DOWN the road, kicking up the dust until he marched, soldier-wise, in a cloud of it, that rose and grimed his moist face and added to the heavy, brown powder upon the wayside weeds and flowers, whistling a queer, tuneless thing, which yet contained definite sequences—the whistle of a bird rather than a boy—approached Johnny Trumbull, aged ten, small of his age, but accounted by his mates mighty.
Johnny came of the best and oldest family in the village, but it was in some respects an undesirable family for a boy. In it survived, as fossils survive in ancient nooks and crannies of the earth, old traits of race, unchanged by time and environment. Living in a house lighted by electricity, the mental conception of it was to the Trumbulls as the conception of candles; with telephones at hand, they unconsciously still conceived of messages delivered with the old saying, “Ride, ride,” etc., and relays of post-horses. They locked their doors, but still had latch-strings in mind. Johnny's father was a physician, adopting modern methods of surgery and prescription, yet his mind harked back to cupping and calomel, and now and then he swerved aside from his path across the field of the present into the future and plunged headlong, as if for fresh air, into the traditional past, and often with brilliant results.
Johnny's mother was a college graduate. She was the president of the woman's club. She read papers savoring of such feminine leaps ahead that they were like gymnastics, but she walked homeward with the gait of her great-grandmother, and inwardly regarded her husband as her lord and master. She minced genteelly, lifting her quite fashionable skirts high above very slender ankles, which were hereditary. Not a woman of her race had ever gone home on thick ankles, and they had all gone home. They had all been at home, even if abroad—at home in the truest sense. At the club, reading her inflammatory paper, Cora Trumbull's real self remained at home intent upon her mending, her dusting, her house economics. It was something remarkably like her astral body which presided at the club.
As for her unmarried sister Janet, who was older and had graduated from a young ladies' seminary instead of a college, whose early fancy had been guided into the lady-like ways of antimacassars and pincushions and wax flowers under glass shades, she was a straighter proposition. No astral pretensions had Janet. She stayed, body and soul together, in the old ways, and did not even project her shadow out of them. There is seldom room enough for one's shadow in one's earliest way of life, but there was plenty for Janet's. There had been a Janet unmarried in every Trumbull family for generations. That in some subtle fashion accounted for her remaining single. There had also been an unmarried Jonathan Trumbull, and that accounted for Johnny's old bachelor uncle Jonathan. Jonathan was a retired clergyman. He had retired before he had preached long, because of doctrinal doubts, which were hereditary. He had a little, dark study in Johnny's father's house, which was the old Trumbull homestead, and he passed much of his time there, debating within himself that matter of doctrines.
Presently Johnny, assiduously kicking up dust, met his uncle Jonathan, who passed without the slightest notice. Johnny did not mind at all. He was used to it. Presently his own father appeared, driving along in his buggy the bay mare at a steady jog, with the next professional call quite clearly upon her equine mind. And Johnny's father did not see him. Johnny did not mind that, either. He expected nothing different.
Then Johnny saw his mother approaching. She was coming from the club meeting. She held up her silk skirts high, as usual, and carried a nice little parcel of papers tied with ribbon. She also did not notice Johnny, who, however, out of sweet respect for his mother's nice silk dress, stopped kicking up dust. Mrs. Trumbull on the village street was really at home preparing a shortcake for supper.
Johnny eyed his mother's faded but rather beautiful face under the rose-trimmed bonnet with admiration and entire absence of resentment. Then he walked on and kicked up the dust again. He loved to kick up the dust in summer, the fallen leaves in autumn, and the snow in winter. Johnny was not a typical Trumbull. None of them had ever cared for simple amusements like that. Looking back for generations on his father's and mother's side (both had been Trumbulls, but very distantly related), none could be discovered who in the least resembled Johnny. No dim blue eye of retrospection and reflection had Johnny; no tendency to tall slenderness which would later bow beneath the greater weight of the soul. Johnny was small, but wiry of build, and looked able to bear any amount of mental development without a lasting bend of his physical shoulders. Johnny had, at the early age of ten, whopped nearly every boy in school, but that was a secret of honor. It was well known in the school that, once the Trumbulls heard of it, Johnny could never whop again. “You fellows know,” Johnny had declared once, standing over his prostrate and whimpering foe, “that I don't mind getting whopped at home, but they might send me away to another school, and then I could never whop any of you fellows.”
Johnny Trumbull kicking up the dust, himself dust-covered, his shoes, his little queerly fitting dun suit, his cropped head, all thickly powdered, loved it. He sniffed in that dust like a grateful incense. He did not stop dust-kicking when he saw his aunt Janet coming, for, as he considered, her old black gown was not worth the sacrifice. It was true that she might see him. She sometimes did, if she were not reading a book as she walked. It had always been a habit with the Janet Trumbulls to read improving books when they walked abroad. To-day Johnny saw, with a quick glance of those sharp, black eyes, so unlike the Trumbulls', that his aunt Janet was reading. He therefore expected her to pass him without recognition, and marched on kicking up the dust. But suddenly, as he grew nearer the spry little figure, he was aware of a pair of gray eyes, before which waved protectingly a hand clad in a black silk glove with dangling finger-tips, because it was too long, and it dawned swiftly upon him that Aunt Janet was trying to shield her face from the moving column of brown motes. He stopped kicking, but it was too late. Aunt Janet had him by the collar and was vigorously shaking him with nervous strength.
“You are a very naughty little boy,” declared Aunt Janet. “You should know better than to walk along the street raising so much dust. No well-brought-up child ever does such things. Who are your parents, little boy?”
Johnny perceived that Aunt Janet did not recognize him, which was easily explained. She wore her reading-spectacles and not her far-seeing ones; besides, her reading spectacles were obscured by dust and her nephew's face was nearly obliterated. Also as she shook him his face was not much in evidence. Johnny disliked, naturally, to tell his aunt Janet that her own sister and brother-in-law were the parents of such a wicked little boy. He therefore kept quiet and submitted to the shaking, making himself as limp as a rag. This, however, exasperated Aunt Janet, who found herself encumbered by a dead weight of a little boy to be shaken, and suddenly Johnny Trumbull, the fighting champion of the town, the cock of the walk of the school, found himself being ignominiously spanked. That was too much. Johnny's fighting blood was up. He lost all consideration for circumstances, he forgot that Aunt Janet was not a boy, that she was quite near being an old lady. She had overstepped the bounds of privilege of age and sex, and an alarming state of equality ensued. Quickly the tables were turned. The boy became far from limp. He stiffened, then bounded and rebounded like wire. He butted, he parried, he observed all his famous tactics of battle, and poor Aunt Janet sat down in the dust, black dress, bonnet, glasses (but the glasses were off and lost), little improving book, black silk gloves, and all; and Johnny, hopeless, awful, irreverent, sat upon his Aunt Janet's plunging knees, which seemed the most lively part of her. He kept his face twisted away from her, but it was not from cowardice. Johnny was afraid lest Aunt Janet should be too much overcome by the discovery of his identity. He felt that it was his duty to spare her that. So he sat still, triumphant but inwardly aghast.
It was fast dawning upon him that his aunt was not a little boy. He was not afraid of any punishment which might be meted out to him, but he was simply horrified. He himself had violated all the honorable conditions of warfare. He felt a little dizzy and ill, and he felt worse when he ventured a hurried glance at Aunt Janet's face. She was very pale through the dust, and her eyes were closed. Johnny thought then that he had killed her.
He got up—the nervous knees were no longer plunging; then he heard a voice, a little-girl voice, always shrill, but now high pitched to a squeak with terror. It was the voice of Lily Jennings. She stood near and yet aloof, a lovely little flower of a girl, all white-scalloped frills and ribbons, with a big white-frilled hat shading a pale little face and covering the top of a head decorated with wonderful yellow curls. She stood behind a big baby-carriage with a pink-lined muslin canopy and containing a nest of pink and white, but an empty nest. Lily's little brother's carriage had a spring broken, and she had been to borrow her aunt's baby-carriage, so that nurse could wheel little brother up and down the veranda. Nurse had a headache, and the maids were busy, and Lily, who was a kind little soul and, moreover, imaginative, and who liked the idea of pushing an empty baby-carriage, had volunteered to go for it. All the way she had been dreaming of what was not in the carriage. She had come directly out of a dream of doll twins when she chanced upon the tragedy in the road.
“What have you been doing now, Johnny Trumbull?” said she. She was tremulous, white with horror, but she stood her ground. It was curious, but Johnny Trumbull, with all his bravery, was always cowed before Lily. Once she had turned and stared at him when he had emerged triumphant but with bleeding nose from a fight; then she had sniffed delicately and gone her way. It had only taken a second, but in that second the victor had met moral defeat.
He looked now at her pale, really scared face, and his own was as pale. He stood and kicked the dust until the swirling column of it reached his head.
“That's right,” said Lily; “stand and kick up dust all over me. WHAT have you been doing?”
Johnny was trembling so he could hardly stand. He stopped kicking dust.
“Have you killed your aunt?” demanded Lily. It was monstrous, but she had a very dramatic imagination, and there was a faint hint of enjoyment in her tragic voice.
“Guess she's just choked by dust,” volunteered Johnny, hoarsely. He kicked the dust again.
“That's right,” said Lily. “If she's choked to death by dust, stand there and choke her some more. You are a murderer, Johnny Trumbull, and my mamma will never allow me to speak to you again, and Madame will not allow you to come to school. AND—I see your papa driving up the street, and there is the chief policeman's buggy just behind.” Lily acquiesced entirely in the extraordinary coincidence of the father and the chief of police appearing upon the scene. The unlikely seemed to her the likely. “NOW,” said she, cheerfully, “you will be put in state prison and locked up, and then you will be put to death by a very strong telephone.”
Johnny's father was leaning out of his buggy, looking back at the chief of police in his, and the mare was jogging very slowly in a perfect reek of dust. Lily, who was, in spite of her terrific imagination, human and a girl, rose suddenly to heights of pity and succor. “They shall never take you, Johnny Trumbull,” said she. “I will save you.”
Johnny by this time was utterly forgetful of his high status as champion (behind her back) of Madame's very select school for select children of a somewhat select village. He was forgetful of the fact that a champion never cries. He cried; he blubbered; tears rolled over his dusty cheeks, making furrows like plowshares of grief. He feared lest he might have killed his aunt Janet. Women, and not very young women, might presumably be unable to survive such rough usage as very tough and at the same time very limber little boys, and he loved his poor aunt Janet. He grieved because of his aunt, his parents, his uncle, and rather more particularly because of himself. He was quite sure that the policeman was coming for him. Logic had no place in his frenzied conclusions. He did not consider how the tragedy had taken place entirely out of sight of a house, that Lily Jennings was the only person who had any knowledge of it. He looked at the masterful, fair-haired little girl like a baby. “How?” sniffed he.
For answer, Lily pointed to the empty baby-carriage. “Get right in,” she ordered.
Even in this dire extremity Johnny hesitated. “Can't.”
“Yes, you can. It is extra large. Aunt Laura's baby was a twin when he first came; now he's just an ordinary baby, but his carriage is big enough for two. There's plenty of room. Besides, you're a very small boy, very small of your age, even if you do knock all the other boys down and have murdered your aunt. Get in. In a minute they will see you.”
There was in reality no time to lose. Johnny did get in. In spite of the provisions for twins, there was none too much room.
Lily covered him up with the fluffy pink-and-lace things, and scowled. “You hump up awfully,” she muttered. Then she reached beneath him and snatched out the pillow on which he lay, the baby's little bed. She gave it a swift toss over the fringe of wayside bushes into a field. “Aunt Laura's nice embroidered pillow,” said she. “Make yourself just as flat as you can, Johnny Trumbull.”
Johnny obeyed, but he was obliged to double himself up like a jack-knife. However, there was no sign of him visible when the two buggies drew up. There stood a pale and frightened little girl, with a baby-carriage canopied with rose and lace and heaped up with rosy and lacy coverlets, presumably sheltering a sleeping infant. Lily was a very keen little girl. She had sense enough not to run. The two men, at the sight of Aunt Janet prostrate in the road, leaped out of their buggies. The doctor's horse stood still; the policeman's trotted away, to Lily's great relief. She could not imagine Johnny's own father haling him away to state prison and the stern Arm of Justice. She stood the fire of bewildered questions in the best and safest fashion. She wept bitterly, and her tears were not assumed. Poor little Lily was all of a sudden crushed under the weight of facts. There was Aunt Janet, she had no doubt, killed by her own nephew, and she was hiding the guilty murderer. She had visions of state prison for herself. She watched fearfully while the two men bent over the prostrate woman, who very soon began to sputter and gasp and try to sit up.
“What on earth is the matter, Janet?” inquired Dr. Trumbull, who was paler than his sister-inlaw. In fact, she was unable to look very pale on account of dust.
“Ow!” sputtered Aunt Janet, coughing violently, “get me up out of this dust, John. Ow!”
“What was the matter?”
“Yes, what has happened, madam?” demanded the chief of police, sternly.
“Nothing,” replied Aunt Janet, to Lily's and Johnny's amazement. “What do you think has happened? I fell down in all this nasty dust. Ow!”
“What did you eat for luncheon, Janet?” inquired Dr. Trumbull, as he assisted his sister-inlaw to her feet.
“What I was a fool to eat,” replied Janet Trumbull, promptly. “Cucumber salad and lemon jelly with whipped cream.”
“Enough to make anybody have indigestion,” said Dr. Trumbull. “You have had one of these attacks before, too, Janet. You remember the time you ate strawberry shortcake and ice-cream?”
Janet nodded meekly. Then she coughed again. “Ow, this dust!” gasped she. “For goodness' sake, John, get me home where I can get some water and take off these dusty clothes or I shall choke to death.”
“How does your stomach feel?” inquired Dr. Trumbull.
“Stomach is all right now, but I am just choking to death with the dust.” Janet turned sharply toward the policeman. “You have sense enough to keep still, I hope,” said she. “I don't want the whole town ringing with my being such an idiot as to eat cucumbers and cream together and being found this way.” Janet looked like an animated creation of dust as she faced the chief of police.
“Yes, ma'am,” he replied, bowing and scraping one foot and raising more dust.
He and Dr. Trumbull assisted Aunt Janet into the buggy, and they drove off. Then the chief of police discovered that his own horse had gone. “Did you see which way he went, sis?” he inquired of Lily, and she pointed down the road, and sobbed as she did so.
The policeman said something bad under his breath, then advised Lily to run home to her ma, and started down the road.
When he was out of sight, Lily drew back the pink-and-white things from Johnny's face. “Well, you didn't kill her this time,” said she.
“Why do you s'pose she didn't tell all about it?” said Johnny, gaping at her.
“How do I know? I suppose she was ashamed to tell how she had been fighting, maybe.”
“No, that was not why,” said Johnny in a deep voice.
“Why was it, then?”
“SHE KNEW.”
Johnny began to climb out of the baby-carriage.
“What will she do next, then?” asked Lily.
“I don't know,” Johnny replied, gloomily.
He was out of the carriage then, and Lily was readjusting the pillows and things. “Get that nice embroidered pillow I threw over the bushes,” she ordered, crossly. Johnny obeyed. When she had finished putting the baby-carriage to rights she turned upon poor little Johnny Trumbull, and her face wore the expression of a queen of tragedy. “Well,” said Lily Jennings, “I suppose I shall have to marry you when I am grown up, after all this.”
Johnny gasped. He thought Lily the most beautiful girl he knew, but to be confronted with murder and marriage within a few minutes was almost too much. He flushed a burning red. He laughed foolishly. He said nothing.
“It will be very hard on me,” stated Lily, “to marry a boy who tried to murder his nice aunt.”
Johnny revived a bit under this feminine disdain. “I didn't try to murder her,” he said in a weak voice.
“You might have, throwing her down in all that awful dust, a nice, clean lady. Ladies are not like boys. It might kill them very quickly to be knocked down on a dusty road.”
“I didn't mean to kill her.”
“You might have.”
“Well, I didn't, and—she—”
“What?”
“She spanked me.”
“Pooh! That doesn't amount to anything,” sniffed Lily.
“It does if you are a boy.”
“I don't see why.”
“Well, I can't help it if you don't. It does.”
“Why shouldn't a boy be spanked when he's naughty, just as well as a girl, I would like to know?”
“Because he's a boy.”
Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull. The great fact did remain. He had been spanked, he had thrown his own aunt down in the dust. He had taken advantage of her little-girl protection, but he was a boy. Lily did not understand his why at all, but she bowed before it. However, that she would not admit. She made a rapid change of base. “What,” said she, “are you going to do next?”
Johnny stared at her. It was a puzzle.
“If,” said Lily, distinctly, “you are afraid to go home, if you think your aunt will tell, I will let you get into Aunt Laura's baby-carriage again, and I will wheel you a little way.”
Johnny would have liked at that moment to knock Lily down, as he had his aunt Janet. Lily looked at him shrewdly. “Oh yes,” said she, “you can knock me down in the dust there if you want to, and spoil my nice clean dress. You will be a boy, just the same.”
“I will never marry you, anyway,” declared Johnny.
“Aren't you afraid I'll tell on you and get you another spanking if you don't?”
“Tell if you want to. I'd enough sight rather be spanked than marry you.”
A gleam of respect came into the little girl's wisely regarding blue eyes. She, with the swiftness of her sex, recognized in forlorn little Johnny the making of a man. “Oh, well,” said she, loftily, “I never was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not grown up, and there will be my trousseau to get, and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet a boy much nicer than you on the steamer.”
“Meet him if you want to.”
Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull with more than respect—with admiration—but she kept guard over her little tongue. “Well, you can leave that for the future,” said she with a grown-up air.
“I ain't going to leave it. It's settled for good and all now,” growled Johnny.
To his immense surprise, Lily curved her white embroidered sleeve over her face and began to weep.
“What's the matter now?” asked Johnny, sulkily, after a minute.
“I think you are a real horrid boy,” sobbed Lily.
Lily looked like nothing but a very frilly, sweet, white flower. Johnny could not see her face. There was nothing to be seen except that delicate fluff of white, supported on dainty white-socked, white-slippered limbs.
“Say,” said Johnny.
“You are real cruel, when I—I saved your—li-fe,” wailed Lily.
“Say,” said Johnny, “maybe if I don't see any other girl I like better I will marry you when I am grown up, but I won't if you don't stop that howling.”
Lily stopped immediately. She peeped at him, a blue peep from under the flopping, embroidered brim of her hat. “Are you in earnest?” She smiled faintly. Her blue eyes, wet with tears, were lovely; so was her hesitating smile.
“Yes, if you don't act silly,” said Johnny. “Now you had better run home, or your mother will wonder where that baby-carriage is.”
Lily walked away, smiling over her shoulder, the smile of the happily subjugated. “I won't tell anybody, Johnny,” she called back in her flute-like voice.
“Don't care if you do,” returned Johnny, looking at her with chin in the air and shoulders square, and Lily wondered at his bravery.
But Johnny was not so brave and he did care. He knew that his best course was an immediate return home, but he did not know what he might have to face. He could not in the least understand why his aunt Janet had not told at once. He was sure that she knew. Then he thought of a possible reason for her silence; she might have feared his arrest at the hands of the chief of police. Johnny quailed. He knew his aunt Janet to be rather a brave sort of woman. If she had fears, she must have had reason for them. He might even now be arrested. Suppose Lily did tell. He had a theory that girls usually told. He began to speculate concerning the horrors of prison. Of course he would not be executed, since his aunt was obviously very far from being killed, but he might be imprisoned for a long term.
Johnny went home. He did not kick the dust any more. He walked very steadily and staidly. When he came in sight of the old Colonial mansion, with its massive veranda pillars, he felt chilly. However, he went on. He passed around to the south door and entered and smelled shortcake. It would have smelled delicious had he not had so much on his mind. He looked through the hall, and had a glimpse of his uncle Jonathan in the study, writing. At the right of the door was his father's office. The door of that was open, and Johnny saw his father pouring things from bottles. He did not look at Johnny. His mother crossed the hall. She had on a long white apron, which she wore when making her famous cream shortcakes. She saw Johnny, but merely observed, “Go and wash your face and hands, Johnny; it is nearly supper-time.”
Johnny went up-stairs. At the upper landing he found his aunt Janet waiting for him. “Come here,” she whispered, and Johnny followed her, trembling, into her own room. It was a large room, rather crowded with heavy, old-fashioned furniture. Aunt Janet had freed herself from dust and was arrayed in a purple silk gown. Her hair was looped loosely on either side of her long face. She was a handsome woman, after a certain type.
“Stand here, Johnny,” said she. She had closed the door, and Johnny was stationed before her. She did not seem in the least injured nor the worse for her experience. On the contrary, there was a bright-red flush on her cheeks, and her eyes shone as Johnny had never seen them. She looked eagerly at Johnny.
“Why did you do that?” she said, but there was no anger in her voice.
“I forgot,” began Johnny.
“Forgot what?” Her voice was strained with eagerness.
“That you were not another boy,” said Johnny.
“Tell me,” said Aunt Janet. “No, you need not tell me, because if you did it might be my duty to inform your parents. I know there is no need of your telling. You MUST be in the habit of fighting with the other boys.”
“Except the little ones,” admitted Johnny.
To Johnny's wild astonishment, Aunt Janet seized him by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes with a look of adoration and immense approval. “Thank goodness,” said she, “at last there is going to be a fighter in the Trumbull family. Your uncle would never fight, and your father would not. Your grandfather would. Your uncle and your father are good men, though; you must try to be like them, Johnny.”
“Yes, ma'am,” replied Johnny, bewildered.
“I think they would be called better men than your grandfather and my father,” said Aunt Janet.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I think it is time for you to have your grandfather's watch,” said Aunt Janet. “I think you are man enough to take care of it.” Aunt Janet had all the time been holding a black leather case. Now she opened it, and Johnny saw the great gold watch which he had seen many times before and had always understood was to be his some day, when he was a man. “Here,” said Aunt Janet. “Take good care of it. You must try to be as good as your uncle and father, but you must remember one thing—you will wear a watch which belonged to a man who never allowed other men to crowd him out of the way he elected to go.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Johnny. He took the watch.
“What do you say?” inquired his aunt, sharply.
“Thank you.”
“That's right. I thought you had forgotten your manners. Your grandfather never did.”
“I am sorry. Aunt Janet,” muttered Johnny, “that I—”
“You need never say anything about that,” his aunt returned, quickly. “I did not see who you were at first. You are too old to be spanked by a woman, but you ought to be whipped by a man, and I wish your grandfather were alive to do it.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Johnny. He looked at her bravely. “He could if he wanted to,” said he.
Aunt Janet smiled at him proudly. “Of course,” said she, “a boy like you never gets the worst of it fighting with other boys.”
“No, ma'am,” said Johnny.
Aunt Janet smiled again. “Now run and wash your face and hands,” said she; “you must not keep supper waiting. Your mother has a paper to write for her club, and I have promised to help her.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Johnny. He walked out, carrying the great gold timepiece, bewildered, embarrassed, modest beneath his honors, but little cock of the walk, whether he would or no, for reasons entirely and forever beyond his ken.
JOHNNY TRUMBULL, he who had demonstrated his claim to be Cock of the Walk by a most impious hand-to-hand fight with his own aunt, Miss Janet Trumbull, in which he had been decisively victorious, and won his spurs, consisting of his late grandfather's immense, solemnly ticking watch, was to take a new path of action. Johnny suddenly developed the prominent Trumbull trait, but in his case it was inverted. Johnny, as became a boy of his race, took an excursion into the past, but instead of applying the present to the past, as was the tendency of the other Trumbulls, he forcibly applied the past to the present. He fairly plastered the past over the exigencies of his day and generation like a penetrating poultice of mustard, and the results were peculiar.
Johnny, being bidden of a rainy day during the midsummer vacation to remain in the house, to keep quiet, read a book, and be a good boy, obeyed, but his obedience was of a doubtful measure of wisdom.
Johnny got a book out of his uncle Jonathan Trumbull's dark little library while Jonathan was walking sedately to the post-office, holding his dripping umbrella at a wonderful slant of exactness, without regard to the wind, thereby getting the soft drive of the rain full in his face, which became, as it were, bedewed with tears, entirely outside any cause of his own emotions.
Johnny probably got the only book of an antiorthodox trend in his uncle's library. He found tucked away in a snug corner an ancient collection of Border Ballads, and he read therein of many unmoral romances and pretty fancies, which, since he was a small boy, held little meaning for him, or charm, beyond a delight in the swing of the rhythm, for Johnny had a feeling for music. It was when he read of Robin Hood, the bold Robin Hood, with his dubious ethics but his certain and unquenchable interest, that Johnny Trumbull became intent. He had the volume in his own room, being somewhat doubtful as to whether it might be of the sort included in the good-boy role. He sat beside a rainwashed window, which commanded a view of the wide field between the Trumbull mansion and Jim Simmons's house, and he read about Robin Hood and his Greenwood adventures, his forcible setting the wrong right; and for the first time his imagination awoke, and his ambition. Johnny Trumbull, hitherto hero of nothing except little material fistfights, wished now to become a hero of true romance.
In fact, Johnny considered seriously the possibility of reincarnating, in his own person, Robin Hood. He eyed the wide green field dreamily through his rain-blurred window. It was a pretty field, waving with feathery grasses and starred with daisies and buttercups, and it was very fortunate that it happened to be so wide. Jim Simmons's house was not a desirable feature of the landscape, and looked much better several acres away. It was a neglected, squalid structure, and considered a disgrace to the whole village. Jim was also a disgrace, and an unsolved problem. He owned that house, and somehow contrived to pay the taxes thereon. He also lived and throve in bodily health in spite of evil ways, and his children were many. There seemed no way to dispose finally of Jim Simmons and his house except by murder and arson, and the village was a peaceful one, and such measures were entirely too strenuous.
Presently Johnny, staring dreamily out of his window, saw approaching a rusty-black umbrella held at precisely the wrong angle in respect of the storm, but held with the unvarying stiffness with which a soldier might hold a bayonet, and knew it for his uncle Jonathan's umbrella. Soon he beheld also his uncle's serious, rain-drenched face and his long ambling body and legs. Jonathan was coming home from the post-office, whither he repaired every morning. He never got a letter, never anything except religious newspapers, but the visit to the post-office was part of his daily routine. Rain or shine, Jonathan Trumbull went for the morning mail, and gained thereby a queer negative enjoyment of a perfectly useless duty performed. Johnny watched his uncle draw near to the house, and cruelly reflected how unlike Robin Hood he must be. He even wondered if his uncle could possibly have read Robin Hood and still show absolutely no result in his own personal appearance. He knew that he, Johnny, could not walk to the post-office and back, even with the drawback of a dripping old umbrella instead of a bow and arrow, without looking a bit like Robin Hood, especially when fresh from reading about him.
Then suddenly something distracted his thoughts from Uncle Jonathan. The long, feathery grass in the field moved with a motion distinct from that caused by the wind and rain. Johnny saw a tiger-striped back emerge, covering long leaps of terror. Johnny knew the creature for a cat afraid of Uncle Jonathan. Then he saw the grass move behind the first leaping, striped back, and he knew there were more cats afraid of Uncle Jonathan. There were even motions caused by unseen things, and he reasoned, “Kittens afraid of Uncle Jonathan.” Then Johnny reflected with a great glow of indignation that the Simmonses kept an outrageous number of half-starved cats and kittens, besides a quota of children popularly supposed to be none too well nourished, let alone properly clothed. Then it was that Johnny Trumbull's active, firm imagination slapped the past of old romance like a most thorough mustard poultice over the present. There could be no Lincoln Green, no following of brave outlaws (that is, in the strictest sense), no bows and arrows, no sojourning under greenwood trees and the rest, but something he could, and would, do and be. That rainy day when Johnny Trumbull was a good boy, and stayed in the house, and read a book, marked an epoch.
That night when Johnny went into his aunt Janet's room she looked curiously at his face, which seemed a little strange to her. Johnny, since he had come into possession of his grandfather's watch, went every night, on his way to bed, to his aunt's room for the purpose of winding up that ancient timepiece, Janet having a firm impression that it might not be done properly unless under her supervision. Johnny stood before his aunt and wound up the watch with its ponderous key, and she watched him.
“What have you been doing all day, John?” said she.
“Stayed in the house and—read.”
“What did you read, John?”
“A book.”
“Do you mean to be impertinent, John?”
“No, ma'am,” replied Johnny, and with perfect truth. He had not the slightest idea of the title of the book.
“What was the book?”
“A poetry book.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In Uncle Jonathan's library.”
“Poetry In Uncle Jonathan's library?” said Janet, in a mystified way. She had a general impression of Jonathan's library as of century-old preserves, altogether dried up and quite indistinguishable one from the other except by labels. Poetry she could not imagine as being there at all. Finally she thought of the early Victorians, and Spenser and Chaucer. The library might include them, but she had an idea that Spenser and Chaucer were not fit reading for a little boy. However, as she remembered Spenser and Chaucer, she doubted if Johnny could understand much of them. Probably he had gotten hold of an early Victorian, and she looked rather contemptuous.
“I don't think much of a boy like you reading poetry,” said Janet. “Couldn't you find anything else to read?”
“No, ma'am.” That also was truth. Johnny, before exploring his uncle's theological library, had peered at his father's old medical books and his mother's bookcases, which contained quite terrifying uniform editions of standard things written by women.
“I don't suppose there ARE many books written for boys,” said Aunt Janet, reflectively.
“No, ma'am,” said Johnny. He finished winding the watch, and gave, as was the custom, the key to Aunt Janet, lest he lose it.
“I will see if I cannot find some books of travels for you, John,” said Janet. “I think travels would be good reading for a boy. Good night, John.”
“Good night. Aunt Janet,” replied Johnny. His aunt never kissed him good night, which was one reason why he liked her.
On his way to bed he had to pass his mother's room, whose door stood open. She was busy writing at her desk. She glanced at Johnny.
“Are you going to bed?” said she.
“Yes, ma'am.”
Johnny entered the room and let his mother kiss his forehead, parting his curly hair to do so. He loved his mother, but did not care at all to have her kiss him. He did not object, because he thought she liked to do it, and she was a woman, and it was a very little thing in which he could oblige her.
“Were you a good boy, and did you find a good book to read?” asked she.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“What was the book?” Cora Trumbull inquired, absently, writing as she spoke.
“Poetry.”
Cora laughed. “Poetry is odd for a boy,” said she. “You should have read a book of travels or history. Good night, Johnny.”
“Good night, mother.”
Then Johnny met his father, smelling strongly of medicines, coming up from his study. But his father did not see him. And Johnny went to bed, having imbibed from that old tale of Robin Hood more of history and more knowledge of excursions into realms of old romance than his elders had ever known during much longer lives than his.
Johnny confided in nobody at first. His feeling nearly led him astray in the matter of Lily Jennings; he thought of her, for one sentimental minute, as Robin Hood's Maid Marion. Then he dismissed the idea peremptorily. Lily Jennings would simply laugh. He knew her. Moreover, she was a girl, and not to be trusted. Johnny felt the need of another boy who would be a kindred spirit; he wished for more than one boy. He wished for a following of heroic and lawless souls, even as Robin Hood's. But he could think of nobody, after considerable study, except one boy, younger than himself. He was a beautiful little boy, whose mother had never allowed him to have his golden curls cut, although he had been in trousers for quite a while. However, the trousers were foolish, being knickerbockers, and accompanied by low socks, which revealed pretty, dimpled, babyish legs. The boy's name was Arnold Carruth, and that was against him, as being long, and his mother firm about allowing no nickname. Nicknames in any case were not allowed in the very exclusive private school which Johnny attended.
Arnold Carruth, in spite of his being such a beautiful little boy, would have had no standing at all in the school as far as popularity was concerned had it not been for a strain of mischief which triumphed over curls, socks, and pink cheeks and a much-kissed rosebud of a mouth. Arnold Carruth, as one of the teachers permitted herself to state when relaxed in the bosom of her own family, was “as choke-full of mischief as a pod of peas. And the worst of it all is,” quoth the teacher, Miss Agnes Rector, who was a pretty young girl, with a hidden sympathy for mischief herself—“the worst of it is, that child looks so like a cherub on a rosy cloud that even if he should be caught nobody would believe it. They would be much more likely to accuse poor little Andrew Jackson Green, because he has a snub nose and is a bit cross-eyed, and I never knew that poor child to do anything except obey rules and learn his lessons. He is almost too good. And another worst of it is, nobody can help loving that little imp of a Carruth boy, mischief and all. I believe the scamp knows it and takes advantage of it.”
It is quite possible that Arnold Carruth did profit unworthily by his beauty and engagingness, albeit without calculation. He was so young, it was monstrous to believe him capable of calculation, of deliberate trading upon his assets of birth and beauty and fascination. However, Johnny Trumbull, who was wide awake and a year older, was alive to the situation. He told Arnold Carruth, and Arnold Carruth only, about Robin Hood and his great scheme.
“You can help,” said this wise Johnny; “you can be in it, because nobody thinks you can be in anything, on account of your wearing curls.”
Arnold Carruth flushed and gave an angry tug at one golden curl which the wind blew over a shoulder. The two boys were in a secluded corner of Madame's lawn, behind a clump of Japanese cedars, during an intermission.
“I can't help it because I wear curls,” declared Arnold with angry shame.
“Who said you could? No need of getting mad.”
“Mamma and Aunt Flora and grandmamma won't let me have these old curls cut off,” said Arnold. “You needn't think I want to have curls like a girl, Johnny Trumbull.”
“Who said you did? And I know you don't like to wear those short stockings, either.”
“Like to!” Arnold gave a spiteful kick, first of one half-bared, dimpled leg, then of the other.
“First thing you know I'll steal mamma's or Aunt Flora's stockings and throw these in the furnace-I will. Do you s'pose a feller wants to wear these baby things? I guess not. Women are awful queer, Johnny Trumbull. My mamma and my aunt Flora are awful nice, but they are queer about some things.”
“Most women are queer,” agreed Johnny, “but my aunt Janet isn't as queer as some. Rather guess if she saw me with curls like a little girl she'd cut 'em off herself.”
“Wish she was my aunt,” said Arnold Carruth with a sigh. “A feller needs a woman like that till he's grown up. Do you s'pose she'd cut off my curls if I was to go to your house, Johnny?”
“I'm afraid she wouldn't think it was right unless your mother said she might. She has to be real careful about doing right, because my uncle Jonathan used to preach, you know.”
Arnold Carruth grinned savagely, as if he endured pain. “Well, I s'pose I'll have to stand the curls and little baby stockings awhile longer,” said he. “What was it you were going to tell me, Johnny?”
“I am going to tell you because I know you aren't too good, if you do wear curls and little stockings.”
“No, I ain't too good,” declared Arnold Carruth, proudly; “I ain't—HONEST, Johnny.”
“That's why I'm going to tell you. But if you tell any of the other boys—or girls—”
“Tell girls!” sniffed Arnold.
“If you tell anybody, I'll lick you.”
“Guess I ain't afraid.”
“Guess you'd be afraid to go home after you'd been licked.”
“Guess my mamma would give it to you.”
“Run home and tell mamma you'd been whopped, would you, then?”
Little Arnold, beautiful baby boy, straightened himself with a quick remembrance that he was born a man. “You know I wouldn't tell, Johnny Trumbull.”
“Guess you wouldn't. Well, here it is—” Johnny spoke in emphatic whispers, Arnold's curly head close to his mouth: “There are a good many things in this town have got to be set right,” said Johnny.
Little Arnold stared at him. Then fire shone in his lovely blue eyes under the golden shadow of his curls, a fire which had shone in the eyes of some ancestors of his, for there was good fighting blood in the Carruth family, as well as in the Trumbull, although this small descendant did go about curled and kissed and barelegged.
“How'll we begin?” said Arnold, in a strenuous whisper.
“We've got to begin right away with Jim Simmons's cats and kittens.”
“With Jim Simmons's cats and kittens?” repeated Arnold.
“That was what I said, exactly. We've got to begin right there. It is an awful little beginning, but I can't think of anything else. If you can, I'm willing to listen.”
“I guess I can't,” admitted Arnold, helplessly.
“Of course we can't go around taking away money from rich people and giving it to poor folks. One reason is, most of the poor folks in this town are lazy, and don't get money because they don't want to work for it. And when they are not lazy, they drink. If we gave rich people's money to poor folks like that, we shouldn't do a mite of good. The rich folks would be poor, and the poor folks wouldn't stay rich; they would be lazier, and get more drink. I don't see any sense in doing things like that in this town. There are a few poor folks I have been thinking we might take some money for and do good, but not many.”
“Who?” inquired Arnold Carruth, in awed tones.
“Well, there is poor old Mrs. Sam Little. She's awful poor. Folks help her, I know, but she can't be real pleased being helped. She'd rather have the money herself. I have been wondering if we couldn't get some of your father's money away and give it to her, for one.”
“Get away papa's money!”
“You don't mean to tell me you are as stingy as that, Arnold Carruth?”
“I guess papa wouldn't like it.”
“Of course he wouldn't. But that is not the point. It is not what your father would like; it is what that poor old lady would like.”
It was too much for Arnold. He gaped at Johnny.
“If you are going to be mean and stingy, we may as well stop before we begin,” said Johnny.
Then Arnold Carruth recovered himself. “Old Mr. Webster Payne is awful poor,” said he. “We might take some of your father's money and give it to him.”
Johnny snorted, fairly snorted. “If,” said he, “you think my father keeps his money where we can get it, you are mistaken, Arnold Carruth. My father's money is all in papers that are not worth much now and that he has to keep in the bank till they are.”
Arnold smiled hopefully. “Guess that's the way my papa keeps HIS money.”
“It's the way most rich people are mean enough to,” said Johnny, severely. “I don't care if it's your father or mine, it's mean. And that's why we've got to begin with Jim Simmons's cats and kittens.”
“Are you going to give old Mrs. Sam Little cats?” inquired Arnold.
Johnny sniffed. “Don't be silly,” said he. “Though I do think a nice cat with a few kittens might cheer her up a little, and we could steal enough milk, by getting up early and tagging after the milkman, to feed them. But I wasn't thinking of giving her or old Mr. Payne cats and kittens. I wasn't thinking of folks; I was thinking of all those poor cats and kittens that Mr. Jim Simmons has and doesn't half feed, and that have to go hunting around folks' back doors in the rain, when cats hate water, too, and pick things up that must be bad for their stomachs, when they ought to have their milk regularly in nice, clean saucers. No, Arnold Carruth, what we have got to do is to steal Mr. Jim Simmons's cats and get them in nice homes where they can earn their living catching mice and be well cared for.”
“Steal cats?” said Arnold.
“Yes, steal cats, in order to do right,” said Johnny Trumbull, and his expression was heroic, even exalted.
It was then that a sweet treble, faltering yet exultant, rang in their ears.
“If,” said the treble voice, “you are going to steal dear little kitty cats and get nice homes for them, I'm going to help.”
The voice belonged to Lily Jennings, who had stood on the other side of the Japanese cedars and heard every word.
Both boys started in righteous wrath, but Arnold Carruth was the angrier of the two. “Mean little cat yourself, listening,” said he. His curls seemed to rise like a crest of rage.
Johnny, remembering some things, was not so outspoken. “You hadn't any right to listen, Lily Jennings,” he said, with masculine severity.
“I didn't start to listen,” said Lily. “I was looking for cones on these trees. Miss Parmalee wanted us to bring some object of nature into the class, and I wondered whether I could find a queer Japanese cone on one of these trees, and then I heard you boys talking, and I couldn't help listening. You spoke very loud, and I couldn't give up looking for that cone. I couldn't find any, and I heard all about the Simmonses' cats, and I know lots of other cats that haven't got good homes, and—I am going to be in it.”
“You AIN'T,” declared Arnold Carruth.
“We can't have girls in it,” said Johnny the mindful, more politely.
“You've got to have me. You had better have me, Johnny Trumbull,” she added with meaning.
Johnny flinched. It was a species of blackmail, but what could he do? Suppose Lily told how she had hidden him—him, Johnny Trumbull, the champion of the school—in that empty baby-carriage! He would have more to contend against than Arnold Carruth with socks and curls. He did not think Lily would tell. Somehow Lily, although a little, befrilled girl, gave an impression of having a knowledge of a square deal almost as much as a boy would; but what boy could tell with a certainty what such an uncertain creature as a girl might or might not do? Moreover, Johnny had a weakness, a hidden, Spartanly hidden, weakness for Lily. He rather wished to have her act as partner in his great enterprise. He therefore gruffly assented.
“All right,” he said, “you can be in it. But just you look out. You'll see what happens if you tell.”
“She can't be in it; she's nothing but a girl,” said Arnold Carruth, fiercely.
Lily Jennings lifted her chin and surveyed him with queenly scorn. “And what are you?” said she. “A little boy with curls and baby socks.”
Arnold colored with shame and fury, and subsided. “Mind you don't tell,” he said, taking Johnny's cue.
“I sha'n't tell,” replied Lily, with majesty. “But you'll tell yourselves if you talk one side of trees without looking on the other.”
There was then only a few moments before Madame's musical Japanese gong which announced the close of intermission should sound, but three determined souls in conspiracy can accomplish much in a few moments. The first move was planned in detail before that gong sounded, and the two boys raced to the house, and Lily followed, carrying a toadstool, which she had hurriedly caught up from the lawn for her object of nature to be taken into class.
It was a poisonous toadstool, and Lily was quite a heroine in the class. That fact doubtless gave her a more dauntless air when, after school, the two boys caught up with her walking gracefully down the road, flirting her skirts and now and then giving her head a toss, which made her fluff of hair fly into a golden foam under her daisy-trimmed straw hat.
“To-night,” Johnny whispered, as he sped past.
“At half past nine, between your house and the Simmonses',” replied Lily, without even looking at him. She was a past-mistress of dissimulation.
Lily's mother had guests at dinner that night, and the guests remarked sometimes, within the little girl's hearing, what a darling she was.
“She never gives me a second's anxiety,” Lily's mother whispered to a lady beside her. “You cannot imagine what a perfectly good, dependable child she is.”
“Now my Christina is a good child in the grain,” said the lady, “but she is full of mischief. I never can tell what Christina will do next.”
“I can always tell,” said Lily's mother, in a voice of maternal triumph.
“Now only the other night, when I thought Christina was in bed, that absurd child got up and dressed and ran over to see her aunt Bella. Tom came home with her, and of course there was nothing very bad about it. Christina was very bright; she said, 'Mother, you never told me I must not get up and go to see Aunt Bella,' which was, of course, true. I could not gainsay that.”
“I cannot,” said Lily's mother, “imagine my Lily's doing such a thing.”
If Lily had heard that last speech of her mother's, whom she dearly loved, she might have wavered. That pathetic trust in herself might have caused her to justify it. But she had finished her dinner and had been excused, and was undressing for bed, with the firm determination to rise betimes and dress and join Johnny Trumbull and Arnold Carruth. Johnny had the easiest time of them all. He simply had to bid his aunt Janet good night and have the watch wound, and take a fleeting glimpse of his mother at her desk and his father in his office, and go whistling to his room, and sit in the summer darkness and wait until the time came.
Arnold Carruth had the hardest struggle. His mother had an old school friend visiting her, and Arnold, very much dressed up, with his curls falling in a shining fleece upon a real lace collar, had to be shown off and show off. He had to play one little piece which he had learned upon the piano. He had to recite a little poem. He had to be asked how old he was, and if he liked to go to school, and how many teachers he had, and if he loved them, and if he loved his little mates, and which of them he loved best; and he had to be asked if he loved his aunt Dorothy, who was the school friend and not his aunt at all, and would he not like to come and live with her, because she had not any dear little boy; and he was obliged to submit to having his curls twisted around feminine fingers, and to being kissed and hugged, and a whole chapter of ordeals, before he was finally in bed, with his mother's kiss moist upon his lips, and free to assert himself.
That night Arnold Carruth realized himself as having an actual horror of his helpless state of pampered childhood. The man stirred in the soul of the boy, and it was a little rebel with sulky pout of lips and frown of childish brows who stole out of bed, got into some queer clothes, and crept down the back stairs. He heard his aunt Dorothy, who was not his aunt, singing an Italian song in the parlor, he heard the clink of silver and china from the butler's pantry, where the maids were washing the dinner dishes. He smelt his father's cigar, and he gave a little leap of joy on the grass of the lawn. At last he was out at night alone, and—he wore long stockings! That noon he had secreted a pair of his mother's toward that end. When he came home to luncheon he pulled them out of the darning-bag, which he had spied through a closet door that had been left ajar. One of the stockings was green silk, and the other was black, and both had holes in them, but all that mattered was the length. Arnold wore also his father's riding-breeches, which came over his shoes and which were enormously large, and one of his father's silk shirts. He had resolved to dress consistently for such a great occasion. His clothes hampered him, but he felt happy as he sped clumsily down the road.
However, both Johnny Trumbull and Lily Jennings, who were waiting for him at the rendezvous, were startled by his appearance. Both began to run, Johnny pulling Lily after him by the hand, but Arnold's cautious hallo arrested them. Johnny and Lily returned slowly, peering through the darkness.
“It's me,” said Arnold, with gay disregard of grammar.
“You looked,” said Lily, “like a real fat old man. What HAVE you got on, Arnold Carruth?”
Arnold slouched before his companions, ridiculous but triumphant. He hitched up a leg of the riding-breeches and displayed a long, green silk stocking. Both Johnny and Lily doubled up with laughter.
“What you laughing at?” inquired Arnold, crossly.
“Oh, nothing at all,” said Lily. “Only you do look like a scarecrow broken loose. Doesn't he, Johnny?”
“I am going home,” stated Arnold with dignity. He turned, but Johnny caught him in his little iron grip.
“Oh, shucks, Arnold Carruth!” said he. “Don't be a baby. Come on.” And Arnold Carruth with difficulty came on.
People in the village, as a rule, retired early. Many lights were out when the affair began, many went out while it was in progress. All three of the band steered as clear of lighted houses as possible, and dodged behind trees and hedges when shadowy figures appeared on the road or carriage-wheels were heard in the distance. At their special destination they were sure to be entirely safe. Old Mr. Peter Van Ness always retired very early. To be sure, he did not go to sleep until late, and read in bed, but his room was in the rear of the house on the second floor, and all the windows, besides, were dark. Mr. Peter Van Ness was a very wealthy elderly gentleman, very benevolent. He had given the village a beautiful stone church with memorial windows, a soldiers' monument, a park, and a home for aged couples, called “The Van Ness Home.” Mr. Van Ness lived alone with the exception of a housekeeper and a number of old, very well-disciplined servants. The servants always retired early, and Mr. Van Ness required the house to be quiet for his late reading. He was a very studious old gentleman.
To the Van Ness house, set back from the street in the midst of a well-kept lawn, the three repaired, but not as noiselessly as they could have wished. In fact, a light flared in an up-stairs window, which was wide open, and one woman's voice was heard in conclave with another.
“I should think,” said the first, “that the lawn was full of cats. Did you ever hear such a mewing, Jane?”
That was the housekeeper's voice. The three, each of whom carried a squirming burlap potato-bag from the Trumbull cellar, stood close to a clump of stately pines full of windy songs, and trembled.
“It do sound like cats, ma'am,” said another voice, which was Jane's, the maid, who had brought Mrs. Meeks, the housekeeper, a cup of hot water and peppermint, because her dinner had disagreed with her.
“Just listen,” said Mrs. Meeks.
“Yes, ma'am, I should think there was hundreds of cats and little kittens.”
“I am so afraid Mr. Van Ness will be disturbed.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“You might go out and look, Jane.”
“Oh, ma'am, they might be burglars!”
“How can they be burglars when they are cats?” demanded Mrs. Meeks, testily.
Arnold Carruth snickered, and Johnny on one side, and Lily on the other, prodded him with an elbow. They were close under the window.
“Burglars is up to all sorts of queer tricks, ma'am,” said Jane. “They may mew like cats to tell one another what door to go in.”
“Jane, you talk like an idiot,” said Mrs. Meeks. “Burglars talking like cats! Who ever heard of such a thing? It sounds right under that window. Open my closet door and get those heavy old shoes and throw them out.”
It was an awful moment. The three dared not move. The cats and kittens in the bags—not so many, after all—seemed to have turned into multiplication-tables. They were positively alarming in their determination to get out, their wrath with one another, and their vociferous discontent with the whole situation.
“I can't hold my bag much longer,” said poor little Arnold Carruth.
“Hush up, cry-baby!” whispered Lily, fiercely, in spite of a clawing paw emerging from her own bag and threatening her bare arm.
Then came the shoes. One struck Arnold squarely on the shoulder, nearly knocking him down and making him lose hold of his bag. The other struck Lily's bag, and conditions became worse; but she held on despite a scratch. Lily had pluck.
Then Jane's voice sounded very near, as she leaned out of the window. “I guess they have went, ma'am,” said she. “I seen something run.”
“I can hear them,” said Mrs. Meeks, querulously.
“I seen them run,” persisted Jane, who was tired and wished to be gone.
“Well, close that window, anyway, for I know I hear them, even if they have gone,” said Mrs. Meeks. The three heard with relief the window slammed down.
The light flashed out, and simultaneously Lily Jennings and Johnny Trumbull turned indignantly upon Arnold Carruth.
“There, you have gone and let all those poor cats go,” said Johnny.
“And spoilt everything,” said Lily.
Arnold rubbed his shoulder. “You would have let go if you had been hit right on the shoulder by a great shoe,” said he, rather loudly.
“Hush up!” said Lily. “I wouldn't have let my cats go if I had been killed by a shoe; so there.”
“Serves us right for taking a boy with curls,” said Johnny Trumbull.
But he spoke unadvisedly. Arnold Carruth was no match whatever for Johnny Trumbull, and had never been allowed the honor of a combat with him; but surprise takes even a great champion at a disadvantage. Arnold turned upon Johnny like a flash, out shot a little white fist, up struck a dimpled leg clad in cloth and leather, and down sat Johnny Trumbull; and, worse, open flew his bag, and there was a yowling exodus.
“There go your cats, too, Johnny Trumbull,” said Lily, in a perfectly calm whisper. At that moment both boys, victor and vanquished, felt a simultaneous throb of masculine wrath at Lily. Who was she to gloat over the misfortunes of men? But retribution came swiftly to Lily. That viciously clawing little paw shot out farther, and there was a limit to Spartanism in a little girl born so far from that heroic land. Lily let go of her bag and with difficulty stifled a shriek of pain.
“Whose cats are gone now?” demanded Johnny, rising.
“Yes, whose cats are gone now?” said Arnold.
Then Johnny promptly turned upon him and knocked him down and sat on him.
Lily looked at them, standing, a stately little figure in the darkness. “I am going home,” said she. “My mother does not allow me to go with fighting boys.”
Johnny rose, and so did Arnold, whimpering slightly. His shoulder ached considerably.
“He knocked me down,” said Johnny.
Even as he whimpered and as he suffered, Arnold felt a thrill of triumph. “Always knew I could if I had a chance,” said he.
“You couldn't if I had been expecting it,” said Johnny.
“Folks get knocked down when they ain't expecting it most of the time,” declared Arnold, with more philosophy than he realized.
“I don't think it makes much difference about the knocking down,” said Lily. “All those poor cats and kittens that we were going to give a good home, where they wouldn't be starved, have got away, and they will run straight back to Mr. Jim Simmons's.”