son was not involved in the
+  calamity, Piggy's father was not moved deeply by the story of the
+  raid of the North-enders and their downfall. So he put the young
+  gentlemen of the Court of Boyville into the back room of his
+  grocery store, where coal-oil and molasses barrels and hams and
+  bacon and black shadows of many mysterious things were gathered.
+  He gave the royal party a cheese knife and a watermelon, and bade
+  them be merry, a bidding which set the hearts of Piggy and Abe
+  and Jimmy and Mealy to dancing, while Bud's heart, which had been
+  sinking lower and lower into a quagmire of dread, beat on numbly
+  and did not join the joy. As the time for going home approached,
+  Bud shivered in his soul at the thought of meeting Miss Morgan.
+  Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon will
+  not help a boy his extremity is dire. Still he laughed and
+  chatted with apparent merriment, but he knew how hollow was his
+  laughter and what mockery was in his cheer. When the melon was
+  eaten business took its regular order.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say, Bud, how you goin' to get home?" asked Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>Bud grinned as he looked at his rags.</p>
+
+  <p>"Gee," said Mealy, "I'm glad it ain't me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, shucks," returned Bud, and he thought of the stricken
+  Ananias in the Sunday-school lesson leaf as he spoke; "run right
+  through like I always do. What I got to be 'fraid of?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Mr. Bud, you can laugh, but you know you'll catch it
+  when you get home."</p>
+
+  <p>This shaft from Jimmy Sears put in words the terror in Bud's
+  heart. But he replied: "I'll bet you I don't."</p>
+
+  <p>Bud's instinct piloted him by a circuitous route up the alley
+  to the kitchen door. Miss Morgan sat on the front porch, waiting
+  for the boy to return before serving supper. He stood helplessly
+  in the kitchen for a minute, with a weight of indecision upon
+  him. He feared to go to the front porch, where Miss Morgan was.
+  He feared to stay in the kitchen. But when he saw the empty
+  wood-box a light seemed to dawn. Instinct guided him to the
+  woodpile, and the law of self-preservation filled his arms with
+  wood, and instinct carried him to the kitchen wood-box time and
+  again, and laid the wood in the box as gently as if it had been
+  glass and as softly as if it had been velvet. Not until the pile
+  had grown far above the wainscoting on the kitchen wall, did a
+  stick crashing to the floor tell Miss Morgan that Bud was in the
+  house.</p>
+
+  <p>But there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and just as the
+  falling wood attracted Miss Morgan's attention, it was diverted
+  by a belligerent party at her front gate. This belligerent party
+  was composed of two persons, to wit: one mother from the north
+  end of Willow Creek, irate to the spluttering point, and one boy
+  lagging as far behind the mother as his short arm would allow him
+  to lag. The mother held the short arm, and was literally dragging
+  her son to Miss Morgan's gate to offer him in evidence as
+  "Exhibit A" in a possible cause of the State of Kansas <i>vs</i>.
+  Henry Perkins. Exhibit A was black and blue as to the eyes, torn
+  as to the shirt, bloody as to the nose, tumbled and dusty as to
+  the hair, and as to the countenance, clearly and unquestionably
+  sheep-faced. The mother opened the bombardment with: "Miss
+  Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/356.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/356.gif"
+    alt="Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy." /></a>
+    "<i>Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan looked in horror, and exclaimed: "Well, for mercy
+  sakes! Where on earth's he been?"</p>
+
+  <p>And the leader of the war party returned: "Where's he been?
+  Well, I'll tell you where he's been. And I just want you to know
+  who done this." Here Exhibit A got behind a post. The recital of
+  the details of his catastrophe was humiliating. But the mother
+  continued: "Henry Perkins done this. I don't believe in stirring
+  up neighborhood quarrels and all that, but I've just stood this
+  long enough. My boy can't stick his nose out of the door without
+  that Perkins boy jumpin' on him. If you can't do anything with
+  that Perkins boy, I'll show him there's a law in this land."</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan wilted as the speech proceeded. She had voice only
+  to say, "I'm sure there's some mistake;" and then remembering the
+  crash of the wood on the kitchen floor, she called: "Henry, come
+  here!"</p>
+
+  <p>As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the
+  belligerents replied: "No, there isn't no mistake either. My boy
+  is a good little boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in
+  this town. And because I don't allow him to fight, that Perkins
+  boy picks on him all the time. I've told him to keep out of his
+  way and not to play with Henry Perkins, but he can't be runnin'
+  all over this town to keep&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>And then Exhibit B, with scratched face, tattered raiment, and
+  grimy features, stood in the doorway. The witness for the State
+  looked in dumb amazement at the wreck. Miss Morgan saw Bud, and
+  her temper rose&mdash;not at him, but at his adversary. Exhibit A
+  sulkily turned his face from Exhibit B, and Exhibit B seemed to
+  be oblivious of the presence of Exhibit A; for the boys it was a
+  scene too shameful for mutual recognition. Miss Morgan broke the
+  heavy silence with: "Henry, where on earth have you been?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Been t' the circus," replied the boy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Henry, did you blacken that little boy's eyes, and tear his
+  clothes that way?" inquired Miss Morgan when her wits
+  returned.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why&mdash;no'm&mdash;I didn't. But he was one of four fellers
+  that picked on me comin' home from the circus, and tried to lick
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Willie," demanded the head of the attacking posse, "did you
+  pick a fight with that Perkins boy?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, no 'm, no 'm! I was just playin' round the tent, me and
+  another boy, and Bud he come up and jumped on us." And then to
+  add verisimilitude to his narrative, he appended: "Him and four
+  other boys."</p>
+
+  <p>"Henry," asked Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of
+  Henry's Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer
+  of them began to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this
+  little boy telling the truth? Now, don't you story to me,
+  Henry."</p>
+
+  <p>"Honest injun, Miss Morgan, I cross my heart and hope to drop
+  dead this minute if I ain't tellin' you the way it was. Him and
+  them North-enders, why they come along and called me names, and
+  he tried to hit me, and I just shoved him away like this," and
+  Henry executed a polite pantomime. "And I was swingin' my arms
+  out to keep 'em all from hittin' me, and he got in the way, and I
+  couldn't help it. And they was all a pickin' on me, and I told
+  'em all the time I didn't want to fight."</p>
+
+  <p>But Exhibit A kept looking at his mother and shaking his head
+  in violent contradiction of Bud, as the story was told.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/360.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/360.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash again." />
+    </a> "<i>Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that
+    kind of trash again</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan asked: "Who scratched your face so, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Him; he's all the time fightin' me."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, ma, I didn't. You know I didn't."</p>
+
+  <p>Exhibit A and Exhibit B were still back to back. Then Exhibit
+  B responded: "Miss Morgan, you ast him if he didn't cuss and damn
+  me, and say he was goin' to pound me to death if I ever come
+  north of Sixth."</p>
+
+  <p>To which the leader of the raiders returned in great scorn:
+  "The very idea! Just listen at that! Why, Miss Morgan, that
+  Perkins boy is the bully of this town. Come on, Willie, your pa
+  will see if there is no law to protect you from such boys as
+  him." Whereupon the war party faced about, and walked down the
+  sidewalk and away.</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan and Bud watched the North End woman and her son
+  depart. Miss Morgan turned to Bud, and spoke spiritedly: "Now,
+  Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash
+  again. Now, you won't forget, will you, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bud examined his toes carefully, and replied, "No 'm."</p>
+
+  <p>In the threshold she put her hand on the boy's shoulder, and
+  continued: "Now, don't you mind about it, Henry. They sha'n't
+  touch you. You come and wash, and we'll have supper."</p>
+
+  <p>When a boy has a woman for a champion, if he is wise, he
+  trusts her to any length. So Bud went to the kitchen, picked up
+  the water-bucket, and went to the well, partly to keep from
+  displaying a gathering wave of affection for his foster-mother,
+  and partly to let the magnificence of the wood-box burst upon her
+  in his absence. When he returned, he found Miss Morgan pointing
+  toward the wood-box and beaming upon him. Bud grinned, and fished
+  in his pocket for the coin.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/364.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/364.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule.... I thought it would be nice for the missionary society." />
+    </a> "<i>Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule.... I
+    thought it would be nice for the missionary society</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule," he
+  faltered. "I thought it would be nice for the missionary
+  society." That he might check any weak feminine emotions, he
+  turned his attention to the supper-table, and blurted: "Gee,
+  we're goin' to have pie, ain't we? I tell you, I'm mighty pie
+  hungry."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/368.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/368.gif"
+    alt="Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we." /></a> "<i>Gee,
+    we're going to have pie, ain't we</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The glow of Miss Morgan's melted heart shone upon her face.
+  Through a seraphic smile she spoke: "It's apple pie, too,
+  Henry&mdash;your kind." As she put the supper upon the table, she
+  asked: "Did you have a good time at the circus, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>The boy nodded vehemently, and said: "You bet!" and then went
+  on, after a pause, "I guess I tore my pants a little gettin' off
+  of that mule; but I thought you'd like the dollar."</p>
+
+  <p>It was the finest speech he could make. "I guess I can mend
+  them, Henry," she answered; and then she asked, with her face in
+  the cupboard, "Sha'n't we try some of the new strawberry
+  preserves, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>As she was opening the jar she concluded that Henry Perkins
+  was an angel&mdash;a conclusion which, in view of the well-known
+  facts, was manifestly absurd.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/374.gif"><img width="100%" src=
+    "images/374.gif" alt="horses" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>Did you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a merrier life and
+  wears more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom than he
+  that is clad in silk and velvet.&mdash;<i>From the Observations
+  of "Mr. Great Heart</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>It was dusk in Boyville. The boys at a game of hide-and-seek
+  filled the air with their calls:</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i8">"Bushel of wheat, and a</p>
+
+      <p class="i10">Bushel of rye&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i8">All t' ain't ready</p>
+
+      <p class="i10">Holler aye.</p>
+
+      <p>All in ten feet of my base is caught: All eyes open."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Or</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">"One&mdash;two&mdash;three for me."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Or</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">"All's out's in free."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed;
+  over barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the
+  sunflowers and the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the
+  moon rose it merged into pull-away. That game flourished for a
+  while and transformed itself by an almost imperceptible evolution
+  into a series of races down the dusty road. But when the moon's
+  silver had marked itself upon the grass, the boys were lying
+  prone on a hay-cock behind the royal castle. They chattered idly,
+  and the murmur of their talk rose on the just-felt breeze that
+  greets the rising moon, like the ripple of waters. But the
+  chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were absorbing
+  the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their being
+  were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their
+  souls&mdash;fresher from God than are the souls of men&mdash;were
+  a-quiver with joy, and their lips babbled to hide their
+  ecstasies. In Boyville it is a shameful thing to flaunt the
+  secrets of the heart. As the night deepened, and the shy stars
+  peeped at the bold moon, the boys let their prattle ebb into
+  silence. Long they lay looking upward&mdash;with the impulse in
+  their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam left
+  unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the
+  wise men of the world have left locked in mystery&mdash;the
+  question of the Whence, the Why, and the Whither.</p>
+
+  <p>As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the
+  company upon the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary
+  boy remained.</p>
+
+  <p>After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer
+  madness set him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay.
+  Life was full of gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a
+  delicious longing for he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it
+  were not something new and unimaginably good to eat. It was the
+  nearest he could come to a defining of the longing. Of course no
+  one can define it. It is that which quickens the blood of all
+  young creatures&mdash;the rosebud, the meadow-lark, the
+  dragon-fly, the colt, the boy and the maiden, bidding them
+  glorify God with the show and the example of their comeliness.
+  The boy rose from the hay and skipped under the trees, over the
+  fantastic figures of the moon-spun carpet. He waved his arms, and
+  there came to his throat a simple song, which he chanted
+  croakingly, lest some one should hear him and laugh. He stopped,
+  and sitting on a fence looked at a great white cloud that was
+  mounting the western sky. His soul was listening to the faraway
+  music from the breakers of the restless rising sea of ambition,
+  and the rush of life and action, that were flooding into the
+  distant rim of his consciousness. The music charmed him. Tears
+  came to his eyes, he knew not why. But we, whom this mighty tide
+  has carried away from that bourne whereon the boy's feet strayed
+  so happily&mdash;we know why the far-seeing angels gave him
+  tears.</p>
+
+  <p>A dog in some distant farm-yard was baying at the moon. A
+  whining screech owl sent a faint shudder of superstitious fear
+  over the boy. For a long time he sat on the fence absorbing the
+  night sounds&mdash;the claque of the frogs, the burring of the
+  crickets, the hum of the water on the mill-dam far down the
+  valley, and the occasional call of some human voice, ringing like
+  a golden bell in the hush of the night. It was after nine and the
+  boy was deep in his trackless revery. A woman called,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Win-nee, Win-nee, oh, Winnie."</p>
+
+  <p>The spell upon him was almost too delicious to break; but he
+  roused himself to reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Yessum. All right."</p>
+
+  <p>Then the mother's voice continued: "Now wash your feet,
+  Winnie, and wipe 'em dry; don't come to bed with dirty feet."</p>
+
+  <p>Slowly the boy climbed to the earth. He shuffled through dew,
+  but his feet were still too dirty. He stood in the tub of water
+  by the pump, rubbing one foot with the other, and his eyes turned
+  moonward. The thrall of the night caught him again. In a hazy
+  stupor he sat on the kitchen step drying his feet. When he got
+  up, Piggy Pennington gazed for a moment at a star&mdash;a pale
+  star which hovered timidly over the chimney of the home which
+  sheltered his Heart's Desire. With the lunacy upon him, he flung
+  to the star a bashful kiss. Then he grinned foolishly and came to
+  himself with a grunt, as he ran up stairs to his room. He was
+  ashamed to face the south breeze that fanned his bed.</p>
+<br />
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12377 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Court of Boyville, by William Allen
+White, Illustrated by Orson Lowell and Gustav Verbeek</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Court of Boyville</p>
+<p>Author: William Allen White</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 18, 2004  [eBook #12377]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURT OF BOYVILLE***</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Christine Gehring, Tim Koeller,<br />
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</b></center>
+<br />
+<br />
+  <hr class="full" />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+  <h1>THE COURT OF BOYVILLE</h1>
+
+  <p class="center">By</p>
+
+  <h3>William Allen White</h3>
+
+  <p class="center">Author Of The Real Issue, etc.</p>
+
+  <p class="center">1898</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+  <hr />
+
+  <h4><b>Contents</b></h4>
+
+  <ul>
+    <li><a href="#Prologue">PROLOGUE</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#I">THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#II">A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#III">"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#IV">JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#V">MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES</a></li>
+
+    <li><a href="#VI">"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"</a></li>
+  </ul>
+  <hr />
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>Where is Boyville</i>? <i>By what track</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>May we trace our journey back</i>;</p>
+
+      <p><i>Up what mountains, thro' what seas</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>By what meadow-lands and leas</i>,</p>
+
+      <p><i>Must we travel to the bourne</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>Of the shady rows of corn</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>That lead down to the Willows</i></p>
+
+      <p><i>Where the day is always morn</i>?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr />
+
+  <p>COURT OF BOYVILLE</p>
+
+  <p><i>Illustrated by</i> ORSON LOWELL (<i>with the exception of
+  the first story, the illustrations for which are by</i> GUSTAV
+  VERBEEK).</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="images/001.gif">"Say, boys, where's its
+  bottle?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/036.gif">The three boys were scuffling for the
+  possession of a piece of rope</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/042.gif">He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his
+  head under water</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/058.gif">He felt his father's finger under his
+  collar and his own feet shambling</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/064.gif">Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and
+  took her child by an arm</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/076.gif">His feet hanging out of the back of
+  the wagon that had held the coffin</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/080.gif">His luck was bad</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/084.gif">He withdrew from the game and sat
+  alone against the barn</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/088.gif">As she turned to her
+  turkey-slicing</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/092.gif">The new preacher, for whom the party
+  was made</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/100.gif">The first long dress</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/104.gif">"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake,
+  keep still"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/108.gif">"Did you know my dad was a
+  soldier?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/112.gif">During the next two hours the boy
+  wandered on the prairie</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/116.gif">"Mary Pennington, aged two years,
+  three months, and ten days"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/120.gif">Piggy went to get his flying
+  hat</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/124.gif">She stroked his hand and snuggled
+  closer to him</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/128.gif">Miss Morgan smiled happily at the
+  clouds</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/136.gif">Chased the little girls around the
+  yard with it</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/140.gif">She would not have invited Harold
+  Jones to sit and sing with her during the opening hour</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/144.gif">Harold Jones</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/148.gif">To study his tastes</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/152.gif">... The comradeship ... was beautiful
+  to see</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/156.gif">The red-headed Pratt girl</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/160.gif">He could only snap chalk in a
+  preoccupied way and listen to his Heart's Desire</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/164.gif">Piggy was piling up the primary
+  urchins in wiggling, squealing piles</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/168.gif">He watched the teacher's finger crook
+  a signal for the note to be brought forward</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/172.gif">... fought boys who were three
+  classes above him ... whipped groups of boys of assorted
+  sizes</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/176.gif">Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw
+  the hired girl giggle</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/180.gif">Her son ate rapidly in
+  silence</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/184.gif">His cleanliness pleased his mother
+  and she boasted of it to the mothers of other boys</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/188.gif">A little maid in a black-and-red
+  check</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/192.gif">Piggy sat on the front porch, and
+  reviewed the entire affair</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/196.gif">It began when his Heart's Desire had
+  fluttered into his autograph album</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/200.gif">At this important bit of
+  repartee</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/210.gif">His heart was full of
+  bitterness</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/214.gif">Throwing sticks in the water to scare
+  the fish</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/218.gif">A crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a
+  stumbler, and a sneaker</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/222.gif">James</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/226.gif">Mrs. Jones came out to take care of
+  the butter</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/230.gif">The sort of boy who would unsex
+  himself by looking at a baby</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/234.gif">Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his
+  little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the
+  baby</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/238.gif">His father strutting around town ...
+  bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/242.gif">He jumped for the slanting boards
+  with his bare feet, and his heart was glad</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/246.gif">He sat on a log and slowly lifted up
+  his foot, twisting his face into an agonized knot</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/250.gif">"Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my
+  chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/256.gif">"I'll pay for your chicken, I say.
+  Now you keep away from me"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/266.gif">An irregular circumference that
+  touched his ears and his chin and his hair</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/270.gif">"Got anything here fit to
+  eat?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/274.gif">"What'd you want to take Annie's doll
+  away from her for?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/278.gif">She drew him down and kissed his
+  cheek while he pecked at her lips</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/282.gif">Piggy Pennington ... galloped his
+  father's fat delivery horse up and down the alley</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/289.gif">Mammoth Consolidated Shows
+  (left)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/290.gif">Mammoth Consolidated Shows
+  (right)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/296.gif">Oil made by hanging a bottle of
+  angle-worms in the sun to fry</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/302.gif">How many bags of carpet rags went to
+  the ragman</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/306.gif">Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing
+  Nemesis</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/310.gif">Dressed-up children were flitting
+  along the side streets, hurrying their seniors</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/316.gif">The Balloon-Vender wormed his way
+  through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue
+  trail behind him</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/320.gif">The Blue Sash about the country
+  girl's waist and the flag in her Beau's hat</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/326.gif">"One's a trick elephant. You'd die
+  a-laughing if you saw him"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/330.gif">"It's an awful good one. Can't he go
+  just this once?"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/335.gif">8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8
+  (left)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/336.gif">8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8
+  (right)</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/342.gif">"Well, son, you're a daisy. They
+  generally drop the first kick"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/348.gif">The other wranglers ... dropped out
+  for heavy repairs</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/352.gif">When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on
+  Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all
+  over</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/356.gif">"Miss Morgan, I just want you to look
+  at my boy"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/360.gif">"Now, Henry, don't ever have anything
+  to do with that kind of trash again"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/364.gif">"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the
+  trick mule ... I thought it would be nice for the missionary
+  society"</a></p>
+
+  <p><a href="images/368.gif">"Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't
+  we"</a></p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h4><a name="Prologue" id="Prologue"></a>PROLOGUE</h4>
+
+  <p><i>We who are passing "through the wilderness of this world"
+  find it difficult to realize what an impenetrable wall there is
+  around the town of Boyville. Storm it as we may with the
+  simulation of light-heartedness, bombard it with our heavy guns,
+  loaded with fishing-hooks and golf-sticks, and skates and
+  base-balls, and butterfly-nets, the walls remain. If once the
+  clanging gates of the town shut upon a youth, he is banished
+  forever. From afar he may peer over the walls at the games
+  inside, but he may not be of them. Let him try to join them, and
+  lo, the games become a mockery, and he finds that he is cavorting
+  still outside the walls, while the good citizens inside are
+  making sly sport of him. Who, being recently banished from
+  Boyville, has not sought to return? In vain does he haunt the
+  swimming hole; the water elves will have none of him. He hushes
+  their laughter, muffles their calls, takes the essence from their
+  fun, and leaves it dust upon their lips</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>But we of the race of grown-ups are a purblind people.
+  Otherwise, when we acknowledge what a stronghold this Boyville
+  is, we the banished would not seek to steal away the merry
+  townsmen, and bruise our hearts and theirs at our hopeless task.
+  We have learned many things in our schools, and of the making of
+  books there has been no end; so it is odd that we have not
+  learned to let a boy be a boy. Why not let him feel the thrill
+  from the fresh spring grass under his feet, as his father felt it
+  before him, and his father's father, even back to Adam, who
+  walked thus with God! There is a tincture of iron that seeps into
+  a boys blood with the ozone of the earth, that can come to him by
+  no other way. Let him run if he will; Heavens air is a better
+  elixir than any that the alchemist can mix. What if he roams the
+  woods and lives for hours in the water? What if he prefers the
+  barn to the parlor? What if he fights? Does he not take the risk
+  of the scratched face and the bruises? Should he not be in some
+  measure the judge of the situation before him when the trouble
+  begins? Boys have an ugly name for one of their kind who
+  discovers suddenly, in a crisis of his own making, that he is not
+  allowed to fight. And it were better to see a boy with a dozen
+  claw-marks down his face than to see him eat that name in
+  peace</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Now this conclusion may seem barbaric to elders who have to
+  pay for new clothes to replace the torn ones, And according to
+  their light perhaps the elders see clearly. But the grown-up
+  people forget that their wisdom has impaired their vision to see
+  as boys see and to pass judgment upon things in another
+  sphere</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>For Boyville is a Free Town in the monarchy of the world.
+  Its citizens mind their own business, and they desire travellers
+  in this waste to do likewise. The notion that spectacled gentry
+  should come nosing through the streets and alleys of Boyville,
+  studying the sanitation, which is not of the best, and objecting
+  to the constitution and by laws,&mdash;which were made when the
+  rivers were dug and the hills piled up,&mdash;the notion of an
+  outsider interfering with the Divine right of boys to eat what
+  they please, to believe what they please, and, under loyalty to
+  the monarchy of the world, to do what they please, is repugnant
+  to this free people. Nor does it better matters when the man
+  behind the spectacles explains that to eat sheep-sorrel is
+  deleterious; to feed younkers Indian turnip is cruel; to suck the
+  sap of the young grapevine in spring produces malaria; to smoke
+  rattan is depraving, and to stuff one's stomach with paw-paws and
+  wild-grapes is dangerous in the extreme</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>For does not the first article of the law of this Free Town
+  expressly state, that boys shall be absolved from obeying any and
+  all laws regulating the human stomach, and be free of the
+  penalties thereto attaching? And again when Wisdom says that the
+  boy shall give up his superstitions, the boy points to hoary
+  tradition, which says that the snakes tail does not in fact and
+  in truth die till sundown; that if a boy kills a lucky bug he
+  shall find a nickel; that to cross one's heart and lie, brings on
+  swift and horrible retribution; that letting the old cat die
+  causes death in the family; that to kill a toad makes the cow
+  give bloody milk; that horsehairs in water turn to snakes in nine
+  days; that spitting on the bait pleases the fish, and that to
+  draw a circle in the dust around a marble charms it against being
+  hit. What tradition, ancient and honorable in Boyville, declares
+  is true, that is the Law everlasting, and no wise mans word shall
+  change the law one jot nor one tittle. For in the beginning it
+  was written, to get in the night wood, to eat with a fork at
+  table, to wear shoes on Sunday, to say "sir" to company, and
+  "thank you" to the lady, to go to bed at nine to remember that
+  there are others who like gravy, to stay out of the water in dog
+  days, to come right straight home from school, to shinny on your
+  own side, and to clean those feet for Heaven's sake,&mdash;that
+  is the whole duty of boys. As it was in the beginning, so it
+  shall be ever after</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Now most of us grown-ups do not admit these things, and not
+  being able to speak the language of the people whose rights we
+  are seeking to destroy, we will never know how utterly futile are
+  our conspiracies. But that is immaterial</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The main point that the gentle reader should bear in mind
+  is this: The town of Boyville is free and independent; governed
+  only by the ancient laws, made by the boys of the elder
+  days&mdash;by the boys who found bottom in the rivers that flowed
+  out of Eden; by little Seth, little Enoch, little Methuselah, and
+  little Noah; by the boys who threw mud balls from willow withes
+  broken from trees whereon David hung his harp a thousand years
+  thereafter. For Boyville was old when Nineveh was a frontier
+  post</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><i>Boyville hears from afar the buzz about principalities and
+  powers, the clatter of javelins and the clash of arms, the hubbub
+  of the "Pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war." The
+  courtiers of Boyville cheer for each new hero, and claim
+  fellowship with all "like gentlemen unafraid." But the Free Town
+  has its own sovereign, makes its own idols. And the clatter and
+  clash and hubbub that attend the triumphs of the kingdoms of the
+  earth pass by unconquered Boyville as the shadow of a
+  dream</i>.</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES</h3>
+
+  <p>A WAIL IN B MINOR</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Oh, what has become of the ornery boy,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Who used to chew slip'ry elm, "rosum" and
+      wheat:</p>
+
+      <p>And say "jest a coddin'" and "what d'ye soy;"</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And wear rolled-up trousers all out at the
+      seat?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>And where is the boy who had shows in the barn,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And "skinned a cat backards" and turned
+      "summersets;"</p>
+
+      <p>The boy who had faith in a snake-feeder yarn,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And always smoked grape vine and corn
+      cigarettes?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Where now is the small boy who spat on his bait,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And proudly stood down near the foot of the
+      class,</p>
+
+      <p>And always went "barefooted" early and late,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And washed his feet nights on the dew of the
+      grass?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Where is the boy who could swim on his back,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And dive and tread water and lay his hair,
+      too;</p>
+
+      <p>The boy who would jump off the spring-board ker-whack,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And light on his stomach as I used to do?</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Oh where and oh where is the old-fashioned boy?</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Has the old-fashioned boy with his
+      old-fashioned ways,</p>
+
+      <p>Been crowded aside by the Lord Fauntleroy,&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">The cheap tinselled make-believe, full of
+      alloy</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Without the pure gold of the rollicking joy</p>
+
+      <p>Of the old-fashioned boy in the old-fashioned days?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:90%;">
+    <a href="images/030.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/030.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Chapter title: The Court of Boyville The Martyrdom of Mealy Jones" />
+    </a>
+  </div>:
+
+  <p>His mother named him Harold, and named him better than she
+  knew. He was just such a boy as one would expect to see bearing a
+  heroic name. He had big, faded blue eyes, a nubbin of a chin,
+  wide, wondering ears, and freckles&mdash;such brown blotches of
+  freckles on his face and neck and hands, such a milky way of them
+  across the bridge of his snub nose, that the boys called him
+  "Mealy." And Mealy Jones it was to the end. When his parents
+  called him Harold in the hearing of his playmates, the boy was
+  ashamed, for he felt that a nickname gave him equal standing
+  among his fellows. There were times in his life&mdash;when he was
+  alone, recounting his valorous deeds&mdash;that Mealy more than
+  half persuaded himself that he was a real boy. But when he was
+  with Winfield Pennington, surnamed "Piggy" in the court of
+  Boyville, and Abraham Lincoln Carpenter, similarly knighted "Old
+  Abe," Mealy saw that he was only Harold, a weak and
+  unsatisfactory imitation. He was handicapped in his struggle to
+  be a natural boy by a mother who had been a "perfect little lady"
+  in her girlhood and who was moulding her son in the forms that
+  fashioned her. If it were the purpose of this tale to deal in
+  philosophy, it would be easy to digress and show that Mealy Jones
+  was a study in heredity; that from his mother's side of the house
+  he inherited wide, white, starched collars, and from his father's
+  side, a burning desire to spit through his teeth. But this is
+  only a simple tale, with no great problem in it, save that of a
+  boy working out his salvation between a fiendish lust for
+  suspenders with trousers and a long-termed incarceration in
+  ruffled waists with despised white china buttons around his
+  waist-band.</p>
+
+  <p>No one but Piggy ever knew how Mealy Jones learned to swim;
+  and Harold's mother doesn't consider Piggy Pennington any one,
+  for the Penningtons are Methodists and the Joneses are Baptists,
+  and Very hard-shelled ones, too. However, Mealy Jones did learn
+  to swim "dog-fashion" years and years after the others had become
+  post-graduates in aquatic lore and could "tread water," "swim
+  sailor-fashion," and "lay" their hair. Mrs. Jones permitted her
+  son to go swimming occasionally, but she always exacted from him
+  a solemn promise not to go into the deep water. And Harold, who
+  was a good little boy, made it a point not to "let down" when he
+  was beyond the "step-off." So of course he could not know how
+  deep it was; although the bad little boys who "brought up bottom"
+  had told him that it was twelve feet deep.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/036.gif" target="blank"><img width="100%" src=
+    "images/036.gif" alt=
+    "The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a piece of rope." />
+    </a> <i>The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a
+    piece of rope</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>One hot June afternoon Mealy stood looking at a druggist's
+  display window, gazing idly at the pills, absently picking out
+  the various kinds which he had taken. He had just come from his
+  mother with the expressed injunction not to go near the river.
+  His eyes roamed listlessly from the pills to the pain-killer,
+  and; turning wearily away, he saw Piggy and Old Abe and Jimmy
+  Sears. The three boys were scuffling for, the possession of a
+  piece of rope. Pausing a moment in front of the grocery store,
+  they beckoned for Mealy. The lad joined the group. Some one
+  said,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Come on, Mealy, and go swimmin'."</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, Mealy can't go," put in Jimmy; "his ma won't let
+  him."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I kin, <i>too</i>, if I want to," replied Mealy,
+  stoutly&mdash;but, alas! guiltily.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then come on," said Piggy Pennington. "You don't dast. My ma
+  don't care how often I go in&mdash;only in dog days."</p>
+
+  <p>After some desultory debate they started&mdash;the four
+  boys&mdash;pushing one another off the sidewalk,
+  "rooster-fighting," shouting, laughing, racing through the
+  streets. Mealy Jones longed to have the other boys observe his
+  savage behavior. He knew, however, that he was not of them, that
+  he was a sad make-believe. The guilt of the deed he was doing,
+  oppressed him. He wondered how he could go into crime so
+  stolidly. Inwardly he quaked as he recalled the stories he had
+  read of boys who had drowned while disobeying their parents. His
+  uneasiness was increased by the ever-present sense that he could
+  not cope with the other boys at their sports. He let them jostle
+  him, and often would run, after his self-respect would goad him
+  to jostle back. Mealy was glad when the group came to the deep
+  shade of the woods and walked slowly.</p>
+
+  <p>It was three o'clock when the boys reached the swimming-hole.
+  There the great elm-tree, with its ladder of exposed roots,
+  stretched over the water. Piggy Pennington, stripped to the skin,
+  ran whooping down the sloping bank, splashed over the gravel at
+  the water's edge, and plunged into the deepest water. Old Abe
+  followed cautiously, bathing his temples and his wrists before
+  sousing all over. Jimmy Sears threw his shirt high up on the bank
+  as he stood ankle-deep in the stream. Piggy's exhilaration having
+  worn off by this time, he picked up a mussel-shell and threw it
+  at Jimmy's feet. The water dashed wide of its mark and sprinkled
+  Mealy, who was sitting on a log, taking off his shoes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Here, Piggy, you quit that," said Mealy.</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy said nothing. He sprang into the air head foremost
+  toward Piggy, who dived from sight. His pursuer saw the direction
+  Piggy took and followed him. The boys were a few feet apart when
+  Jimmy came to the surface, puffing and spouting and shaking the
+  water from his eyes and hair. He hesitated in his pursuit. Piggy
+  observed the hesitation, and with a quick overhand movement shot
+  a stinging stream of water from the ball of his hand into his
+  antagonist's face. Then Piggy turned on his side and swam swiftly
+  to shallow water, where he stood and splashed his victim, who was
+  lumbering toward shore with his eyes shut, panting loudly. With
+  every splash Piggy said, "How's that, Jim?" or "Take a bite o'
+  this," or "Want a drink?" When Jimmy got where he could walk on
+  the creek bottom, he made a feint of fighting back, but he soon
+  ceased, and stood by, gasping for breath, before saying, "Let's
+  quit."</p>
+
+  <p>Then followed the fun of ducking, the scuffling and the capers
+  of the young human animals at play&mdash;at play even as gods in
+  the elder days. Mealy saw it all through envious eyes and with a
+  pricking conscience, as he doggedly fumbled the myriad buttons
+  which his mother had fastened upon his pretty clothes. He heard
+  Piggy dare Abe across the creek, and call him a cowardly calf,
+  and say, "Any one't 'ull take a dare'll steal sheep." Mealy saw
+  Jimmy grin as he cracked rocks under water while the other boys
+  were diving, and watched Old Abe, as he made the waves rise under
+  his chin, swimming after the fleeing culprit. He saw Abe catch
+  Jimmy and hold his head under water until Mealy's smile faded to
+  a horrified grin. Then he saw the victim and the victor come
+  merrily to the shallows, laughing as though nothing unusual had
+  occurred. It was high revel in Boyville, and the satyrs were in
+  the midst of their joy.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/042.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/042.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water." /></a>
+    <i>He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Then Mealy heard Piggy say, "Aw, come in, Mealy; it won't hurt
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>"Is it cold?" asked Mealy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw," replied Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw, course it ain't," returned Jimmy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Warm as dish-water," cried Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy's ribs shone through his skin. His big milky eyes made
+  him seem uncanny, standing there shivering in the shade. He
+  hobbled down the pebbly bank on his tender feet, his bashful grin
+  breaking into a dozen contortions of pain as he went. The boys
+  stood watching him like tigers awaiting a Christian martyr. He
+  paused at the water's edge, put in a toe and jerked it out with a
+  spasm of cold.</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, that ain't cold," said Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw, when you get in you won't mind it," insisted Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy replied, "Oo, oo! I think that's pretty cold."</p>
+
+  <p>"Wet your legs and you won't get the cramp," advised Jimmy
+  Sears.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy stooped over to scoop up some water in his hands. He
+  heard the boys laugh, and the next instant felt a shower of water
+  on his back. It made the tears come.</p>
+
+  <p>"Uhm-m-m&mdash;no fair splashin'," he whined.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy put one foot in the water and drew it out quickly,
+  gasping, "Oo! I ain't goin' in. It's too cold for me. It'll bring
+  my measles out." He started&mdash;trembling&mdash;up the bank;
+  then he heard a splashing behind him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come back here," cried Piggy, whose hands were uplifted;
+  "come back here and git in this water or I'll muddy you." Piggy's
+  hands were full of mud. He was about to throw it when the Jones
+  boy pretended to laugh and giggled, "Oh, I was just
+  a-foolin'."</p>
+
+  <p>But he paused again at the water's edge, and Piggy, who had
+  come up close enough to touch the rickety lad, reached out a
+  muddy hand and dabbed the quaking boy's breast. The other boys
+  roared with glee. Mealy extended a deprecatory hand, and took
+  Piggy's wet, glistening arm and stumbled nervously into the
+  stream, with an "Oo-oo!" at every uncertain step. When the water
+  came to Mealy's waist Abe cried, "Duck! duck, or I'll splash
+  you!" The boy sank down, with his teeth biting his tongue as he
+  said, "Oo! I wouldn't do you that way."</p>
+
+  <p>When the shock of the tepid water had spent itself, Mealy's
+  grin returned, and he shivered happily, "Oo&mdash;it's good,
+  ain't it?"</p>
+
+  <p>Ten minutes later the boys were diving from the roots of the
+  elm-tree into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten
+  minutes after that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which
+  they had revived by splashing water upon the incline made and
+  provided by the town boys for scudding. Ten minutes afterward
+  they were covering themselves with coats of mud,
+  adorned&mdash;one with stripes made with the point of a stick,
+  another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with
+  snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the
+  path to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger
+  train. When it came they jumped up and down and waved their
+  striped and spotted arms like the barbarian warriors which they
+  fancied they were. They swam up the stream leisurely, and, as
+  they rounded the bend that brought their landing-place into view,
+  the quick eye of Piggy Pennington saw that some one had been
+  meddling with their clothes. He gave the alarm. The boys
+  quickened their strokes. When they came to the shallows of the
+  ford they saw the blue-and-white starched shirt of Mealy Jones
+  lying in a pool tied into half a dozen knots, with the water
+  soaking them tighter and tighter. The other boys' clothes were
+  not disturbed.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other
+  boys echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up
+  people, but there is never a moment in after-life more poignant
+  with grief than, that which stabs a boy when he learns that he
+  must wrestle with a series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As
+  Mealy sat in the broiling sun, gripping the knots with his teeth
+  and fingers, he asked himself again and again how he could
+  explain his soiled shirt to his mother. Lump after lump rose in
+  his throat, and dissolved into tears that trickled down his nose.
+  The other boys did not heed him. They were following Piggy's
+  dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging limb of the
+  elm-tree.</p>
+
+  <p>They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham
+  shirt, blue overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone
+  back of Mealy, smiling complacently. Not until the stranger
+  walked down to the water's edge where Mealy sat did the other
+  boys spy him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Who is it?" asked Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>"I never saw him before," replied Jimmy Sears.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I'll tell you who it is," returned Abe, after looking the
+  stranger over. "It's the new boy. Him an' his old man come to
+  town yesterday. They say he's a fighter. He licked every boy in
+  the Mountain Jumpers this mornin'."</p>
+
+  <p>By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, "How
+  you gittin' along?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled
+  child, "Hush your mouth, you old smartie! What good d't do you to
+  go an' tie my clo'es?"</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing. They
+  heard the new boy retort, "Who said I tied your clo'es?" Mealy
+  made no reply. The new boy repeated the query. Mealy saw the boys
+  in the water looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in
+  the primary department of life, and had not yet learned that one
+  must fight alone. He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the
+  "I," as he tugged at the last knot. The new boy had been looking
+  Mealy over, and he replied quickly, "You're a liar!"</p>
+
+  <p>There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for
+  some one to defend him. He was sure that his companions would not
+  stand there and see him whipped. One of the boys in the water
+  said diplomatically, "Aw, Mealy, I wouldn't take that!"</p>
+
+  <p>"You're another," faltered Mealy, who looked supplication and
+  surprise at his friends, and wondered if they were really going
+  to desert him. The new boy waded around Mealy, and leaned over
+  him, and said, shaking his fist in the freckled face, "You're a
+  coward, and you don't dast take it up and fight it out."</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy's cheeks flushed. He felt anger mantling his frame. He
+  was one of those most pitiable of mortals whose anger brings
+  tears with it. The last knot in the shirt was all but conquered,
+  when Mealy bawled in a scream of passionate sobs,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"When I git this shirt fixed I'll show you who's a
+  coward."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/001.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/001.gif"
+    alt="Say, boys, where's its bottle?" /></a> "<i>Say, boys,
+    where's its bottle</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The new boy sought a level place on the bank for a fight, and
+  sneered, "Oh, cry baby! cry baby! Say, boys, where's its
+  bottle?"</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy rose with a stone in each hand, and hobbled over the
+  pebbles, trying, "Touch me now! Touch me if you dare!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, you coward! drop them rocks," snarled the new boy.</p>
+
+  <p>Mealy looked at his friends imploringly. He felt lonely,
+  deserted, and mistreated, but he saw in the faces of his comrades
+  the reflection of the injunction to put down the stones. He did
+  so, and his anger began to cool. But he whimpered again, "Well
+  now, touch me if you dare!"</p>
+
+  <p>The new boy came over briskly, and made a feint to slap the
+  naked lad, who warded off the blow, sniffling, "You just leave me
+  alone. I ain't hurtin' you." The boys in the water
+  laughed&mdash;it seemed to Mealy such a cruel laugh. Anger
+  enveloped him again, and he struck out blindly through his tears,
+  hand over hand, striking the new boy in the mouth and making it
+  bleed, before he realized that the fight had begun. The new boy
+  tried to clinch Mealy, but the naked body slipped away from him;
+  and just then the combatants saw the satisfied grin freeze on the
+  faces of the boys in the water. A step crunched the gravel near
+  them, and in a moment that flashed vividly with rejoicing that
+  the fight was ended, then with abject, chattering terror, Mealy
+  Jones saw his father approaching. Mealy did not run. The uplifted
+  cane and the red, perspiring face of his father transfixed the
+  lad, yet he felt called upon to say something. His voice came
+  from a dry throat, and he spoke through an idiotic grin as he
+  said, "I didn't know you wanted me, pa."</p>
+
+  <p>After the burst of his father's anger ten awful minutes of
+  shame passed for Mealy while he was putting on his wet clothes.
+  The boys in the water swam noiselessly upstream to the roots of
+  the elm-tree, where he saw them looking at his disgrace. During
+  those ten minutes Mealy realized that his father's deepening
+  silence portended evil; so he tried to draw his father into a
+  discussion of the merits of the case by whimpering from time to
+  time, "Well, I guess they ast me to come," or "Piggy said it
+  wouldn't hurt, 'cause 't ain't in dog days," or "I wasn't in
+  where it was deep. I was only a-wadin'." The new boy, who was
+  seated upon a log near by with a stone in his hand, which he had
+  picked up fearing the elder Jones would join the fray, sniffed
+  audibly. He called to the other boys derisively, "Say, any of you
+  boys got the baby's blocks?" It did not lift the mantle of
+  humiliation that covered Mealy to hear his father reply to the
+  new boy, "That will do for you, sir." While Mealy wept he wiped
+  away his tears first with one hand and then with the other,
+  employing the free hand in fastening his clothes together. He did
+  not fear the punishment that might be in store for him. He was
+  thinking of the agony of his next meeting with Piggy Pennington.
+  Mealy fancied that Abe Carpenter, who was a quiet, philosophical
+  boy, would not tease him, but horror seized him when he thought
+  of Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>As Mealy fastened his last button, he felt his father's finger
+  under his collar, and his own feet shambling blindly over the
+  pebbles, up the path, into the bushes; he heard the boys in the
+  water laugh with the new boy, and then&mdash;stories differ. The
+  boys say that he howled lustily, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any
+  more," over and over again. Mealy Jones says that it didn't hurt
+  a bit.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/058.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/058.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He felt his father's finger under his collar and his own feet shambling." />
+    </a> <i>He felt his father's finger under his collar and his
+    own feet shambling</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>This much is certain: that Master Harold Jones walked through
+  the town that day a few feet ahead of his fathers who tapped the
+  boy's legs with a hooked cane whenever his steps lagged. At the
+  door of the Jones home Mrs. Jones stood to welcome the martial
+  procession, which she saw, and then heard, approaching some time
+  before it arrived. To his wife, whose face pictured anxious
+  grief, Mr. Jones said, as he turned the captive over to her: "I
+  found this young gentleman in swimming&mdash;swimming and
+  fighting. I have attended to his immediate wants, I believe. I
+  leave him to you."</p>
+
+  <p>Harold Jones was but a lad&mdash;a good lad whose knowledge of
+  the golden text was his Sunday-school teacher's pride. Yet he had
+  collected other scraps of useful information as he journeyed
+  through life. One of these was a perfectly practical familiarity
+  with the official road map to his mother's heart. Therefore, when
+  he crossed the threshold of the Jones home Harold began at once
+  to weep dolefully.</p>
+
+  <p>"Harold Jones, what do you mean by such conduct?" asked his
+  mother.</p>
+
+  <p>The boy stood by the window long enough to see that his father
+  had turned the corner toward the town. Then he fell on the floor,
+  and began to bewail his lot, refusing to answer the first
+  question his mother asked, but telling instead how "all the other
+  boys in this town can go swimmin' when they want to," hinting
+  that he wouldn't care, if papa had only just come and brought him
+  home, but that papa&mdash;and this was followed by a vocal
+  cataract of woe that made the dish-pans ring.</p>
+
+  <p>He noted that his mother bent over him and said, "My poor
+  boy;" at which sign little Harold punctured the levees of his
+  grief again, and said he "never was goin' to face any of the boys
+  in this town again"&mdash;he "just couldn't bear it." Mrs. Jones
+  paused in her work at this, put down a potato that she was
+  peeling, and stood up stiffly, saying in a freezing tone, "Harold
+  Jones, you don't mean to tell me that your father punished you in
+  front of those other little boys?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/064.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/064.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an arm." />
+    </a><i>Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an
+    arm.</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Her son only sobbed and nodded an affirmative, and gave lusty
+  voice to the tearful wish that he was dead. Mrs. Jones stooped to
+  the floor and took her child by an arm, lifting him to his feet.
+  She smoothed his hair and took him with her to the big chair in
+  the dining-room, where she raised his seventy pounds to her lap,
+  saying as she did so, "Mama's boy will soon be too big to hold."
+  At that the spoiled child only renewed his weeping and clutched
+  her tightly. There, little by little, he forgot the mishaps of
+  the day. There the anguish lifted from his heart, and when his
+  mother asked, "Harold, why did you go into the water when we told
+  you not to?" the child only shook his head, and, after repeated
+  questioning, his answer came,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, they asked me, mom."</p>
+
+  <p>"Who asked you?" persisted Mrs. Jones.</p>
+
+  <p>"Piggy Pennington and Jimmy Sears," returned the lad.</p>
+
+  <p>To the query, "Well, do you have to do everything they ask you
+  to, Harold?" the lad's answer was a renewal of the heart-breaking
+  sobs. These softened the mother's heart, as many and many a
+  woman's heart has been melted through all the ages. She soothed
+  the truant child and petted him, until the cramping in his throat
+  relaxed sufficiently to admit of the passage of an astonishingly
+  large slice of bread and butter and sugar. After it was disposed
+  of, Harold busied himself by assorting his old iron scraps on the
+  back porch, and his mother smiled as she fancied she heard the
+  boy trying to whistle a tune.</p>
+
+  <p>Harold had left the porch before his father came home with the
+  beefsteak for supper, and Mrs. Jones met her husband with: "Pa
+  Jones, what could you be thinking of&mdash;punishing that boy
+  before the other children? Do you want to break what little
+  spirit he has? Why, that child was nearly in hysterics for an
+  hour after you left!"</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Jones hung up his crooked cane, put a stick of wood in the
+  stove, scraped his pipe with his knife, and blew through the
+  stem.</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess he wasn't hurt much," replied the father. Then he
+  added, as he put a live coal in the pipe: "I s'pose you went an'
+  babied him an' spoiled it all." There was a puffing pause, after
+  which Mr. Jones added, "If you'd let him go more, an' didn't
+  worry your head off when he was out of sight, he'd amount to
+  more."</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs. Jones always gave her husband three moves before she
+  spoke. "Yes! yes! you'd make that boy a regular little rowdy if
+  you had your way, William Jones."</p>
+
+  <p>In the mean time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle
+  in the alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his
+  spindling legs would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They
+  were grinning broadly when he came to them. It was Piggy
+  Pennington who first spoke, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any more,"
+  repeating the phrase several times in a suppressed voice, and
+  leering impishly at Mealy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, you're makin' that up," answered Mealy in embarrassment.
+  But Piggy continued his teasing until Abe Carpenter said: "Say,
+  Mealy, we want you to go to the cave with us to-morrow; can
+  you?"</p>
+
+  <p>The "can you" was an imputation on his personal liberty that
+  Mealy resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom
+  dollar I can." Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him,
+  and the boys sat in the dirt behind the barn, chattering about
+  the new boy, whose name, according to the others, was "Bud"
+  Perkins. Mealy entered the conversation with much masculine
+  pomp&mdash;too much, in fact; for when he became particularly
+  vain-glorious some one in the group was certain to glance at his
+  shoes&mdash;and shoes in June in Boyville are insignia of the
+  weaker sex, the badges of shame.</p>
+
+  <p>But Mealy did not feel his disgrace. He walked up the ash path
+  to the kitchen with an excellent imitation of manly pride in his
+  gait. He kicked at a passing cat, and shook his head bravely,
+  talking to himself about the way he would have whipped the new
+  boy if his father had not interrupted the fight.</p>
+
+  <p>As Mrs. Jones heard the boy's step on the porch, she said to
+  his father, "Now, pa, that boy has been punished enough to-day.
+  Don't you say a word to him." Harold walked by his father with
+  averted face. At supper the boy did not look at his father, and
+  when the dishes were put away, Mr. Jones, who sat in the kitchen
+  smoking, heard his wife and the child in a front room, chatting
+  cheerily. The lonesome father smoked his pipe and recalled his
+  youth. The boy's voice brought back his own shrill treble, and he
+  coughed nervously. After Mrs. Jones had put the lad to bed, and
+  was in the pantry arranging for breakfast, the father knocked the
+  ashes from his briar into the stove, and, humming an old tune,
+  went to the boy's bedroom door. He paused awkwardly on the
+  threshold. The boy turned his face toward the wall. The action
+  cut the father to the quick. He walked to the bed and bent over
+  the child, touching a father's rough-bearded face to the soft
+  cheek. He found the soft hand&mdash;with a father's large
+  hand&mdash;under the sheet, and he held the little hand tightly
+  as he said:</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Harold"&mdash;there he paused for a second. But he
+  continued, "Do you think you'd a-licked that
+  boy&mdash;if&mdash;if&mdash;I hadn't a-come?"</p>
+
+  <p>Then the two laughed, and a little throb of joyous pain
+  tingled in their throats&mdash;such as only boys may feel.</p>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>A LITTLE DREAM-BOY</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,</p>
+
+      <p>And wake up a little man lying forlorn,</p>
+
+      <p>Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Little Boy Blue, blow a merry, sweet note,</p>
+
+      <p>Over the pool where the white lilies float,&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Fill out the sails of a little toy boat.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Blow on my dream of a little boy there,&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Blow thro' his little bark-whistle, and snare</p>
+
+      <p>Your breath in a tangle of curly brown hair.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Blow and O blow from your fairy land far,</p>
+
+      <p>Blow while my little boy wears a tin star,</p>
+
+      <p>And rides a stick-horse to a little boy's war.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Blow for the brave man my dream-boy would be,</p>
+
+      <p>Blow back his tears when he wakes up to see</p>
+
+      <p>His knight errant gone and instead&mdash;only me.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,</p>
+
+      <p>Blow for a little boy lying forlorn,</p>
+
+      <p>Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:65%;">
+    <a href="images/074.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/074.gif"
+    alt="Chapter title: A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>In a small town, every man who has been in the community long
+  enough to become thoroughly known to the townsmen has a place in
+  the human mosaic; that place seldom changes. Occasionally a man
+  is a year in finding his place. The town of Willow Creek located
+  Calhoun Perkins in two days. Wednesday he arrived in town with
+  his son, whom he called "Bud;" Thursday night it was reported
+  that he had been fishing the second time. That settled it. After
+  that the boasting of Perkins about his family in Tennessee and
+  his assertion that he expected to go into business only made the
+  men laugh when Perkins left a group of them. They were not
+  interested in Perkins by the following Saturday; and Monday every
+  man in the town felt that his judgment of a man who would go
+  fishing every day had been handsomely vindicated, when it was
+  learned that Perkins had served in the Confederate army. When
+  Perkins had been in the town three years, the anecdotes
+  illustrating his shiftlessness multiplied, and his name was a
+  synonym for that trait of character known in the vernacular as
+  "no-'count." In the third spring, after a winter's tussle with
+  rheumatism, Perkins died. His funeral was of so little importance
+  that none of the corpulent old ladies in black alpaca, holding
+  their handkerchiefs carefully folded in their hands, came panting
+  across the town to attend it. No women came at all. And the
+  Perkins boy stood by stolidly while the dry clods were rumbling
+  upon the pine box in the grave. The boy wished to be alone, and
+  he would not sit on the seat with the driver. He wiped a little
+  moisture from his eyes, and rode to town with his feet hanging
+  out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/076.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/076.gif"
+    alt=
+    "His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin." />
+    </a> <i>His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had
+    held the coffin</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>When the wagon came to the thick of the town, Bud Perkins
+  quietly slid to the ground, and joined a group of afternoon
+  idlers who were playing marbles on the south side of a livery
+  barn. Here and there in the group a boy said: "H'lo, Bud," when
+  the Perkins boy joined the coterie, but many of the youngsters,
+  being unfamiliar with the etiquette of mourning, were silent, and
+  played on at their game. When the opportunity came the Perkins
+  boy put a marble in the ring without saying a word. He went back
+  to "taws," and "lagged for goes," with the others. He spoke only
+  when he was addressed. A black sense of desolation lowered over
+  him, and he could not join in the ejaculations and responses of
+  the game. His luck was bad, and he lost marble after marble. In
+  an hour, when the sun was still in the south, he withdrew from
+  the game and sat alone against the barn, drawing figures on the
+  earth with a broken piece of hoop-iron. The boy could not fight
+  off the thought of the empty home waiting for him down by the
+  river. He saw, as he sat there, all the furniture, his father's
+  clothes hanging at the foot of the bed, the stove in disorder;
+  and then he realized that in the whole town not one hand was held
+  out to him. He was a child, yet the heartlessness of it all cut
+  him to the quick. This thought overwhelmed him, again and again,
+  each time with more agonizing force, like an increasing wave, and
+  as one flood washed over him with fiercer passion than the
+  others, the boy rose hurriedly, ran around the barn, and flung
+  himself upon a pile of hay. There he gave way to a storm of sobs.
+  One of the group, who had been watching him more closely than the
+  others, soon withdrew from the game, and going in the opposite
+  direction from that taken by Bud Perkins, came tiptoeing around
+  the haystack.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/080.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/080.gif"
+    alt="His luck was bad." /></a> <i>His luck was bad</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/084.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/084.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the barn" /></a>
+    <i>He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the
+    barn</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The paroxysm of sobs had ceased, and Bud was lying face
+  downward as if asleep. He heard the step, but pretended not to
+  hear it. He felt some one pressing the hay beside him. He knew
+  who it was, and the two boys lay upon the hay without speaking.
+  The Perkins boy turned his head away from the new-comer; but try
+  as he would, Bud could not keep from sniffling. In a few moments
+  the other boy tried to roll the Perkins boy over. It was a vain
+  attempt. Then the sobbing began anew. But it was a short attack,
+  and, at length, the other boy said: "Bu-ud?" Again he said,
+  "Bu-ud?" There came no response. "O, Bud&mdash;I got somethin' to
+  tell you!" The sniffling continued, and the other boy kept on
+  pleading. "Ah, Bud, come on; I got somethin' real good," he said.
+  Silence answered. The teasing went on: "Say, Bud, I won back all
+  your marbles." That was repeated twice. Then a hand went over
+  toward the other boy. He filled it with marbles, and it went
+  back. Another silence was followed by a rustle of hay, and a
+  dirty face turned over, and a voice said through a pathetic,
+  apologetic smile: "This old nicked glassey ain't mine." The two
+  heads nestled together, and four eyes gazed at the blue sky and
+  the white clouds for a long time. It was the Perkins boy who
+  spoke: "Say, Piggy, I bet you'd cry, too, if you was me."</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy wormed his arm under the hay around the Perkins boy's
+  neck, as he asked, "What you goin' to do to-night, Bud?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I dunno. Why?" replied Bud.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, I'm comin' out to stay all night. They're goin' to have
+  a party at our house, and ma said I could."</p>
+
+  <p>Bud drew himself up slowly; then threw himself with a quick
+  spring on top of Piggy, and the two began to wrestle like kittens
+  in the hay.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/088.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/088.gif"
+    alt="As she turned to her turkey-slicing" /></a> <i>As she
+    turned to her turkey-slicing</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Even while Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins were sitting at
+  dusk on the back-porch steps of the Pennington house, eating
+  turkey-wings which Mrs. Pennington had given to them, and
+  devouring ham sandwiches which Piggy had taken from the big
+  platterful in the pantry, looking the hired girl boldly in the
+  face as he did it, even then the preparations for the Pennington
+  entertainment were progressing indoors. The parlor, the
+  sitting-room, and the dining-room, which had been decorated
+  during the warm afternoon with borrowed palms and with roses from
+  the neighbor's vines, were being ventilated. Windows were rising,
+  and doors opening. The velvety air of May was fluttering
+  everywhere. And there was so much life in it, that when Mrs.
+  Pennington saw the two boys pass out of the alley gate, she saw
+  the Perkins boy grab her son's hat and run away whooping, while
+  Piggy followed, throwing clods at his companion's legs and feet.
+  She thought, as she turned to her turkey-slicing, that the
+  Perkins child was not taking his father's death "very hard." But
+  she did not know that the boyish whoop was the only thing that
+  saved him from sobbing, as he left the home where he saw such a
+  contrast to his own. How could a woman carrying the
+  responsibilities of the social honor of the Methodist church in
+  Willow Creek have time to use her second sight?</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/092.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/092.gif"
+    alt="The new preacher, for whom the party was made" /></a>
+    <i>The new preacher, for whom the party was made</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The guests at the Pennington house that evening divided the
+  honors equally between the new preacher, for whom the party was
+  made, and Miss Morgan, whose last niece had married and left her
+  but two days before. Most of the guests had met the new preacher;
+  but none of them&mdash;save one or two of her intimate
+  friends&mdash;could know how the lonely little old woman was
+  faring in the cottage whence one by one her adopted birds had
+  flown. They called her "little Miss Morgan" in the town, and the
+  story of her life of devotion to her brothers' and sisters'
+  children was familiar to every one about her. For ten years she
+  had lived in Willow Creek caring for her brothers' orphans. She
+  came to the community from the East, and found what she
+  brought&mdash;culture, friends, and kindness at every turn. The
+  children whom she had cared for had grown up, filed through the
+  town's real estate college, and then mating had left the little
+  spinster alone.</p>
+
+  <p>At the Penningtons' that evening she was cheerful
+  enough&mdash;so cheerful, indeed, in her little bird-like way,
+  that many of those who talked with her fancied that the
+  resourceful little body was beyond the reach of petty grief. The
+  modest, almost girlish smile beamed through the wrinkles of fifty
+  autumns as brightly that evening at the Penningtons' as the town
+  had ever seen it. From her place in a high-backed chair in the
+  corner, Miss Morgan, in her shy, self-deprecatory way, shed her
+  faint benediction about her as she had done for a decade. There
+  was a sweetness in Miss Morgan's manner that made the old men
+  gallant to her in a boyish way; and the wives, who loved her,
+  were proud of their husbands' chivalry. During the evening at the
+  Penningtons' the conversation found much of its inspiration in
+  the Memorial Day services on the morrow and in anecdotes about
+  the thriftlessness of Calhoun Perkins. Memorial Day was one of
+  the holidays which Miss Morgan kept in her heart. Then she
+  decorated each year a lover's grave&mdash;a grave she had never
+  seen. The day had been sacred in her heart to the memory of a
+  spring night, and the moon and the lilacs and the blue uniform of
+  a soldier. Upon other days she waved this memory away with a gay
+  little sigh, and would have none of it. But on Memorial Day she
+  bade the vision come into her heart and bide a while.</p>
+
+  <p>But she did not open the door there at the party. They said to
+  one another, going home that night: "Well, I don't see's she
+  minds it a bit. Isn't that pluck for you&mdash;not lonesome, not
+  grumpy&mdash;just the same little body she was when we first saw
+  her. Well&mdash;I know one thing&mdash;I couldn't do it."</p>
+
+  <p>As for Miss Morgan, while she was walking home that night, she
+  was thinking of the women of her age whom she had just left; the
+  romance seemed to be gone completely from their lives, their
+  faces seemed a trifle hard to her, and she was wondering if life
+  would have gone so with her if there had been no Shiloh.</p>
+
+  <p>The town clock in the schoolhouse was tolling eleven, as Miss
+  Morgan turned the key in the front door. The night was starry and
+  inviting, and as her house stood among the trees, somewhat back
+  from the street, Miss Morgan did not feel afraid to sit in a
+  porch chair, refreshing herself, before going indoors. The wind
+  brought the odor of the lilacs from the bush at the house corner,
+  and the woman sat drinking in the fragrance. She saw a pair of
+  lovers strolling by, who did not observe her. She could hear the
+  murmur of their voices; she did not try to catch their words. She
+  sat silently dreaming and wondering. Again and again her eyes
+  went to the stars in a vain questioning, and her lips moved.
+  Maybe she was asking "where," maybe she was asking "why." As the
+  moments slipped by, the years fell away from her. She had carried
+  her little romance in her heart unsullied by reality. To-night
+  the talk of Memorial Day had brought it all back, and the thrill
+  of other days returned with the odor of the lilacs. She yielded
+  to a vague, crazy notion, and in an impulsive, girlish run she
+  went to the corner of the porch and broke a sprig from the
+  lilac-tree.</p>
+
+  <p>Then with a short sigh, that had just the hint of a smile in
+  it, she took the lilac sprig into the house. Perhaps she fancied
+  that no one would see the flowers but she. Maybe the oppressive
+  stillness of the empty house burdened her. Certainly something
+  was heavy upon her, for there was no smile in the sigh that came
+  deeply from her heart, as she locked the door. It must have
+  seemed lonely for Miss Morgan, coming from the crowded parlor,
+  and the questions that her friends asked about her plans may have
+  followed her. Perhaps it was the answer to these questions that
+  kept her awake. She sat by her window and went over and over
+  again the question, what should she do. The wedding that had so
+  recently livened the cottage kept coming to the little old
+  woman's mind, and with it came the bride. When the other children
+  had gone away, Miss Morgan let them go with her blessing, and was
+  glad of their good fortunes. But this last child to go had been
+  Miss Morgan's pet. As the lonely spinster sat there she recalled
+  how the child had been moulded by her; how she had fancied the
+  child's heart was hers, cherishing in it the ideals, the
+  sentiment, the tendernesses that the older heart had held sacred
+  for a lifetime. Miss Morgan recalled how she and the girl had
+  mingled their tears over the first long dress that their hands
+  made, knowing, each of them, that it meant the coming of the
+  parting. As she looked into the awful vistas of the stars, the
+  woman knew that she was one of God's creatures, all
+  alone&mdash;without one soul that she might even signal to.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/100.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/100.gif"
+    alt="The first long dress." /></a> <i>The first long dress</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The word "alone" came to her so strangely that she repeated it
+  in a whisper. Its sound touched some string within her bosom, and
+  she put her head upon the open window sill and wept, sobbing the
+  word "alone" until sleep soothed her.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/104.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/104.gif"
+    alt="Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still." /></a>
+    "<i>Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The morning sunlight helped Miss Morgan to put aside the
+  problems of the night; she hummed an old war tune as she went
+  about her work, but it did not lift the silence from the house.
+  The rooms that a few days before had been vocal with life, were
+  so dead that the clock ticking in the parlor might be heard in
+  the kitchen. The canary's cheerful song echoed shrilly through
+  the silent place. Miss Morgan said to him, "Dickey, Dickey, for
+  gracious sake, keep still&mdash;you'll drive me wild." But her
+  voice only increased the bird's vehemence, and the throbbing in
+  her ears brought on a headache. When she put a paper over the
+  cage, the clock annoyed her. She was irritated by a passing boy
+  whistling "The Girl I Left Behind Me" with all his might, but
+  sadly off the key. She went to the window and saw Bud
+  Perkins.</p>
+
+  <p>She did not know that the child had just arisen from a
+  cheering breakfast at the Penningtons'&mdash;even if she knew how
+  much a hearty breakfast cheers up any boy. But the spectacle of
+  the orphan facing the world so bravely moved Miss Morgan. She
+  felt a sudden wave of pity, and with it came the conviction of
+  guilt&mdash;that she had been selfish while the boy was
+  suffering. She had heard at the Penningtons' that the county
+  would probably take charge of him; but she recalled what she had
+  heard in its full meaning to the child only when she saw him turn
+  the corner, going toward the centre of the town. There was a
+  feeling of keen joy in her heart as she realized that she was not
+  useless in the world, and she went about her morning's work with
+  the lightest heart in all Willow Creek beating in her breast.</p>
+
+  <p>Bud Perkins had seen but two Memorial Days in Kansas&mdash;and
+  upon each of these days he and his father had gone fishing. The
+  boy knew it was a soldiers' holiday, and from Piggy Pennington
+  Bud had found out what were the purposes of the day. He knew that
+  his father had been a soldier&mdash;a soldier on the wrong side.
+  But he did not know that graves of Confederate soldiers were not
+  included in the day's sacrament.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mornin', Captain," said Bud to a slight, gray-haired old man,
+  stooping over a basket of flowers in a vacant store-room in the
+  main street of the town.</p>
+
+  <p>When the man replied kindly the boy took heart to say: "You
+  must be kind o' runnin' things here, I guess."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/108.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/108.gif"
+    alt="Did you know my dad was a soldier?" /></a> "<i>Did you
+    know my dad was a soldier</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"I'm in charge of the flowers, Bud, just for to-day," replied
+  Captain Meyers, who did not wish to seem as vain-glorious as he
+  was.</p>
+
+  <p>"Goin' to put flowers on all the soldiers' graves&mdash;are
+  you?" queried Bud. The elder replied that the Post aimed to do
+  so.</p>
+
+  <p>"Did you know my dad was a soldier?" was the boy's next
+  question.</p>
+
+  <p>The captain's heart was pricked when he saw what was in Bud's
+  mind. The captain knew what the next query would be. He was a
+  gentle man and kind. So, looking about to see if any comrades of
+  a sterner sect than he were in hearing before replying, he said:
+  "You mustn't feel bad now, Buddie, but it's only them on the
+  Union side&mdash;whose graves we decorate to-day. I wouldn't
+  mind, if I was you." Captain Meyers was not a diplomat, and he
+  said the words poorly.</p>
+
+  <p>In an instant the boy's eyes filled with tears. They dried in
+  anger before they reached his flushed cheek. He clinched his
+  hands, turned, and walked hotly out of the room. In the door he
+  paused, whirled around, and cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Yank! Yank! Rick-stick-stank!</p>
+
+      <p>High ball, low ball, dirty-faced Yank!"</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Then he ran wildly down the street to escape the infuriated
+  mob which he believed would pursue him. The knowledge that he was
+  cut off from the day's festivities made him wince with pain as he
+  ran. Not until he came out upon the road across the prairie did
+  he stop&mdash;breathless, worn out, crying. During the next two
+  hours the boy wandered on the prairie and in the woods gathering
+  wild flowers. By the time the exercises in the Willow Creek opera
+  house were finished and the procession was formed, Bud Perkins
+  had a heaping armful of field blossoms. He was coming over the
+  hill to the cemetery when he heard the band strike up the "Dead
+  March" down in the village. His impulse was to run away. He
+  checked himself and walked across the place, past the shafts and
+  monuments, toward his father's grave under the hill furthest from
+  the town. In the middle of the cemetery the boy stopped. His eyes
+  were caught by a marble lamb over a child's grave. The
+  inscription he read was "Mary Pennington, aged two years, three
+  months, and ten days." The date line upon the stone, told of a
+  year that had passed before the Perkins boy was born. He gazed at
+  it a moment, and put there a handful of his choicest flowers.
+  Looking up he saw some early visitor to the silent place stepping
+  from behind a monument. Bud had scattered his flowers before he
+  saw that he was being watched; so he pretended to hunt for stones
+  to throw. He gathered several, and peppered them at shafts and at
+  birds.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/112.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/112.gif"
+    alt=
+    "During the next two hours the boy wandered on the prairie." /></a>
+    <i>During the next two hours the boy wandered on the
+    prairie</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/116.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/116.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten days." />
+    </a> "<i>Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten
+    days</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Bud Perkins walked to the freshly-made mound where his father
+  lay, and scattered his posies over it. The village "cornet band"
+  was coming nearer and nearer to the hill. The boy curbed a
+  temptation to leave. He walked lazily about the grave until the
+  Memorial Day procession had entered the big iron gate a hundred
+  yards away. Calhoun Perkins's grave could not be seen from the
+  plot where the townspeople had gathered. The boy sat down with
+  his back to the crowd. He did not know how near the people were
+  to him. He felt that they were staring down, perhaps laughing, at
+  him. So he tried to assume a careless air. He picked up clods and
+  tossed them at adjacent objects. Tiring of this, he chewed the
+  grass stems, and sucked the nectar from the corolla of wild
+  honeysuckles. But this did not keep the lump out of his throat,
+  and it did not subdue the turmoil of sorrow in his heart at the
+  thought that his father was scorned in the town. Once his small
+  frame shook with a strangled sob, but immediately afterward he
+  threw an unusually big clod at a post near by. He had been
+  hearing voices and footsteps on the brow of the hill for several
+  minutes. Occasionally he picked out a familiar voice, and once he
+  heard Mealy Jones call his name. He did not answer, but a woman
+  standing a little further up the hill asked Mealy, "Who is it,
+  Harold?" "Bud," said the youngster.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bud who?" asked the woman's voice.</p>
+
+  <p>The Perkins boy heard the dialogue. He was sitting down,
+  throwing clods into the air, and catching them as they fell, and
+  this appeared to be an engrossing task.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bud Perkins. He's settin' down by his pa's grave," replied
+  the boy on the hill. The child by the fresh mound pictured
+  himself as the other boy saw him, and his eyes brimmed over with
+  tears. He seemed so desolate.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why don't you go to him?" insisted the woman, coming
+  nearer.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, Miss Morgan," said the boy whom she addressed, lowering
+  his voice, but not lowering it sufficiently, "Miss Morgan,
+  <i>you</i> don't know <i>him</i>"</p>
+
+  <p>Just then Bud was startled by a footstep at his side. He
+  looked up and saw Piggy Pennington, who had a big bunch of roses
+  in his hands, and who, seeing the stained face of his friend,
+  said in embarrassed confusion: "Ma sent 'em." Piggy put the roses
+  by the new pine head-board, and lay down&mdash;lying across his
+  companion's feet.</p>
+
+  <p>"Get off me," said Bud, when he had treated himself to a long,
+  trembling sniff, after a painful silence. "I ain't no
+  sidewalk."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/120.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/120.gif"
+    alt="Piggy went to get his flying hat." /></a> <i>Piggy went to
+    get his flying hat</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>When Piggy went to get his flying hat, he said under his
+  breath to Bud, "Wipe your face, quick; some one's comin'." Then
+  he stood awkwardly at Bud's back and shielded him. Piggy spoke
+  first to the little woman, now only a few paces away.</p>
+
+  <p>"H'lo, Miss Morgan; lookin' for old Tom? He's buried off to
+  the right yonder."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, my dear. I want to speak to Henry Perkins," replied the
+  woman, beaming the kindest of smiles into the guardsman's face.
+  He stepped from the line between Miss Morgan and the Perkins boy,
+  not sure that the intruder would find a welcome. Bud was glaring
+  steadfastly at the earth, between his hands and knees. Piggy
+  said, "Bu-ud?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Whut," was the response.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Morgan wants to talk with you," replied Piggy.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's she want?" inquired the Perkins boy, with his head
+  still between his knees.</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan had been coming nearer and nearer to him as the
+  dialogue had progressed. She was standing in front of Bud when he
+  added, "I ain't done nothin'."</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/124.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/124.gif"
+    alt="She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him." /></a>
+    <i>She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan bent down and touched his head with her hands.
+  Piggy was shaking his head warningly at her with much
+  earnestness. He feared that such a feminine proceeding would
+  anger his comrade. When Miss Morgan sat upon the ground beside
+  Bud and took one of his hands, stroking it without the boy's
+  resisting, Piggy Pennington was dumb with wonder. He could not
+  hear the gentle breaking of the agonizing lump in the child's
+  throat. Even little Miss Morgan could not see the tears that had
+  burst over the brims of the orphan's eyes. His face was averted.
+  She stroked his hand, and snuggled closer to him. Then she heard
+  a faint whimper, and her heart could stand the strain no longer;
+  she leaned upon the child's shoulder, and mourned with him. The
+  Pennington boy did not comprehend it all; but as he looked
+  politely away from his friends, he felt the moisture in his eyes.
+  He wiped it away quickly, glancing to see if his weakness had
+  been detected. The woman recovered in a few moments, and arose
+  with the boy's hand gripping hers warmly. He had felt her tears
+  through his thin clothing, and was conquered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come on, Henry; we're going now," said Miss Morgan, and drew
+  the lad up with her hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"Whur to?" asked Bud, who knew the answer instinctively.</p>
+
+  <p>"Home," replied the little woman, who knew that the boy knew,
+  and who was sure that he had consented. "Our home&mdash;yours and
+  mine."</p>
+
+  <p>The boy arose, still holding her hand, and looked toward the
+  grave with the flowers strewn over it. He gripped her hand
+  tightly&mdash;so tightly that it pained her&mdash;and sobbed, as
+  he faced away from her: "O pop!"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/128.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/128.gif"
+    alt="Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds" /></a> <i>Miss
+    Morgan smiled happily at the clouds</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Then they walked on in silence, till they came up with Piggy,
+  who had gone a few steps ahead. It was Bud who spoke first. He
+  said: "You don't live far from Piggy's, do you, Miss Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <p>And Piggy Pennington pointed his finger at Bud's dripping eyes
+  and grinned, while Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds.</p>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p><br clear="right" />
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME
+  NOT"</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>THE RHYME OF MIGNONETTE</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>When dandelions fleck the green,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And plum-blooms scent the evening breeze,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And robin's songs throb through the trees;</p>
+
+      <p>And when the year is raw thirteen,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And Spring's a gawky hoyden yet,</p>
+
+      <p>The season mirrors in its mien</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And in its tom-boy etiquette,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Maid Mignonette, my Mignonette.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>When bare-feet lisp along the path,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And boys and jays go whistling by,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">And girls and thrushes coyly cry</p>
+
+      <p>Their fine joys through the aftermath&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Then laid ghosts know their amulet</p>
+
+      <p>Which fickle siren mem'ry hath;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">So laughing comes that sad coquette,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Comes Mignonette,&mdash;my Mignonette.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>The wild rose is a conjurer,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">It charms the heavy years away,</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">Unshoes my feet and bids them stray</p>
+
+      <p>O'er playgrounds where our temples were.</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">To some pale star I owe a debt</p>
+
+      <p>For harboring the soul of her</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">With whom I learned love's alphabet&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">With Mignonette, my Mignonette.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p><b>"While the Evil Days come not"</b></p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>We duck through the court, reminded a</p>
+
+      <p>bit by our feelings of our first love, who hadn't</p>
+
+      <p>the cleanest of faces, or the nicest of manners;</p>
+
+      <p>but she takes her station in our memory because</p>
+
+      <p>we were boys then, and the golden halo</p>
+
+      <p>of youth is upon her.&mdash;<i>George Meredith</i>.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>What little things turn great events! Tragedies swing on such
+  inconsequential hinges. It is so exasperating to look back over
+  the path of a calamity and see how easily it might have been
+  averted! If one man in the little town of Lawrence a generation
+  ago had eaten two pieces of pie-plant pie instead of three for
+  supper, the night of a certain party caucus, he would have
+  attended that caucus and another set of delegates would have gone
+  to the County convention, another would have been sent to the
+  State Convention, another Governor of Kansas would have been
+  nominated and elected, and he would have chosen another United
+  States Senator, who would have voted for, instead of against, the
+  impeachment of a President of the United States, and the history
+  of the civilized world would have been an entirely different
+  affair from the one now in use. Similarly, if Winfield Hancock
+  Pennington, of the town of Boyville, had slipped his shoes off in
+  the second block from his home, instead of slipping them off in
+  the first block, on his way to school, a great shadow that
+  settled over his life might have been lifted. For if he had not
+  been sitting exactly where he sat on the curbing of the street,
+  on that bright, beautiful Monday morning in September, removing
+  his shoes and stockings, he would have found no garter snake to
+  kill; and not having killed the snake, he could not have brought
+  it to school on a stick; and not having brought it to school on a
+  stick, he could not have chased the little girls around the yard
+  with it before the teacher came. And if he had not been doing
+  that, he would not have conceived the chivalrous notion that he
+  might gain the esteem of his Heart's Desire by frightening her
+  with a snake. And if Winfield Hancock Pennington had not made his
+  Heart's Desire angry&mdash;without giving her a chance to cool
+  off&mdash;she would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing
+  with her during the opening hour. But probably all that happened
+  had to happen in the course of things; so speculation is idle.
+  But when it did happen, it seemed to be a hopeless case. Young
+  Mr. Pennington had lived through the day, a week before, when the
+  teacher changed his seat so that he could not see his Heart's
+  Desire smile; but he knew that she was sorry with him, and that
+  helped a little. But when he saw Harold Jones singing from the
+  same book with his Heart's Desire, he tried in vain to catch the
+  fragment of a smile from her. Instead of a smile, he found her
+  threatening to make a face if he persisted. Piggy seemed to be
+  buried in an avalanche of woe. Then it was that he saw what a
+  small thing had started the avalanche of calamity thundering down
+  upon him, and he smarted with remorse. In his anguish he tried to
+  sing alto, and made a peculiar rasping sound that tore a reproof
+  for him off the teacher's nerves.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/136.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/136.gif"
+    alt="Chased the little girls around the yard with it" /></a>
+    <i>Chased the little girls around the yard with it</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/140.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/140.gif"
+    alt=
+    "She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her during the opening hour." />
+    </a> <i>She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing
+    with her during the opening hour</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>From the hour of the Jones boy's triumph, he and Winfield
+  Hancock Pennington&mdash;familiarly known as "Piggy"&mdash;became
+  boon companions. A grown-up outsider might have wondered at such
+  a friendship, for Harold Jones was a pale, thin youth, with a
+  squeaky voice. His skimmed-milk eyes popped out over a waste of
+  freckles which blurred his features and literally weighted down a
+  weak, loosely-wired jaw and kept an astonished mouth opened for
+  hours at a time. Piggy, on the other hand, was a sturdy, chunky,
+  blue-eyed boy, who had fought his way up to glory in the school,
+  and who had run and jumped, and tumbled and dived, and bantered
+  himself into the right to be King of Boyville. Chummery between
+  the two boys seemed impossible, yet it was one of the things
+  which every school expects in a certain crisis. When the affair
+  is reversed, the two little girls go about breathing undying
+  hatred for one another. But a boy begins to consume his rival
+  with politeness, to seek him out from all other beings on earth,
+  to study his tastes and cater to his humors. And so, while the
+  comradeship between Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones was built on
+  ashes, its growth was beautiful to see.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/144.gif"><img width="7%" src="images/144.gif"
+    alt="Harold Jones" /></a> <i>Harold Jones</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/148.gif"><img width="15%" src="images/148.gif"
+    alt="To study his tastes" /></a> <i>To study his tastes</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/152.gif"><img width="25%" src="images/152.gif"
+    alt="... the comradeship ... was beautiful to see" /></a> ...
+    <i>the comradeship ... was beautiful to see</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/156.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/156.gif"
+    alt="The red-headed Pratt girl." /></a> <i>The red-headed Pratt
+    girl</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>In all their hours of close communion neither boy mentioned to
+  the other the name of the little girl in the red shawl and the
+  paint-brush pig-tails whose fitful fancy had brought on all his
+  trouble. In some mysterious way each managed to shower her with
+  picture cards, to compass her about with oranges, to embower her
+  desk with flowers; but it was all done in stealth, and she who
+  was the object of this devotion rewarded it openly and&mdash;alas
+  for the vanity of her sex&mdash;impartially. All the school
+  watched the battle of the hearts eagerly. The big boys, who
+  usually know as little about the social transactions beneath them
+  as the teacher knows, felt an inkling of the situation. The
+  red-headed Pratt girl became deeply interested in the affair,
+  though she was never invited to a party in the school's
+  aristocracy. She did not even get an invitation to Bud Perkins's
+  surprise party, where every one who had any social standing was
+  expected. Yet she saw all that went on in the school, and once
+  she all but smiled sympathetically at Piggy, when she met him
+  slipping away from his Heart's Desire's desk, in which he had
+  left a flock of Cupids nestling on a perfumed blotter, and a
+  candy sheep. Mealy Jones would have snubbed the Pratt girl if she
+  had caught him thus, but Piggy gave her a wink that made her his
+  partner. After that hour the Pratt girl became his scout. The
+  next day she blundered. That Friday was burned into Piggy
+  Pennington's memory with a glowing brand.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:23%;">
+    <a href="images/160.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/160.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way andlisten to his Heart's Desire" />
+    </a> <i>He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and
+    listen to his Heart's Desire</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The trouble occurred in this way: On the Friday following
+  Piggy's black Monday, the King of Boyville, decided to resort to
+  an heroic measure. In his meditative moments Piggy had made up
+  speeches addressed to his Heart's Desire wherein he had proposed
+  reconciliation at any sacrifice save that of honor. Twice during
+  those four days he had stood by his Heart's Desire during recess,
+  while they had looked out at the play-ground. But the words next
+  to his heart had sputtered and bubbled into nothing on his lips.
+  He could only snap chalk at the young gentlemen in the yard below
+  him, in a preoccupied way, and listen to his Heart's Desire
+  rattle on about the whims of her fractions and the caprices of
+  her spelling-lesson. Friday noon, Winfield Hancock Pennington
+  took a header into the Rubicon. In the deserted school-room, just
+  after the other youngsters had gone to dinner or to play, Piggy,
+  with much wiggling of his toes, with much hard breathing, and
+  with many facial contortions, wrote a note. He gave it to the
+  Pratt girl to deliver. When the first bell was ringing that noon,
+  Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing
+  piles at "crack the whip." During the fifteen minutes that
+  followed, he was charging up and down the yard, howling like a
+  Comanche, at "pull-away." But run as he would, yell as he would,
+  and wrestle as he would, Piggy could not escape the picture that
+  rose in his mind of a boy wearing his features and using his
+  body, writing the note that he had written. When dismembered
+  words and phrases from that note came to his mind on the
+  play-ground, the quaver of terror that rose in Piggy's whoop was
+  not dissembled. Sometimes fear froze his vitals, then a flush of
+  self-abasement burned him with its flames. And all the time he
+  knew that the Pratt girl had that note. He almost hoped that an
+  earthquake would swallow her with it before she could deliver it.
+  When Piggy came straggling in, hot, sweaty, and puffing, just as
+  the teacher was tapping the tardy-bell, a wave of peace swept
+  over him. His Heart's Desire was not at her desk. He knew that he
+  had still a few moments' reprieve.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/164.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/164.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing piles" />
+    </a> <i>Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling,
+    squealing piles</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>They were singing when his Heart's Desire came in. Piggy's
+  head was tilted back to give his voice full volume as he shouted,
+  "All his jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own." His
+  eyes were half closed in an ecstasy, and he did not turn his face
+  toward the paint-brush pig-tails, nor give any sign that he knew
+  of their owner's presence. Yet when she passed his desk, his
+  voice did not quaver, nor his eyes blink, nor his countenance
+  redden, as his foot darted out for her to trip over. She tripped
+  purposely, thereby accepting affection's tribute, and he was
+  glad.</p>
+
+  <p>To elaborate the tale of how the Pratt girl blundered with
+  Piggy Pennington's note would be depressing. For it holds in its
+  barbed meshes a record of one agonizing second in which Piggy saw
+  the folded paper begin to slip and slide down the incline of his
+  Heart's Desire's desk, whereon the Pratt girl had dropped it; saw
+  the two girls grab for it; heard it crash from the seat to the
+  floor with what seemed to him a deafening roar. Nor is this all
+  that the harrowing tale might disclose. It might dilate upon the
+  horror that wrenched Piggy's spine as he watched the teacher's
+  finger crook a signal for the note to be brought forward. It
+  would be manifestly cruel and clearly unnecessary to describe the
+  forces which impelled the psychic wave of suggestion that
+  inundated the school&mdash;even to the youth of the "B" class,
+  with his head under the desk, looking for a pencil&mdash;and gave
+  every demon there gleeful knowledge that the teacher had nabbed a
+  note and would probably read it aloud. It is enough to submit the
+  plain, but painful, statement that, when the teacher tapped her
+  pencil for attention, a red ear, a throbbing red ear, flared out
+  from either side of Piggy Pennington's Fourth Reader, while not
+  far away a pair of pig-tails bristled up with rage and
+  humiliation from a desk where a little girl's head lay buried in
+  her arms. Then the teacher unfolded the crackling paper and read
+  this note:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>FRIEND MARY.&mdash;Did you mean anything</p>
+
+      <p>by letting Him sing with you. I</p>
+
+      <p>dont care if you did but I never don</p>
+
+      <p>anything to deserve it, but if you dident</p>
+
+      <p>I am very sorry, will tell you bout it at</p>
+
+      <p>the partey. Well that is all I can think</p>
+
+      <p>of today, from</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Yourse Ever,</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>WIN PENNINGTON.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>P.S. If you still meen what you sed</p>
+
+      <p>about roses red and vilets blue all right</p>
+
+      <p>and so do I. WHP.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/168.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/168.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be brought forward" />
+    </a> <i>He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the
+    note to be brought forward</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Piggy waded home through blood that night. The boys could not
+  resist calling out "Friend Mary" or "Hello, Roses Red," though
+  each boy knew that his taunt would bring on a fight. Piggy fought
+  boys who were three classes above him. He whipped groups of boys
+  of assorted sizes from the lower grades; but the fighting took
+  him away from his trouble, and in most cases he honored his
+  combatants. He was little the worse for wear when he chased the
+  last swarm of primary urchins into his father's cow lot, fastened
+  them in, and went at them one by one with a shingle. A child
+  living next door to the Penningtons had brought the news of
+  Piggy's disgrace to the neighborhood, and by supper-time Mrs.
+  Pennington knew the worst. While the son and heir of the house
+  was bringing in his wood and doing his chores about the barn, he
+  felt something in the air about the kitchen which warned him that
+  new tortures awaited him.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/172.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/172.gif"
+    alt=
+    "... fought boys who were three classes above him ... whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes." />
+    </a> ... <i>fought boys who were three classes above him
+    ... whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>A boy would rather take a dozen whippings at school than have
+  the story of one of them come home; and Piggy thought with inward
+  trembling that he would rather report even a whipping at home
+  than face his mother in the dishonor which covered him. At supper
+  Mrs. Pennington repeated the legend of the note with great
+  solemnity. When her husband showed signs of laughing, she glared
+  at him. Her son ate rapidly in silence. Over his mother's
+  shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle. The only reply that
+  Mrs. Pennington could get to her questions was, "Aw, that ain't
+  nothin'," or "Aw, gee whiz, ma, you must think that's somethin'."
+  But she proclaimed, in the presence of the father, the son, and
+  the hired girl, that if she ever caught a boy of hers getting
+  "girl-struck" she would "show him," which, being translated,
+  means much that no dignified young gentleman likes to
+  contemplate. But when the son was out of hearing, Mrs. Pennington
+  told her husband, in the repressed tone which she used when
+  expressing her diplomatic communications, that he would have "to
+  take that boy in hand." Whereupon the father leaned back in his
+  chair and laughed, laughed until he grew red in the face, laughed
+  till the pans in the kitchen rattled, laughed&mdash;to use the
+  words of his wife in closing the incident&mdash;"like a natural
+  born simpleton."</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:27%;">
+    <a href="images/180.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/180.gif"
+    alt="Her son ate rapidly in silence." /></a> <i>Her son ate
+    rapidly in silence</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/176.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/176.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle." />
+    </a> <i>Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl
+    giggle</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Alas for Piggy Pennington&mdash;he might affect great pride in
+  his amours when the hired girl teased him; he might put on a
+  brave face and even lure himself into the belief that this arch
+  tormentor saw him only as a gay deceiver; but when the lights
+  were out, Piggy covered his head with the bedclothes, and grew
+  hot and cold by turns, till sleep came and bore him away from his
+  humiliation.</p>
+
+  <p>All day Saturday, before the Bud Perkins' surprise party,
+  Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones were inseparable. And Piggy, who
+  was King of Boyville, came down from his throne and walked humbly
+  beside Mealy, the least of all his courtiers. In fact, since the
+  reading of his note Piggy had become needlessly deferential and
+  considerate of the feelings of his rival.</p>
+
+  <p>If the two entered a crowd and played "foot and a half" or
+  "slap and a kick" or "leap-frog," and if Mealy was "it"&mdash;and
+  poor Mealy was generally "it" in any game&mdash;Piggy did not
+  jump viciously on Mealy's wobbly back, nor did he slap hard, nor
+  kick hard, as he would have slapped and kicked on other days,
+  before he descended from his throne to dwell with the beasts of
+  the field on that fatal Friday. Pride kept Mealy on the rack.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/184.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/184.gif"
+    alt=
+    "His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of it to the mothers of other boys." />
+    </a> <i>His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of
+    it to the mothers of other boys</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Time and again his little, freckled, milky face hit the moist
+  springy ground as Bud or Abe or Jim bumped into him at their
+  play. He was glad when the day ended and he could go home. For
+  Mealy Jones abhorred the dirt that begrimed his face and soiled
+  his white starched collar. He liked to play in lukewarm water, to
+  slosh in the suds, and to rub his soft little hands whiter and
+  whiter in the foam. His cleanliness pleased his mother, and she
+  boasted of it to the mothers of other boys&mdash;mothers of boys
+  with high-water marks just above their shirt collars; of boys who
+  had to be yanked back to the roller-towel after washing to have
+  their ears rubbed; of bad, bad, bad boys who washed their feet in
+  the dew of the grass at night and told their mothers that they
+  had washed them in the tub at the pump; of wicked and sinful boys
+  who killed toads and cried noisily when their warts bled in the
+  hot water; in fact, to the mothers of nearly all the boys in
+  Boyville. And thus it came about that Boyville having Mealy Jones
+  set before it as a model child, contracted a cordial hate for
+  him, and rose against him when he presumed to contest with Piggy
+  for his Heart's Desire. Yet all Boyville loved a fight, and all
+  Boyville goaded the King to wrath, teased him, bantered him, and
+  even pretended to doubt his worth. Therefore, when Piggy
+  Pennington, the King of Boyville, dressed for the party that
+  night in his Sunday clothes and his Sunday shoes and limped down
+  the sidewalk to the Jones's, where the boys and girls were to
+  meet before descending upon Bud Perkins, there was rancor in the
+  royal heart and maternal hair-oil on the royal head. But a
+  strange throb of glad pain in the pit of the royal stomach came
+  at the thought of the two bright eyes that would soon meet his
+  own. The eyes made him forget his blistering shoes, and a smile
+  at the door divested his mind of the serrated collar upon which
+  his head had been pivoting for five distracted minutes. The last
+  thing of all to go was his pride in the hair-oil, but it fell
+  before a voice that said: "Well, you got here, did you?"</p>
+
+  <p>That was all. But it was enough to make Piggy Pennington feel
+  the core of a music-box turning inside him, while outside the
+  company saw the King of Boyville transformed into a very red and
+  very sweaty youth holding madly to the back of his cuffs and
+  chuckling deliriously. In a daze he took off his hat, and put a
+  sack of oranges, his part in the evening's refreshment, on a
+  table in the next room. When he regained consciousness, Piggy
+  noticed that Mealy Jones, who had pranced into the room with much
+  unction, was sitting next to his Heart's Desire. The children
+  were making merry chatter. Piggy took his place on the end of a
+  lounge, and turning his back to the guilty pair, gave an "injin"
+  pinch to Jimmy Sears, with orders to "pass it on."</p>
+
+  <p>Indeed, so unconcerned was Piggy in the progress of the affair
+  behind him that he began to shove the line of the boys on the
+  lounge; the shoving grew into a scuffle, and the scuffle into a
+  wrestle, which ended on the front porch. At length Piggy stalked
+  through the room where the girls were sitting, saying, when he
+  returned with his oranges and his hat: "Come on, fellers,
+  everybody's here."</p>
+
+  <p>The boys on the porch followed Piggy's example, and in a
+  minute or two they stood huddled at the gate calling at the girls
+  in the house to hurry. When the girls were on the porch, the boys
+  struck out, and the two groups, a respectful distance apart,
+  walked through the town. Mealy Jones was enjoying the triumph of
+  his life, walking proudly between the noisy boys and giggling
+  girls, beside&mdash;but why linger over the details of this
+  instance of man's duplicity and woman's worse than weakness!</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/188.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/188.gif"
+    alt="A little maid in a black-and-red check." /></a> <i>A
+    little maid in a black-and-red check</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The young blades of the Court of Boyville waited politely at
+  the gate before the house where Bud Perkins lived with Miss
+  Morgan, his foster mother. When the maidens arrived, all the
+  company went trooping up Miss Morgan's steps. After Piggy had
+  chased Bud from the front door into a closet, from which the host
+  fought his way gallantly into the middle of the parlor floor, the
+  essential preliminaries of the evening's entertainment were over.
+  A little later the games began. First, there was "forfeits." Then
+  came "tin-tin." "Clap in and clap out" followed, and finally,
+  after much protestation from the girls, but at the earnest
+  solicitation of Mealy Jones, "post-office" started. Piggy did not
+  urge, nor protest. He had gone through the games listlessly,
+  occasionally breaking into a spasm of gayety that was clearly
+  hollow, and afterwards sinking into profound indifference. For
+  how could a well-conditioned boy be gay with a heartache under
+  his Sunday shirt and the spectacle before his eyes of a freckled
+  human cock-sparrow darting round and round the bower of his
+  Heart's Desire? Under such circumstances it was clearly
+  impossible for him to see the eyes that sought his in vain across
+  the turmoil of the room. Indeed, a voice pitched a trifle high to
+  carry well spoke for him to hear, but met deaf ears. A little
+  maid in a black-and-red check which the King of Boyville once
+  preferred to royal purple, even made her way across the
+  throng&mdash;undesignedly, he thought, but Piggy basked in the
+  joy of her presence and made no sign to show his pleasure. A
+  little later, in the shuffle of the game, Piggy and his Heart's
+  Desire were far apart. Half an hour passed, but still he did not
+  revive. Mealy Jones called her out in "post-office," and Piggy
+  thought he saw her smile. That was too much. When the dining-room
+  door closed behind the black-and-red checked dress, the pitcher
+  that enclosed his woe broke and the wheel at the cistern of his
+  endurance stopped. Mealy Jones came into the room, and the boy
+  who kept the "post-office" called out, "Piggy Pennington." But
+  the slam of the front door was his answer.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/192.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/192.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair." />
+    </a> <i>Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire
+    affair</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair.
+  It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph
+  album with a coy:</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p style="margin-left:34%">"When this you see</p>
+
+      <p style="margin-left:36%">Remember me."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/196.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/196.gif"
+    alt=
+    "It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph album." />
+    </a> <i>It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his
+    autograph album</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>He followed the corrugated course of true love, step by step
+  up to its climax, where, a week before, she had given him his
+  choice of her new pack of assorted visiting-cards. He rose at the
+  end of five minutes' sombre meditation, holding the curling
+  gelatine card of his choice in his warm hand. After venting a
+  heavy sigh, he checked a motion to throw away the token of his
+  undoing and put it back into his pocket. While he was plotting
+  dark things against the life and happiness of Mealy Jones, Piggy
+  heard the sound of the merriment within, and a mischievous smile
+  spread over his angry countenance. He tiptoed to the window, and
+  peeped in. He saw his Heart's Desire sitting alone. He cheered up
+  a little, not much&mdash;but sufficiently to reach in his pocket
+  for his tick-tack.</p>
+
+  <p>Now, it may be clearly proved, if necessary, that the
+  tick-tack was invented by the devil. Any wise man's son knows
+  that every boy between the ages of ten and fourteen carries with
+  him at all times a complete outfit of the mechanical devices on
+  which the devil holds the patent and demands a royalty. So there
+  is nothing really strange in the statement that Piggy Pennington
+  took from his Sunday clothes, beneath a pocketful of Rewards of
+  Merit for regular attendance at Sunday-school&mdash;all dated
+  before the Christmas-tree&mdash;a spool with notched wheels, a
+  lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound round the
+  spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the spool, and
+  held the notched rims of the spool against the window pane by
+  pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the cord a quick jerk; a
+  rattle, a wail, and a shriek were successively produced by the
+  notches whirring on the glass. The company within doors screamed.
+  Everyone knew it was Piggy, but no one ever lived with nerves
+  strong enough to withstand the shock of a tick-tack. At the first
+  shock those in-doors decided to ignore the disturbance. But it
+  occurred twice afterwards, and a third tick-tack at a party is a
+  dare. So the boys took it up. As Piggy ran he forgot his hot,
+  heavy shoes; he felt the night wind on his face and in his hair.
+  He cared nothing for his pursuers; he ran for the gladness that
+  came with running. Now he slackened his pace and let the boys
+  catch up with him, and again he spread the mocking distance
+  between them. He turned down an alley, and eluded the pack.</p>
+
+  <p>All the youngsters at the party, even the girls, had scampered
+  out of the house to watch the race. When Piggy vaulted the
+  back-yard fence into Miss Morgan's garden, he heard the pursuers
+  half a block away. He saw, a hundred feet distant, a bevy of
+  girls standing on the sidewalk. And he saw, too, as he came
+  skipping down the lot, something that made him fairly skim over
+  the earth; his Heart's Desire, standing alone, near the porch, in
+  his path, under an apple-tree. The exhilaration of the chase had
+  made him forget his trouble. He was so surefooted in the race
+  that he forgot to be abashed for the moment and came bounding
+  down by the apple-tree. He was full of pride. When he stopped he
+  was the King of Boyville and every inch a king. The
+  king&mdash;not Piggy&mdash;should be blamed. It was all over in a
+  second&mdash;almost before he had stopped. He aimed at her cheek,
+  but he got her ear. That was the first that he knew of it. Piggy
+  seemed to return to life then. In his confusion he felt himself
+  shrivelling up to his normal size&mdash;shrivelling and frying.
+  In an instant he was gone, and Piggy Pennington ran into the
+  group of girls on the sidewalk and let them catch him and hold
+  him. The breathless youths went into the house telling their
+  adventures in the race between gasps. But Piggy did not dare to
+  look at his Heart's Desire for as much as five minutes&mdash;a
+  long, long time. No one had seen him beneath the apple-tree. He
+  was not afraid of the teasing, but he was afraid of a withering
+  look from his Heart's Desire,&mdash;a look that he felt with a
+  parching fear in his throat would throw the universe into an
+  eclipse for him. He observed that she got up and changed her seat
+  to be rid of Mealy Jones. At first Piggy thought that was a good
+  sign, but a moment later he reasoned that the avoidance of Mealy
+  was inspired probably by a loathing for all boys. He dared not
+  seek her eyes, but he mingled noisily in the crowd for a while,
+  and then, on a desperate venture, carelessly snapped a peanut
+  shell and hit his Heart's Desire on the chin. He seemed to be
+  looking a thousand miles away in another direction than that
+  which the missile took. He waited nearly a minute&mdash;a long,
+  uncertain minute&mdash;for a response.</p>
+
+  <p>Then the shell came back; it did not hit him&mdash;but it
+  might have done so&mdash;that was all he could ask. He snapped
+  shells slyly for a quarter of an hour, and was happy. Once he
+  looked&mdash;not exactly looked; perhaps peeked is the better
+  word; took just the tiniest lightning peek out of the tail of his
+  eye, and found a smile waiting for him. At supper, if any one
+  save Piggy had tried to take a chair by his Heart's Desire when
+  the plates came around, there would have been a fight. Mealy
+  Jones knew this, and he knew what Piggy did not know, that it
+  would have been a fight of two against one. So Piggy sat bolt
+  upright in his chair beside the black-and-red checked dress, and
+  talked to the room at large; but he spoke no word to the maiden
+  at his side. She noticed that Piggy kept dropping his knife, and
+  the solicitude of her sex prompted her to ask: "Are your hands
+  cold, Winfield?"</p>
+
+  <p>And the instinct of his sex to hide a fault with a falsehood
+  made Piggy nod his head.</p>
+
+  <p>Then she answered: "Cold hands, a warm heart!"</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/200.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/200.gif"
+    alt="At this important bit of repartee ..." /></a> <i>At this
+    important bit of repartee</i> ...
+  </div>
+
+  <p>At this important bit of repartee, the King of Boyville so
+  forgot his royal dignity that he let an orange-peel drive at
+  Jimmy Sears, and pretended not to hear her. His only reply was to
+  joggle her arm when she reached for the cake. Piggy was so
+  exuberant and in such high spirits that he put his plate on his
+  chair and made Bud Perkins walk turkey fashion three times around
+  the room. He forgot the disgrace which his note had brought to
+  him in the school; he forgot the pretensions of Mealy Jones; he
+  did not wish to forget the episode of the apple-tree, and for the
+  time Piggy Pennington lived in a most peculiar world, made of
+  hazel eyes and red-ribboned pig-tails, all circling around on a
+  background of black-and-red checked flannel.</p>
+
+  <p>After that nothing mattered very much. It didn't matter that
+  Piggy's bruised feet began to sting like fire. It didn't matter
+  much if Mealy Jones's mother did come for him with a lantern and
+  break up the party. It didn't matter if Jimmy Sears did call out,
+  "Hello, Roses Red," when the boys reached the bed-room where
+  their hats were; for a voice that Piggy knew cried back from the
+  adjoining room, "You think you're cute, don't you, old smarty?"
+  Nothing in the world could matter then, for had not Piggy
+  Pennington five minutes before handed a card to his Heart's
+  Desire which read:</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>If I may not C U home</i></p>
+
+      <p class="i2"><i>may I not sit on the fence</i></p>
+
+      <p class="i4"><i>and C U go by</i>?</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>And had not she taken it, and said merrily, "I'm going to keep
+  this"? What could matter after that open avowal?</p>
+
+  <p>And so it came to pass in a little while that the courtly
+  company, headed by the King of Boyville, filed gayly down the
+  path. They walked two by two, and they started on a long, uneven
+  way. But the King of Boyville was full of joy&mdash;a kind of joy
+  so strange that wise men may not measure it; a joy so rare that
+  even kings are proud of it.</p>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>LITTLE SISTER'S LULLABY</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Zhere, zhere, 'ittul b'o', sistuh 'll wock you to
+      s'eep</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye, b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>An' tell you the stowy about the b'ack sheep&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+
+      <p>A boy onct said "b'ack sheep, you dot any wool?"</p>
+
+      <p>"Uh-huhm," said the lambie, "I dot free bags full."</p>
+
+      <p>An' where Murry went w'y the lamb's sure to doe,</p>
+
+      <p>They's mowe of zis stowy&mdash;I dess I don' know;</p>
+
+      <p>But hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>O, mama says buddy tomed stwaight down from Dod;</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>At doctuh mans bwunged him, now is n't zhat odd&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+
+      <p>For papa says, "doctuhs is thiefs so zhey be."</p>
+
+      <p>An' thiefs tain't det up into Heaven you see:</p>
+
+      <p>I dess w'en one comes up an' dets sent below,</p>
+
+      <p>He's dot to bwing wif him a baby or so;</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>But sistuh loves b'o' anyhow if he's dood,</p>
+
+      <p>Hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Better 'n tandy er infalid's food&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.</p>
+
+      <p>An' some day when buddy drows up to a man,</p>
+
+      <p>W'y sistuh an' him 'ull 'ist harness ol' Fan,</p>
+
+      <p>An dwive off to Heaven the fuist zhing you know,</p>
+
+      <p>An' bwing ever' baby back what wants to doe.</p>
+
+      <p>Zhen hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',</p>
+
+      <p>Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:70%;">
+    <a href="images/208.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/208.gif"
+    alt="Chapter title: James Sears: A Naughty Person" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>A naughty person ... walketh with a forward mouth.</p>
+
+      <p>He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he
+      teacheth with his fingers;<br />
+      ... he deviseth mischief continually;...</p>
+
+      <p>Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall
+      he be broken without remedy.&mdash;<i>Proverbs</i>, vi.
+      12-15.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/210.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/210.gif"
+    alt="His heart was full of bitterness." /></a> <i>His heart was
+    full of bitterness</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>It was morning&mdash;the cool of the morning. The pigeons were
+  gossiping under the barn eaves. In the apple-tree a robin's song
+  thrilled at intervals, and the jays were chattering incessantly
+  in the cherry-trees by the fence. The dew was still on the grass
+  that lay in the parallelogram of shade made by the Sears'
+  dwelling, and in the twilight of grass-land all the elf-people
+  were whispering and tittering and scampering about in
+  surreptitious revel. The breeze of dawn, tired and worn out, was
+  sinking to a fitful doze in the cottonwood foliage near by. In
+  the lattice of the kitchen porch two butterflies were chasing the
+  sun flecks in and out among the branches of the climbing rose.
+  Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers lining the path that
+  led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the breath of the morning
+  air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high chord of ecstasy
+  that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that hour, James
+  Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his neck,
+  stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle.
+  His back ached, and his heart was full of bitterness at the
+  scheme of creation. For it was Saturday morning&mdash;his by
+  every law, precedent, or tradition known or reported in the Court
+  of Boyville. But instead of inhaling the joys of the new day,
+  James, whose Courtly name was "Jimmie," looked for yellow
+  granules on the dasher, and promised God if He would let him grow
+  up that his little boy should never have to churn.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/214.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/214.gif"
+    alt="Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish" /></a>
+    <i>Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Any boy knows that it is a degrading thing to churn, and he
+  further knows that to wear a green-checked gingham apron is
+  odious beyond description; however, if the disgusting thing is
+  tied under a boy's arms, from whence it may be slipped down over
+  the hips and the knees to the ground, by a certain familiar twist
+  of the body, the case is not absolutely hopeless. But Jimmy
+  Sears's apron strings were tied about his neck; so his despair
+  was black and abysmal. Once in a while Jimmy's bosom became too
+  heavily freighted, and he paused to sigh. He cheered himself up
+  on these occasions by slyly licking the churn-dasher; but the
+  good cheer on the dasher was a stimulant that left him more
+  miserable than it found him. Ever and anon from some remote
+  chamber in the house behind him came the faint, gasping cry of a
+  day-old baby. That cry drowned the cooing of the doves, the song
+  of the robin, and the chirping of the dwellers in the grass; to
+  Jimmy the bleat of the little human lamb sounded like the roar of
+  a lion. He could endure penal servitude on his Saturday, with a
+  patience born of something approaching a philosophy; he could
+  wear a checked gingham apron, even as a saint wears an unbecoming
+  halo; but the arrival of the new baby&mdash;the fifth addition to
+  the family in the short period of years covered by Jimmy Sears's
+  memory&mdash;brought a bitter pill of wrath and dropped it in the
+  youth's brimful cup of woe. As the minutes dragged wearily along,
+  Jimmy Sears reviewed the story of his thraldom. He thought of
+  how, in his short-dress days, he had been put to rocking a
+  cradle; how in his kilted days, there had been ever a baby's
+  calico dress to consider; how, from his earliest fishing-days,
+  there had been always a tot tagging after him, throwing sticks
+  and stones in the water to scare the fish; and how, now in his
+  swimming and cave-dwelling days, there was a swarm of tow-headed
+  Searses, a crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a
+  sneaker to run away from.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/218a.gif"><img width="15%" src=
+    "images/218a.gif" alt="A crawler" /></a> <a href=
+    "images/218b.gif"><img width="18%" src="images/218b.gif" alt=
+    "A creeper" /></a> <a href="images/218c.gif"><img width="20%"
+    src="images/218c.gif" alt="A toddler" /></a> <a href=
+    "images/218d.gif"><img width="28%" src="images/218d.gif" alt=
+    "A stumbler" /></a> <a href="images/218e.gif"><img width="29%"
+    src="images/218e.gif" alt="A sneaker" /></a>
+
+    <p><i>A crawler, a creeper, toddler, a stumbler and a
+    sneaker</i></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/226.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/226.gif"
+    alt="Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter" /></a>
+    <i>Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>As the churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup
+  began to sputter, dissolving into that which in his older
+  sister's heart would have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took
+  the form of convulsive sniffling. The boy could hear his sister
+  clattering the breakfast dishes in the kitchen. The thing that
+  ground upon his heart was the firm footfall of Mrs. Jones, a
+  neighbor woman, who was overseeing the affairs of the household.
+  Jimmy could not remember hearing that footstep except in times of
+  what seemed to him to be the family's disgrace. He hated Mrs.
+  Jones because she tried to cool his ire by describing the
+  superior points of the particular new baby that had arrived each
+  time she came upon her errands of neighborly mercy. Just as the
+  yellow granules began to appear in the buttermilk pool on the
+  churn-top, Jimmy heard a step on the gravel walk behind him. The
+  step came nearer; when Jimmy lifted his eyes, they glared into
+  the face of Harold Jones. Choler cooled into surprise, and
+  surprise exploded into a vapid, grinning "Huh!" which was
+  followed by another "Huh!" that gurgled out into a real laugh as
+  Jimmy greeted the visitor. The Jones boy giggled, and Jimmy found
+  his tongue and asked: "Did you ever churn?" When Harold admitted
+  that he, too, was a slave of the churn, the freemasonry of
+  Boyville was established. A moment later Mealy&mdash;Harold's
+  title in the Court&mdash;was exemplifying the work. When Mrs.
+  Jones came out of the house to take care of the butter, she saw
+  her son and Jimmy lying on the grass. Half an hour later the boys
+  in the barn heard Mrs. Jones's voice calling,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/230.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/230.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby." />
+    </a> <i>The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a
+    baby</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Harold, O Harold, don't you want to come and look at the
+  baby?" Now James Sears in the twenty-four hours of his new
+  sister's life had not let the fact of her existence form
+  expression on his lips. Much less had he lowered his hostile flag
+  to salute her; but he knew instinctively that Harold Jones was
+  the sort of a boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby.
+  When Mealy answered, "Yes'm," and trotted down the back-yard path
+  to the kitchen, Jimmy Sears scorned him heartily enough to fancy
+  Mealy in the act of holding the loathsome thing in his arms.
+  Further contumely was beyond Jimmy's imagination.</p>
+
+  <p>When Mealy Jones came back, the barn wherein he had left Jimmy
+  was empty; and only when Mealy had started homeward, and a clod
+  came whizzing down the alley, hitting him under the ear, did
+  Mealy know how Jimmy Sears resented an insult. Mealy looked
+  around; no one was in sight.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:12%;">
+    <a href="images/222.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/222.gif"
+    alt="James" /></a> <i>James</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Right here the reader should know that Jimmy Sears was not
+  alone in his displeasure. There was mutiny in the Sears
+  household. When the baby came, the four elder of the seven Sears
+  children joined Jimmy in informal, silent sedition. They looked
+  upon the newcomer as an intruder. For all who extended sympathy
+  to the pretender, the insurgents developed a wholesome scorn.
+  This scorn fell most heavily upon kind Mrs. Jones. The Sears
+  children regarded her familiar jocularity with undisguised
+  repugnance; and when Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little
+  sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the baby,
+  Jimmy's rage at what he considered a fiendish thrust at the
+  innocent and forsaken child passed the bounds of endurance. He
+  hurled a bit of that anger in the clod that hit Mealy Jones, then
+  Jimmy walked doggedly back to the house. He coaxed the little
+  sister from the kitchen, took the child's chubby hand and led her
+  to the barn. There Jimmy nursed his sorrow. He assured the
+  younker as they sat on the hay that he for one would not desert
+  her, "even if mamma had forgotten her." He hugged the wondering
+  tot until her ribs hurt, and in his lamentations referred to the
+  new baby as "that old thing." The evening before, when Mrs. Jones
+  had marshalled the other Sears children and had taken them into
+  the bedroom to see their new sister, Jimmy was not to be found.
+  None of the older children had looked at the baby. They had
+  turned their heads away deliberately, and had responded in
+  gutteral affirmatives when they were asked if it were not a
+  pretty baby. But Jimmy had escaped that humiliation, and since
+  then he had avoided all snares set to lure him to his mother's
+  bed-side. He sat there in the barn, fuming as he recalled what he
+  had heard while Annie was in his mother's room early that
+  morning.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/234.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/234.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the baby." />
+    </a> <i>Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie
+    that morning that she was no longer the baby</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"See little sister's hands. Oh, what pretty hands!" Jimmy had
+  reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by
+  the child's big-eyed astonishment. Mrs. Jones
+  continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Weenty teenty little feets! See little sister's toeses. What
+  little bitsey toeses. Baby touch little sister's toeses."</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene
+  came to him after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was
+  to dupe the child into an affection for her inevitable enemy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Does baby love little sister?" continued the voice. "Love
+  nice, pretty little sister! Sweet little sister! Zhere! Zhere!
+  Zhat's right; love little sister!" As he toyed with a wisp of
+  hay, Jimmy Sears's blood froze in his veins at the recollection
+  that his own mother had lent her countenance to this baseness. He
+  knew, and he knew that his mother knew, that the baby would take
+  all the care due to his toddling sister. He saw, from the
+  elevation of the hay-cock on which he and the little one sat,
+  that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner while she
+  smiled. It seemed deliberately cruel. A lump of pity for the
+  child filled his throat. Still, in his heart, he forgave his
+  mother for her part in the duplicity. He did not feel for her the
+  contempt he felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew
+  that Henry Sears was actually proud of the family's ignominy.
+  Jimmy blushed at the picture in his mind of his father strutting
+  around town, with his vest pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs
+  in the armpits, bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy
+  with shame. Jimmy felt that secretly his mother did not consider
+  the baby's arrival an occasion for vainglory. He felt that his
+  mother was merely putting a good face upon the misfortune. These
+  reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/238.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/238.gif"
+    alt=
+    "His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame" />
+    </a> <i>His father strutting around town ... bragging of the
+    occurrence that filled the boy with shame</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>At the end thereof a calamitous fate took him up and made him
+  its toy. Tragedy is the everlasting piling up of little things.
+  So Jimmy Sears could not know that an evil destiny had come to
+  guide his steps when he started townward, for it came so gently.
+  To meet Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins and Abe Carpenter coming
+  out of the Pennington yard was not such a dreadful thing. Jimmy
+  had met them a score of times before at that particular gate,
+  with no serious consequences. It was not in the least ominous
+  that the four boys started for the Creek of the Willows, for
+  Jimmy had gone to the Creek times without number in that very
+  company. It did not augur evil for Jimmy Sears that the lot fell
+  to him to go forth and forage a chicken, for the great corn feast
+  of the Black Feet, a savage tribe of four warriors, among whom
+  Jimmy was known as the "Bald Eagle." Perhaps there were signs and
+  warnings in all these things; and then, on the other hand,
+  perhaps Jimmy Sears was so intent upon escaping from the shadow
+  that lowered over his family that he did not read the signs, and
+  so rushed into his misfortunes blindly. These, however, are idle
+  speculations; they are the materials from which sages spin their
+  dry and ethereal webs. But this narrative is concerned only with
+  the facts in the case. Therefore it is necessary to know only
+  that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up his nail-pointed arrow,
+  lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the sharp nasal "sping"
+  of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow and arrow in
+  hand, he began to run, not looking back.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/242.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/242.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart was glad" />
+    </a> <i>He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet,
+    and his heart was glad</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/246.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/246.gif"
+    alt=
+    "He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into an agonized knot" />
+    </a> <i>He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot,<br />
+    twisting his face into an agonized knot</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Here, here, Jimmy Sears, hold on there!" cried a voice. Jimmy
+  knew the voice. It and the chicken belonged to the same person.
+  So Jimmy quickened his speed. He heard the clattering thump of
+  pursuing feet. It was two hundred yards to the end of the
+  cob-strewn cow lot. The boy fixed his course toward the lowest
+  length of fence. Then he kept his eyes upon the ground. He
+  clenched his teeth and skimmed over the earth. The feathers in
+  his hat&mdash;stuck there to satisfy the verities of his assumed
+  Indian character&mdash;caught the breeze; so, rather than lose
+  his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He
+  cleared the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his
+  shoulder, he saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud
+  of boots on the sod and the crash of branches behind him sent
+  terror through the boy's frame, and he turned towards the creek
+  that flowed sluggishly near by. He took great bounding strides,
+  throwing his head from side to side as he ran. The boy knew the
+  path. It led to a rickety fence&mdash;a cattle guard&mdash;across
+  the river. Jimmy's heart beat wildly, and the trees danced by him
+  on the sloping path. But he was not "the champeen fence-walker of
+  Willow Creek," late of "Pennington &amp; Carpenter's Circus &amp;
+  Menagerie, price ten pins," without having won his proud place by
+  prowess. He came to the water's edge with sure feet. He knew that
+  he could cross. He had crossed the creek there a score of times.
+  He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his
+  heart was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow
+  him, even if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried
+  up the bank before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had
+  leaped from so lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again
+  and again did the "champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he
+  slackened his pace to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and
+  again did James Sears&mdash;an exemplary youth for the most part,
+  who knew his Ten Commandments by heart&mdash;look exultingly at
+  his pullet. He gloried in his iniquity. Lentulus returning to
+  Capua with victorious legions was not so proud. But there the
+  evil spirit swooped low upon him&mdash;the spirit of destruction
+  that always follows pride. Jimmy tripped, and lunged forward; the
+  chicken, the hat, the bow and arrow, and the boy all parted
+  company. Then Jimmy felt a pain&mdash;a sharp pain that he
+  recognized too well. He feared to make sure of the extent of his
+  injury. Instinctive knowledge told him he had "stumped" his toe.
+  This knowledge also brought the sense of certainty that his day's
+  pleasure was spoiled. He knew that he would go hobbling along,
+  the last brave in the Indian file. The pain in his foot began to
+  throb as he gathered up his weapons. He walked for a few moments
+  without looking at the wound. He felt the oozing blood, and he
+  bent his body and went along, grunting at every step. Finally
+  coming into a flood of sunlight on the path, he sat on a log and
+  slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into an agonized
+  knot. He peeked at his toe at first stealthily; then little by
+  little uncovering it with his nursing hand, he gazed fixedly at
+  the wound. The flesh on the end of the toe was hanging loosely by
+  the skin. It was a full minute before the boy could find courage
+  to press the hanging flesh back to its place. In the mean time
+  the chicken, which lay behind him under the log, had regained its
+  senses, squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When
+  Jimmy's mind turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been
+  in the depths as he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet
+  brought with it a still further depression, and Jimmy forgot all
+  about his impersonation of the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit
+  in the red ochre stripes on his face, and the iridescent feathers
+  in his hat, and the blue-black mud on his nimble feet. For a few
+  moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who saw the hand of the whole
+  world raised against him. The cry of the new baby rang in his
+  ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about the number
+  of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of wrongs
+  grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all the
+  world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying
+  chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand,
+  saying, before he came down with his index finger,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Spit, spit, spy,</p>
+
+      <p>Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the
+      eye."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+    <a href="images/250.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/250.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye." />
+    </a> <i>Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll
+    hit ye in the eye</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have
+  taken, but he knew that luck&mdash;like all the world&mdash;was
+  against him, and he had no heart in the rites that on another day
+  might have brought fortune to him. His stubbed toe was hurting
+  him, and the murmur of a ripple in the stream a few rods below
+  the cattle guard called to him enticingly. As soon as the boy
+  deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he hobbled down to
+  the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the shade, with the
+  cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that the other
+  boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying the
+  gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost
+  imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the
+  conviction of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he
+  was a thief swept over him, covering his sense of personal
+  grievance like a mantle. For another hour he wrestled with a
+  persistent devil that was tempting him to strangle his scruples;
+  he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in his cast-iron bank at
+  home&mdash;the result of a year's careful saving. He crossed the
+  creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was walking
+  in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go
+  straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to
+  offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had
+  done. Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he
+  progressed slowly. So the afternoon was old when he turned the
+  corner and trudged into Baker's store. The speech he was going to
+  make, Jimmy had recited to himself over and over. He intended to
+  walk up to the counter and say,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker."</p>
+
+  <p>To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not
+  seem completely abject. He fancied the grocer would
+  reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents."</p>
+
+  <p>To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong
+  voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have
+  that, and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are
+  ripe."</p>
+
+  <p>With that agreement reached, Jimmy saw himself limping out of
+  the store. He harbored a hope that maybe the grocer, pitying the
+  poor, lame boy, would call him back, cancel the debt, and perhaps
+  give him a stick of licorice. Jimmy knew his part by heart. He
+  was sure there would be no halt nor break in this dialogue. But
+  the demon that was torturing his destiny that day probably
+  chuckled as Jimmy crossed the threshold of the grocery store.</p>
+
+  <p>The boy that the grocer saw when he looked up from the pickle
+  barrel certainly had a badly freckled face; the grocer thought
+  the boy had bold, mean eyes. The youthful jaw set firmly, and the
+  pain in his foot engraved ugly lines in his face. The button was
+  off one wristband. A long tear down the lower part of his
+  trousers' leg revealed a glimpse of brown, tanned skin. He was
+  not a boy that looked like a creature of dreams and of high
+  resolve. No boy that amounts to much ever does look the part, as
+  the actors say. So when Jimmy Sears&mdash;ragged and
+  brazen&mdash;stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded
+  the man's bosom. He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at
+  the boy. The instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out
+  of Jimmy's head. He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the
+  grocer grab a butter paddle,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Dern you, don't you touch me; I'll pay for your old chicken.
+  Watch out now!"</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/256.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/256.gif"
+    alt=
+    "I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me." />
+    </a> "<i>I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away
+    from me</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Two scale weights slipped involuntarily into Jimmy's hands,
+  and he backed from the counter to the sidewalk. His hands were
+  uplifted as if to throw the weights. The grocer had not come up
+  to the boy who shouted in a burst of fear and anger,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from
+  me!"</p>
+
+  <p>The grocer hesitated, dismayed for a second by the threatening
+  weights in the boy's hand. But pride urged the man on. He stepped
+  up quickly, and planted a smarting blow on Jimmy's leg. It was
+  well for the grocer that he ducked his head; for when the paddle
+  struck, the boy did not flinch, but let drive one weight after
+  another, and cried before each crash of glass that the flying
+  irons made inside the store, "Yes, you will!" and again, "Yes,
+  you will!"</p>
+
+  <p>He forgot the ache in his cramped heel and the burning in his
+  bruised toe as he ran to the middle of the street.</p>
+
+  <p>"You old coward, why don't you pick on some one your
+  size?"</p>
+
+  <p>The tears were rising to his eyes; he had to run to escape
+  from the tide. Just as he turned, he caught a glimpse of his
+  father joining the gathering crowd. After that his feet grew
+  wings.</p>
+
+  <p>A freight train stood on the track in front of the boy, a
+  quarter of a mile away. A mad impulse came to him as he ran, and
+  he yielded to it. A boy with a grievance, or a boy with a sore
+  toe, or a boy with fear at his back, cannot fashion his conduct
+  after the beautiful principles laid down in Mr. Herbert Spencer's
+  "Data of Ethics." So when Jimmy Sears came to the freight train
+  that blocked his flight, he darted down the track until he was
+  out of sight of any possible pursuers in the street. He clambered
+  breathlessly into a coal car, and snuggled down into a corner
+  inside a little strip of shade, and panted like a hunted rabbit.
+  A sickening pain throbbed up from his toe. The train moved slowly
+  at first, and Jimmy knew that he could not hide from the train
+  men in a coal car. On a banter from Piggy Pennington and Bud
+  Perkins Jimmy had ridden on the brake-beam while the switch
+  engine was pulling freight cars about the railroad yards. He had
+  a vague idea that midway of the train, between two box cars,
+  would be a safe place. When the train began to increase its
+  speed, Jimmy climbed up the side of a cattle car and ran along
+  the roof. He had gone three car-lengths and was about to make his
+  third jump, when he saw the angry face of his father, who
+  appeared on the depot platform. Instinctively the boy darted to
+  the other side of the car-roof. His jump fell short. The father
+  saw his son's head go down, and for an awful minute Henry Sears
+  heard the lumbering train rumble by. In the first second of that
+  minute, the frantic man listened for a scream. He heard none.
+  Then slowly he sank upon a baggage truck. He was helpless. A
+  paralysis of horror was upon him. Car after car jolted along. At
+  last the yellow caboose flashed by him. Half of the longest
+  second Henry Sears ever knew passed before he dared turn his eyes
+  toward the place on the track where his son went down. Then he
+  looked, and saw only the cinder track and the shining rails. But
+  an instant later he heard a familiar whoop, and, staring around,
+  saw Jimmy sitting on a load of wheat that was standing between
+  the railroad tracks. In this the boy had fallen after his
+  sidewise jump had thrown him from the moving train. When Henry
+  Sears saw his son, Jimmy was holding his foot, jiggling it
+  vigorously and roaring, moved half by the hysteria of fright and
+  half by the pain of a fresh laceration of his bruised toe. The
+  boy's face was black with coal-dust and wheat chaff, and tears
+  were striping his features grotesquely. The palsy of terror
+  loosened its steel bands from the father's limbs, and he ran to
+  the wheat-wagon. Jimmy Sears, for all he or his father know, may
+  have floated to the ground from the wagon bed. But a moment
+  later, in a frenzy wherein anger furnished only a sub-conscious
+  motor, and joy pumped wildly at the expanding valves of his
+  blissful heart, Henry Sears took his thirteen-year-old son across
+  his knee, and spanked him in a delirium of ecstasy; spanked him
+  merrily, while a heavenly peace glorified his paternal soul;
+  spanked him, caring not how many times the little body wriggled,
+  and the little voice howled, and the dirty little fingers foiled
+  his big, bony hand as it fell. At the end of the felicitous
+  occasion, the father found his voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Haven't I told you enough, sir, to keep off the cars? Haven't
+  I? Haven't I? Answer me, sir. Do you hear me? Haven't I?"</p>
+
+  <p>And Jimmy Sears knew by that turn of the conversation that the
+  episodes of the stolen chicken and of the broken showcases were
+  forgotten, so he nodded a contrite head, His father returned to
+  earth by giving his son a few casual cuffs, with, "Will you try
+  that again, sir?" and continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, sir, let me see you walk right straight home. And just
+  you let me catch you down here again!"</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy was wise enough to hurry along as fast as his bleeding
+  foot would take him. He saw the advantage of a motion to adjourn
+  without further debate, and the motion prevailed.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/266.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/266.gif"
+    alt=
+    "An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his hair." />
+    </a> <i>An irregular circumference that touched his ears<br />
+    and his chin and his hair</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>An hour later, Jimmy Sears had washed the dirt from the
+  interior of an irregular circumference that touched his ears and
+  his chin and his hair. Until the twilight fell he stayed in the
+  conning-tower in the Penningtons' barn, and watched his home
+  through a crack between two boards. When he saw his father leave
+  the house for town after supper, Jimmy hurried down a lane in
+  sight of his father, yet out of his father's reach. At the close
+  of twilight, Jimmy Sears came up the hard-beaten path that led to
+  his home, through burdock weeds and sunflowers. There was a light
+  in the kitchen, and through the window he could see Mrs. Jones
+  moving about. He observed that the supper dishes were being put
+  away. He saw his eldest sister, with the tea towel in her hands,
+  chatting happily with Mrs. Jones. The spectacle filled him with
+  rage. He felt that the other children had deserted him, and that,
+  in the war against the new baby, they had left him to fight
+  unaided. He met a little brother, who greeted him
+  with,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Uh-hu, Mr. Jimmy, you just wait till pa gets you!"</p>
+
+  <p>A prolonged and scornful "Aw!" was Jimmy's reply to this
+  welcome. On the step of the back porch, his favorite little
+  sister sat playing with the house-cat. She toddled to Jimmy; he
+  let her take his finger, and they went into the kitchen.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, Jimmy!&mdash;where&mdash;you&mdash;been?" demanded the
+  eldest sister. "Mamma's been asking for you all day. I'd be
+  ashamed if I was you."</p>
+
+  <p>The boy did not deign to speak to Mrs. Jones, and kept his
+  back to her when he could. He did not answer his sister's
+  question.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/270.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/270.gif"
+    alt="Got anything here fit to eat?" /></a> "<i>Got anything
+    here fit to eat</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Got anything here fit to eat?" he asked, as he threw open the
+  cupboard doors. The insult to Mrs. Jones was not accidental.
+  Jimmy supposed that she had cooked the supper. He put two or
+  three plates of food on the table, and drew up a chair, sneering
+  bumptiously, "What's this?" as he dived into each dish.</p>
+
+  <p>His sister's "Why, Jimmy!" and her warning frowns did not
+  change his course. Mrs. Jones went to the front of the house,
+  diplomatically leaving all the doors open behind her, that Mrs.
+  Sears might hear her son's voice. In a moment the boy caught the
+  faint sound of his mother calling from the distant bedroom,
+  "Jimmy, Jimmy, come here; I want you."</p>
+
+  <p>The boy pretended not to hear. She called his name again. "Yes
+  'm," he answered. When she repeated her request, he filled his
+  mouth with pie, and replied, "I'm a-eatin' now." He slipped a
+  piece of ice down the back of his adoring little sister's dress,
+  who sat near him. When she wept noisily, he laughed under his
+  breath, and spoke aloud to his sister at the dish-pan,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for? Give
+  it back, why don't you?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/274.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/274.gif"
+    alt=
+    "What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for?" /></a>
+    "<i>What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her
+    for</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Why&mdash;Jimmy&mdash;Sears!" retorted the girl. Then lifting
+  her voice, "Mamma, Jimmy's put ice down&mdash;" But the lad
+  pressed the ice against the child's back, pretending to be
+  removing the source of the trouble, and the child's lusty howls
+  drowned the girl's protest. When he heard the bedroom door close
+  to shield his mother from the turmoil, Jimmy knew that he had
+  outwitted Mrs. Jones, so he quelled the disturbance he had
+  caused. When Mrs. Jones returned to the kitchen, the boy was
+  sitting on the porch steps with his little sister, telling her
+  about "raw head and bloody bones," greatly to the child's horror
+  and delight.</p>
+
+  <p>Jimmy heard his elder sister inquire, "Did Mamma eat her
+  supper?" He heard Mrs. Jones respond, "Not very much of it; but
+  she will after a while, I guess. She said to leave it in
+  there."</p>
+
+  <p>"Couldn't she eat any of that nice chicken Mrs. Pennington
+  sent?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No, nor Mrs. Carpenter's lemon jelly."</p>
+
+  <p>"Poor mamma!" sighed the girl.</p>
+
+  <p>But Jimmy had other reflections. Two minutes later he walked
+  past his mother's open door, and fumbled around in the
+  sitting-room.</p>
+
+  <p>"Is that you, Jimmy?" asked his mother.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes 'm," rejoined the boy.</p>
+
+  <p>"What are you doing?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Lookin' for my other coat."</p>
+
+  <p>"Won't you come in and see me, Jimmy? I haven't seen you for
+  two whole days."</p>
+
+  <p>"In a minute," returned Jimmy.</p>
+
+  <p>Standing awkwardly in the doorway, he asked, "What 'd you
+  want?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/278.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/278.gif"
+    alt=
+    "She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked at her lips." />
+    </a> <i>She drew him down and kissed his cheek<br />
+    while he pecked at her lips</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Come over here, Jimmy," returned the mother. "My poor,
+  neglected boy!" He would not let his eyes find the new baby. He
+  stood stiffly on one foot, and gave his mother his hand. She drew
+  him down and kissed his cheek, while he pecked at her lips. As
+  Jimmy rose, his mother smiled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Are you hungry, Jimmy?"</p>
+
+  <p>The boy nodded a vociferous affirmative. Being a boy, one of
+  the lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions,
+  Jimmy could not know that his mother understood the rankle in her
+  son's heart. Nor could he divine that she kept the supper
+  dainties as peace offerings.</p>
+
+  <p>"Won't you have some of my supper?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't you want it?" returned the boy, to justify his
+  greed.</p>
+
+  <p>"No, Jimmy; I'm not hungry. I kept it all for you."</p>
+
+  <p>While her son was sitting on the floor, eating off the tray on
+  the chair by the bed, his mother's hand was in his hair, stroking
+  it lovingly. His sister and the other children looked in and saw
+  him. Jimmy knew they were whispering "Hoggy!" but he did not heed
+  them. His mother avoided mentioning the new baby to him; she made
+  him tell her about his sore toe, and in return she told him how
+  lonely she had been without him.</p>
+
+  <p>As his stomach filled, his heart overflowed,&mdash;a common
+  coincidence even with older and better boys than Jimmy, and the
+  tears came to his eyes. At last, when the plate was cleared, he
+  rose, and went to the place where the new-comer lay. He bent over
+  the little puff in the bedclothes, and grinned sheepishly as he
+  lifted the cover from the sleeping baby's face. He looked at the
+  red features a moment curiously, and said in his loud, husky,
+  boyish voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo there, Miss Sears; how are you this evenin'?"</p>
+
+  <p>Then he pinched his mother's arm and walked out of the room,
+  his soul at peace.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:15%;">
+    <a href="images/281.gif"><img width="100%" src=
+    "images/281.gif" alt="cameo" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL
+  CIRCUMSTANCES</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>Back of Pennington's barn, which was the royal castle of the
+  Court of Boyville, ran a hollow. In the hollow grew a gnarly
+  box-elder tree. This tree was the courtiers' hunting-lodge. In
+  the crotches of the rugged branches Piggy Pennington, Abe
+  Carpenter, Jimmy Sears, Bud Perkins, and Mealy Jones were wont to
+  rest of a summer afternoon, recounting the morning's adventures
+  in the royal tourney of the marble-ring, planning for the
+  morrow's chase, meditating upon the evil approach of the fall
+  school term, and following such sedentary pursuits as to any
+  member of the court seemed right and proper. One afternoon late
+  in August the tree was alive with its arboreal aristocracy. Abe
+  Carpenter sat on the lowest branch, plaiting a four-strand,
+  square-braided "quirt"; Jimmy Sears was holding the ends. Piggy
+  was casually skinning cats, hanging by his legs, or chinning on
+  an almost horizontal limb, as he took his part in the lagging
+  talk. Hidden by the foliage in the thick of the tree, in a
+  three-pronged seat, Bud Perkins reclined, his features drawn into
+  a painful grimace, as his right hand passed to and fro before his
+  mouth, rhythmically twanging the tongue of a Jew's-harp, upon
+  which he was playing "To My Sweet Sunny South Take Me Home." He
+  breathed heavily and irregularly. His eyes were on the big white
+  clouds in the blue sky, and his heart was filled with the poetry
+  of lonesomeness that sometimes comes to boys in pensive moods.
+  For the days when he had lived with his father, a nomad of the
+  creeks that flowed by half a score of waterways into the
+  Mississippi, were upon the far horizon of his consciousness, and
+  the memory of those days made him as sad as any memory ever can
+  make a healthy, care-free boy. He played "Dixie," partly because
+  it was his dead father's favorite tune, and partly because, being
+  sprightly, it kept down his melancholy. Later he took out a new
+  mouth-organ, which his foster mother had given to him, and to
+  satisfy his boyish idea of justice played "We shall Meet, but We
+  shall Miss Him," because it was Miss Morgan's favorite. While he
+  played the Jew's-harp his tree friends flung ribald remarks at
+  him. But when Bud began to waver his hand for a tremulo upon the
+  mouth-organ as he played "Marsa's in de Col', Col' Groun'," a
+  peace fell upon the company, and they sat quietly and heard his
+  repertoire,&mdash;"Ol' Shadey," "May, Dearest May," "Lilly Dale,"
+  "Dey Stole My Chile Away," "Ol' Nicodemus," "Sleeping, I Dream,
+  Love," and "Her Bright Smile." He was a Southern boy&mdash;a bird
+  of passage caught in the North&mdash;and his music had that
+  sweet, soothing note that cheered the men who fought under the
+  Stars and Bars.</p>
+
+  <p>Into this scene rushed Mealy Jones, pell mell, hat in hand,
+  breathless, bringing war's alarms. "Fellers, fellers," screamed
+  Mealy, half a block away, "it's a-comin' here! It's goin' to be
+  here in two weeks. The man's puttin' up the boards now, and you
+  can get a job passin' bills."</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;">
+    <a href="images/289.gif"><img width="45%" src="images/289.gif"
+    alt="Mommoth Consolidated Shows. (left)" /></a> <a href=
+    "images/290.gif"><img width="45%" src="images/290.gif" alt=
+    "Mommoth Consolidated Shows. (right)" /></a>
+
+    <p><i>Mommoth Consolidated Shows.</i></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>An instant later the tree was deserted, and five boys were
+  running as fast as their legs would carry them toward the thick
+  of the town. They stopped at the new pine bill-board, and did not
+  leave the man with the paste bucket until they had seen "Zazell"
+  flying out of the cannon's mouth, the iron-jawed woman performing
+  her marvels, the red-mouthed rhinoceros with the bleeding native
+  impaled upon its horn and the fleeing hunters near by, "the
+  largest elephant in captivity," carrying the ten-thousand dollar
+  beauty, the acrobats whirling through space, James Robinson
+  turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last and most
+  ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his three
+  charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture
+  followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been
+  pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of
+  cynicism, the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in
+  the night wood and dream of a wilderness of monkeys.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+    <a href="images/282.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/282.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and down the alley." />
+    </a> <i>Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery
+    horse up and down the alley</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:33%;">
+    <a href="images/296.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/296.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry." />
+    </a> <i>Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun
+    to fry</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>During the two weeks after the appearance of the glad tidings
+  on the bill-boards, the boys of Willow Creek spent many hours in
+  strange habiliments, making grotesque imitations of the
+  spectacles upon the boards. Piggy Pennington rolled his trousers
+  far above his knees for tights, and galloped his father's fat
+  delivery horse up and down the alley, riding sideways, standing,
+  and backwards, with much vainglory. To simulate the motley of the
+  tight-rope-walking clown, Jimmy Sears wore the calico lining of
+  his clothes outside, when he was in the royal castle beyond his
+  mother's ken. Mealy donned carpet slippers in Pennington's barn,
+  and wore long pink-and-white striped stockings of a suspiciously
+  feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt waist with
+  stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a
+  bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud
+  Perkins, who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging
+  a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico
+  base-ball clothes, and went through keg-hoops in a dozen
+  different ways. In the streets of the town the youngsters
+  appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They revelled in the
+  pictured visions of the circus, but were sceptical about the
+  literal fulfilment of some of the promises made on the bills.
+  Certain things advertised were eliminated from reasonable
+  expectation: for instance, the boys all knew that the giraffe
+  would not be discovered eating off the top of a cocoanut-tree;
+  nor would the monkeys play a brass band; and they knew that they
+  would not see the "Human Fly" walk on the ceiling at the
+  "concert." For no boy has ever saved enough money to buy a ticket
+  to the "concert." Nevertheless, they gloated over the pictures of
+  the herd of giraffes and the monkey-band and the graceful "Human
+  Fly" walking upside down "defying the laws of gravitation;" and
+  they considered no future, however pleasant, after the day and
+  date on the bills. Thus the golden day approached, looming larger
+  and larger upon the horizon as it came. In the interim, how many
+  a druggist bought his own bottles the third and fourth time, how
+  many a junk-dealer paid for his own iron, how many bags of carpet
+  rags went to the ragman, the world will never know.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:33%;">
+    <a href="images/302.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/302.gif"
+    alt="How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman?" /></a>
+    <i>How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman</i>?
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Now, among children of a larger growth, in festive times
+  hostile demonstrations cease; animosities are buried; but in
+  Boyville a North-ender is a North-ender, a South-ender is a
+  South-ender, and a meeting of the two is a fight. Boyville knows
+  no times of truce. It asks nor offers quarter. When warring clans
+  come together, be it workday, holiday, or even circus day, there
+  is a clatter of clods, a patter of feet, and retreating hoots of
+  defiance. And because the circus bill-boards were frequented by
+  boys of all kiths and clans, clashes occurred frequently, and Bud
+  Perkins, who was the fighter of the South End, had many a call to
+  arms. Indeed, the approaching circus unloosed the dogs of war
+  rather than nestled the dove of peace. For Bud Perkins, in a
+  moment of pride, issued an ukase which forbade all North End boys
+  to look at a certain bill-board near his home. This ukase and his
+  strict enforcement of it made him the target of North End wrath.
+  Little Miss Morgan, his foster-mother, who had adopted him at the
+  death of his father the summer before the circus bills were
+  posted, could not understand how the lad managed to lose so many
+  buttons, nor how he kept tearing his clothes. She ascribed these
+  things to his antecedents and to his deficient training. She did
+  not know that Bud, whom she called Henry, and whose music on the
+  mouth-organ seemed to come from a shy and gentle soul, was the
+  Terror of the South End. Her guileless mind held no place for the
+  important fact that North End boys generally travelled by her
+  door in pairs for safety. Such is the blindness of women. Cupid
+  probably got his defective vision from his mother's side of the
+  house.</p>
+
+  <p>The last half of the last week before circus day seemed a
+  century to Bud and his friends. Friday and Saturday crept by, and
+  Mealy Jones was the only boy at Sunday-school who knew the Golden
+  Text, for an inflammatory rumor that the circus was unloading
+  from the side-track at the depot swept over the boys' side of the
+  Sunday-school room, and consumed all knowledge of the fifth
+  chapter of Acts, the day's lesson. After Sunday-school the boys
+  broke for the circus grounds. There they feasted their gluttonous
+  eyes upon the canvas-covered chariots, and the elephants, and the
+  camels, and the spotted ponies, passing from the cars to the
+  tents. The unfamiliar noises, the sight of the rising "sea of
+  canvas," the touch of mysterious wagons containing so many
+  wonders, and the intoxicating smell that comes only with much
+  canvas, many animals, and the unpacking of Pandora's box, stuffed
+  the boys' senses until they viewed with utter stoicism the
+  passing dinner hour and the prospect of finding only cold mashed
+  potatoes and the necks and backs of chickens in the cupboards.
+  They even affected indifference to parental scoldings, and
+  lingered about the enchanting spot until the shadows fell
+  eastward and the day was old.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:16%;">
+    <a href="images/306.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/306.gif"
+    alt="Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing Nemesis." /></a>
+    <i>Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing Nemesis</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>When a boy gets on his good behavior he tempts Providence. And
+  the Providence of boys is frail and prone to yield. So when Bud
+  Perkins, who was burning with a desire to please Miss Morgan the
+  day before the circus, went to church that Sunday night, any one
+  can see that he was provoking Providence in an unusual and cruel
+  manner. Bud did not sit with Miss Morgan, but lounged into the
+  church, and took a back seat. Three North End boys came in and
+  sat on the same bench. Then Jimmy Sears shuffled past the North
+  Enders, and sat beside Bud. After which the inevitable happened.
+  It kept happening. They "passed it on," and passed it back again;
+  first a pinch, then a chug, then a cuff, then a kick under the
+  bench. Heads craned toward the boys occasionally, and there came
+  an awful moment when Bud Perkins found himself looking brazenly
+  into the eyes of the preacher, who had paused to glare at the
+  boys in the midst of his sermon. The faces of the entire
+  congregation seemed to turn upon Bud automatically. A cherub-like
+  expression of conscious innocence and impenetrable unconcern
+  beamed through Bud Perkins's features. The same expression rested
+  upon the countenances of the four other malefactors. At the end
+  of the third second Jimmy Sears put his hand to his mouth and
+  snorted between his fingers. And four young men looked down their
+  noses. In the hush, Brother Baker&mdash;a tiptoeing
+  Nemesis&mdash;stalked the full length of the church toward the
+  culprits. When he took his seat beside the boys the preacher
+  continued his discourse. Brother Baker's unctuousness angered Bud
+  Perkins. He felt the implication that his conduct was bad, and
+  his sense of guilt spurred his temper. Satan put a pin in Bud's
+  hand. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Satan moved the boy's arm on
+  the back of the pew, around Jimmy Sears. Then an imp pushed Bud's
+  hand as he jabbed the pin into the back of a North Ender. The boy
+  from the North End let out a yowl of pain. Bud was not quick
+  enough. Brother Baker saw the pin; two hundred devout Methodists
+  saw him clamp his fingers on Bud Perkins's ear, and march him
+  down the length of the church and set him beside Miss Morgan. It
+  was a sickening moment. The North End grinned as one boy under
+  its skin, and was exceeding glad. So agonizing was it for Bud
+  that he forgot to imagine what a triumph it was for the North
+  End&mdash;and further anguish is impossible for a boy.</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan and Bud Perkins left the church with the
+  congregation. Bud dreaded the moment when they would leave the
+  crowd and turn into their side street. When they did turn, Bud
+  was lagging a step or two behind. A boy's troubles are always the
+  fault of the other boy. The North End boy's responsibility in the
+  matter was so clear&mdash;to Bud&mdash;that, when he went to
+  justify himself to Miss Morgan, he was surprised and hurt at what
+  he considered her feminine blindness to the fact. After she had
+  passed her sentence she asked: "Do you really think you deserve
+  to go, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>The blow stunned the boy. He saw the visions of two weeks
+  burst like bubbles, and he whimpered: "I dunno." But in his heart
+  he did know that to deny a boy the joy of seeing Willie Sells on
+  his three Shetland ponies, for nothing in the world but showing a
+  North-ender his place, was a piece of injustice of the kind for
+  which men and nations go to war. At breakfast Bud kept his eyes
+  on his plate. His face wore the resigned look of a martyr. Miss
+  Morgan was studiously gracious. He dropped leaden monosyllables
+  into the cheery flow of her conversation, and after breakfast put
+  in his time at the woodshed.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/316.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/316.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him." />
+    </a> <i>The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing
+    crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind
+    him</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/310.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/310.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets, hurrying their seniors" />
+    </a> <i>Dressed-up children were flitting along the side
+    streets, hurrying their seniors</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>At eight o'clock that morning the town of Willow Creek was in
+  the thrall of the circus. Country wagons were passing on every
+  side street. Delivery carts were rattling about with unusual
+  alacrity. By half-past nine dressed-up children were flitting
+  along the side streets hurrying their seniors. On the main
+  thoroughfare flags were flying, and the streams of strangers that
+  had been flowing into town were eddying at the street corners.
+  The balloon-vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd,
+  leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him. The bark of
+  the fakir rasped the tightening nerves of the town. Everywhere
+  was hubbub; everywhere was the dusty, heated air of the festival;
+  everywhere were men and women ready for the marvel that had come
+  out of the great world, bringing pomp and circumstance in its
+  gilded train; everywhere in Willow Creek the spirit which put the
+  blue sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her
+  beau's hat ran riot, save at the home of Miss Morgan. There the
+  bees hummed lazily over the old-fashioned flower garden; there
+  the cantankerous jays jabbered in the cottonwoods; there the
+  muffled noises of the town festival came as from afar; there Miss
+  Morgan puttered about her morning's work, trying vainly to croon
+  a gospel hymn; and there Bud Perkins, prone upon the sitting-room
+  sofa, made parallelograms and squares and diamonds with the dots
+  and lines on the ceiling paper. When the throb of the drum and
+  the blare of the brass had set the heart of the town to dancing,
+  some wave of the ecstasy seeped through the lilac bushes and into
+  the quiet house. The boy on the sofa started up suddenly, checked
+  himself ostentatiously, walked to the bird cage, and began to
+  play with the canary. The wave carried the little spinster to the
+  window. The circus had a homestead in human hearts before John
+  Wesley staked his claim, and even so good a Methodist as Miss
+  Morgan could not be deaf to the scream of the calliope nor the
+  tinkle of cymbals.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/320.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/320.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her Beau's hat." />
+    </a> <i>The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the
+    flag in her Beau's hat</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>To emphasize his desolation, Bud left the room, and sat down
+  by a tree in the yard, with his back to the kitchen door and
+  window. There Miss Morgan saw him playing mumble-peg in a
+  desultory fashion. When the courtiers of Boyville came home from
+  the parade they found him; and because he sat playing a silent,
+  sullen, solitary game, and responded to their banter only with
+  melancholy grunts, they knew that the worst had befallen him.
+  Much confab followed, in which the pronoun "she" and "her" were
+  spoken. Otherwise Miss Morgan was unidentified. For the
+  conversation ran thus, over and over:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"You ask her."</p>
+
+  <p>"Naw, I've done ast 'er."</p>
+
+  <p>"'T won't do no good for me to ast 'er. She don't like
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>"I ain't 'fraid to ast 'er."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, then, why don't you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why don't <i>you</i>?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Let's all ast 'er."</p>
+
+  <p>"S'pose she will, Bud?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I dunno."</p>
+
+  <p>Then Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy came trapesing up to
+  Miss Morgan's kitchen door. Bud sat by the tree twirling his
+  knife at his game. Piggy, being the spokesman, stood in the
+  doorway. "Miss Morgan," he said, as he slapped his leg with his
+  hat.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, Winfield?" replied the little woman, divining his
+  mission, and hardening her heart against his purpose.</p>
+
+  <p>"Miss Morgan," he repeated, and then coaxed sheepishly, "can't
+  Bud go to the show with us, Miss Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm afraid not to-day," smiled back Miss Morgan, as she went
+  about her work. A whisper from the doorstep prompted Piggy to
+  "ask her why;" whereat Piggy echoed: "Why can't he, Miss
+  Morgan?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+    <a href="images/326.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/326.gif"
+    alt=
+    "One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you saw him." />
+    </a> "<i>One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you
+    saw him</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Henry misbehaved in church last night, and we've agreed that
+  he shall stay home from the circus."</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy advanced a step or two inside the door, laughing
+  diplomatically: "O&mdash;no, Miss Morgan; don't you think he's
+  agreed. He's just dyin' to go."</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan smiled, but did not join in Piggy's
+  hilarity&mdash;a bad sign. Piggy tried again: "They got six
+  elephants, and one's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughin' if
+  you saw him." And Piggy went into a spasm of laughter.</p>
+
+  <p>But it left Miss Morgan high and dry upon the island of her
+  determination.</p>
+
+  <p>Piggy prepared for an heroic measure, and stepped over to the
+  kitchen table, leaning upon it as he pleaded: "This is the last
+  circus this year, Miss Morgan, and it's an awful good one. Can't
+  he go just this once?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+    <a href="images/330.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/330.gif"
+    alt=
+    "It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once." /></a>
+    "<i>It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once</i>?"
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The debate lasted ten minutes, and at the end four boys walked
+  slowly, with much manifestation of feeling, back to the tree
+  where the fifth sat. There was woe and lamentation after the
+  manner of boy-kind. When the boys left the yard it seemed to Miss
+  Morgan that she could not look from her work without seeing the
+  lonesome figure of Bud. In the afternoon the patter of feet by
+  her house grew slower, and then ceased. Occasionally a belated
+  wayfarer sped by. The music of the circus band outside of the
+  tent came to Miss Morgan's ears on gusts of wind, and died away
+  as the wind ebbed. She dropped the dish-cloth three times in five
+  minutes, and washed her cup and saucer twice. She struggled
+  bravely in the Slough of Despond for awhile, and then turned back
+  with Pliable.</p>
+
+  <p>"Henry," she said, as the boy walked past her carrying
+  peppergrass to the bird, "Henry, what made you act so last
+  night?"</p>
+
+  <p>The boy dropped his head and answered: "I dunno."</p>
+
+  <p>"But, Henry, didn't you know it was wrong?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I dunno."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why did you stick that little boy with the pin?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well&mdash;well&mdash;" he gasped, preparing for a defence.
+  "Well&mdash;he pinched me first."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Henry, but don't you know that it's wrong to do those
+  things in church? Don't you see how bad it was?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I was just a-playin', Miss Morgan; I didn't mean to."</p>
+
+  <p>Bud did not dare to trust his instinctive reading of the
+  signs. He went on impulsively: "I wanted him to quit, but he just
+  kept right on, and Brother Baker didn't touch him."</p>
+
+  <p>The wind brought the staccato music of the circus band to the
+  foster-mother's ears. The music completed her moral decay, for
+  she was thinking, if Brother Baker would only look after his own
+  children as carefully as he looked after those of other people,
+  the world would be better. Then she said: "Now, Henry, if I let
+  you go, just this once&mdash;now just this once, mind
+  you&mdash;will you promise never to do anything like that
+  again?"</p>
+
+  <p>Blackness dropped from the boy's spirit, and by main strength
+  he strangled a desire to yell. The desire revived when he reached
+  the alley, and he ran whooping to the circus grounds.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/335.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/335.gif"
+    alt="8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8 (left)" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:60%;">
+    <a href="images/336.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/336.gif"
+    alt="8 Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8 (right)" /></a> <i>"8
+    Funny Clowns&mdash;count them 8"</i>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>There is a law of crystallization among boys which enables
+  molecules of the same gang to meet in whatever agglomeration they
+  may be thrown. So ten minutes after Bud Perkins left home he
+  found Piggy and Jimmy and old Abe and Mealy in the menagerie
+  tent. Whereupon the South End was able to present a bristling
+  front to the North End&mdash;a front which even the pleasings of
+  the lute in the circus band could not break. But the boys knew
+  that the band playing in the circus tent meant that the
+  performance in the ring was about to begin. So they cut short an
+  interesting dialogue with a keeper, concerning the elephant that
+  remembered the man who gave her tobacco ten years ago, and tried
+  to kill him the week before the show came to Willow Creek. But
+  when the pageant in the ring unfolded its tinselled splendor in
+  the Grand Entry, Bud Perkins left earth and walked upon clouds of
+  glory. His high-strung nerves quivered with delight as the ring
+  disclosed its treasures&mdash;Willie Sells on his spotted ponies,
+  James Robinson on his dapple gray, the "8 funny
+  clowns&mdash;count them 8," the Japanese jugglers and tumblers,
+  the bespangled women on the rings, the dancing ponies, and the
+  performing dogs. The climax of his joy came when Zazell, "the
+  queen of the air," was shot from her cannon to the trapeze. Bud
+  had decided, days before the circus, that this feature would
+  please him most. Zazell's performance was somewhat tame, but
+  immediately thereafter a really startling thing happened. A clown
+  holding the trick mule called to the boys near Bud, who nudged
+  him into the clown's attention. The clown, drawing from the wide
+  pantaloons a dollar, pantomimed to Bud. He held it up for the boy
+  and all the spectators to see. Alternately he pointed to the
+  trick mule and to the coin, coaxing and questioning by signs, as
+  he did so. It took perhaps a minute for Bud's embarrassment to
+  wear off. Then two motives impelled him to act. He didn't propose
+  to let the North-enders see his embarrassment, and he saw that he
+  might earn the dollar for Miss Morgan's missionary box, thus
+  mitigating the disgrace he had brought upon her in church. This
+  inspiration literally flashed over Bud, and before he knew it, he
+  was standing in the ring, with his head cocked upon one side to
+  indicate his utter indifference to everything in the world. Of
+  course it was a stupendous pretence. For under his pretty
+  starched shirt, which Miss Morgan had forced on him in the hurry
+  of departure, his heart was beating like a little windmill in a
+  gale. As Bud bestrode the donkey the cheers of the throng rose,
+  but above the tumult he could hear the North End jeering him. He
+  could hear the words the North-enders spoke, even their
+  "ho-o-oho-os," and their "nyayh-nyayh-nyayahs," and their
+  "look&mdash;at&mdash;old&mdash;pretty&mdash;boy's," and their
+  "watch-him-hit-the-roof's," and their "get-a-basket's," and
+  similar remarks less desirable for publication. As the donkey
+  cantered off, Bud felt sure he could keep his seat. Once the
+  animal bucked. Bud did not fall. The donkey ran, and stopped
+  quickly. Bud held on. Then the donkey's feet twinkled&mdash;it
+  seemed to Bud in the very top of the tent&mdash;and Bud slid off
+  the animal's neck to the ring. The clown brought the boy his hat,
+  and stood over him as he rose. Bud laughed stupidly into the
+  chalked face of the clown, who handed Bud a dollar, remarking in
+  a low voice, "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the
+  first kick."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:50%;">
+    <a href="images/342.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/342.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick." />
+    </a> "<i>Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the
+    first kick</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>What passed in the ring as Bud left it, bedraggled and dusty,
+  did not interest him. He brushed himself as he went. The band was
+  playing madly, and the young woman in the stiff skirts was
+  standing by her horse ready to mount. The crowd did not stop
+  laughing; Bud inclined his head to dust his knickerbockers, and
+  then in a tragic instant he saw what was convulsing the multitude
+  with laughter. The outer seam of the right leg of his velveteen
+  breeches was gone, and a brown leg was winking in and out from
+  the flapping garment as he walked. Wildly he gathered the parted
+  garment, and it seemed to him that he never would cover the
+  ground between the ring and the benches. In the course of several
+  &aelig;ons&mdash;which the other boys measured by fleeting
+  minutes&mdash;the wave of shame that covered Bud subsided. Pins
+  bound up the wounds in his clothes. He drew a natural breath, and
+  was able to join the mob which howled down the man who announced
+  the concert.</p>
+
+  <p>After that the inexorable minutes flew by until the
+  performance ended. In the menagerie tent Bud and his friends
+  looked thirstily upon the cool, pink "schooners" of lemonade, and
+  finally, when they had spent a few blissful moments with the
+  monkeys and had enjoyed a last, long, lingering look at the
+  elephants, they dragged themselves unwillingly away into the
+  commonplace of sunshine and trees and blue sky. Only the romantic
+  touch of the side-show banners and the wonder of the gilded
+  wagons assured them that their memories of the passing hour were
+  not empty dreams.</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:65%;">
+    <a href="images/348.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/348.gif"
+    alt=
+    "The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repair." /></a>
+    <i>The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repair</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The boys were standing enraptured before the picture of the
+  fat woman upon the swaying canvas. Bud had drifted away from them
+  to glut his eyes upon the picture of the snakes writhing around
+  the charmer. The North-enders had been following Bud at a
+  respectful distance, waiting for the opportunity which his
+  separation from his clan gave to them. They were enforced by a
+  country boy of great reputed prowess in battle. Bud did not know
+  his danger until they pounced upon him. In an instant the fight
+  was raging. Over the guy ropes it went, under the ticket wagon,
+  into the thick of the lemonade stands. And when Piggy and Abe and
+  Jimmy had joined it, they trailed the track of the storm by torn
+  hats, bruised, battle-scarred boys, and the wreckage incident to
+  an enlivening occasion. When his comrades found Bud, the argument
+  had narrowed down to Bud and the boy from the country, the other
+  wranglers having dropped out for heavy repairs. The fight, which
+  had been started to avenge ancient wrongs, particularly the
+  wrongs of the bill-board, only added new wrongs to the list. The
+  country boy was striking wildly, and trying to clinch his
+  antagonist, when the town marshal&mdash;the bogie-man of all
+  boys&mdash;stopped the fight. But of course no town marshal can
+  come into the thick of a discussion in Boyville and know much of
+  the merits of the question. So when the marshal of Willow Creek
+  saw Bud Perkins putting the finishing touches of a good trouncing
+  on a strange boy, and also saw Bill Pennington's boy, and Henry
+  Sears's boy, and Mrs. Carpenter's boy, and old man Jones's boy
+  dancing around in high glee at the performance, he quietly
+  gathered in the boys he knew, and let the stranger go.</p>
+
+  <p>Now no boy likes to be marched down the main street of his
+  town with the callous finger of the marshal under his shirt-band.
+  The spectacle operates distinctly against the peace and dignity
+  of Boyville for months thereafter. For passing youths who forget
+  there is a morrow jibe at the culprits and thus plant the seeds
+  of dissensions which bloom in fights. It was a sweaty, red-faced
+  crew that the marshal dumped into Pennington's grocery with,
+  "Here, Bill, I found your boy and these young demons fightin'
+  down 't the circus ground, and I took 'em in charge. You 'tend to
+  'em, will you?"</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:65%;">
+    <a href="images/352.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/352.gif"
+    alt=
+    "When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over." />
+    </a> <i>When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a
+    show-case and laughed till he shook all over</i>.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Mr. Pennington's glance at his son showed that Piggy was
+  unharmed. A swift survey of the others gave each, save Bud, a
+  bill of health. But when Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he
+  leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over; for
+  Bud, with a rimless hat upon a towselled head, with a face
+  scratched till it looked like a railroad map, with a torn shirt
+  that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled back, with trousers
+  so badly shattered that two hands could hardly hold them
+  together,&mdash;as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a
+  second-hand boy. The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed
+  his laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack
+  clamoring to tell all in one breath, the history of the incident
+  that had led to Bud's dilapidation. Also they were drawing gloomy
+  pictures of the appearance of his assailants, after the custom of
+  boys in such cases. Because his son was not involved in the
+  calamity, Piggy's father was not moved deeply by the story of the
+  raid of the North-enders and their downfall. So he put the young
+  gentlemen of the Court of Boyville into the back room of his
+  grocery store, where coal-oil and molasses barrels and hams and
+  bacon and black shadows of many mysterious things were gathered.
+  He gave the royal party a cheese knife and a watermelon, and bade
+  them be merry, a bidding which set the hearts of Piggy and Abe
+  and Jimmy and Mealy to dancing, while Bud's heart, which had been
+  sinking lower and lower into a quagmire of dread, beat on numbly
+  and did not join the joy. As the time for going home approached,
+  Bud shivered in his soul at the thought of meeting Miss Morgan.
+  Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon will
+  not help a boy his extremity is dire. Still he laughed and
+  chatted with apparent merriment, but he knew how hollow was his
+  laughter and what mockery was in his cheer. When the melon was
+  eaten business took its regular order.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say, Bud, how you goin' to get home?" asked Abe.</p>
+
+  <p>Bud grinned as he looked at his rags.</p>
+
+  <p>"Gee," said Mealy, "I'm glad it ain't me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Aw, shucks," returned Bud, and he thought of the stricken
+  Ananias in the Sunday-school lesson leaf as he spoke; "run right
+  through like I always do. What I got to be 'fraid of?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, Mr. Bud, you can laugh, but you know you'll catch it
+  when you get home."</p>
+
+  <p>This shaft from Jimmy Sears put in words the terror in Bud's
+  heart. But he replied: "I'll bet you I don't."</p>
+
+  <p>Bud's instinct piloted him by a circuitous route up the alley
+  to the kitchen door. Miss Morgan sat on the front porch, waiting
+  for the boy to return before serving supper. He stood helplessly
+  in the kitchen for a minute, with a weight of indecision upon
+  him. He feared to go to the front porch, where Miss Morgan was.
+  He feared to stay in the kitchen. But when he saw the empty
+  wood-box a light seemed to dawn. Instinct guided him to the
+  woodpile, and the law of self-preservation filled his arms with
+  wood, and instinct carried him to the kitchen wood-box time and
+  again, and laid the wood in the box as gently as if it had been
+  glass and as softly as if it had been velvet. Not until the pile
+  had grown far above the wainscoting on the kitchen wall, did a
+  stick crashing to the floor tell Miss Morgan that Bud was in the
+  house.</p>
+
+  <p>But there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and just as the
+  falling wood attracted Miss Morgan's attention, it was diverted
+  by a belligerent party at her front gate. This belligerent party
+  was composed of two persons, to wit: one mother from the north
+  end of Willow Creek, irate to the spluttering point, and one boy
+  lagging as far behind the mother as his short arm would allow him
+  to lag. The mother held the short arm, and was literally dragging
+  her son to Miss Morgan's gate to offer him in evidence as
+  "Exhibit A" in a possible cause of the State of Kansas <i>vs</i>.
+  Henry Perkins. Exhibit A was black and blue as to the eyes, torn
+  as to the shirt, bloody as to the nose, tumbled and dusty as to
+  the hair, and as to the countenance, clearly and unquestionably
+  sheep-faced. The mother opened the bombardment with: "Miss
+  Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/356.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/356.gif"
+    alt="Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy." /></a>
+    "<i>Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan looked in horror, and exclaimed: "Well, for mercy
+  sakes! Where on earth's he been?"</p>
+
+  <p>And the leader of the war party returned: "Where's he been?
+  Well, I'll tell you where he's been. And I just want you to know
+  who done this." Here Exhibit A got behind a post. The recital of
+  the details of his catastrophe was humiliating. But the mother
+  continued: "Henry Perkins done this. I don't believe in stirring
+  up neighborhood quarrels and all that, but I've just stood this
+  long enough. My boy can't stick his nose out of the door without
+  that Perkins boy jumpin' on him. If you can't do anything with
+  that Perkins boy, I'll show him there's a law in this land."</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan wilted as the speech proceeded. She had voice only
+  to say, "I'm sure there's some mistake;" and then remembering the
+  crash of the wood on the kitchen floor, she called: "Henry, come
+  here!"</p>
+
+  <p>As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the
+  belligerents replied: "No, there isn't no mistake either. My boy
+  is a good little boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in
+  this town. And because I don't allow him to fight, that Perkins
+  boy picks on him all the time. I've told him to keep out of his
+  way and not to play with Henry Perkins, but he can't be runnin'
+  all over this town to keep&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>And then Exhibit B, with scratched face, tattered raiment, and
+  grimy features, stood in the doorway. The witness for the State
+  looked in dumb amazement at the wreck. Miss Morgan saw Bud, and
+  her temper rose&mdash;not at him, but at his adversary. Exhibit A
+  sulkily turned his face from Exhibit B, and Exhibit B seemed to
+  be oblivious of the presence of Exhibit A; for the boys it was a
+  scene too shameful for mutual recognition. Miss Morgan broke the
+  heavy silence with: "Henry, where on earth have you been?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Been t' the circus," replied the boy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Henry, did you blacken that little boy's eyes, and tear his
+  clothes that way?" inquired Miss Morgan when her wits
+  returned.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why&mdash;no'm&mdash;I didn't. But he was one of four fellers
+  that picked on me comin' home from the circus, and tried to lick
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Willie," demanded the head of the attacking posse, "did you
+  pick a fight with that Perkins boy?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, no 'm, no 'm! I was just playin' round the tent, me and
+  another boy, and Bud he come up and jumped on us." And then to
+  add verisimilitude to his narrative, he appended: "Him and four
+  other boys."</p>
+
+  <p>"Henry," asked Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of
+  Henry's Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer
+  of them began to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this
+  little boy telling the truth? Now, don't you story to me,
+  Henry."</p>
+
+  <p>"Honest injun, Miss Morgan, I cross my heart and hope to drop
+  dead this minute if I ain't tellin' you the way it was. Him and
+  them North-enders, why they come along and called me names, and
+  he tried to hit me, and I just shoved him away like this," and
+  Henry executed a polite pantomime. "And I was swingin' my arms
+  out to keep 'em all from hittin' me, and he got in the way, and I
+  couldn't help it. And they was all a pickin' on me, and I told
+  'em all the time I didn't want to fight."</p>
+
+  <p>But Exhibit A kept looking at his mother and shaking his head
+  in violent contradiction of Bud, as the story was told.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:25%;">
+    <a href="images/360.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/360.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash again." />
+    </a> "<i>Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that
+    kind of trash again</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan asked: "Who scratched your face so, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Him; he's all the time fightin' me."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, ma, I didn't. You know I didn't."</p>
+
+  <p>Exhibit A and Exhibit B were still back to back. Then Exhibit
+  B responded: "Miss Morgan, you ast him if he didn't cuss and damn
+  me, and say he was goin' to pound me to death if I ever come
+  north of Sixth."</p>
+
+  <p>To which the leader of the raiders returned in great scorn:
+  "The very idea! Just listen at that! Why, Miss Morgan, that
+  Perkins boy is the bully of this town. Come on, Willie, your pa
+  will see if there is no law to protect you from such boys as
+  him." Whereupon the war party faced about, and walked down the
+  sidewalk and away.</p>
+
+  <p>Miss Morgan and Bud watched the North End woman and her son
+  depart. Miss Morgan turned to Bud, and spoke spiritedly: "Now,
+  Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash
+  again. Now, you won't forget, will you, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bud examined his toes carefully, and replied, "No 'm."</p>
+
+  <p>In the threshold she put her hand on the boy's shoulder, and
+  continued: "Now, don't you mind about it, Henry. They sha'n't
+  touch you. You come and wash, and we'll have supper."</p>
+
+  <p>When a boy has a woman for a champion, if he is wise, he
+  trusts her to any length. So Bud went to the kitchen, picked up
+  the water-bucket, and went to the well, partly to keep from
+  displaying a gathering wave of affection for his foster-mother,
+  and partly to let the magnificence of the wood-box burst upon her
+  in his absence. When he returned, he found Miss Morgan pointing
+  toward the wood-box and beaming upon him. Bud grinned, and fished
+  in his pocket for the coin.</p>
+
+  <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+    <a href="images/364.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/364.gif"
+    alt=
+    "Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule.... I thought it would be nice for the missionary society." />
+    </a> "<i>Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule.... I
+    thought it would be nice for the missionary society</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule," he
+  faltered. "I thought it would be nice for the missionary
+  society." That he might check any weak feminine emotions, he
+  turned his attention to the supper-table, and blurted: "Gee,
+  we're goin' to have pie, ain't we? I tell you, I'm mighty pie
+  hungry."</p>
+
+  <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/368.gif"><img width="100%" src="images/368.gif"
+    alt="Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we." /></a> "<i>Gee,
+    we're going to have pie, ain't we</i>."
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The glow of Miss Morgan's melted heart shone upon her face.
+  Through a seraphic smile she spoke: "It's apple pie, too,
+  Henry&mdash;your kind." As she put the supper upon the table, she
+  asked: "Did you have a good time at the circus, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>The boy nodded vehemently, and said: "You bet!" and then went
+  on, after a pause, "I guess I tore my pants a little gettin' off
+  of that mule; but I thought you'd like the dollar."</p>
+
+  <p>It was the finest speech he could make. "I guess I can mend
+  them, Henry," she answered; and then she asked, with her face in
+  the cupboard, "Sha'n't we try some of the new strawberry
+  preserves, Henry?"</p>
+
+  <p>As she was opening the jar she concluded that Henry Perkins
+  was an angel&mdash;a conclusion which, in view of the well-known
+  facts, was manifestly absurd.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" style="width:30%;">
+    <a href="images/374.gif"><img width="100%" src=
+    "images/374.gif" alt="horses" /></a>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <hr />
+
+  <h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"</h3>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+  <p>Did you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a merrier life and
+  wears more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom than he
+  that is clad in silk and velvet.&mdash;<i>From the Observations
+  of "Mr. Great Heart</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>It was dusk in Boyville. The boys at a game of hide-and-seek
+  filled the air with their calls:</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i8">"Bushel of wheat, and a</p>
+
+      <p class="i10">Bushel of rye&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p class="i8">All t' ain't ready</p>
+
+      <p class="i10">Holler aye.</p>
+
+      <p>All in ten feet of my base is caught: All eyes open."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Or</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">"One&mdash;two&mdash;three for me."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Or</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i2">"All's out's in free."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed;
+  over barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the
+  sunflowers and the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the
+  moon rose it merged into pull-away. That game flourished for a
+  while and transformed itself by an almost imperceptible evolution
+  into a series of races down the dusty road. But when the moon's
+  silver had marked itself upon the grass, the boys were lying
+  prone on a hay-cock behind the royal castle. They chattered idly,
+  and the murmur of their talk rose on the just-felt breeze that
+  greets the rising moon, like the ripple of waters. But the
+  chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were absorbing
+  the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their being
+  were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their
+  souls&mdash;fresher from God than are the souls of men&mdash;were
+  a-quiver with joy, and their lips babbled to hide their
+  ecstasies. In Boyville it is a shameful thing to flaunt the
+  secrets of the heart. As the night deepened, and the shy stars
+  peeped at the bold moon, the boys let their prattle ebb into
+  silence. Long they lay looking upward&mdash;with the impulse in
+  their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam left
+  unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the
+  wise men of the world have left locked in mystery&mdash;the
+  question of the Whence, the Why, and the Whither.</p>
+
+  <p>As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the
+  company upon the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary
+  boy remained.</p>
+
+  <p>After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer
+  madness set him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay.
+  Life was full of gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a
+  delicious longing for he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it
+  were not something new and unimaginably good to eat. It was the
+  nearest he could come to a defining of the longing. Of course no
+  one can define it. It is that which quickens the blood of all
+  young creatures&mdash;the rosebud, the meadow-lark, the
+  dragon-fly, the colt, the boy and the maiden, bidding them
+  glorify God with the show and the example of their comeliness.
+  The boy rose from the hay and skipped under the trees, over the
+  fantastic figures of the moon-spun carpet. He waved his arms, and
+  there came to his throat a simple song, which he chanted
+  croakingly, lest some one should hear him and laugh. He stopped,
+  and sitting on a fence looked at a great white cloud that was
+  mounting the western sky. His soul was listening to the faraway
+  music from the breakers of the restless rising sea of ambition,
+  and the rush of life and action, that were flooding into the
+  distant rim of his consciousness. The music charmed him. Tears
+  came to his eyes, he knew not why. But we, whom this mighty tide
+  has carried away from that bourne whereon the boy's feet strayed
+  so happily&mdash;we know why the far-seeing angels gave him
+  tears.</p>
+
+  <p>A dog in some distant farm-yard was baying at the moon. A
+  whining screech owl sent a faint shudder of superstitious fear
+  over the boy. For a long time he sat on the fence absorbing the
+  night sounds&mdash;the claque of the frogs, the burring of the
+  crickets, the hum of the water on the mill-dam far down the
+  valley, and the occasional call of some human voice, ringing like
+  a golden bell in the hush of the night. It was after nine and the
+  boy was deep in his trackless revery. A woman called,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Win-nee, Win-nee, oh, Winnie."</p>
+
+  <p>The spell upon him was almost too delicious to break; but he
+  roused himself to reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Yessum. All right."</p>
+
+  <p>Then the mother's voice continued: "Now wash your feet,
+  Winnie, and wipe 'em dry; don't come to bed with dirty feet."</p>
+
+  <p>Slowly the boy climbed to the earth. He shuffled through dew,
+  but his feet were still too dirty. He stood in the tub of water
+  by the pump, rubbing one foot with the other, and his eyes turned
+  moonward. The thrall of the night caught him again. In a hazy
+  stupor he sat on the kitchen step drying his feet. When he got
+  up, Piggy Pennington gazed for a moment at a star&mdash;a pale
+  star which hovered timidly over the chimney of the home which
+  sheltered his Heart's Desire. With the lunacy upon him, he flung
+  to the star a bashful kiss. Then he grinned foolishly and came to
+  himself with a grunt, as he ran up stairs to his room. He was
+  ashamed to face the south breeze that fanned his bed.</p>
+<br />
+<hr class="full" />
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+*** END: FULL LICENSE ***
+</pre>
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,3710 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Court of Boyville, by William Allen
+White, Illustrated by Orson Lowell and Gustav Verbeek
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Court of Boyville
+
+Author: William Allen White
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2004  [eBook #12377]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURT OF BOYVILLE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Christine Gehring, Tim Koeller, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 12377-h.htm or 12377-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/7/12377/12377-h/12377-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/7/12377/12377-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COURT OF BOYVILLE
+
+By
+
+William Allen White
+
+Author Of The Real Issue, etc.
+
+Illustrated by ORSON LOWELL (with the exception of the first story,
+the illustrations for which are by GUSTAV VERBEEK).
+
+1898
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES
+
+A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
+
+"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"
+
+JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON
+
+MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
+
+"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"
+
+
+
+
+  Where is Boyville? By what track
+  May we trace our journey back;
+  Up what mountains, thro' what seas
+  By what meadow-lands and leas,
+  Must we travel to the bourne
+  Of the shady rows of corn
+  That lead down to the Willows
+  Where the day is always morn?
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"Say, boys, where's its bottle?"
+
+The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a piece of rope
+
+He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water
+
+He felt his father's finger under his collar and his own feet shambling
+
+Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an arm
+
+His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin
+
+His luck was bad
+
+He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the barn
+
+As she turned to her turkey-slicing
+
+The new preacher, for whom the party was made
+
+The first long dress
+
+"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still"
+
+"Did you know my dad was a soldier?"
+
+During the next two hours the boy wandered on the prairie
+
+"Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten days"
+
+Piggy went to get his flying hat
+
+She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him
+
+Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds
+
+Chased the little girls around the yard with it
+
+She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her
+during the opening hour
+
+Harold Jones
+
+To study his tastes
+
+... The comradeship ... was beautiful to see
+
+The red-headed Pratt girl
+
+He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and listen to his
+Heart's Desire
+
+Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing piles
+
+He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be
+brought forward
+
+... fought boys who were three classes above him ... whipped groups of
+boys of assorted sizes
+
+Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle
+
+Her son ate rapidly in silence
+
+His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of it to the
+mothers of other boys
+
+A little maid in a black-and-red check
+
+Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair
+
+It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph
+album
+
+At this important bit of repartee
+
+His heart was full of bitterness
+
+Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish
+
+A crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a sneaker
+
+James
+
+Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter
+
+The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby
+
+Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that
+she was no longer the baby
+
+His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that
+filled the boy with shame
+
+He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart
+was glad
+
+He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into
+an agonized knot
+
+"Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the
+eye"
+
+"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me"
+
+An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his
+hair
+
+"Got anything here fit to eat?"
+
+"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for?"
+
+She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked at her lips
+
+Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and
+down the alley
+
+Mammoth Consolidated Shows
+
+Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry
+
+How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman
+
+Brother Baker--a tiptoeing Nemesis
+
+Dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets, hurrying
+their seniors
+
+The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving
+his wares in a red and blue trail behind him
+
+The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her
+Beau's hat
+
+"One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you saw him"
+
+"It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once?"
+
+8 Funny Clowns--count them 8
+
+"Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick"
+
+The other wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repairs
+
+When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and
+laughed till he shook all over
+
+"Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy"
+
+"Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash
+again"
+
+"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule ... I thought it
+would be nice for the missionary society"
+
+"Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we"
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+
+We who are passing "through the wilderness of this world" find it
+difficult to realize what an impenetrable wall there is around
+the town of Boyville. Storm it as we may with the simulation of
+light-heartedness, bombard it with our heavy guns, loaded with
+fishing-hooks and golf-sticks, and skates and base-balls, and
+butterfly-nets, the walls remain. If once the clanging gates of the
+town shut upon a youth, he is banished forever. From afar he may peer
+over the walls at the games inside, but he may not be of them. Let him
+try to join them, and lo, the games become a mockery, and he finds
+that he is cavorting still outside the walls, while the good citizens
+inside are making sly sport of him. Who, being recently banished from
+Boyville, has not sought to return? In vain does he haunt the swimming
+hole; the water elves will have none of him. He hushes their laughter,
+muffles their calls, takes the essence from their fun, and leaves it
+dust upon their lips.
+
+But we of the race of grown-ups are a purblind people. Otherwise,
+when we acknowledge what a stronghold this Boyville is, we the
+banished would not seek to steal away the merry townsmen, and bruise
+our hearts and theirs at our hopeless task. We have learned many
+things in our schools, and of the making of books there has been no
+end; so it is odd that we have not learned to let a boy be a boy. Why
+not let him feel the thrill from the fresh spring grass under his
+feet, as his father felt it before him, and his father's father, even
+back to Adam, who walked thus with God! There is a tincture of iron
+that seeps into a boys blood with the ozone of the earth, that can
+come to him by no other way. Let him run if he will; Heavens air is a
+better elixir than any that the alchemist can mix. What if he roams
+the woods and lives for hours in the water? What if he prefers the
+barn to the parlor? What if he fights? Does he not take the risk of
+the scratched face and the bruises? Should he not be in some measure
+the judge of the situation before him when the trouble begins? Boys
+have an ugly name for one of their kind who discovers suddenly, in a
+crisis of his own making, that he is not allowed to fight. And it were
+better to see a boy with a dozen claw-marks down his face than to see
+him eat that name in peace.
+
+Now this conclusion may seem barbaric to elders who have to pay for
+new clothes to replace the torn ones, And according to their light
+perhaps the elders see clearly. But the grown-up people forget that
+their wisdom has impaired their vision to see as boys see and to pass
+judgment upon things in another sphere.
+
+For Boyville is a Free Town in the monarchy of the world. Its
+citizens mind their own business, and they desire travellers in this
+waste to do likewise. The notion that spectacled gentry should come
+nosing through the streets and alleys of Boyville, studying
+the sanitation, which is not of the best, and objecting to the
+constitution and by laws,--which were made when the rivers were dug
+and the hills piled up,--the notion of an outsider interfering with
+the Divine right of boys to eat what they please, to believe what they
+please, and, under loyalty to the monarchy of the world, to do what
+they please, is repugnant to this free people. Nor does it better
+matters when the man behind the spectacles explains that to eat
+sheep-sorrel is deleterious; to feed younkers Indian turnip is cruel;
+to suck the sap of the young grapevine in spring produces malaria; to
+smoke rattan is depraving, and to stuff one's stomach with paw-paws
+and wild-grapes is dangerous in the extreme.
+
+For does not the first article of the law of this Free Town expressly
+state, that boys shall be absolved from obeying any and all laws
+regulating the human stomach, and be free of the penalties thereto
+attaching? And again when Wisdom says that the boy shall give up his
+superstitions, the boy points to hoary tradition, which says that the
+snakes tail does not in fact and in truth die till sundown; that if
+a boy kills a lucky bug he shall find a nickel; that to cross one's
+heart and lie, brings on swift and horrible retribution; that letting
+the old cat die causes death in the family; that to kill a toad makes
+the cow give bloody milk; that horsehairs in water turn to snakes in
+nine days; that spitting on the bait pleases the fish, and that to
+draw a circle in the dust around a marble charms it against being hit.
+What tradition, ancient and honorable in Boyville, declares is true,
+that is the Law everlasting, and no wise mans word shall change the
+law one jot nor one tittle. For in the beginning it was written, to
+get in the night wood, to eat with a fork at table, to wear shoes on
+Sunday, to say "sir" to company, and "thank you" to the lady, to go to
+bed at nine to remember that there are others who like gravy, to stay
+out of the water in dog days, to come right straight home from school,
+to shinny on your own side, and to clean those feet for Heaven's
+sake,--that is the whole duty of boys. As it was in the beginning, so
+it shall be ever after.
+
+Now most of us grown-ups do not admit these things, and not being
+able to speak the language of the people whose rights we are
+seeking to destroy, we will never know how utterly futile are our
+conspiracies. But that is immaterial.
+
+The main point that the gentle reader should bear in mind is this:
+The town of Boyville is free and independent; governed only by the
+ancient laws, made by the boys of the elder days--by the boys who
+found bottom in the rivers that flowed out of Eden; by little Seth,
+little Enoch, little Methuselah, and little Noah; by the boys who
+threw mud balls from willow withes broken from trees whereon David
+hung his harp a thousand years thereafter. For Boyville was old when
+Nineveh was a frontier post.
+
+Boyville hears from afar the buzz about principalities and powers,
+the clatter of javelins and the clash of arms, the hubbub of the
+"Pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war." The courtiers of
+Boyville cheer for each new hero, and claim fellowship with all "like
+gentlemen unafraid." But the Free Town has its own sovereign, makes
+its own idols. And the clatter and clash and hubbub that attend the
+triumphs of the kingdoms of the earth pass by unconquered Boyville as
+the shadow of a dream.
+
+
+
+
+THE MARTYRDOM OF "MEALY" JONES
+
+
+A WAIL IN B MINOR
+
+  Oh, what has become of the ornery boy,
+    Who used to chew slip'ry elm, "rosum" and wheat:
+  And say "jest a coddin'" and  "what d'ye soy;"
+    And wear rolled-up trousers all out at the seat?
+
+  And where is the boy who had shows in the barn,
+    And "skinned a cat backards" and turned "summersets;"
+  The boy who had faith in a snake-feeder yarn,
+    And always smoked grape vine and corn cigarettes?
+
+  Where now is the small boy who spat on his bait,
+    And proudly stood down near the foot of the class,
+  And always went "barefooted" early and late,
+    And washed his feet nights on the dew of the grass?
+
+  Where is the boy who could swim on his back,
+    And dive and tread water and lay his hair, too;
+  The boy who would jump off the spring-board ker-whack,
+    And light on his stomach as I used to do?
+
+  Oh where and oh where is the old-fashioned boy?
+    Has the old-fashioned boy with his old-fashioned ways,
+  Been crowded aside by the Lord Fauntleroy,--
+    The cheap tinselled make-believe, full of alloy
+    Without the pure gold of the rollicking joy
+  Of the old-fashioned boy in the old-fashioned days?
+
+[Illustration: The Court of Boyville
+              The Martyrdom of Mealy Jones]
+
+His mother named him Harold, and named him better than she knew. He
+was just such a boy as one would expect to see bearing a heroic name.
+He had big, faded blue eyes, a nubbin of a chin, wide, wondering ears,
+and freckles--such brown blotches of freckles on his face and neck and
+hands, such a milky way of them across the bridge of his snub nose,
+that the boys called him "Mealy." And Mealy Jones it was to the end.
+When his parents called him Harold in the hearing of his playmates,
+the boy was ashamed, for he felt that a nickname gave him equal
+standing among his fellows. There were times in his life--when he
+was alone, recounting his valorous deeds--that Mealy more than half
+persuaded himself that he was a real boy. But when he was with
+Winfield Pennington, surnamed "Piggy" in the court of Boyville, and
+Abraham Lincoln Carpenter, similarly knighted "Old Abe," Mealy saw
+that he was only Harold, a weak and unsatisfactory imitation. He was
+handicapped in his struggle to be a natural boy by a mother who had
+been a "perfect little lady" in her girlhood and who was moulding her
+son in the forms that fashioned her. If it were the purpose of this
+tale to deal in philosophy, it would be easy to digress and show that
+Mealy Jones was a study in heredity; that from his mother's side of
+the house he inherited wide, white, starched collars, and from his
+father's side, a burning desire to spit through his teeth. But this is
+only a simple tale, with no great problem in it, save that of a boy
+working out his salvation between a fiendish lust for suspenders
+with trousers and a long-termed incarceration in ruffled waists with
+despised white china buttons around his waist-band.
+
+No one but Piggy ever knew how Mealy Jones learned to swim; and
+Harold's mother doesn't consider Piggy Pennington any one, for the
+Penningtons are Methodists and the Joneses are Baptists, and Very
+hard-shelled ones, too. However, Mealy Jones did learn to swim
+"dog-fashion" years and years after the others had become
+post-graduates in aquatic lore and could "tread water," "swim
+sailor-fashion," and "lay" their hair. Mrs. Jones permitted her son
+to go swimming occasionally, but she always exacted from him a solemn
+promise not to go into the deep water. And Harold, who was a good
+little boy, made it a point not to "let down" when he was beyond the
+"step-off." So of course he could not know how deep it was; although
+the bad little boys who "brought up bottom" had told him that it was
+twelve feet deep.
+
+One hot June afternoon Mealy stood looking at a druggist's display
+window, gazing idly at the pills, absently picking out the various
+kinds which he had taken. He had just come from his mother with
+the expressed injunction not to go near the river. His eyes roamed
+listlessly from the pills to the pain-killer, and; turning wearily
+away, he saw Piggy and Old Abe and Jimmy Sears. The three boys were
+scuffling for, the possession of a piece of rope. Pausing a moment in
+front of the grocery store, they beckoned for Mealy. The lad joined
+the group. Some one said,--
+
+"Come on, Mealy, and go swimmin'."
+
+"Aw, Mealy can't go," put in Jimmy; "his ma won't let him."
+
+"Yes, I kin, _too_, if I want to," replied Mealy, stoutly--but, alas!
+guiltily.
+
+"Then come on," said Piggy Pennington. "You don't dast. My ma don't
+care how often I go in--only in dog days."
+
+[Illustration: _The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a
+piece of rope_.]
+
+After some desultory debate they started--the four boys--pushing one
+another off the sidewalk, "rooster-fighting," shouting, laughing,
+racing through the streets. Mealy Jones longed to have the other boys
+observe his savage behavior. He knew, however, that he was not of
+them, that he was a sad make-believe. The guilt of the deed he was
+doing, oppressed him. He wondered how he could go into crime so
+stolidly. Inwardly he quaked as he recalled the stories he had read of
+boys who had drowned while disobeying their parents. His uneasiness
+was increased by the ever-present sense that he could not cope with
+the other boys at their sports. He let them jostle him, and often
+would run, after his self-respect would goad him to jostle back. Mealy
+was glad when the group came to the deep shade of the woods and walked
+slowly.
+
+It was three o'clock when the boys reached the swimming-hole. There
+the great elm-tree, with its ladder of exposed roots, stretched over
+the water. Piggy Pennington, stripped to the skin, ran whooping down
+the sloping bank, splashed over the gravel at the water's edge, and
+plunged into the deepest water. Old Abe followed cautiously, bathing
+his temples and his wrists before sousing all over. Jimmy Sears threw
+his shirt high up on the bank as he stood ankle-deep in the stream.
+Piggy's exhilaration having worn off by this time, he picked up a
+mussel-shell and threw it at Jimmy's feet. The water dashed wide of
+its mark and sprinkled Mealy, who was sitting on a log, taking off his
+shoes.
+
+"Here, Piggy, you quit that," said Mealy.
+
+Jimmy said nothing. He sprang into the air head foremost toward Piggy,
+who dived from sight. His pursuer saw the direction Piggy took and
+followed him. The boys were a few feet apart when Jimmy came to the
+surface, puffing and spouting and shaking the water from his eyes and
+hair. He hesitated in his pursuit. Piggy observed the hesitation, and
+with a quick overhand movement shot a stinging stream of water from
+the ball of his hand into his antagonist's face. Then Piggy turned
+on his side and swam swiftly to shallow water, where he stood and
+splashed his victim, who was lumbering toward shore with his eyes
+shut, panting loudly. With every splash Piggy said, "How's that, Jim?"
+or "Take a bite o' this," or "Want a drink?" When Jimmy got where he
+could walk on the creek bottom, he made a feint of fighting back,
+but he soon ceased, and stood by, gasping for breath, before saying,
+"Let's quit."
+
+Then followed the fun of ducking, the scuffling and the capers of the
+young human animals at play--at play even as gods in the elder days.
+Mealy saw it all through envious eyes and with a pricking conscience,
+as he doggedly fumbled the myriad buttons which his mother had
+fastened upon his pretty clothes. He heard Piggy dare Abe across the
+creek, and call him a cowardly calf, and say, "Any one't 'ull take a
+dare'll steal sheep." Mealy saw Jimmy grin as he cracked rocks under
+water while the other boys were diving, and watched Old Abe, as
+he made the waves rise under his chin, swimming after the fleeing
+culprit. He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water until
+Mealy's smile faded to a horrified grin. Then he saw the victim and
+the victor come merrily to the shallows, laughing as though nothing
+unusual had occurred. It was high revel in Boyville, and the satyrs
+were in the midst of their joy.
+
+[Illustration: _He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under
+water_.]
+
+Then Mealy heard Piggy say, "Aw, come in, Mealy; it won't hurt you."
+
+"Is it cold?" asked Mealy.
+
+"Naw," replied Piggy.
+
+"Naw, course it ain't," returned Jimmy.
+
+"Warm as dish-water," cried Abe.
+
+Mealy's ribs shone through his skin. His big milky eyes made him seem
+uncanny, standing there shivering in the shade. He hobbled down the
+pebbly bank on his tender feet, his bashful grin breaking into a dozen
+contortions of pain as he went. The boys stood watching him like
+tigers awaiting a Christian martyr. He paused at the water's edge, put
+in a toe and jerked it out with a spasm of cold.
+
+"Aw, that ain't cold," said Piggy.
+
+"Naw, when you get in you won't mind it," insisted Abe.
+
+Mealy replied, "Oo, oo! I think that's pretty cold."
+
+"Wet your legs and you won't get the cramp," advised Jimmy Sears.
+
+Mealy stooped over to scoop up some water in his hands. He heard the
+boys laugh, and the next instant felt a shower of water on his back.
+It made the tears come.
+
+"Uhm-m-m--no fair splashin'," he whined.
+
+Mealy put one foot in the water and drew it out quickly, gasping, "Oo!
+I ain't goin' in. It's too cold for me. It'll bring my measles out."
+He started--trembling--up the bank; then he heard a splashing behind
+him.
+
+"Come back here," cried Piggy, whose hands were uplifted; "come back
+here and git in this water or I'll muddy you." Piggy's hands were full
+of mud. He was about to throw it when the Jones boy pretended to laugh
+and giggled, "Oh, I was just a-foolin'."
+
+But he paused again at the water's edge, and Piggy, who had come up
+close enough to touch the rickety lad, reached out a muddy hand and
+dabbed the quaking boy's breast. The other boys roared with glee.
+Mealy extended a deprecatory hand, and took Piggy's wet, glistening
+arm and stumbled nervously into the stream, with an "Oo-oo!" at every
+uncertain step. When the water came to Mealy's waist Abe cried, "Duck!
+duck, or I'll splash you!" The boy sank down, with his teeth biting
+his tongue as he said, "Oo! I wouldn't do you that way."
+
+When the shock of the tepid water had spent itself, Mealy's grin
+returned, and he shivered happily, "Oo--it's good, ain't it?"
+
+Ten minutes later the boys were diving from the roots of the elm-tree
+into the deep water on the other side of the creek. Ten minutes after
+that they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by
+splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys
+for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves
+with coats of mud, adorned--one with stripes made with the point of a
+stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with
+snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path
+to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it
+came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted arms
+like the barbarian warriors which they fancied they were. They swam up
+the stream leisurely, and, as they rounded the bend that brought their
+landing-place into view, the quick eye of Piggy Pennington saw that
+some one had been meddling with their clothes. He gave the alarm. The
+boys quickened their strokes. When they came to the shallows of the
+ford they saw the blue-and-white starched shirt of Mealy Jones lying
+in a pool tied into half a dozen knots, with the water soaking them
+tighter and tighter. The other boys' clothes were not disturbed.
+
+"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other boys
+echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up people, but
+there is never a moment in after-life more poignant with grief than,
+that which stabs a boy when he learns that he must wrestle with a
+series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As Mealy sat in the broiling
+sun, gripping the knots with his teeth and fingers, he asked himself
+again and again how he could explain his soiled shirt to his mother.
+Lump after lump rose in his throat, and dissolved into tears that
+trickled down his nose. The other boys did not heed him. They were
+following Piggy's dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging
+limb of the elm-tree.
+
+They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham shirt, blue
+overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone back of Mealy,
+smiling complacently. Not until the stranger walked down to the
+water's edge where Mealy sat did the other boys spy him.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Abe.
+
+"I never saw him before," replied Jimmy Sears.
+
+"Oh, I'll tell you who it is," returned Abe, after looking the
+stranger over. "It's the new boy. Him an' his old man come to town
+yesterday. They say he's a fighter. He licked every boy in the
+Mountain Jumpers this mornin'."
+
+By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, "How you
+gittin' along?"
+
+Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled child, "Hush
+your mouth, you old smartie! What good d't do you to go an' tie my
+clo'es?"
+
+Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing. They heard the
+new boy retort, "Who said I tied your clo'es?" Mealy made no reply.
+The new boy repeated the query. Mealy saw the boys in the water
+looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in the primary
+department of life, and had not yet learned that one must fight alone.
+He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the "I," as he tugged at the
+last knot. The new boy had been looking Mealy over, and he replied
+quickly, "You're a liar!"
+
+There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for some one
+to defend him. He was sure that his companions would not stand there
+and see him whipped. One of the boys in the water said diplomatically,
+"Aw, Mealy, I wouldn't take that!"
+
+"You're another," faltered Mealy, who looked supplication and surprise
+at his friends, and wondered if they were really going to desert him.
+The new boy waded around Mealy, and leaned over him, and said, shaking
+his fist in the freckled face, "You're a coward, and you don't dast
+take it up and fight it out."
+
+Mealy's cheeks flushed. He felt anger mantling his frame. He was one
+of those most pitiable of mortals whose anger brings tears with it.
+The last knot in the shirt was all but conquered, when Mealy bawled in
+a scream of passionate sobs,--
+
+"When I git this shirt fixed I'll show you who's a coward."
+
+The new boy sought a level place on the bank for a fight, and sneered,
+"Oh, cry baby! cry baby! Say, boys, where's its bottle?"
+
+[Illustration: "_Say, boys, where's its bottle_?"]
+
+Mealy rose with a stone in each hand, and hobbled over the pebbles,
+trying, "Touch me now! Touch me if you dare!"
+
+"Aw, you coward! drop them rocks," snarled the new boy.
+
+Mealy looked at his friends imploringly. He felt lonely, deserted, and
+mistreated, but he saw in the faces of his comrades the reflection of
+the injunction to put down the stones. He did so, and his anger began
+to cool. But he whimpered again, "Well now, touch me if you dare!"
+
+The new boy came over briskly, and made a feint to slap the naked lad,
+who warded off the blow, sniffling, "You just leave me alone. I ain't
+hurtin' you." The boys in the water laughed--it seemed to Mealy such
+a cruel laugh. Anger enveloped him again, and he struck out blindly
+through his tears, hand over hand, striking the new boy in the mouth
+and making it bleed, before he realized that the fight had begun. The
+new boy tried to clinch Mealy, but the naked body slipped away from
+him; and just then the combatants saw the satisfied grin freeze on the
+faces of the boys in the water. A step crunched the gravel near them,
+and in a moment that flashed vividly with rejoicing that the fight was
+ended, then with abject, chattering terror, Mealy Jones saw his
+father approaching. Mealy did not run. The uplifted cane and the red,
+perspiring face of his father transfixed the lad, yet he felt called
+upon to say something. His voice came from a dry throat, and he spoke
+through an idiotic grin as he said, "I didn't know you wanted me, pa."
+
+After the burst of his father's anger ten awful minutes of shame
+passed for Mealy while he was putting on his wet clothes. The boys
+in the water swam noiselessly upstream to the roots of the elm-tree,
+where he saw them looking at his disgrace. During those ten minutes
+Mealy realized that his father's deepening silence portended evil; so
+he tried to draw his father into a discussion of the merits of the
+case by whimpering from time to time, "Well, I guess they ast me to
+come," or "Piggy said it wouldn't hurt, 'cause 't ain't in dog days,"
+or "I wasn't in where it was deep. I was only a-wadin'." The new boy,
+who was seated upon a log near by with a stone in his hand, which he
+had picked up fearing the elder Jones would join the fray, sniffed
+audibly. He called to the other boys derisively, "Say, any of you boys
+got the baby's blocks?" It did not lift the mantle of humiliation that
+covered Mealy to hear his father reply to the new boy, "That will do
+for you, sir." While Mealy wept he wiped away his tears first with one
+hand and then with the other, employing the free hand in fastening
+his clothes together. He did not fear the punishment that might be in
+store for him. He was thinking of the agony of his next meeting with
+Piggy Pennington. Mealy fancied that Abe Carpenter, who was a quiet,
+philosophical boy, would not tease him, but horror seized him when he
+thought of Piggy.
+
+As Mealy fastened his last button, he felt his father's finger under
+his collar, and his own feet shambling blindly over the pebbles, up
+the path, into the bushes; he heard the boys in the water laugh with
+the new boy, and then--stories differ. The boys say that he howled
+lustily, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any more," over and over again. Mealy
+Jones says that it didn't hurt a bit.
+
+[Illustration: _He felt his father's finger under his collar and his
+own feet shambling_.]
+
+This much is certain: that Master Harold Jones walked through the town
+that day a few feet ahead of his fathers who tapped the boy's legs
+with a hooked cane whenever his steps lagged. At the door of the Jones
+home Mrs. Jones stood to welcome the martial procession, which she
+saw, and then heard, approaching some time before it arrived. To his
+wife, whose face pictured anxious grief, Mr. Jones said, as he
+turned the captive over to her: "I found this young gentleman in
+swimming--swimming and fighting. I have attended to his immediate
+wants, I believe. I leave him to you."
+
+Harold Jones was but a lad--a good lad whose knowledge of the golden
+text was his Sunday-school teacher's pride. Yet he had collected other
+scraps of useful information as he journeyed through life. One of
+these was a perfectly practical familiarity with the official road map
+to his mother's heart. Therefore, when he crossed the threshold of the
+Jones home Harold began at once to weep dolefully.
+
+"Harold Jones, what do you mean by such conduct?" asked his mother.
+
+The boy stood by the window long enough to see that his father had
+turned the corner toward the town. Then he fell on the floor, and
+began to bewail his lot, refusing to answer the first question his
+mother asked, but telling instead how "all the other boys in this town
+can go swimmin' when they want to," hinting that he wouldn't care, if
+papa had only just come and brought him home, but that papa--and this
+was followed by a vocal cataract of woe that made the dish-pans ring.
+
+He noted that his mother bent over him and said, "My poor boy;" at
+which sign little Harold punctured the levees of his grief again,
+and said he "never was goin' to face any of the boys in this town
+again"--he "just couldn't bear it." Mrs. Jones paused in her work at
+this, put down a potato that she was peeling, and stood up stiffly,
+saying in a freezing tone, "Harold Jones, you don't mean to tell me
+that your father punished you in front of those other little boys?"
+
+Her son only sobbed and nodded an affirmative, and gave lusty voice to
+the tearful wish that he was dead. Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and
+took her child by an arm, lifting him to his feet. She smoothed his
+hair and took him with her to the big chair in the dining-room, where
+she raised his seventy pounds to her lap, saying as she did so,
+"Mama's boy will soon be too big to hold." At that the spoiled child
+only renewed his weeping and clutched her tightly. There, little by
+little, he forgot the mishaps of the day. There the anguish lifted
+from his heart, and when his mother asked, "Harold, why did you go
+into the water when we told you not to?" the child only shook his
+head, and, after repeated questioning, his answer came,--
+
+"Well, they asked me, mom."
+
+"Who asked you?" persisted Mrs. Jones.
+
+"Piggy Pennington and Jimmy Sears," returned the lad.
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by
+an arm_.]
+
+To the query, "Well, do you have to do everything they ask you to,
+Harold?" the lad's answer was a renewal of the heart-breaking sobs.
+These softened the mother's heart, as many and many a woman's heart
+has been melted through all the ages. She soothed the truant child and
+petted him, until the cramping in his throat relaxed sufficiently to
+admit of the passage of an astonishingly large slice of bread and
+butter and sugar. After it was disposed of, Harold busied himself by
+assorting his old iron scraps on the back porch, and his mother smiled
+as she fancied she heard the boy trying to whistle a tune.
+
+Harold had left the porch before his father came home with the
+beefsteak for supper, and Mrs. Jones met her husband with: "Pa Jones,
+what could you be thinking of--punishing that boy before the other
+children? Do you want to break what little spirit he has? Why, that
+child was nearly in hysterics for an hour after you left!"
+
+Mr. Jones hung up his crooked cane, put a stick of wood in the stove,
+scraped his pipe with his knife, and blew through the stem.
+
+"I guess he wasn't hurt much," replied the father. Then he added, as
+he put a live coal in the pipe: "I s'pose you went an' babied him an'
+spoiled it all." There was a puffing pause, after which Mr. Jones
+added, "If you'd let him go more, an' didn't worry your head off when
+he was out of sight, he'd amount to more."
+
+Mrs. Jones always gave her husband three moves before she spoke. "Yes!
+yes! you'd make that boy a regular little rowdy if you had your way,
+William Jones."
+
+In the mean time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle in the
+alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his spindling legs
+would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They were grinning broadly
+when he came to them. It was Piggy Pennington who first spoke, "Oh,
+pa, I won't do it any more," repeating the phrase several times in a
+suppressed voice, and leering impishly at Mealy.
+
+"Aw, you're makin' that up," answered Mealy in embarrassment. But
+Piggy continued his teasing until Abe Carpenter said: "Say, Mealy, we
+want you to go to the cave with us to-morrow; can you?"
+
+The "can you" was an imputation on his personal liberty that Mealy
+resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom dollar I can."
+Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him, and the boys sat in
+the dirt behind the barn, chattering about the new boy, whose name,
+according to the others, was "Bud" Perkins. Mealy entered the
+conversation with much masculine pomp--too much, in fact; for when he
+became particularly vain-glorious some one in the group was certain to
+glance at his shoes--and shoes in June in Boyville are insignia of the
+weaker sex, the badges of shame.
+
+But Mealy did not feel his disgrace. He walked up the ash path to the
+kitchen with an excellent imitation of manly pride in his gait. He
+kicked at a passing cat, and shook his head bravely, talking to
+himself about the way he would have whipped the new boy if his father
+had not interrupted the fight.
+
+As Mrs. Jones heard the boy's step on the porch, she said to his
+father, "Now, pa, that boy has been punished enough to-day. Don't you
+say a word to him." Harold walked by his father with averted face. At
+supper the boy did not look at his father, and when the dishes were
+put away, Mr. Jones, who sat in the kitchen smoking, heard his wife
+and the child in a front room, chatting cheerily. The lonesome father
+smoked his pipe and recalled his youth. The boy's voice brought back
+his own shrill treble, and he coughed nervously. After Mrs. Jones had
+put the lad to bed, and was in the pantry arranging for breakfast, the
+father knocked the ashes from his briar into the stove, and, humming
+an old tune, went to the boy's bedroom door. He paused awkwardly on
+the threshold. The boy turned his face toward the wall. The action cut
+the father to the quick. He walked to the bed and bent over the child,
+touching a father's rough-bearded face to the soft cheek. He found the
+soft hand--with a father's large hand--under the sheet, and he held
+the little hand tightly as he said:
+
+"Well, Harold"--there he paused for a second. But he continued, "Do
+you think you'd a-licked that boy--if--if--I hadn't a-come?"
+
+Then the two laughed, and a little throb of joyous pain tingled in
+their throats--such as only boys may feel.
+
+
+
+
+A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
+
+
+A LITTLE DREAM-BOY
+
+  Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
+  And wake up a little man lying forlorn,
+  Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.
+
+  Little Boy Blue, blow a merry, sweet note,
+  Over the pool where the white lilies float,--
+  Fill out the sails of a little toy boat.
+
+  Blow on my dream of a little boy there,--
+  Blow thro' his little bark-whistle, and snare
+  Your breath in a tangle of curly brown hair.
+
+  Blow and O blow from your fairy land far,
+  Blow while my little boy wears a tin star,
+  And rides a stick-horse to a little boy's war.
+
+  Blow for the brave man my dream-boy would be,
+  Blow back his tears when he wakes up to see
+  His knight errant gone and instead--only me.
+
+  Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
+  Blow for a little boy lying forlorn,
+  Asleep where his life wanders out of the morn.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
+
+
+In a small town, every man who has been in the community long enough
+to become thoroughly known to the townsmen has a place in the human
+mosaic; that place seldom changes. Occasionally a man is a year in
+finding his place. The town of Willow Creek located Calhoun Perkins in
+two days. Wednesday he arrived in town with his son, whom he called
+"Bud;" Thursday night it was reported that he had been fishing the
+second time. That settled it. After that the boasting of Perkins about
+his family in Tennessee and his assertion that he expected to go into
+business only made the men laugh when Perkins left a group of them.
+They were not interested in Perkins by the following Saturday; and
+Monday every man in the town felt that his judgment of a man who would
+go fishing every day had been handsomely vindicated, when it was
+learned that Perkins had served in the Confederate army. When Perkins
+had been in the town three years, the anecdotes illustrating his
+shiftlessness multiplied, and his name was a synonym for that trait of
+character known in the vernacular as "no-'count." In the third spring,
+after a winter's tussle with rheumatism, Perkins died. His funeral was
+of so little importance that none of the corpulent old ladies in black
+alpaca, holding their handkerchiefs carefully folded in their hands,
+came panting across the town to attend it. No women came at all. And
+the Perkins boy stood by stolidly while the dry clods were rumbling
+upon the pine box in the grave. The boy wished to be alone, and he
+would not sit on the seat with the driver. He wiped a little moisture
+from his eyes, and rode to town with his feet hanging out of the back
+of the wagon that had held the coffin.
+
+[Illustration: _His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had
+held the coffin_.]
+
+When the wagon came to the thick of the town, Bud Perkins quietly slid
+to the ground, and joined a group of afternoon idlers who were playing
+marbles on the south side of a livery barn. Here and there in the
+group a boy said: "H'lo, Bud," when the Perkins boy joined the
+coterie, but many of the youngsters, being unfamiliar with the
+etiquette of mourning, were silent, and played on at their game. When
+the opportunity came the Perkins boy put a marble in the ring without
+saying a word. He went back to "taws," and "lagged for goes," with
+the others. He spoke only when he was addressed. A black sense of
+desolation lowered over him, and he could not join in the ejaculations
+and responses of the game. His luck was bad, and he lost marble after
+marble. In an hour, when the sun was still in the south, he withdrew
+from the game and sat alone against the barn, drawing figures on the
+earth with a broken piece of hoop-iron. The boy could not fight off
+the thought of the empty home waiting for him down by the river. He
+saw, as he sat there, all the furniture, his father's clothes hanging
+at the foot of the bed, the stove in disorder; and then he realized
+that in the whole town not one hand was held out to him. He was a
+child, yet the heartlessness of it all cut him to the quick. This
+thought overwhelmed him, again and again, each time with more
+agonizing force, like an increasing wave, and as one flood washed over
+him with fiercer passion than the others, the boy rose hurriedly, ran
+around the barn, and flung himself upon a pile of hay. There he gave
+way to a storm of sobs. One of the group, who had been watching him
+more closely than the others, soon withdrew from the game, and going
+in the opposite direction from that taken by Bud Perkins, came
+tiptoeing around the haystack.
+
+[Illustration: _His luck was bad_.]
+
+[Illustration: _He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the
+barn_.]
+
+The paroxysm of sobs had ceased, and Bud was lying face downward as if
+asleep. He heard the step, but pretended not to hear it. He felt some
+one pressing the hay beside him. He knew who it was, and the two boys
+lay upon the hay without speaking. The Perkins boy turned his head
+away from the new-comer; but try as he would, Bud could not keep from
+sniffling. In a few moments the other boy tried to roll the Perkins
+boy over. It was a vain attempt. Then the sobbing began anew. But it
+was a short attack, and, at length, the other boy said: "Bu-ud?" Again
+he said, "Bu-ud?" There came no response. "O, Bud--I got somethin'
+to tell you!" The sniffling continued, and the other boy kept on
+pleading. "Ah, Bud, come on; I got somethin' real good," he said.
+Silence answered. The teasing went on: "Say, Bud, I won back all your
+marbles." That was repeated twice. Then a hand went over toward the
+other boy. He filled it with marbles, and it went back. Another
+silence was followed by a rustle of hay, and a dirty face turned over,
+and a voice said through a pathetic, apologetic smile: "This old
+nicked glassey ain't mine." The two heads nestled together, and four
+eyes gazed at the blue sky and the white clouds for a long time. It
+was the Perkins boy who spoke: "Say, Piggy, I bet you'd cry, too, if
+you was me."
+
+Piggy wormed his arm under the hay around the Perkins boy's neck, as
+he asked, "What you goin' to do to-night, Bud?"
+
+"I dunno. Why?" replied Bud.
+
+"Well, I'm comin' out to stay all night. They're goin' to have a party
+at our house, and ma said I could."
+
+Bud drew himself up slowly; then threw himself with a quick spring on
+top of Piggy, and the two began to wrestle like kittens in the hay.
+
+Even while Piggy Pennington and Bud Perkins were sitting at dusk on
+the back-porch steps of the Pennington house, eating turkey-wings
+which Mrs. Pennington had given to them, and devouring ham sandwiches
+which Piggy had taken from the big platterful in the pantry, looking
+the hired girl boldly in the face as he did it, even then the
+preparations for the Pennington entertainment were progressing
+indoors. The parlor, the sitting-room, and the dining-room, which had
+been decorated during the warm afternoon with borrowed palms and with
+roses from the neighbor's vines, were being ventilated. Windows were
+rising, and doors opening. The velvety air of May was fluttering
+everywhere. And there was so much life in it, that when Mrs.
+Pennington saw the two boys pass out of the alley gate, she saw the
+Perkins boy grab her son's hat and run away whooping, while Piggy
+followed, throwing clods at his companion's legs and feet. She
+thought, as she turned to her turkey-slicing, that the Perkins child
+was not taking his father's death "very hard." But she did not know
+that the boyish whoop was the only thing that saved him from sobbing,
+as he left the home where he saw such a contrast to his own. How could
+a woman carrying the responsibilities of the social honor of the
+Methodist church in Willow Creek have time to use her second sight?
+
+[Illustration: _As she turned to her turkey-slicing_.]
+
+The guests at the Pennington house that evening divided the honors
+equally between the new preacher, for whom the party was made, and
+Miss Morgan, whose last niece had married and left her but two days
+before. Most of the guests had met the new preacher; but none of
+them--save one or two of her intimate friends--could know how the
+lonely little old woman was faring in the cottage whence one by one
+her adopted birds had flown. They called her "little Miss Morgan" in
+the town, and the story of her life of devotion to her brothers' and
+sisters' children was familiar to every one about her. For ten years
+she had lived in Willow Creek caring for her brothers' orphans.
+She came to the community from the East, and found what she
+brought--culture, friends, and kindness at every turn. The children
+whom she had cared for had grown up, filed through the town's real
+estate college, and then mating had left the little spinster alone.
+
+[Illustration: _The new preacher, for whom the party was made_.]
+
+At the Penningtons' that evening she was cheerful enough--so cheerful,
+indeed, in her little bird-like way, that many of those who talked
+with her fancied that the resourceful little body was beyond the reach
+of petty grief. The modest, almost girlish smile beamed through the
+wrinkles of fifty autumns as brightly that evening at the Penningtons'
+as the town had ever seen it. From her place in a high-backed chair in
+the corner, Miss Morgan, in her shy, self-deprecatory way, shed her
+faint benediction about her as she had done for a decade. There was a
+sweetness in Miss Morgan's manner that made the old men gallant to her
+in a boyish way; and the wives, who loved her, were proud of their
+husbands' chivalry. During the evening at the Penningtons' the
+conversation found much of its inspiration in the Memorial Day
+services on the morrow and in anecdotes about the thriftlessness of
+Calhoun Perkins. Memorial Day was one of the holidays which Miss
+Morgan kept in her heart. Then she decorated each year a lover's
+grave--a grave she had never seen. The day had been sacred in her
+heart to the memory of a spring night, and the moon and the lilacs and
+the blue uniform of a soldier. Upon other days she waved this memory
+away with a gay little sigh, and would have none of it. But on
+Memorial Day she bade the vision come into her heart and bide a while.
+
+But she did not open the door there at the party. They said to one
+another, going home that night: "Well, I don't see's she minds it a
+bit. Isn't that pluck for you--not lonesome, not grumpy--just the same
+little body she was when we first saw her. Well--I know one thing--I
+couldn't do it."
+
+As for Miss Morgan, while she was walking home that night, she was
+thinking of the women of her age whom she had just left; the romance
+seemed to be gone completely from their lives, their faces seemed a
+trifle hard to her, and she was wondering if life would have gone so
+with her if there had been no Shiloh.
+
+The town clock in the schoolhouse was tolling eleven, as Miss Morgan
+turned the key in the front door. The night was starry and inviting,
+and as her house stood among the trees, somewhat back from the street,
+Miss Morgan did not feel afraid to sit in a porch chair, refreshing
+herself, before going indoors. The wind brought the odor of the lilacs
+from the bush at the house corner, and the woman sat drinking in the
+fragrance. She saw a pair of lovers strolling by, who did not observe
+her. She could hear the murmur of their voices; she did not try to
+catch their words. She sat silently dreaming and wondering. Again and
+again her eyes went to the stars in a vain questioning, and her lips
+moved. Maybe she was asking "where," maybe she was asking "why." As
+the moments slipped by, the years fell away from her. She had carried
+her little romance in her heart unsullied by reality. To-night the
+talk of Memorial Day had brought it all back, and the thrill of other
+days returned with the odor of the lilacs. She yielded to a vague,
+crazy notion, and in an impulsive, girlish run she went to the corner
+of the porch and broke a sprig from the lilac-tree.
+
+Then with a short sigh, that had just the hint of a smile in it, she
+took the lilac sprig into the house. Perhaps she fancied that no one
+would see the flowers but she. Maybe the oppressive stillness of the
+empty house burdened her. Certainly something was heavy upon her, for
+there was no smile in the sigh that came deeply from her heart, as she
+locked the door. It must have seemed lonely for Miss Morgan, coming
+from the crowded parlor, and the questions that her friends asked
+about her plans may have followed her. Perhaps it was the answer to
+these questions that kept her awake. She sat by her window and went
+over and over again the question, what should she do. The wedding that
+had so recently livened the cottage kept coming to the little old
+woman's mind, and with it came the bride. When the other children had
+gone away, Miss Morgan let them go with her blessing, and was glad of
+their good fortunes. But this last child to go had been Miss Morgan's
+pet. As the lonely spinster sat there she recalled how the child had
+been moulded by her; how she had fancied the child's heart was hers,
+cherishing in it the ideals, the sentiment, the tendernesses that the
+older heart had held sacred for a lifetime. Miss Morgan recalled how
+she and the girl had mingled their tears over the first long dress
+that their hands made, knowing, each of them, that it meant the coming
+of the parting. As she looked into the awful vistas of the stars, the
+woman knew that she was one of God's creatures, all alone--without one
+soul that she might even signal to.
+
+[Illustration: _The first long dress_.]
+
+The word "alone" came to her so strangely that she repeated it in a
+whisper. Its sound touched some string within her bosom, and she put
+her head upon the open window sill and wept, sobbing the word "alone"
+until sleep soothed her.
+
+The morning sunlight helped Miss Morgan to put aside the problems of
+the night; she hummed an old war tune as she went about her work, but
+it did not lift the silence from the house. The rooms that a few days
+before had been vocal with life, were so dead that the clock ticking
+in the parlor might be heard in the kitchen. The canary's cheerful
+song echoed shrilly through the silent place. Miss Morgan said to him,
+"Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still--you'll drive me wild."
+But her voice only increased the bird's vehemence, and the throbbing
+in her ears brought on a headache. When she put a paper over the cage,
+the clock annoyed her. She was irritated by a passing boy whistling
+"The Girl I Left Behind Me" with all his might, but sadly off the key.
+She went to the window and saw Bud Perkins.
+
+[Illustration: "_Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still_."]
+
+She did not know that the child had just arisen from a cheering
+breakfast at the Penningtons'--even if she knew how much a hearty
+breakfast cheers up any boy. But the spectacle of the orphan facing
+the world so bravely moved Miss Morgan. She felt a sudden wave of
+pity, and with it came the conviction of guilt--that she had been
+selfish while the boy was suffering. She had heard at the Penningtons'
+that the county would probably take charge of him; but she recalled
+what she had heard in its full meaning to the child only when she saw
+him turn the corner, going toward the centre of the town. There was
+a feeling of keen joy in her heart as she realized that she was not
+useless in the world, and she went about her morning's work with the
+lightest heart in all Willow Creek beating in her breast.
+
+Bud Perkins had seen but two Memorial Days in Kansas--and upon each of
+these days he and his father had gone fishing. The boy knew it was a
+soldiers' holiday, and from Piggy Pennington Bud had found out what
+were the purposes of the day. He knew that his father had been a
+soldier--a soldier on the wrong side. But he did not know that graves
+of Confederate soldiers were not included in the day's sacrament.
+
+"Mornin', Captain," said Bud to a slight, gray-haired old man,
+stooping over a basket of flowers in a vacant store-room in the main
+street of the town.
+
+When the man replied kindly the boy took heart to say: "You must be
+kind o' runnin' things here, I guess."
+
+"I'm in charge of the flowers, Bud, just for to-day," replied Captain
+Meyers, who did not wish to seem as vain-glorious as he was.
+
+"Goin' to put flowers on all the soldiers' graves--are you?" queried
+Bud. The elder replied that the Post aimed to do so.
+
+"Did you know my dad was a soldier?" was the boy's next question.
+
+[Illustration: "_Did you know my dad was a soldier_?"]
+
+The captain's heart was pricked when he saw what was in Bud's mind.
+The captain knew what the next query would be. He was a gentle man and
+kind. So, looking about to see if any comrades of a sterner sect than
+he were in hearing before replying, he said: "You mustn't feel bad
+now, Buddie, but it's only them on the Union side--whose graves we
+decorate to-day. I wouldn't mind, if I was you." Captain Meyers was
+not a diplomat, and he said the words poorly.
+
+In an instant the boy's eyes filled with tears. They dried in anger
+before they reached his flushed cheek. He clinched his hands, turned,
+and walked hotly out of the room. In the door he paused, whirled
+around, and cried,--
+
+  "Yank! Yank! Rick-stick-stank!
+  High ball, low ball, dirty-faced Yank!"
+
+[Illustration: _During the next two hours the boy wandered on the
+prairie_.]
+
+Then he ran wildly down the street to escape the infuriated mob which
+he believed would pursue him. The knowledge that he was cut off from
+the day's festivities made him wince with pain as he ran. Not until
+he came out upon the road across the prairie did he stop--breathless,
+worn out, crying. During the next two hours the boy wandered on the
+prairie and in the woods gathering wild flowers. By the time the
+exercises in the Willow Creek opera house were finished and the
+procession was formed, Bud Perkins had a heaping armful of field
+blossoms. He was coming over the hill to the cemetery when he heard
+the band strike up the "Dead March" down in the village. His impulse
+was to run away. He checked himself and walked across the place, past
+the shafts and monuments, toward his father's grave under the hill
+furthest from the town. In the middle of the cemetery the boy stopped.
+His eyes were caught by a marble lamb over a child's grave. The
+inscription he read was "Mary Pennington, aged two years, three
+months, and ten days." The date line upon the stone, told of a year
+that had passed before the Perkins boy was born. He gazed at it a
+moment, and put there a handful of his choicest flowers. Looking up
+he saw some early visitor to the silent place stepping from behind
+a monument. Bud had scattered his flowers before he saw that he
+was being watched; so he pretended to hunt for stones to throw. He
+gathered several, and peppered them at shafts and at birds.
+
+[Illustration: "_Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and
+ten days_"]
+
+Bud Perkins walked to the freshly-made mound where his father lay, and
+scattered his posies over it. The village "cornet band" was coming
+nearer and nearer to the hill. The boy curbed a temptation to leave.
+He walked lazily about the grave until the Memorial Day procession
+had entered the big iron gate a hundred yards away. Calhoun Perkins's
+grave could not be seen from the plot where the townspeople had
+gathered. The boy sat down with his back to the crowd. He did not know
+how near the people were to him. He felt that they were staring down,
+perhaps laughing, at him. So he tried to assume a careless air. He
+picked up clods and tossed them at adjacent objects. Tiring of this,
+he chewed the grass stems, and sucked the nectar from the corolla of
+wild honeysuckles. But this did not keep the lump out of his throat,
+and it did not subdue the turmoil of sorrow in his heart at the
+thought that his father was scorned in the town. Once his small frame
+shook with a strangled sob, but immediately afterward he threw an
+unusually big clod at a post near by. He had been hearing voices and
+footsteps on the brow of the hill for several minutes. Occasionally he
+picked out a familiar voice, and once he heard Mealy Jones call his
+name. He did not answer, but a woman standing a little further up the
+hill asked Mealy, "Who is it, Harold?" "Bud," said the youngster.
+
+"Bud who?" asked the woman's voice.
+
+The Perkins boy heard the dialogue. He was sitting down, throwing
+clods into the air, and catching them as they fell, and this appeared
+to be an engrossing task.
+
+"Bud Perkins. He's settin' down by his pa's grave," replied the boy on
+the hill. The child by the fresh mound pictured himself as the other
+boy saw him, and his eyes brimmed over with tears. He seemed so
+desolate.
+
+"Why don't you go to him?" insisted the woman, coming nearer.
+
+"Oh, Miss Morgan," said the boy whom she addressed, lowering his
+voice, but not lowering it sufficiently, "Miss Morgan, _you_ don't
+know _him_"
+
+Just then Bud was startled by a footstep at his side. He looked up and
+saw Piggy Pennington, who had a big bunch of roses in his hands,
+and who, seeing the stained face of his friend, said in embarrassed
+confusion: "Ma sent 'em." Piggy put the roses by the new pine
+head-board, and lay down--lying across his companion's feet.
+
+"Get off me," said Bud, when he had treated himself to a long,
+trembling sniff, after a painful silence. "I ain't no sidewalk."
+
+When Piggy went to get his flying hat, he said under his breath
+to Bud, "Wipe your face, quick; some one's comin'." Then he stood
+awkwardly at Bud's back and shielded him. Piggy spoke first to the
+little woman, now only a few paces away.
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy went to get his flying hat_.]
+
+"H'lo, Miss Morgan; lookin' for old Tom? He's buried off to the right
+yonder."
+
+"No, my dear. I want to speak to Henry Perkins," replied the woman,
+beaming the kindest of smiles into the guardsman's face. He stepped
+from the line between Miss Morgan and the Perkins boy, not sure that
+the intruder would find a welcome. Bud was glaring steadfastly at the
+earth, between his hands and knees. Piggy said, "Bu-ud?"
+
+"Whut," was the response.
+
+"Miss Morgan wants to talk with you," replied Piggy.
+
+"What's she want?" inquired the Perkins boy, with his head still
+between his knees.
+
+Miss Morgan had been coming nearer and nearer to him as the dialogue
+had progressed. She was standing in front of Bud when he added, "I
+ain't done nothin'."
+
+Miss Morgan bent down and touched his head with her hands. Piggy was
+shaking his head warningly at her with much earnestness. He feared
+that such a feminine proceeding would anger his comrade. When Miss
+Morgan sat upon the ground beside Bud and took one of his hands,
+stroking it without the boy's resisting, Piggy Pennington was dumb
+with wonder. He could not hear the gentle breaking of the agonizing
+lump in the child's throat. Even little Miss Morgan could not see the
+tears that had burst over the brims of the orphan's eyes. His face was
+averted. She stroked his hand, and snuggled closer to him. Then she
+heard a faint whimper, and her heart could stand the strain no longer;
+she leaned upon the child's shoulder, and mourned with him. The
+Pennington boy did not comprehend it all; but as he looked politely
+away from his friends, he felt the moisture in his eyes. He wiped it
+away quickly, glancing to see if his weakness had been detected.
+The woman recovered in a few moments, and arose with the boy's hand
+gripping hers warmly. He had felt her tears through his thin clothing,
+and was conquered.
+
+[Illustration: _She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him_.]
+
+"Come on, Henry; we're going now," said Miss Morgan, and drew the lad
+up with her hand.
+
+"Whur to?" asked Bud, who knew the answer instinctively.
+
+"Home," replied the little woman, who knew that the boy knew, and who
+was sure that he had consented. "Our home--yours and mine."
+
+The boy arose, still holding her hand, and looked toward the grave
+with the flowers strewn over it. He gripped her hand tightly--so
+tightly that it pained her--and sobbed, as he faced away from her: "O
+pop!"
+
+Then they walked on in silence, till they came up with Piggy, who had
+gone a few steps ahead. It was Bud who spoke first. He said: "You
+don't live far from Piggy's, do you, Miss Morgan?"
+
+And Piggy Pennington pointed his finger at Bud's dripping eyes and
+grinned, while Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds.
+
+[Illustration: _Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds_.]
+
+
+
+
+"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"
+
+
+THE RHYME OF MIGNONETTE
+
+  When dandelions fleck the green,
+    And plum-blooms scent the evening breeze,
+    And robin's songs throb through the trees;
+  And when the year is raw thirteen,
+    And Spring's a gawky hoyden yet,
+  The season mirrors in its mien
+    And in its tom-boy etiquette,
+    Maid Mignonette, my Mignonette.
+
+  When bare-feet lisp along the path,
+    And boys and jays go whistling by,
+    And girls and thrushes coyly cry
+  Their fine joys through the aftermath--
+    Then laid ghosts know their amulet
+  Which fickle siren mem'ry hath;
+    So laughing comes that sad coquette,
+    Comes Mignonette,--my Mignonette.
+
+  The wild rose is a conjurer,
+    It charms the heavy years away,
+    Unshoes my feet and bids them stray
+  O'er playgrounds where our temples were.
+    To some pale star I owe a debt
+  For harboring the soul of her
+    With whom I learned love's alphabet--
+    With Mignonette, my Mignonette.
+
+
+
+
+"While the Evil Days come not"
+
+  We duck through the court, reminded a
+  bit by our feelings of our first love, who hadn't
+  the cleanest of faces, or the nicest of manners;
+  but she takes her station in our memory because
+  we were boys then, and the golden halo
+  of youth is upon her.--_George Meredith_.
+
+What little things turn great events! Tragedies swing on such
+inconsequential hinges. It is so exasperating to look back over the
+path of a calamity and see how easily it might have been averted! If
+one man in the little town of Lawrence a generation ago had eaten two
+pieces of pie-plant pie instead of three for supper, the night of a
+certain party caucus, he would have attended that caucus and another
+set of delegates would have gone to the County convention, another
+would have been sent to the State Convention, another Governor of
+Kansas would have been nominated and elected, and he would have chosen
+another United States Senator, who would have voted for, instead of
+against, the impeachment of a President of the United States, and the
+history of the civilized world would have been an entirely different
+affair from the one now in use. Similarly, if Winfield Hancock
+Pennington, of the town of Boyville, had slipped his shoes off in the
+second block from his home, instead of slipping them off in the first
+block, on his way to school, a great shadow that settled over his life
+might have been lifted. For if he had not been sitting exactly where
+he sat on the curbing of the street, on that bright, beautiful Monday
+morning in September, removing his shoes and stockings, he would have
+found no garter snake to kill; and not having killed the snake, he
+could not have brought it to school on a stick; and not having brought
+it to school on a stick, he could not have chased the little girls
+around the yard with it before the teacher came. And if he had not
+been doing that, he would not have conceived the chivalrous notion
+that he might gain the esteem of his Heart's Desire by frightening
+her with a snake. And if Winfield Hancock Pennington had not made his
+Heart's Desire angry--without giving her a chance to cool off--she
+would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her during
+the opening hour. But probably all that happened had to happen in the
+course of things; so speculation is idle. But when it did happen, it
+seemed to be a hopeless case. Young Mr. Pennington had lived through
+the day, a week before, when the teacher changed his seat so that he
+could not see his Heart's Desire smile; but he knew that she was sorry
+with him, and that helped a little. But when he saw Harold Jones
+singing from the same book with his Heart's Desire, he tried in vain
+to catch the fragment of a smile from her. Instead of a smile, he
+found her threatening to make a face if he persisted. Piggy seemed to
+be buried in an avalanche of woe. Then it was that he saw what a small
+thing had started the avalanche of calamity thundering down upon him,
+and he smarted with remorse. In his anguish he tried to sing alto,
+and made a peculiar rasping sound that tore a reproof for him off the
+teacher's nerves.
+
+[Illustration: _Chased the little girls around the yard with it_.]
+
+[Illustration: _She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and
+sing with her during the opening hour_.]
+
+From the hour of the Jones boy's triumph, he and Winfield Hancock
+Pennington--familiarly known as "Piggy"--became boon companions. A
+grown-up outsider might have wondered at such a friendship, for Harold
+Jones was a pale, thin youth, with a squeaky voice. His skimmed-milk
+eyes popped out over a waste of freckles which blurred his features
+and literally weighted down a weak, loosely-wired jaw and kept an
+astonished mouth opened for hours at a time. Piggy, on the other hand,
+was a sturdy, chunky, blue-eyed boy, who had fought his way up to
+glory in the school, and who had run and jumped, and tumbled and
+dived, and bantered himself into the right to be King of Boyville.
+Chummery between the two boys seemed impossible, yet it was one of the
+things which every school expects in a certain crisis. When the affair
+is reversed, the two little girls go about breathing undying
+hatred for one another. But a boy begins to consume his rival with
+politeness, to seek him out from all other beings on earth, to study
+his tastes and cater to his humors. And so, while the comradeship
+between Piggy Pennington and Mealy Jones was built on ashes, its
+growth was beautiful to see.
+
+[Illustration: _Harold Jones_]
+
+[Illustration: _To study his tastes_.]
+
+[Illustration: ... _the comradeship ... was beautiful to see_]
+
+In all their hours of close communion neither boy mentioned to the
+other the name of the little girl in the red shawl and the paint-brush
+pig-tails whose fitful fancy had brought on all his trouble. In some
+mysterious way each managed to shower her with picture cards, to
+compass her about with oranges, to embower her desk with flowers;
+but it was all done in stealth, and she who was the object of
+this devotion rewarded it openly and--alas for the vanity of her
+sex--impartially. All the school watched the battle of the hearts
+eagerly. The big boys, who usually know as little about the social
+transactions beneath them as the teacher knows, felt an inkling of the
+situation. The red-headed Pratt girl became deeply interested in
+the affair, though she was never invited to a party in the school's
+aristocracy. She did not even get an invitation to Bud Perkins's
+surprise party, where every one who had any social standing was
+expected. Yet she saw all that went on in the school, and once she all
+but smiled sympathetically at Piggy, when she met him slipping away
+from his Heart's Desire's desk, in which he had left a flock of Cupids
+nestling on a perfumed blotter, and a candy sheep. Mealy Jones would
+have snubbed the Pratt girl if she had caught him thus, but Piggy gave
+her a wink that made her his partner. After that hour the Pratt girl
+became his scout. The next day she blundered. That Friday was burned
+into Piggy Pennington's memory with a glowing brand.
+
+[Illustration: _The red-headed Pratt girl_.]
+
+The trouble occurred in this way: On the Friday following Piggy's
+black Monday, the King of Boyville, decided to resort to an heroic
+measure. In his meditative moments Piggy had made up speeches
+addressed to his Heart's Desire wherein he had proposed reconciliation
+at any sacrifice save that of honor. Twice during those four days he
+had stood by his Heart's Desire during recess, while they had looked
+out at the play-ground. But the words next to his heart had sputtered
+and bubbled into nothing on his lips. He could only snap chalk at
+the young gentlemen in the yard below him, in a preoccupied way,
+and listen to his Heart's Desire rattle on about the whims of her
+fractions and the caprices of her spelling-lesson. Friday noon,
+Winfield Hancock Pennington took a header into the Rubicon. In the
+deserted school-room, just after the other youngsters had gone to
+dinner or to play, Piggy, with much wiggling of his toes, with much
+hard breathing, and with many facial contortions, wrote a note. He
+gave it to the Pratt girl to deliver. When the first bell was ringing
+that noon, Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling,
+squealing piles at "crack the whip." During the fifteen minutes
+that followed, he was charging up and down the yard, howling like a
+Comanche, at "pull-away." But run as he would, yell as he would, and
+wrestle as he would, Piggy could not escape the picture that rose in
+his mind of a boy wearing his features and using his body, writing the
+note that he had written. When dismembered words and phrases from that
+note came to his mind on the play-ground, the quaver of terror that
+rose in Piggy's whoop was not dissembled. Sometimes fear froze his
+vitals, then a flush of self-abasement burned him with its flames. And
+all the time he knew that the Pratt girl had that note. He almost
+hoped that an earthquake would swallow her with it before she could
+deliver it. When Piggy came straggling in, hot, sweaty, and puffing,
+just as the teacher was tapping the tardy-bell, a wave of peace swept
+over him. His Heart's Desire was not at her desk. He knew that he
+had still a few moments' reprieve.
+
+[Illustration: _He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and
+listen to his Heart's Desire_.]
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling,
+squealing piles_.]
+
+They were singing when his Heart's Desire came in. Piggy's head was
+tilted back to give his voice full volume as he shouted, "All his
+jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own." His eyes were
+half closed in an ecstasy, and he did not turn his face toward the
+paint-brush pig-tails, nor give any sign that he knew of their owner's
+presence. Yet when she passed his desk, his voice did not quaver, nor
+his eyes blink, nor his countenance redden, as his foot darted out for
+her to trip over. She tripped purposely, thereby accepting affection's
+tribute, and he was glad.
+
+To elaborate the tale of how the Pratt girl blundered with Piggy
+Pennington's note would be depressing. For it holds in its barbed
+meshes a record of one agonizing second in which Piggy saw the folded
+paper begin to slip and slide down the incline of his Heart's Desire's
+desk, whereon the Pratt girl had dropped it; saw the two girls grab
+for it; heard it crash from the seat to the floor with what seemed to
+him a deafening roar. Nor is this all that the harrowing tale might
+disclose. It might dilate upon the horror that wrenched Piggy's spine
+as he watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be
+brought forward. It would be manifestly cruel and clearly unnecessary
+to describe the forces which impelled the psychic wave of suggestion
+that inundated the school--even to the youth of the "B" class, with
+his head under the desk, looking for a pencil--and gave every demon
+there gleeful knowledge that the teacher had nabbed a note and would
+probably read it aloud. It is enough to submit the plain, but painful,
+statement that, when the teacher tapped her pencil for attention, a
+red ear, a throbbing red ear, flared out from either side of Piggy
+Pennington's Fourth Reader, while not far away a pair of pig-tails
+bristled up with rage and humiliation from a desk where a little
+girl's head lay buried in her arms. Then the teacher unfolded the
+crackling paper and read this note:--
+
+  FRIEND MARY.--Did you mean anything
+  by letting Him sing with you. I
+  dont care if you did but I never don
+  anything to deserve it, but if you dident
+  I am very sorry, will tell you bout it at
+  the partey. Well that is all I can think
+  of today, from
+
+  Yourse Ever,
+
+  WIN PENNINGTON.
+
+  P.S. If you still meen what you sed
+  about roses red and vilets blue all right
+  and so do I.  W H P.
+
+[Illustration: _He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the
+note to be brought forward_.]
+
+Piggy waded home through blood that night. The boys could not resist
+calling out "Friend Mary" or "Hello, Roses Red," though each boy knew
+that his taunt would bring on a fight. Piggy fought boys who were
+three classes above him. He whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes
+from the lower grades; but the fighting took him away from his
+trouble, and in most cases he honored his combatants. He was little
+the worse for wear when he chased the last swarm of primary urchins
+into his father's cow lot, fastened them in, and went at them one by
+one with a shingle. A child living next door to the Penningtons had
+brought the news of Piggy's disgrace to the neighborhood, and by
+supper-time Mrs. Pennington knew the worst. While the son and heir
+of the house was bringing in his wood and doing his chores about the
+barn, he felt something in the air about the kitchen which warned him
+that new tortures awaited him.
+
+[Illustration: ... _fought boys who were three classes above him ...
+whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes_.]
+
+A boy would rather take a dozen whippings at school than have the
+story of one of them come home; and Piggy thought with inward
+trembling that he would rather report even a whipping at home than
+face his mother in the dishonor which covered him. At supper Mrs.
+Pennington repeated the legend of the note with great solemnity. When
+her husband showed signs of laughing, she glared at him. Her son ate
+rapidly in silence. Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired
+girl giggle. The only reply that Mrs. Pennington could get to her
+questions was, "Aw, that ain't nothin'," or "Aw, gee whiz, ma, you
+must think that's somethin'." But she proclaimed, in the presence of
+the father, the son, and the hired girl, that if she ever caught a
+boy of hers getting "girl-struck" she would "show him," which, being
+translated, means much that no dignified young gentleman likes to
+contemplate. But when the son was out of hearing, Mrs. Pennington told
+her husband, in the repressed tone which she used when expressing her
+diplomatic communications, that he would have "to take that boy in
+hand." Whereupon the father leaned back in his chair and laughed,
+laughed until he grew red in the face, laughed till the pans in the
+kitchen rattled, laughed--to use the words of his wife in closing the
+incident--"like a natural born simpleton."
+
+[Illustration: _Her son ate rapidly in silence_.]
+
+[Illustration: _Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl
+giggle_.]
+
+Alas for Piggy Pennington--he might affect great pride in his amours
+when the hired girl teased him; he might put on a brave face and even
+lure himself into the belief that this arch tormentor saw him only as
+a gay deceiver; but when the lights were out, Piggy covered his head
+with the bedclothes, and grew hot and cold by turns, till sleep came
+and bore him away from his humiliation.
+
+All day Saturday, before the Bud Perkins' surprise party, Piggy
+Pennington and Mealy Jones were inseparable. And Piggy, who was King
+of Boyville, came down from his throne and walked humbly beside Mealy,
+the least of all his courtiers. In fact, since the reading of his
+note Piggy had become needlessly deferential and considerate of the
+feelings of his rival.
+
+If the two entered a crowd and played "foot and a half" or "slap and
+a kick" or "leap-frog," and if Mealy was "it"--and poor Mealy was
+generally "it" in any game--Piggy did not jump viciously on Mealy's
+wobbly back, nor did he slap hard, nor kick hard, as he would have
+slapped and kicked on other days, before he descended from his throne
+to dwell with the beasts of the field on that fatal Friday. Pride kept
+Mealy on the rack.
+
+Time and again his little, freckled, milky face hit the moist springy
+ground as Bud or Abe or Jim bumped into him at their play. He was glad
+when the day ended and he could go home. For Mealy Jones abhorred the
+dirt that begrimed his face and soiled his white starched collar. He
+liked to play in lukewarm water, to slosh in the suds, and to rub
+his soft little hands whiter and whiter in the foam. His cleanliness
+pleased his mother, and she boasted of it to the mothers of other
+boys--mothers of boys with high-water marks just above their shirt
+collars; of boys who had to be yanked back to the roller-towel after
+washing to have their ears rubbed; of bad, bad, bad boys who washed
+their feet in the dew of the grass at night and told their mothers
+that they had washed them in the tub at the pump; of wicked and sinful
+boys who killed toads and cried noisily when their warts bled in the
+hot water; in fact, to the mothers of nearly all the boys in Boyville.
+And thus it came about that Boyville having Mealy Jones set before it
+as a model child, contracted a cordial hate for him, and rose against
+him when he presumed to contest with Piggy for his Heart's Desire. Yet
+all Boyville loved a fight, and all Boyville goaded the King to wrath,
+teased him, bantered him, and even pretended to doubt his worth.
+Therefore, when Piggy Pennington, the King of Boyville, dressed for
+the party that night in his Sunday clothes and his Sunday shoes and
+limped down the sidewalk to the Jones's, where the boys and girls were
+to meet before descending upon Bud Perkins, there was rancor in the
+royal heart and maternal hair-oil on the royal head. But a strange
+throb of glad pain in the pit of the royal stomach came at the thought
+of the two bright eyes that would soon meet his own. The eyes made him
+forget his blistering shoes, and a smile at the door divested his mind
+of the serrated collar upon which his head had been pivoting for five
+distracted minutes. The last thing of all to go was his pride in the
+hair-oil, but it fell before a voice that said: "Well, you got here,
+did you?"
+
+[Illustration: _His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of
+it to the mothers of other boys_.]
+
+That was all. But it was enough to make Piggy Pennington feel the core
+of a music-box turning inside him, while outside the company saw the
+King of Boyville transformed into a very red and very sweaty youth
+holding madly to the back of his cuffs and chuckling deliriously. In a
+daze he took off his hat, and put a sack of oranges, his part in the
+evening's refreshment, on a table in the next room. When he regained
+consciousness, Piggy noticed that Mealy Jones, who had pranced into
+the room with much unction, was sitting next to his Heart's Desire.
+The children were making merry chatter. Piggy took his place on the
+end of a lounge, and turning his back to the guilty pair, gave an
+"injin" pinch to Jimmy Sears, with orders to "pass it on."
+
+Indeed, so unconcerned was Piggy in the progress of the affair behind
+him that he began to shove the line of the boys on the lounge; the
+shoving grew into a scuffle, and the scuffle into a wrestle, which
+ended on the front porch. At length Piggy stalked through the room
+where the girls were sitting, saying, when he returned with his
+oranges and his hat: "Come on, fellers, everybody's here."
+
+The boys on the porch followed Piggy's example, and in a minute or two
+they stood huddled at the gate calling at the girls in the house to
+hurry. When the girls were on the porch, the boys struck out, and the
+two groups, a respectful distance apart, walked through the town.
+Mealy Jones was enjoying the triumph of his life, walking proudly
+between the noisy boys and giggling girls, beside--but why linger over
+the details of this instance of man's duplicity and woman's worse than
+weakness!
+
+The young blades of the Court of Boyville waited politely at the gate
+before the house where Bud Perkins lived with Miss Morgan, his foster
+mother. When the maidens arrived, all the company went trooping up
+Miss Morgan's steps. After Piggy had chased Bud from the front door
+into a closet, from which the host fought his way gallantly into
+the middle of the parlor floor, the essential preliminaries of the
+evening's entertainment were over. A little later the games began.
+First, there was "forfeits." Then came "tin-tin." "Clap in and clap
+out" followed, and finally, after much protestation from the girls,
+but at the earnest solicitation of Mealy Jones, "post-office" started.
+Piggy did not urge, nor protest. He had gone through the games
+listlessly, occasionally breaking into a spasm of gayety that was
+clearly hollow, and afterwards sinking into profound indifference. For
+how could a well-conditioned boy be gay with a heartache under his
+Sunday shirt and the spectacle before his eyes of a freckled human
+cock-sparrow darting round and round the bower of his Heart's Desire?
+Under such circumstances it was clearly impossible for him to see the
+eyes that sought his in vain across the turmoil of the room. Indeed, a
+voice pitched a trifle high to carry well spoke for him to hear, but
+met deaf ears. A little maid in a black-and-red check which the King
+of Boyville once preferred to royal purple, even made her way across
+the throng--undesignedly, he thought, but Piggy basked in the joy of
+her presence and made no sign to show his pleasure. A little later, in
+the shuffle of the game, Piggy and his Heart's Desire were far apart.
+Half an hour passed, but still he did not revive. Mealy Jones called
+her out in "post-office," and Piggy thought he saw her smile. That was
+too much. When the dining-room door closed behind the black-and-red
+checked dress, the pitcher that enclosed his woe broke and the wheel
+at the cistern of his endurance stopped. Mealy Jones came into the
+room, and the boy who kept the "post-office" called out, "Piggy
+Pennington." But the slam of the front door was his answer.
+
+[Illustration: _A little maid in a black-and-red check_.]
+
+Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair. It began
+when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph album with a
+coy:
+
+    "When this you see
+     Remember me."
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire
+affair_.]
+
+[Illustration: _It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into
+his autograph album_.]
+
+He followed the corrugated course of true love, step by step up to its
+climax, where, a week before, she had given him his choice of her new
+pack of assorted visiting-cards. He rose at the end of five minutes'
+sombre meditation, holding the curling gelatine card of his choice
+in his warm hand. After venting a heavy sigh, he checked a motion to
+throw away the token of his undoing and put it back into his pocket.
+While he was plotting dark things against the life and happiness of
+Mealy Jones, Piggy heard the sound of the merriment within, and a
+mischievous smile spread over his angry countenance. He tiptoed to the
+window, and peeped in. He saw his Heart's Desire sitting alone. He
+cheered up a little, not much--but sufficiently to reach in his pocket
+for his tick-tack.
+
+Now, it may be clearly proved, if necessary, that the tick-tack was
+invented by the devil. Any wise man's son knows that every boy between
+the ages of ten and fourteen carries with him at all times a complete
+outfit of the mechanical devices on which the devil holds the patent
+and demands a royalty. So there is nothing really strange in the
+statement that Piggy Pennington took from his Sunday clothes,
+beneath a pocketful of Rewards of Merit for regular attendance at
+Sunday-school--all dated before the Christmas-tree--a spool with
+notched wheels, a lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound
+round the spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the
+spool, and held the notched rims of the spool against the window
+pane by pressing on the pencil axle. He gave the cord a quick jerk; a
+rattle, a wail, and a shriek were successively produced by the notches
+whirring on the glass. The company within doors screamed. Everyone
+knew it was Piggy, but no one ever lived with nerves strong enough to
+withstand the shock of a tick-tack. At the first shock those in-doors
+decided to ignore the disturbance. But it occurred twice afterwards,
+and a third tick-tack at a party is a dare. So the boys took it up. As
+Piggy ran he forgot his hot, heavy shoes; he felt the night wind on
+his face and in his hair. He cared nothing for his pursuers; he ran
+for the gladness that came with running. Now he slackened his pace
+and let the boys catch up with him, and again he spread the mocking
+distance between them. He turned down an alley, and eluded the pack.
+
+All the youngsters at the party, even the girls, had scampered out of
+the house to watch the race. When Piggy vaulted the back-yard fence
+into Miss Morgan's garden, he heard the pursuers half a block away. He
+saw, a hundred feet distant, a bevy of girls standing on the sidewalk.
+And he saw, too, as he came skipping down the lot, something that made
+him fairly skim over the earth; his Heart's Desire, standing alone,
+near the porch, in his path, under an apple-tree. The exhilaration of
+the chase had made him forget his trouble. He was so surefooted in the
+race that he forgot to be abashed for the moment and came bounding
+down by the apple-tree. He was full of pride. When he stopped he
+was the King of Boyville and every inch a king. The king--not
+Piggy--should be blamed. It was all over in a second--almost before he
+had stopped. He aimed at her cheek, but he got her ear. That was the
+first that he knew of it. Piggy seemed to return to life then. In
+his confusion he felt himself shrivelling up to his normal
+size--shrivelling and frying. In an instant he was gone, and Piggy
+Pennington ran into the group of girls on the sidewalk and let them
+catch him and hold him. The breathless youths went into the house
+telling their adventures in the race between gasps. But Piggy did not
+dare to look at his Heart's Desire for as much as five minutes--a
+long, long time. No one had seen him beneath the apple-tree. He was
+not afraid of the teasing, but he was afraid of a withering look from
+his Heart's Desire,--a look that he felt with a parching fear in his
+throat would throw the universe into an eclipse for him. He observed
+that she got up and changed her seat to be rid of Mealy Jones. At
+first Piggy thought that was a good sign, but a moment later he
+reasoned that the avoidance of Mealy was inspired probably by a
+loathing for all boys. He dared not seek her eyes, but he mingled
+noisily in the crowd for a while, and then, on a desperate venture,
+carelessly snapped a peanut shell and hit his Heart's Desire on
+the chin. He seemed to be looking a thousand miles away in another
+direction than that which the missile took. He waited nearly a
+minute--a long, uncertain minute--for a response.
+
+Then the shell came back; it did not hit him--but it might have done
+so--that was all he could ask. He snapped shells slyly for a quarter
+of an hour, and was happy. Once he looked--not exactly looked; perhaps
+peeked is the better word; took just the tiniest lightning peek out of
+the tail of his eye, and found a smile waiting for him. At supper, if
+any one save Piggy had tried to take a chair by his Heart's Desire
+when the plates came around, there would have been a fight. Mealy
+Jones knew this, and he knew what Piggy did not know, that it would
+have been a fight of two against one. So Piggy sat bolt upright in his
+chair beside the black-and-red checked dress, and talked to the room
+at large; but he spoke no word to the maiden at his side. She noticed
+that Piggy kept dropping his knife, and the solicitude of her sex
+prompted her to ask: "Are your hands cold, Winfield?"
+
+And the instinct of his sex to hide a fault with a falsehood made
+Piggy nod his head.
+
+Then she answered: "Cold hands, a warm heart!"
+
+At this important bit of repartee, the King of Boyville so forgot his
+royal dignity that he let an orange-peel drive at Jimmy Sears, and
+pretended not to hear her. His only reply was to joggle her arm when
+she reached for the cake. Piggy was so exuberant and in such high
+spirits that he put his plate on his chair and made Bud Perkins walk
+turkey fashion three times around the room. He forgot the disgrace
+which his note had brought to him in the school; he forgot the
+pretensions of Mealy Jones; he did not wish to forget the episode of
+the apple-tree, and for the time Piggy Pennington lived in a most
+peculiar world, made of hazel eyes and red-ribboned pig-tails, all
+circling around on a background of black-and-red checked flannel.
+
+[Illustration: _At this important bit of repartee_.]
+
+After that nothing mattered very much. It didn't matter that Piggy's
+bruised feet began to sting like fire. It didn't matter much if Mealy
+Jones's mother did come for him with a lantern and break up the party.
+It didn't matter if Jimmy Sears did call out, "Hello, Roses Red," when
+the boys reached the bed-room where their hats were; for a voice that
+Piggy knew cried back from the adjoining room, "You think you're cute,
+don't you, old smarty?" Nothing in the world could matter then, for
+had not Piggy Pennington five minutes before handed a card to his
+Heart's Desire which read:
+
+  _If I may not C U home
+     may I not sit on the fence
+        and C U go by_?
+
+And had not she taken it, and said merrily, "I'm going to keep this"?
+What could matter after that open avowal?
+
+And so it came to pass in a little while that the courtly company,
+headed by the King of Boyville, filed gayly down the path. They walked
+two by two, and they started on a long, uneven way. But the King of
+Boyville was full of joy--a kind of joy so strange that wise men may
+not measure it; a joy so rare that even kings are proud of it.
+
+
+
+
+JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON
+
+
+LITTLE SISTER'S LULLABY
+
+  Zhere, zhere, 'ittul b'o', sistuh 'll wock you to s'eep
+  Hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye, b'o',
+  An' tell you the stowy about the b'ack sheep--
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+  A boy onct said "b'ack sheep, you dot any wool?"
+  "Uh-huhm," said the lambie, "I dot free bags full."
+  An' where Murry went w'y the lamb's sure to doe,
+  They's mowe of zis stowy--I dess I don' know;
+  But hush-a-bye O, darlene, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+
+  O, mama says buddy tomed stwaight down from Dod;
+  Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  At doctuh mans bwunged him, now is n't zhat odd--
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+  For papa says, "doctuhs is thiefs so zhey be."
+  An' thiefs tain't det up into Heaven you see:
+  I dess w'en one comes up an' dets sent below,
+  He's dot to bwing wif him a baby or so;
+  Hush-a-bye O, uh-huhm, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Wock-a-bye, my 'ittul b'over.
+
+  But sistuh loves b'o' anyhow if he's dood,
+  Hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Better 'n tandy er infalid's food--
+  Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.
+  An' some day when buddy drows up to a man,
+  W'y sistuh an' him 'ull 'ist harness ol' Fan,
+  An dwive off to Heaven the fuist zhing you know,
+  An' bwing ever' baby back what wants to doe.
+  Zhen hush-a-bye O, sweetie, wock-a-bye b'o',
+  Wock-a-bye, sistuh's own b'over.
+
+
+
+
+James Sears: A Naughty Person
+
+
+A naughty person ... walketh with a forward mouth.
+
+He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with
+his fingers;... he deviseth mischief continually;...
+
+Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be
+broken without remedy.--_Proverbs_, vi. 12-15.
+
+It was morning--the cool of the morning. The pigeons were gossiping
+under the barn eaves. In the apple-tree a robin's song thrilled
+at intervals, and the jays were chattering incessantly in the
+cherry-trees by the fence. The dew was still on the grass that lay in
+the parallelogram of shade made by the Sears' dwelling, and in
+the twilight of grass-land all the elf-people were whispering and
+tittering and scampering about in surreptitious revel. The breeze
+of dawn, tired and worn out, was sinking to a fitful doze in the
+cottonwood foliage near by. In the lattice of the kitchen porch two
+butterflies were chasing the sun flecks in and out among the branches
+of the climbing rose. Even the humble burdock weeds and sunflowers
+lining the path that led to the gate seemed to be exalted by the
+breath of the morning air, and not out of harmony with the fine, high
+chord of ecstasy that was stirring the soul of things. And yet in that
+hour, James Sears, with a green-checked gingham apron tied about his
+neck, stood near a rain-barrel, bobbing up and down on a churn-handle.
+His back ached, and his heart was full of bitterness at the scheme of
+creation. For it was Saturday morning--his by every law, precedent, or
+tradition known or reported in the Court of Boyville. But instead
+of inhaling the joys of the new day, James, whose Courtly name was
+"Jimmie," looked for yellow granules on the dasher, and promised God
+if He would let him grow up that his little boy should never have to
+churn.
+
+[Illustration: _His heart was full of bitterness_.]
+
+Any boy knows that it is a degrading thing to churn, and he further
+knows that to wear a green-checked gingham apron is odious beyond
+description; however, if the disgusting thing is tied under a boy's
+arms, from whence it may be slipped down over the hips and the knees
+to the ground, by a certain familiar twist of the body, the case is
+not absolutely hopeless. But Jimmy Sears's apron strings were tied
+about his neck; so his despair was black and abysmal. Once in a while
+Jimmy's bosom became too heavily freighted, and he paused to sigh.
+He cheered himself up on these occasions by slyly licking the
+churn-dasher; but the good cheer on the dasher was a stimulant that
+left him more miserable than it found him. Ever and anon from some
+remote chamber in the house behind him came the faint, gasping cry of
+a day-old baby. That cry drowned the cooing of the doves, the song of
+the robin, and the chirping of the dwellers in the grass; to Jimmy the
+bleat of the little human lamb sounded like the roar of a lion. He
+could endure penal servitude on his Saturday, with a patience born of
+something approaching a philosophy; he could wear a checked gingham
+apron, even as a saint wears an unbecoming halo; but the arrival of
+the new baby--the fifth addition to the family in the short period of
+years covered by Jimmy Sears's memory--brought a bitter pill of wrath
+and dropped it in the youth's brimful cup of woe. As the minutes
+dragged wearily along, Jimmy Sears reviewed the story of his thraldom.
+He thought of how, in his short-dress days, he had been put to rocking
+a cradle; how in his kilted days, there had been ever a baby's calico
+dress to consider; how, from his earliest fishing-days, there had been
+always a tot tagging after him, throwing sticks and stones in
+the water to scare the fish; and how, now in his swimming and
+cave-dwelling days, there was a swarm of tow-headed Searses, a
+crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a sneaker to run away
+from.
+
+[Illustration: _Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish_.]
+
+[Illustration:
+_A crawler,
+A creeper,
+A toddler,
+A stumbler,
+and
+A sneaker_.]
+
+As the churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup began to
+sputter, dissolving into that which in his older sister's heart would
+have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took the form of convulsive
+sniffling. The boy could hear his sister clattering the breakfast
+dishes in the kitchen. The thing that ground upon his heart was the
+firm footfall of Mrs. Jones, a neighbor woman, who was overseeing
+the affairs of the household. Jimmy could not remember hearing that
+footstep except in times of what seemed to him to be the family's
+disgrace. He hated Mrs. Jones because she tried to cool his ire by
+describing the superior points of the particular new baby that had
+arrived each time she came upon her errands of neighborly mercy. Just
+as the yellow granules began to appear in the buttermilk pool on the
+churn-top, Jimmy heard a step on the gravel walk behind him. The step
+came nearer; when Jimmy lifted his eyes, they glared into the face of
+Harold Jones. Choler cooled into surprise, and surprise exploded into
+a vapid, grinning "Huh!" which was followed by another "Huh!" that
+gurgled out into a real laugh as Jimmy greeted the visitor. The Jones
+boy giggled, and Jimmy found his tongue and asked: "Did you ever
+churn?" When Harold admitted that he, too, was a slave of the
+churn, the freemasonry of Boyville was established. A moment later
+Mealy--Harold's title in the Court--was exemplifying the work. When
+Mrs. Jones came out of the house to take care of the butter, she saw
+her son and Jimmy lying on the grass. Half an hour later the boys in
+the barn heard Mrs. Jones's voice calling,--
+
+[Illustration: _Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter_.]
+
+"Harold, O Harold, don't you want to come and look at the baby?" Now
+James Sears in the twenty-four hours of his new sister's life had not
+let the fact of her existence form expression on his lips. Much
+less had he lowered his hostile flag to salute her; but he knew
+instinctively that Harold Jones was the sort of a boy who would unsex
+himself by looking at a baby. When Mealy answered, "Yes'm," and
+trotted down the back-yard path to the kitchen, Jimmy Sears scorned
+him heartily enough to fancy Mealy in the act of holding the loathsome
+thing in his arms. Further contumely was beyond Jimmy's imagination.
+
+[Illustration: _The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at
+a baby_.]
+
+[Illustration: _James_.]
+
+When Mealy Jones came back, the barn wherein he had left Jimmy was
+empty; and only when Mealy had started homeward, and a clod came
+whizzing down the alley, hitting him under the ear, did Mealy know how
+Jimmy Sears resented an insult. Mealy looked around; no one was in
+sight.
+
+Right here the reader should know that Jimmy Sears was not alone in
+his displeasure. There was mutiny in the Sears household. When the
+baby came, the four elder of the seven Sears children joined Jimmy
+in informal, silent sedition. They looked upon the newcomer as
+an intruder. For all who extended sympathy to the pretender, the
+insurgents developed a wholesome scorn. This scorn fell most heavily
+upon kind Mrs. Jones. The Sears children regarded her familiar
+jocularity with undisguised repugnance; and when Jimmy heard Mrs.
+Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer
+the baby, Jimmy's rage at what he considered a fiendish thrust at the
+innocent and forsaken child passed the bounds of endurance. He hurled
+a bit of that anger in the clod that hit Mealy Jones, then Jimmy
+walked doggedly back to the house. He coaxed the little sister from
+the kitchen, took the child's chubby hand and led her to the barn.
+There Jimmy nursed his sorrow. He assured the younker as they sat
+on the hay that he for one would not desert her, "even if mamma had
+forgotten her." He hugged the wondering tot until her ribs hurt, and
+in his lamentations referred to the new baby as "that old thing."
+The evening before, when Mrs. Jones had marshalled the other Sears
+children and had taken them into the bedroom to see their new sister,
+Jimmy was not to be found. None of the older children had looked at
+the baby. They had turned their heads away deliberately, and had
+responded in gutteral affirmatives when they were asked if it were not
+a pretty baby. But Jimmy had escaped that humiliation, and since then
+he had avoided all snares set to lure him to his mother's bed-side. He
+sat there in the barn, fuming as he recalled what he had heard while
+Annie was in his mother's room early that morning.
+
+[Illustration: _Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie
+that morning that she was no longer the baby_.]
+
+"See little sister's hands. Oh, what pretty hands!" Jimmy had
+reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by the
+child's big-eyed astonishment. Mrs. Jones continued,--
+
+"Weenty teenty little feets! See little sister's toeses. What little
+bitsey toeses. Baby touch little sister's toeses."
+
+Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene came to him
+after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was to dupe the child
+into an affection for her inevitable enemy.
+
+"Does baby love little sister?" continued the voice. "Love nice,
+pretty little sister! Sweet little sister! Zhere! Zhere! Zhat's right;
+love little sister!" As he toyed with a wisp of hay, Jimmy Sears's
+blood froze in his veins at the recollection that his own mother had
+lent her countenance to this baseness. He knew, and he knew that his
+mother knew, that the baby would take all the care due to his toddling
+sister. He saw, from the elevation of the hay-cock on which he and
+the little one sat, that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner
+while she smiled. It seemed deliberately cruel. A lump of pity for the
+child filled his throat. Still, in his heart, he forgave his mother
+for her part in the duplicity. He did not feel for her the contempt he
+felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew that Henry Sears
+was actually proud of the family's ignominy. Jimmy blushed at the
+picture in his mind of his father strutting around town, with his vest
+pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs in the armpits, bragging of the
+occurrence that filled the boy with shame. Jimmy felt that secretly
+his mother did not consider the baby's arrival an occasion for
+vainglory. He felt that his mother was merely putting a good face upon
+the misfortune. These reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.
+
+[Illustration: _His father strutting around town ... bragging of the
+occurrence that filled the boy with shame_.]
+
+At the end thereof a calamitous fate took him up and made him its toy.
+Tragedy is the everlasting piling up of little things. So Jimmy Sears
+could not know that an evil destiny had come to guide his steps when
+he started townward, for it came so gently. To meet Piggy Pennington
+and Bud Perkins and Abe Carpenter coming out of the Pennington yard
+was not such a dreadful thing. Jimmy had met them a score of times
+before at that particular gate, with no serious consequences. It was
+not in the least ominous that the four boys started for the Creek of
+the Willows, for Jimmy had gone to the Creek times without number in
+that very company. It did not augur evil for Jimmy Sears that the lot
+fell to him to go forth and forage a chicken, for the great corn feast
+of the Black Feet, a savage tribe of four warriors, among whom Jimmy
+was known as the "Bald Eagle." Perhaps there were signs and warnings
+in all these things; and then, on the other hand, perhaps Jimmy Sears
+was so intent upon escaping from the shadow that lowered over his
+family that he did not read the signs, and so rushed into his
+misfortunes blindly. These, however, are idle speculations; they are
+the materials from which sages spin their dry and ethereal webs. But
+this narrative is concerned only with the facts in the case. Therefore
+it is necessary to know only that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up
+his nail-pointed arrow, lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the
+sharp nasal "sping" of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow
+and arrow in hand, he began to run, not looking back.
+
+"Here, here, Jimmy Sears, hold on there!" cried a voice. Jimmy knew
+the voice. It and the chicken belonged to the same person. So Jimmy
+quickened his speed. He heard the clattering thump of pursuing feet.
+It was two hundred yards to the end of the cob-strewn cow lot. The boy
+fixed his course toward the lowest length of fence. Then he kept his
+eyes upon the ground. He clenched his teeth and skimmed over the
+earth. The feathers in his hat--stuck there to satisfy the verities of
+his assumed Indian character--caught the breeze; so, rather than lose
+his hat, he grabbed it in the hand that held the chicken. He cleared
+the fence and plunged into the timber. Looking over his shoulder, he
+saw a man's form on the top of the fence; the thud of boots on the sod
+and the crash of branches behind him sent terror through the boy's
+frame, and he turned towards the creek that flowed sluggishly near by.
+He took great bounding strides, throwing his head from side to side
+as he ran. The boy knew the path. It led to a rickety fence--a cattle
+guard--across the river. Jimmy's heart beat wildly, and the trees
+danced by him on the sloping path. But he was not "the champeen
+fence-walker of Willow Creek," late of "Pennington & Carpenter's
+Circus & Menagerie, price ten pins," without having won his proud
+place by prowess. He came to the water's edge with sure feet. He knew
+that he could cross. He had crossed the creek there a score of times.
+He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart
+was glad. The boy was sure that no man would dare to follow him, even
+if the fence would hold a man's weight. He had scurried up the bank
+before his pursuer had reached the side Jimmy had leaped from so
+lightly. He scooted through the underbrush. Again and again did the
+"champeen fence-walker" smile to himself as he slackened his pace
+to dodge a volley of rocks, and again and again did James Sears--an
+exemplary youth for the most part, who knew his Ten Commandments by
+heart--look exultingly at his pullet. He gloried in his iniquity.
+Lentulus returning to Capua with victorious legions was not so
+proud. But there the evil spirit swooped low upon him--the spirit
+of destruction that always follows pride. Jimmy tripped, and lunged
+forward; the chicken, the hat, the bow and arrow, and the boy
+all parted company. Then Jimmy felt a pain--a sharp pain that he
+recognized too well. He feared to make sure of the extent of his
+injury. Instinctive knowledge told him he had "stumped" his toe. This
+knowledge also brought the sense of certainty that his day's pleasure
+was spoiled. He knew that he would go hobbling along, the last brave
+in the Indian file. The pain in his foot began to throb as he gathered
+up his weapons. He walked for a few moments without looking at the
+wound. He felt the oozing blood, and he bent his body and went along,
+grunting at every step. Finally coming into a flood of sunlight on the
+path, he sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face
+into an agonized knot. He peeked at his toe at first stealthily; then
+little by little uncovering it with his nursing hand, he gazed fixedly
+at the wound. The flesh on the end of the toe was hanging loosely by
+the skin. It was a full minute before the boy could find courage
+to press the hanging flesh back to its place. In the mean time the
+chicken, which lay behind him under the log, had regained its senses,
+squawked hoarsely twice, and walked into the bushes. When Jimmy's mind
+turned to his prize, the prize was gone. He had been in the depths as
+he sat on the log. But the loss of the pullet brought with it a still
+further depression, and Jimmy forgot all about his impersonation of
+the "Bald Eagle." He lost his conceit in the red ochre stripes on his
+face, and the iridescent feathers in his hat, and the blue-black mud
+on his nimble feet. For a few moments he was just a sad-eyed boy who
+saw the hand of the whole world raised against him. The cry of the new
+baby rang in his ears. The thought of the other boys teasing him about
+the number of babies at his house frenzied him; and as his bills of
+wrongs grew longer and longer, Jimmy shook his head defiantly at all
+the world. For a few hollow moments Jimmy tried to find the straying
+chicken. He went through the empty form of spitting in his hand,
+saying, before he came down with his index finger,--
+
+[Illustration: _He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet,
+and his heart was glad_.]
+
+[Illustration: _He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot,
+twisting his face into an agonized knot_.]
+
+  "Spit, spit, spy,
+   Tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye."
+
+[Illustration: "_Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll
+hit ye in the eye_."]
+
+He threw a stick in the direction the chicken might have taken, but
+he knew that luck--like all the world--was against him, and he had no
+heart in the rites that on another day might have brought fortune to
+him. His stubbed toe was hurting him, and the murmur of a ripple in
+the stream a few rods below the cattle guard called to him enticingly.
+As soon as the boy deemed it safe to venture out of the thicket, he
+hobbled down to the water's edge, and sat for a long time in the
+shade, with the cooling water laving his bruised feet. He knew that
+the other boys would miss him, but he did not care. He was enjoying
+the gloom that was settling down upon him. Slowly, and by almost
+imperceptible degrees, there rose in his consciousness the conviction
+of guilt. At the end of an hour, the feeling that he was a thief swept
+over him, covering his sense of personal grievance like a mantle. For
+another hour he wrestled with a persistent devil that was tempting him
+to strangle his scruples; he won. Jimmy Sears had seventeen cents in
+his cast-iron bank at home--the result of a year's careful saving. He
+crossed the creek and trudged back to town, and fancied that he was
+walking in a sanctified road; for he was full of the resolve to go
+straight to the store of the grocer who owned the chicken, and to
+offer all his available resources in payment for the wrong he had
+done. Only the heel of his left foot touched the ground, and he
+progressed slowly. So the afternoon was old when he turned the corner
+and trudged into Baker's store. The speech he was going to make, Jimmy
+had recited to himself over and over. He intended to walk up to the
+counter and say,--
+
+"I want to pay for that chicken I took, Mr. Baker."
+
+To Jimmy that sounded sufficiently humble, and yet it did not seem
+completely abject. He fancied the grocer would reply,--
+
+"All right, Jimmy; it will be twenty cents."
+
+To which the boy expected to answer, in a clear, strong voice,--
+
+"Well, Mr. Baker, I have seventeen cents at home; you may have that,
+and I will bring in the rest as soon as my mushmelons are ripe."
+
+With that agreement reached, Jimmy saw himself limping out of the
+store. He harbored a hope that maybe the grocer, pitying the poor,
+lame boy, would call him back, cancel the debt, and perhaps give him
+a stick of licorice. Jimmy knew his part by heart. He was sure there
+would be no halt nor break in this dialogue. But the demon that was
+torturing his destiny that day probably chuckled as Jimmy crossed the
+threshold of the grocery store.
+
+The boy that the grocer saw when he looked up from the pickle barrel
+certainly had a badly freckled face; the grocer thought the boy had
+bold, mean eyes. The youthful jaw set firmly, and the pain in his foot
+engraved ugly lines in his face. The button was off one wristband. A
+long tear down the lower part of his trousers' leg revealed a glimpse
+of brown, tanned skin. He was not a boy that looked like a creature of
+dreams and of high resolve. No boy that amounts to much ever does
+look the part, as the actors say. So when Jimmy Sears--ragged and
+brazen--stood before the wronged chicken owner, rage flooded the man's
+bosom. He rushed around the counter end, mumbling at the boy. The
+instinct of fear crowded all the fine speeches out of Jimmy's head.
+He backed off, and exclaimed, as he saw the grocer grab a butter
+paddle,--
+
+"Dern you, don't you touch me; I'll pay for your old chicken. Watch
+out now!"
+
+Two scale weights slipped involuntarily into Jimmy's hands, and he
+backed from the counter to the sidewalk. His hands were uplifted as
+if to throw the weights. The grocer had not come up to the boy who
+shouted in a burst of fear and anger,--
+
+"I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me!"
+
+[Illustration: "_I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away
+from me_."]
+
+The grocer hesitated, dismayed for a second by the threatening weights
+in the boy's hand. But pride urged the man on. He stepped up quickly,
+and planted a smarting blow on Jimmy's leg. It was well for the grocer
+that he ducked his head; for when the paddle struck, the boy did not
+flinch, but let drive one weight after another, and cried before each
+crash of glass that the flying irons made inside the store, "Yes, you
+will!" and again, "Yes, you will!"
+
+He forgot the ache in his cramped heel and the burning in his bruised
+toe as he ran to the middle of the street.
+
+"You old coward, why don't you pick on some one your size?"
+
+The tears were rising to his eyes; he had to run to escape from the
+tide. Just as he turned, he caught a glimpse of his father joining the
+gathering crowd. After that his feet grew wings.
+
+A freight train stood on the track in front of the boy, a quarter of a
+mile away. A mad impulse came to him as he ran, and he yielded to it.
+A boy with a grievance, or a boy with a sore toe, or a boy with fear
+at his back, cannot fashion his conduct after the beautiful principles
+laid down in Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics." So when Jimmy
+Sears came to the freight train that blocked his flight, he darted
+down the track until he was out of sight of any possible pursuers in
+the street. He clambered breathlessly into a coal car, and snuggled
+down into a corner inside a little strip of shade, and panted like a
+hunted rabbit. A sickening pain throbbed up from his toe. The train
+moved slowly at first, and Jimmy knew that he could not hide from the
+train men in a coal car. On a banter from Piggy Pennington and Bud
+Perkins Jimmy had ridden on the brake-beam while the switch engine was
+pulling freight cars about the railroad yards. He had a vague idea
+that midway of the train, between two box cars, would be a safe place.
+When the train began to increase its speed, Jimmy climbed up the side
+of a cattle car and ran along the roof. He had gone three car-lengths
+and was about to make his third jump, when he saw the angry face of
+his father, who appeared on the depot platform. Instinctively the boy
+darted to the other side of the car-roof. His jump fell short. The
+father saw his son's head go down, and for an awful minute Henry Sears
+heard the lumbering train rumble by. In the first second of that
+minute, the frantic man listened for a scream. He heard none. Then
+slowly he sank upon a baggage truck. He was helpless. A paralysis of
+horror was upon him. Car after car jolted along. At last the yellow
+caboose flashed by him. Half of the longest second Henry Sears ever
+knew passed before he dared turn his eyes toward the place on the
+track where his son went down. Then he looked, and saw only the cinder
+track and the shining rails. But an instant later he heard a familiar
+whoop, and, staring around, saw Jimmy sitting on a load of wheat that
+was standing between the railroad tracks. In this the boy had fallen
+after his sidewise jump had thrown him from the moving train. When
+Henry Sears saw his son, Jimmy was holding his foot, jiggling it
+vigorously and roaring, moved half by the hysteria of fright and half
+by the pain of a fresh laceration of his bruised toe. The boy's face
+was black with coal-dust and wheat chaff, and tears were striping his
+features grotesquely. The palsy of terror loosened its steel bands
+from the father's limbs, and he ran to the wheat-wagon. Jimmy Sears,
+for all he or his father know, may have floated to the ground from the
+wagon bed. But a moment later, in a frenzy wherein anger furnished
+only a sub-conscious motor, and joy pumped wildly at the expanding
+valves of his blissful heart, Henry Sears took his thirteen-year-old
+son across his knee, and spanked him in a delirium of ecstasy; spanked
+him merrily, while a heavenly peace glorified his paternal soul;
+spanked him, caring not how many times the little body wriggled, and
+the little voice howled, and the dirty little fingers foiled his big,
+bony hand as it fell. At the end of the felicitous occasion, the
+father found his voice,--
+
+"Haven't I told you enough, sir, to keep off the cars? Haven't I?
+Haven't I? Answer me, sir. Do you hear me? Haven't I?"
+
+And Jimmy Sears knew by that turn of the conversation that the
+episodes of the stolen chicken and of the broken showcases were
+forgotten, so he nodded a contrite head, His father returned to earth
+by giving his son a few casual cuffs, with, "Will you try that again,
+sir?" and continued,--
+
+"Now, sir, let me see you walk right straight home. And just you let
+me catch you down here again!"
+
+Jimmy was wise enough to hurry along as fast as his bleeding foot
+would take him. He saw the advantage of a motion to adjourn without
+further debate, and the motion prevailed.
+
+An hour later, Jimmy Sears had washed the dirt from the interior of
+an irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his
+hair. Until the twilight fell he stayed in the conning-tower in the
+Penningtons' barn, and watched his home through a crack between two
+boards. When he saw his father leave the house for town after supper,
+Jimmy hurried down a lane in sight of his father, yet out of his
+father's reach. At the close of twilight, Jimmy Sears came up the
+hard-beaten path that led to his home, through burdock weeds and
+sunflowers. There was a light in the kitchen, and through the window
+he could see Mrs. Jones moving about. He observed that the supper
+dishes were being put away. He saw his eldest sister, with the tea
+towel in her hands, chatting happily with Mrs. Jones. The spectacle
+filled him with rage. He felt that the other children had deserted
+him, and that, in the war against the new baby, they had left him to
+fight unaided. He met a little brother, who greeted him with,--
+
+[Illustration: _An irregular circumference that touched his ears and
+his chin and his hair_.]
+
+"Uh-hu, Mr. Jimmy, you just wait till pa gets you!"
+
+A prolonged and scornful "Aw!" was Jimmy's reply to this welcome. On
+the step of the back porch, his favorite little sister sat playing
+with the house-cat. She toddled to Jimmy; he let her take his finger,
+and they went into the kitchen.
+
+"Oh, Jimmy!--where--you--been?" demanded the eldest sister. "Mamma's
+been asking for you all day. I'd be ashamed if I was you."
+
+The boy did not deign to speak to Mrs. Jones, and kept his back to her
+when he could. He did not answer his sister's question.
+
+"Got anything here fit to eat?" he asked, as he threw open the
+cupboard doors. The insult to Mrs. Jones was not accidental. Jimmy
+supposed that she had cooked the supper. He put two or three plates of
+food on the table, and drew up a chair, sneering bumptiously, "What's
+this?" as he dived into each dish.
+
+[Illustration: "_Got anything here fit to eat_?"]
+
+His sister's "Why, Jimmy!" and her warning frowns did not change his
+course. Mrs. Jones went to the front of the house, diplomatically
+leaving all the doors open behind her, that Mrs. Sears might hear her
+son's voice. In a moment the boy caught the faint sound of his mother
+calling from the distant bedroom, "Jimmy, Jimmy, come here; I want
+you."
+
+The boy pretended not to hear. She called his name again. "Yes 'm," he
+answered. When she repeated her request, he filled his mouth with pie,
+and replied, "I'm a-eatin' now." He slipped a piece of ice down the
+back of his adoring little sister's dress, who sat near him. When she
+wept noisily, he laughed under his breath, and spoke aloud to his
+sister at the dish-pan,--
+
+"What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for? Give it back,
+why don't you?"
+
+[Illustration: "_What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her
+for_?"]
+
+"Why--Jimmy--Sears!" retorted the girl. Then lifting her voice,
+"Mamma, Jimmy's put ice down--" But the lad pressed the ice against
+the child's back, pretending to be removing the source of the trouble,
+and the child's lusty howls drowned the girl's protest. When he heard
+the bedroom door close to shield his mother from the turmoil, Jimmy
+knew that he had outwitted Mrs. Jones, so he quelled the disturbance
+he had caused. When Mrs. Jones returned to the kitchen, the boy was
+sitting on the porch steps with his little sister, telling her about
+"raw head and bloody bones," greatly to the child's horror and
+delight.
+
+Jimmy heard his elder sister inquire, "Did Mamma eat her supper?" He
+heard Mrs. Jones respond, "Not very much of it; but she will after a
+while, I guess. She said to leave it in there."
+
+"Couldn't she eat any of that nice chicken Mrs. Pennington sent?"
+
+"No, nor Mrs. Carpenter's lemon jelly."
+
+"Poor mamma!" sighed the girl.
+
+But Jimmy had other reflections. Two minutes later he walked past his
+mother's open door, and fumbled around in the sitting-room.
+
+"Is that you, Jimmy?" asked his mother.
+
+"Yes 'm," rejoined the boy.
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"Lookin' for my other coat."
+
+"Won't you come in and see me, Jimmy? I haven't seen you for two whole
+days."
+
+"In a minute," returned Jimmy.
+
+Standing awkwardly in the doorway, he asked, "What 'd you want?"
+
+"Come over here, Jimmy," returned the mother. "My poor, neglected
+boy!" He would not let his eyes find the new baby. He stood stiffly on
+one foot, and gave his mother his hand. She drew him down and kissed
+his cheek, while he pecked at her lips. As Jimmy rose, his mother
+smiled.
+
+[Illustration: _She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked
+at her lips_.]
+
+"Are you hungry, Jimmy?"
+
+The boy nodded a vociferous affirmative. Being a boy, one of the
+lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions, Jimmy could
+not know that his mother understood the rankle in her son's heart. Nor
+could he divine that she kept the supper dainties as peace offerings.
+
+"Won't you have some of my supper?"
+
+"Don't you want it?" returned the boy, to justify his greed.
+
+"No, Jimmy; I'm not hungry. I kept it all for you."
+
+While her son was sitting on the floor, eating off the tray on the
+chair by the bed, his mother's hand was in his hair, stroking it
+lovingly. His sister and the other children looked in and saw him.
+Jimmy knew they were whispering "Hoggy!" but he did not heed them. His
+mother avoided mentioning the new baby to him; she made him tell her
+about his sore toe, and in return she told him how lonely she had been
+without him.
+
+As his stomach filled, his heart overflowed,--a common coincidence
+even with older and better boys than Jimmy, and the tears came to his
+eyes. At last, when the plate was cleared, he rose, and went to the
+place where the new-comer lay. He bent over the little puff in the
+bedclothes, and grinned sheepishly as he lifted the cover from
+the sleeping baby's face. He looked at the red features a moment
+curiously, and said in his loud, husky, boyish voice,--
+
+"Hullo there, Miss Sears; how are you this evenin'?"
+
+Then he pinched his mother's arm and walked out of the room, his soul
+at peace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
+
+
+Back of Pennington's barn, which was the royal castle of the Court of
+Boyville, ran a hollow. In the hollow grew a gnarly box-elder tree.
+This tree was the courtiers' hunting-lodge. In the crotches of the
+rugged branches Piggy Pennington, Abe Carpenter, Jimmy Sears, Bud
+Perkins, and Mealy Jones were wont to rest of a summer afternoon,
+recounting the morning's adventures in the royal tourney of the
+marble-ring, planning for the morrow's chase, meditating upon the
+evil approach of the fall school term, and following such sedentary
+pursuits as to any member of the court seemed right and proper.
+One afternoon late in August the tree was alive with its arboreal
+aristocracy. Abe Carpenter sat on the lowest branch, plaiting a
+four-strand, square-braided "quirt"; Jimmy Sears was holding the ends.
+Piggy was casually skinning cats, hanging by his legs, or chinning on
+an almost horizontal limb, as he took his part in the lagging talk.
+Hidden by the foliage in the thick of the tree, in a three-pronged
+seat, Bud Perkins reclined, his features drawn into a painful grimace,
+as his right hand passed to and fro before his mouth, rhythmically
+twanging the tongue of a Jew's-harp, upon which he was playing "To My
+Sweet Sunny South Take Me Home." He breathed heavily and irregularly.
+His eyes were on the big white clouds in the blue sky, and his heart
+was filled with the poetry of lonesomeness that sometimes comes to
+boys in pensive moods. For the days when he had lived with his father,
+a nomad of the creeks that flowed by half a score of waterways into
+the Mississippi, were upon the far horizon of his consciousness, and
+the memory of those days made him as sad as any memory ever can make a
+healthy, care-free boy. He played "Dixie," partly because it was his
+dead father's favorite tune, and partly because, being sprightly, it
+kept down his melancholy. Later he took out a new mouth-organ, which
+his foster mother had given to him, and to satisfy his boyish idea of
+justice played "We shall Meet, but We shall Miss Him," because it
+was Miss Morgan's favorite. While he played the Jew's-harp his tree
+friends flung ribald remarks at him. But when Bud began to waver his
+hand for a tremulo upon the mouth-organ as he played "Marsa's in
+de Col', Col' Groun'," a peace fell upon the company, and they sat
+quietly and heard his repertoire,--"Ol' Shadey," "May, Dearest May,"
+"Lilly Dale," "Dey Stole My Chile Away," "Ol' Nicodemus," "Sleeping, I
+Dream, Love," and "Her Bright Smile." He was a Southern boy--a bird of
+passage caught in the North--and his music had that sweet, soothing
+note that cheered the men who fought under the Stars and Bars.
+
+Into this scene rushed Mealy Jones, pell mell, hat in hand,
+breathless, bringing war's alarms. "Fellers, fellers," screamed Mealy,
+half a block away, "it's a-comin' here! It's goin' to be here in two
+weeks. The man's puttin' up the boards now, and you can get a job
+passin' bills."
+
+An instant later the tree was deserted, and five boys were running as
+fast as their legs would carry them toward the thick of the town. They
+stopped at the new pine bill-board, and did not leave the man with the
+paste bucket until they had seen "Zazell" flying out of the cannon's
+mouth, the iron-jawed woman performing her marvels, the red-mouthed
+rhinoceros with the bleeding native impaled upon its horn and the
+fleeing hunters near by, "the largest elephant in captivity," carrying
+the ten-thousand dollar beauty, the acrobats whirling through space,
+James Robinson turning handsprings on his dapple-gray steed, and, last
+and most ravishing of all, little Willie Sells in pink tights on his
+three charging Shetland ponies, whose breakneck course in the picture
+followed one whichever way he turned. When these glories had been
+pasted upon the wall and had been discussed to the point of cynicism,
+the Court of Boyville reluctantly adjourned to get in the night wood
+and dream of a wilderness of monkeys.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the two weeks after the appearance of the glad tidings on the
+bill-boards, the boys of Willow Creek spent many hours in strange
+habiliments, making grotesque imitations of the spectacles upon the
+boards. Piggy Pennington rolled his trousers far above his knees for
+tights, and galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and down the
+alley, riding sideways, standing, and backwards, with much vainglory.
+To simulate the motley of the tight-rope-walking clown, Jimmy Sears
+wore the calico lining of his clothes outside, when he was in the
+royal castle beyond his mother's ken. Mealy donned carpet slippers in
+Pennington's barn, and wore long pink-and-white striped stockings of
+a suspiciously feminine appearance, fastened to his abbreviated shirt
+waist with stocking-suspenders, hated of all boys. Abe Carpenter, in a
+bathing-trunk, did shudder-breeding trapeze tricks, and Bud Perkins,
+who nightly rubbed himself limber in oil made by hanging a bottle of
+angle-worms in the sun to fry, wore his red calico base-ball clothes,
+and went through keg-hoops in a dozen different ways. In the streets
+of the town the youngsters appeared disguised as ordinary boys. They
+revelled in the pictured visions of the circus, but were sceptical
+about the literal fulfilment of some of the promises made on the
+bills. Certain things advertised were eliminated from reasonable
+expectation: for instance, the boys all knew that the giraffe would
+not be discovered eating off the top of a cocoanut-tree; nor would the
+monkeys play a brass band; and they knew that they would not see the
+"Human Fly" walk on the ceiling at the "concert." For no boy has ever
+saved enough money to buy a ticket to the "concert." Nevertheless,
+they gloated over the pictures of the herd of giraffes and the
+monkey-band and the graceful "Human Fly" walking upside down "defying
+the laws of gravitation;" and they considered no future, however
+pleasant, after the day and date on the bills. Thus the golden day
+approached, looming larger and larger upon the horizon as it came. In
+the interim, how many a druggist bought his own bottles the third and
+fourth time, how many a junk-dealer paid for his own iron, how many
+bags of carpet rags went to the ragman, the world will never know.
+
+[Illustration: _Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat
+delivery horse up and down the alley_.]
+
+[Illustration: _Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun
+to fry_.]
+
+[Illustration: _How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman_.]
+
+Now, among children of a larger growth, in festive times hostile
+demonstrations cease; animosities are buried; but in Boyville a
+North-ender is a North-ender, a South-ender is a South-ender, and a
+meeting of the two is a fight. Boyville knows no times of truce. It
+asks nor offers quarter. When warring clans come together, be it
+workday, holiday, or even circus day, there is a clatter of clods,
+a patter of feet, and retreating hoots of defiance. And because the
+circus bill-boards were frequented by boys of all kiths and clans,
+clashes occurred frequently, and Bud Perkins, who was the fighter of
+the South End, had many a call to arms. Indeed, the approaching circus
+unloosed the dogs of war rather than nestled the dove of peace. For
+Bud Perkins, in a moment of pride, issued an ukase which forbade all
+North End boys to look at a certain bill-board near his home. This
+ukase and his strict enforcement of it made him the target of North
+End wrath. Little Miss Morgan, his foster-mother, who had adopted him
+at the death of his father the summer before the circus bills were
+posted, could not understand how the lad managed to lose so many
+buttons, nor how he kept tearing his clothes. She ascribed these
+things to his antecedents and to his deficient training. She did
+not know that Bud, whom she called Henry, and whose music on the
+mouth-organ seemed to come from a shy and gentle soul, was the Terror
+of the South End. Her guileless mind held no place for the important
+fact that North End boys generally travelled by her door in pairs
+for safety. Such is the blindness of women. Cupid probably got his
+defective vision from his mother's side of the house.
+
+The last half of the last week before circus day seemed a century to
+Bud and his friends. Friday and Saturday crept by, and Mealy Jones
+was the only boy at Sunday-school who knew the Golden Text, for an
+inflammatory rumor that the circus was unloading from the side-track
+at the depot swept over the boys' side of the Sunday-school room, and
+consumed all knowledge of the fifth chapter of Acts, the day's lesson.
+After Sunday-school the boys broke for the circus grounds. There they
+feasted their gluttonous eyes upon the canvas-covered chariots, and
+the elephants, and the camels, and the spotted ponies, passing from
+the cars to the tents. The unfamiliar noises, the sight of the rising
+"sea of canvas," the touch of mysterious wagons containing so many
+wonders, and the intoxicating smell that comes only with much canvas,
+many animals, and the unpacking of Pandora's box, stuffed the boys'
+senses until they viewed with utter stoicism the passing dinner hour
+and the prospect of finding only cold mashed potatoes and the
+necks and backs of chickens in the cupboards. They even affected
+indifference to parental scoldings, and lingered about the enchanting
+spot until the shadows fell eastward and the day was old.
+
+When a boy gets on his good behavior he tempts Providence. And the
+Providence of boys is frail and prone to yield. So when Bud Perkins,
+who was burning with a desire to please Miss Morgan the day before the
+circus, went to church that Sunday night, any one can see that he was
+provoking Providence in an unusual and cruel manner. Bud did not sit
+with Miss Morgan, but lounged into the church, and took a back seat.
+Three North End boys came in and sat on the same bench. Then Jimmy
+Sears shuffled past the North Enders, and sat beside Bud. After which
+the inevitable happened. It kept happening. They "passed it on," and
+passed it back again; first a pinch, then a chug, then a cuff, then a
+kick under the bench. Heads craned toward the boys occasionally, and
+there came an awful moment when Bud Perkins found himself looking
+brazenly into the eyes of the preacher, who had paused to glare at the
+boys in the midst of his sermon. The faces of the entire congregation
+seemed to turn upon Bud automatically. A cherub-like expression of
+conscious innocence and impenetrable unconcern beamed through Bud
+Perkins's features. The same expression rested upon the countenances
+of the four other malefactors. At the end of the third second Jimmy
+Sears put his hand to his mouth and snorted between his fingers. And
+four young men looked down their noses. In the hush, Brother Baker--a
+tiptoeing Nemesis--stalked the full length of the church toward the
+culprits. When he took his seat beside the boys the preacher continued
+his discourse. Brother Baker's unctuousness angered Bud Perkins. He
+felt the implication that his conduct was bad, and his sense of guilt
+spurred his temper. Satan put a pin in Bud's hand. Slowly, almost
+imperceptibly, Satan moved the boy's arm on the back of the pew,
+around Jimmy Sears. Then an imp pushed Bud's hand as he jabbed the pin
+into the back of a North Ender. The boy from the North End let out a
+yowl of pain. Bud was not quick enough. Brother Baker saw the pin; two
+hundred devout Methodists saw him clamp his fingers on Bud Perkins's
+ear, and march him down the length of the church and set him beside
+Miss Morgan. It was a sickening moment. The North End grinned as one
+boy under its skin, and was exceeding glad. So agonizing was it for
+Bud that he forgot to imagine what a triumph it was for the North
+End--and further anguish is impossible for a boy.
+
+[Illustration: _Brother Baker--a tiptoeing Nemesis_.]
+
+Miss Morgan and Bud Perkins left the church with the congregation. Bud
+dreaded the moment when they would leave the crowd and turn into their
+side street. When they did turn, Bud was lagging a step or two behind.
+A boy's troubles are always the fault of the other boy. The North End
+boy's responsibility in the matter was so clear--to Bud--that, when he
+went to justify himself to Miss Morgan, he was surprised and hurt at
+what he considered her feminine blindness to the fact. After she had
+passed her sentence she asked: "Do you really think you deserve to go,
+Henry?"
+
+The blow stunned the boy. He saw the visions of two weeks burst like
+bubbles, and he whimpered: "I dunno." But in his heart he did know
+that to deny a boy the joy of seeing Willie Sells on his three
+Shetland ponies, for nothing in the world but showing a North-ender
+his place, was a piece of injustice of the kind for which men and
+nations go to war. At breakfast Bud kept his eyes on his plate. His
+face wore the resigned look of a martyr. Miss Morgan was studiously
+gracious. He dropped leaden monosyllables into the cheery flow of her
+conversation, and after breakfast put in his time at the woodshed.
+
+At eight o'clock that morning the town of Willow Creek was in the
+thrall of the circus. Country wagons were passing on every side
+street. Delivery carts were rattling about with unusual alacrity.
+By half-past nine dressed-up children were flitting along the side
+streets hurrying their seniors. On the main thoroughfare flags were
+flying, and the streams of strangers that had been flowing into town
+were eddying at the street corners. The balloon-vender wormed his way
+through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail
+behind him. The bark of the fakir rasped the tightening nerves of the
+town. Everywhere was hubbub; everywhere was the dusty, heated air of
+the festival; everywhere were men and women ready for the marvel that
+had come out of the great world, bringing pomp and circumstance in its
+gilded train; everywhere in Willow Creek the spirit which put the blue
+sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her beau's hat ran
+riot, save at the home of Miss Morgan. There the bees hummed lazily
+over the old-fashioned flower garden; there the cantankerous jays
+jabbered in the cottonwoods; there the muffled noises of the town
+festival came as from afar; there Miss Morgan puttered about her
+morning's work, trying vainly to croon a gospel hymn; and there Bud
+Perkins, prone upon the sitting-room sofa, made parallelograms and
+squares and diamonds with the dots and lines on the ceiling paper.
+When the throb of the drum and the blare of the brass had set the
+heart of the town to dancing, some wave of the ecstasy seeped through
+the lilac bushes and into the quiet house. The boy on the sofa started
+up suddenly, checked himself ostentatiously, walked to the bird
+cage, and began to play with the canary. The wave carried the little
+spinster to the window. The circus had a homestead in human hearts
+before John Wesley staked his claim, and even so good a Methodist as
+Miss Morgan could not be deaf to the scream of the calliope nor the
+tinkle of cymbals.
+
+[Illustration: _Dressed-up children were flitting along the side
+streets, hurrying their seniors_.]
+
+[Illustration: _The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing
+crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him_.]
+
+[Illustration: _The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the
+flag in her Beau's hat_.]
+
+To emphasize his desolation, Bud left the room, and sat down by a tree
+in the yard, with his back to the kitchen door and window. There Miss
+Morgan saw him playing mumble-peg in a desultory fashion. When the
+courtiers of Boyville came home from the parade they found him; and
+because he sat playing a silent, sullen, solitary game, and responded
+to their banter only with melancholy grunts, they knew that the worst
+had befallen him. Much confab followed, in which the pronoun "she" and
+"her" were spoken. Otherwise Miss Morgan was unidentified. For the
+conversation ran thus, over and over:--
+
+"You ask her."
+
+"Naw, I've done ast 'er."
+
+"'T won't do no good for me to ast 'er. She don't like me."
+
+"I ain't 'fraid to ast 'er."
+
+"Well, then, why don't you?"
+
+"Why don't _you_?"
+
+"Let's all ast 'er."
+
+"S'pose she will, Bud?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+Then Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy came trapesing up to Miss
+Morgan's kitchen door. Bud sat by the tree twirling his knife at his
+game. Piggy, being the spokesman, stood in the doorway. "Miss Morgan,"
+he said, as he slapped his leg with his hat.
+
+"Well, Winfield?" replied the little woman, divining his mission, and
+hardening her heart against his purpose.
+
+"Miss Morgan," he repeated, and then coaxed sheepishly, "can't Bud go
+to the show with us, Miss Morgan?"
+
+"I'm afraid not to-day," smiled back Miss Morgan, as she went about
+her work. A whisper from the doorstep prompted Piggy to "ask her why;"
+whereat Piggy echoed: "Why can't he, Miss Morgan?"
+
+"Henry misbehaved in church last night, and we've agreed that he shall
+stay home from the circus."
+
+Piggy advanced a step or two inside the door, laughing diplomatically:
+"O--no, Miss Morgan; don't you think he's agreed. He's just dyin' to
+go."
+
+Miss Morgan smiled, but did not join in Piggy's hilarity--a bad
+sign. Piggy tried again: "They got six elephants, and one's a trick
+elephant. You'd die a-laughin' if you saw him." And Piggy went into a
+spasm of laughter.
+
+[Illustration: "_One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you
+saw him_."]
+
+But it left Miss Morgan high and dry upon the island of her
+determination.
+
+Piggy prepared for an heroic measure, and stepped over to the kitchen
+table, leaning upon it as he pleaded: "This is the last circus this
+year, Miss Morgan, and it's an awful good one. Can't he go just this
+once?"
+
+[Illustration: "_It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this
+once_?"]
+
+The debate lasted ten minutes, and at the end four boys walked slowly,
+with much manifestation of feeling, back to the tree where the fifth
+sat. There was woe and lamentation after the manner of boy-kind. When
+the boys left the yard it seemed to Miss Morgan that she could not
+look from her work without seeing the lonesome figure of Bud. In
+the afternoon the patter of feet by her house grew slower, and then
+ceased. Occasionally a belated wayfarer sped by. The music of the
+circus band outside of the tent came to Miss Morgan's ears on gusts
+of wind, and died away as the wind ebbed. She dropped the dish-cloth
+three times in five minutes, and washed her cup and saucer twice. She
+struggled bravely in the Slough of Despond for awhile, and then turned
+back with Pliable.
+
+"Henry," she said, as the boy walked past her carrying peppergrass to
+the bird, "Henry, what made you act so last night?"
+
+The boy dropped his head and answered: "I dunno."
+
+"But, Henry, didn't you know it was wrong?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"Why did you stick that little boy with the pin?"
+
+"Well--well--" he gasped, preparing for a defence. "Well--he pinched
+me first."
+
+"Yes, Henry, but don't you know that it's wrong to do those things in
+church? Don't you see how bad it was?"
+
+"I was just a-playin', Miss Morgan; I didn't mean to."
+
+Bud did not dare to trust his instinctive reading of the signs. He
+went on impulsively: "I wanted him to quit, but he just kept right on,
+and Brother Baker didn't touch him."
+
+The wind brought the staccato music of the circus band to the
+foster-mother's ears. The music completed her moral decay, for she was
+thinking, if Brother Baker would only look after his own children as
+carefully as he looked after those of other people, the world would
+be better. Then she said: "Now, Henry, if I let you go, just this
+once--now just this once, mind you--will you promise never to do
+anything like that again?"
+
+Blackness dropped from the boy's spirit, and by main strength he
+strangled a desire to yell. The desire revived when he reached the
+alley, and he ran whooping to the circus grounds.
+
+There is a law of crystallization among boys which enables molecules
+of the same gang to meet in whatever agglomeration they may be thrown.
+So ten minutes after Bud Perkins left home he found Piggy and Jimmy
+and old Abe and Mealy in the menagerie tent. Whereupon the South End
+was able to present a bristling front to the North End--a front which
+even the pleasings of the lute in the circus band could not break. But
+the boys knew that the band playing in the circus tent meant that
+the performance in the ring was about to begin. So they cut short
+an interesting dialogue with a keeper, concerning the elephant that
+remembered the man who gave her tobacco ten years ago, and tried to
+kill him the week before the show came to Willow Creek. But when the
+pageant in the ring unfolded its tinselled splendor in the Grand
+Entry, Bud Perkins left earth and walked upon clouds of glory. His
+high-strung nerves quivered with delight as the ring disclosed its
+treasures--Willie Sells on his spotted ponies, James Robinson on his
+dapple gray, the "8 funny clowns--count them 8," the Japanese jugglers
+and tumblers, the bespangled women on the rings, the dancing ponies,
+and the performing dogs. The climax of his joy came when Zazell, "the
+queen of the air," was shot from her cannon to the trapeze. Bud had
+decided, days before the circus, that this feature would please
+him most. Zazell's performance was somewhat tame, but immediately
+thereafter a really startling thing happened. A clown holding the
+trick mule called to the boys near Bud, who nudged him into the
+clown's attention. The clown, drawing from the wide pantaloons a
+dollar, pantomimed to Bud. He held it up for the boy and all the
+spectators to see. Alternately he pointed to the trick mule and to the
+coin, coaxing and questioning by signs, as he did so. It took perhaps
+a minute for Bud's embarrassment to wear off. Then two motives
+impelled him to act. He didn't propose to let the North-enders see
+his embarrassment, and he saw that he might earn the dollar for Miss
+Morgan's missionary box, thus mitigating the disgrace he had brought
+upon her in church. This inspiration literally flashed over Bud, and
+before he knew it, he was standing in the ring, with his head cocked
+upon one side to indicate his utter indifference to everything in the
+world. Of course it was a stupendous pretence. For under his pretty
+starched shirt, which Miss Morgan had forced on him in the hurry of
+departure, his heart was beating like a little windmill in a gale. As
+Bud bestrode the donkey the cheers of the throng rose, but above the
+tumult he could hear the North End jeering him. He could hear the
+words the North-enders spoke, even their "ho-o-oho-os," and their
+"nyayh-nyayh-nyayahs," and their "look--at--old--pretty--boy's," and
+their "watch-him-hit-the-roof's," and their "get-a-basket's," and
+similar remarks less desirable for publication. As the donkey cantered
+off, Bud felt sure he could keep his seat. Once the animal bucked. Bud
+did not fall. The donkey ran, and stopped quickly. Bud held on. Then
+the donkey's feet twinkled--it seemed to Bud in the very top of the
+tent--and Bud slid off the animal's neck to the ring. The clown
+brought the boy his hat, and stood over him as he rose. Bud laughed
+stupidly into the chalked face of the clown, who handed Bud a dollar,
+remarking in a low voice, "Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally
+drop the first kick."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: "_Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the
+first kick_."]
+
+What passed in the ring as Bud left it, bedraggled and dusty, did not
+interest him. He brushed himself as he went. The band was playing
+madly, and the young woman in the stiff skirts was standing by her
+horse ready to mount. The crowd did not stop laughing; Bud inclined
+his head to dust his knickerbockers, and then in a tragic instant he
+saw what was convulsing the multitude with laughter. The outer seam of
+the right leg of his velveteen breeches was gone, and a brown leg was
+winking in and out from the flapping garment as he walked. Wildly he
+gathered the parted garment, and it seemed to him that he never would
+cover the ground between the ring and the benches. In the course of
+several aeons--which the other boys measured by fleeting minutes--the
+wave of shame that covered Bud subsided. Pins bound up the wounds in
+his clothes. He drew a natural breath, and was able to join the mob
+which howled down the man who announced the concert.
+
+After that the inexorable minutes flew by until the performance ended.
+In the menagerie tent Bud and his friends looked thirstily upon the
+cool, pink "schooners" of lemonade, and finally, when they had spent
+a few blissful moments with the monkeys and had enjoyed a last, long,
+lingering look at the elephants, they dragged themselves unwillingly
+away into the commonplace of sunshine and trees and blue sky. Only the
+romantic touch of the side-show banners and the wonder of the gilded
+wagons assured them that their memories of the passing hour were not
+empty dreams.
+
+The boys were standing enraptured before the picture of the fat woman
+upon the swaying canvas. Bud had drifted away from them to glut his
+eyes upon the picture of the snakes writhing around the charmer. The
+North-enders had been following Bud at a respectful distance, waiting
+for the opportunity which his separation from his clan gave to them.
+They were enforced by a country boy of great reputed prowess in
+battle. Bud did not know his danger until they pounced upon him. In an
+instant the fight was raging. Over the guy ropes it went, under the
+ticket wagon, into the thick of the lemonade stands. And when Piggy
+and Abe and Jimmy had joined it, they trailed the track of the storm
+by torn hats, bruised, battle-scarred boys, and the wreckage incident
+to an enlivening occasion. When his comrades found Bud, the argument
+had narrowed down to Bud and the boy from the country, the other
+wranglers having dropped out for heavy repairs. The fight, which had
+been started to avenge ancient wrongs, particularly the wrongs of the
+bill-board, only added new wrongs to the list. The country boy was
+striking wildly, and trying to clinch his antagonist, when the town
+marshal--the bogie-man of all boys--stopped the fight. But of course
+no town marshal can come into the thick of a discussion in Boyville
+and know much of the merits of the question. So when the marshal of
+Willow Creek saw Bud Perkins putting the finishing touches of a good
+trouncing on a strange boy, and also saw Bill Pennington's boy, and
+Henry Sears's boy, and Mrs. Carpenter's boy, and old man Jones's boy
+dancing around in high glee at the performance, he quietly gathered in
+the boys he knew, and let the stranger go.
+
+[Illustration: _The other 'wranglers ... dropped out for heavy
+repair_.]
+
+Now no boy likes to be marched down the main street of his town with
+the callous finger of the marshal under his shirt-band. The spectacle
+operates distinctly against the peace and dignity of Boyville for
+months thereafter. For passing youths who forget there is a morrow
+jibe at the culprits and thus plant the seeds of dissensions which
+bloom in fights. It was a sweaty, red-faced crew that the marshal
+dumped into Pennington's grocery with, "Here, Bill, I found your boy
+and these young demons fightin' down 't the circus ground, and I took
+'em in charge. You 'tend to 'em, will you?"
+
+Mr. Pennington's glance at his son showed that Piggy was unharmed. A
+swift survey of the others gave each, save Bud, a bill of health. But
+when Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and
+laughed till he shook all over; for Bud, with a rimless hat upon a
+towselled head, with a face scratched till it looked like a railroad
+map, with a torn shirt that exposed a dirty shoulder and a freckled
+back, with trousers so badly shattered that two hands could hardly
+hold them together,--as Mr. Pennington expressed it, Bud looked like a
+second-hand boy. The simile pleased Pennington so that he renewed his
+laughter, and paid no heed to the chatter of the pack clamoring to
+tell all in one breath, the history of the incident that had led to
+Bud's dilapidation. Also they were drawing gloomy pictures of the
+appearance of his assailants, after the custom of boys in such cases.
+Because his son was not involved in the calamity, Piggy's father was
+not moved deeply by the story of the raid of the North-enders and
+their downfall. So he put the young gentlemen of the Court of Boyville
+into the back room of his grocery store, where coal-oil and molasses
+barrels and hams and bacon and black shadows of many mysterious
+things were gathered. He gave the royal party a cheese knife and a
+watermelon, and bade them be merry, a bidding which set the hearts of
+Piggy and Abe and Jimmy and Mealy to dancing, while Bud's heart, which
+had been sinking lower and lower into a quagmire of dread, beat
+on numbly and did not join the joy. As the time for going home
+approached, Bud shivered in his soul at the thought of meeting Miss
+Morgan. Not even the watermelon revived him, and when a watermelon
+will not help a boy his extremity is dire. Still he laughed and
+chatted with apparent merriment, but he knew how hollow was his
+laughter and what mockery was in his cheer. When the melon was eaten
+business took its regular order.
+
+[Illustration: _When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a
+show-case and laughed till he shook all over_.]
+
+"Say, Bud, how you goin' to get home?" asked Abe.
+
+Bud grinned as he looked at his rags.
+
+"Gee," said Mealy, "I'm glad it ain't me."
+
+"Aw, shucks," returned Bud, and he thought of the stricken Ananias in
+the Sunday-school lesson leaf as he spoke; "run right through like I
+always do. What I got to be 'fraid of?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Bud, you can laugh, but you know you'll catch it when you
+get home."
+
+This shaft from Jimmy Sears put in words the terror in Bud's heart.
+But he replied: "I'll bet you I don't."
+
+Bud's instinct piloted him by a circuitous route up the alley to the
+kitchen door. Miss Morgan sat on the front porch, waiting for the boy
+to return before serving supper. He stood helplessly in the kitchen
+for a minute, with a weight of indecision upon him. He feared to go
+to the front porch, where Miss Morgan was. He feared to stay in the
+kitchen. But when he saw the empty wood-box a light seemed to dawn.
+Instinct guided him to the woodpile, and the law of self-preservation
+filled his arms with wood, and instinct carried him to the kitchen
+wood-box time and again, and laid the wood in the box as gently as if
+it had been glass and as softly as if it had been velvet. Not until
+the pile had grown far above the wainscoting on the kitchen wall, did
+a stick crashing to the floor tell Miss Morgan that Bud was in the
+house.
+
+But there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and just as the falling
+wood attracted Miss Morgan's attention, it was diverted by a
+belligerent party at her front gate. This belligerent party was
+composed of two persons, to wit: one mother from the north end of
+Willow Creek, irate to the spluttering point, and one boy lagging as
+far behind the mother as his short arm would allow him to lag. The
+mother held the short arm, and was literally dragging her son to Miss
+Morgan's gate to offer him in evidence as "Exhibit A" in a possible
+cause of the State of Kansas vs. Henry Perkins. Exhibit A was black
+and blue as to the eyes, torn as to the shirt, bloody as to the nose,
+tumbled and dusty as to the hair, and as to the countenance, clearly
+and unquestionably sheep-faced. The mother opened the bombardment
+with: "Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy."
+
+[Illustration: "_Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy_."]
+
+Miss Morgan looked in horror, and exclaimed: "Well, for mercy sakes!
+Where on earth's he been?"
+
+And the leader of the war party returned: "Where's he been? Well, I'll
+tell you where he's been. And I just want you to know who done this."
+Here Exhibit A got behind a post. The recital of the details of his
+catastrophe was humiliating. But the mother continued: "Henry Perkins
+done this. I don't believe in stirring up neighborhood quarrels and
+all that, but I've just stood this long enough. My boy can't stick his
+nose out of the door without that Perkins boy jumpin' on him. If you
+can't do anything with that Perkins boy, I'll show him there's a law
+in this land."
+
+Miss Morgan wilted as the speech proceeded. She had voice only to say,
+"I'm sure there's some mistake;" and then remembering the crash of the
+wood on the kitchen floor, she called: "Henry, come here!"
+
+As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the belligerents
+replied: "No, there isn't no mistake either. My boy is a good little
+boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in this town. And because
+I don't allow him to fight, that Perkins boy picks on him all the
+time. I've told him to keep out of his way and not to play with Henry
+Perkins, but he can't be runnin' all over this town to keep--"
+
+And then Exhibit B, with scratched face, tattered raiment, and grimy
+features, stood in the doorway. The witness for the State looked in
+dumb amazement at the wreck. Miss Morgan saw Bud, and her temper
+rose--not at him, but at his adversary. Exhibit A sulkily turned his
+face from Exhibit B, and Exhibit B seemed to be oblivious of the
+presence of Exhibit A; for the boys it was a scene too shameful for
+mutual recognition. Miss Morgan broke the heavy silence with: "Henry,
+where on earth have you been?"
+
+"Been t' the circus," replied the boy.
+
+"Henry, did you blacken that little boy's eyes, and tear his clothes
+that way?" inquired Miss Morgan when her wits returned.
+
+"Why--no'm--I didn't. But he was one of four fellers that picked on me
+comin' home from the circus, and tried to lick me."
+
+"Willie," demanded the head of the attacking posse, "did you pick a
+fight with that Perkins boy?"
+
+"Oh, no 'm, no 'm! I was just playin' round the tent, me and
+another boy, and Bud he come up and jumped on us." And then to add
+verisimilitude to his narrative, he appended: "Him and four other
+boys."
+
+"Henry," asked Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of Henry's
+Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer of them began
+to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this little boy telling the
+truth? Now, don't you story to me, Henry."
+
+"Honest injun, Miss Morgan, I cross my heart and hope to drop dead
+this minute if I ain't tellin' you the way it was. Him and them
+North-enders, why they come along and called me names, and he tried to
+hit me, and I just shoved him away like this," and Henry executed a
+polite pantomime. "And I was swingin' my arms out to keep 'em all from
+hittin' me, and he got in the way, and I couldn't help it. And they
+was all a pickin' on me, and I told 'em all the time I didn't want to
+fight."
+
+But Exhibit A kept looking at his mother and shaking his head in
+violent contradiction of Bud, as the story was told.
+
+Miss Morgan asked: "Who scratched your face so, Henry?"
+
+"Him; he's all the time fightin' me."
+
+"No, ma, I didn't. You know I didn't."
+
+Exhibit A and Exhibit B were still back to back. Then Exhibit B
+responded: "Miss Morgan, you ast him if he didn't cuss and damn me,
+and say he was goin' to pound me to death if I ever come north of
+Sixth."
+
+To which the leader of the raiders returned in great scorn: "The very
+idea! Just listen at that! Why, Miss Morgan, that Perkins boy is the
+bully of this town. Come on, Willie, your pa will see if there is no
+law to protect you from such boys as him." Whereupon the war party
+faced about, and walked down the sidewalk and away.
+
+Miss Morgan and Bud watched the North End woman and her son depart.
+Miss Morgan turned to Bud, and spoke spiritedly: "Now, Henry, don't
+ever have anything to do with that kind of trash again. Now, you won't
+forget, will you, Henry?"
+
+[Illustration: "_Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that
+kind of trash again_."]
+
+Bud examined his toes carefully, and replied, "No 'm."
+
+In the threshold she put her hand on the boy's shoulder, and
+continued: "Now, don't you mind about it, Henry. They sha'n't touch
+you. You come and wash, and we'll have supper."
+
+When a boy has a woman for a champion, if he is wise, he trusts her to
+any length. So Bud went to the kitchen, picked up the water-bucket,
+and went to the well, partly to keep from displaying a gathering wave
+of affection for his foster-mother, and partly to let the magnificence
+of the wood-box burst upon her in his absence. When he returned, he
+found Miss Morgan pointing toward the wood-box and beaming upon him.
+Bud grinned, and fished in his pocket for the coin.
+
+[Illustration: "_Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule.... I
+thought it would be nice for the missionary society_."]
+
+"Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule," he faltered. "I
+thought it would be nice for the missionary society." That he might
+check any weak feminine emotions, he turned his attention to the
+supper-table, and blurted: "Gee, we're goin' to have pie, ain't we? I
+tell you, I'm mighty pie hungry."
+
+[Illustration: "_Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we_."]
+
+The glow of Miss Morgan's melted heart shone upon her face. Through a
+seraphic smile she spoke: "It's apple pie, too, Henry--your kind." As
+she put the supper upon the table, she asked: "Did you have a good
+time at the circus, Henry?"
+
+The boy nodded vehemently, and said: "You bet!" and then went on,
+after a pause, "I guess I tore my pants a little gettin' off of that
+mule; but I thought you'd like the dollar."
+
+It was the finest speech he could make. "I guess I can mend them,
+Henry," she answered; and then she asked, with her face in the
+cupboard, "Sha'n't we try some of the new strawberry preserves,
+Henry?"
+
+As she was opening the jar she concluded that Henry Perkins was an
+angel--a conclusion which, in view of the well-known facts, was
+manifestly absurd.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+"THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE"
+
+
+Did you hear him? I dare say that boy lives a merrier life and wears
+more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom than he that is clad
+in silk and velvet.--_From the Observations of "Mr. Great Heart_."
+
+It was dusk in Boyville. The boys at a game of hide-and-seek filled
+the air with their calls:
+
+          "Bushel of wheat, and a
+            Bushel of rye--
+          All t' ain't ready
+            Holler aye.
+    All in ten feet of my base is caught: All eyes open."
+
+Or
+
+    "One--two--three for me."
+
+Or
+
+    "All's out's in free."
+
+Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed; over
+barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the sunflowers and
+the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the moon rose it merged
+into pull-away. That game flourished for a while and transformed
+itself by an almost imperceptible evolution into a series of races
+down the dusty road. But when the moon's silver had marked itself upon
+the grass, the boys were lying prone on a hay-cock behind the royal
+castle. They chattered idly, and the murmur of their talk rose on
+the just-felt breeze that greets the rising moon, like the ripple of
+waters. But the chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were
+absorbing the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their
+being were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their
+souls--fresher from God than are the souls of men--were a-quiver with
+joy, and their lips babbled to hide their ecstasies. In Boyville it
+is a shameful thing to flaunt the secrets of the heart. As the night
+deepened, and the shy stars peeped at the bold moon, the boys let
+their prattle ebb into silence. Long they lay looking upward--with the
+impulse in their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam
+left unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the
+wise men of the world have left locked in mystery--the question of the
+Whence, the Why, and the Whither.
+
+As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the company upon
+the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary boy remained.
+
+After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer madness set
+him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay. Life was full of
+gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a delicious longing for
+he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it were not something new
+and unimaginably good to eat. It was the nearest he could come to a
+defining of the longing. Of course no one can define it. It is that
+which quickens the blood of all young creatures--the rosebud, the
+meadow-lark, the dragon-fly, the colt, the boy and the maiden, bidding
+them glorify God with the show and the example of their comeliness.
+The boy rose from the hay and skipped under the trees, over the
+fantastic figures of the moon-spun carpet. He waved his arms, and
+there came to his throat a simple song, which he chanted croakingly,
+lest some one should hear him and laugh. He stopped, and sitting on a
+fence looked at a great white cloud that was mounting the western sky.
+His soul was listening to the faraway music from the breakers of the
+restless rising sea of ambition, and the rush of life and action, that
+were flooding into the distant rim of his consciousness. The music
+charmed him. Tears came to his eyes, he knew not why. But we, whom
+this mighty tide has carried away from that bourne whereon the boy's
+feet strayed so happily--we know why the far-seeing angels gave him
+tears.
+
+A dog in some distant farm-yard was baying at the moon. A whining
+screech owl sent a faint shudder of superstitious fear over the boy.
+For a long time he sat on the fence absorbing the night sounds--the
+claque of the frogs, the burring of the crickets, the hum of the water
+on the mill-dam far down the valley, and the occasional call of some
+human voice, ringing like a golden bell in the hush of the night. It
+was after nine and the boy was deep in his trackless revery. A woman
+called,--
+
+"Win-nee, Win-nee, oh, Winnie."
+
+The spell upon him was almost too delicious to break; but he roused
+himself to reply,--
+
+"Yessum. All right."
+
+Then the mother's voice continued: "Now wash your feet, Winnie, and
+wipe 'em dry; don't come to bed with dirty feet."
+
+Slowly the boy climbed to the earth. He shuffled through dew, but his
+feet were still too dirty. He stood in the tub of water by the pump,
+rubbing one foot with the other, and his eyes turned moonward. The
+thrall of the night caught him again. In a hazy stupor he sat on the
+kitchen step drying his feet. When he got up, Piggy Pennington gazed
+for a moment at a star--a pale star which hovered timidly over the
+chimney of the home which sheltered his Heart's Desire. With the
+lunacy upon him, he flung to the star a bashful kiss. Then he grinned
+foolishly and came to himself with a grunt, as he ran up stairs to his
+room. He was ashamed to face the south breeze that fanned his bed.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURT OF BOYVILLE***
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