"And that as well!" cried Percival.
"Why," said Japhra—not twinkling now, but grave—"why, then, thou hast read the beginning and end of wisdom. Crusoe and Pilgrim and Bible—those are the books for a man. I read them and read them and always read them new. They are the books for a questioner, and thou art that amain. And they are the books for a fighter, and that is thy part. I have unriddled thee so far, little master. I know the fighting type. Mark me when the years come. A fighter, thou."
He placed a blade of grass in "Robinson Crusoe" and put the volume beneath his arm. He got up and took Percival's small hand in his horny fist. "Come thou and see my van, little master," said he. "We are friends—thou and I and Ima here." And then he twinkled again. "And why? What brought thee whom the fairies attended and that has read the books and is the fighting type? What brought thee here? Why, there's the question again!"
It was the beginning of Percival's chiefest friendship of them all. In the rare proper seasons that followed one another through this the happy, happy time, the van came more and more frequently Lethamwards. Summertimes it was away with Stingo's crowd in Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus. But Wintertimes it would come tinkering, and sometimes remain a week or more snow-bound, and Springtimes Punch-and-Judying through the Burdon hamlets; and these were happy, happy times indeed. There was all Japhra's lore, all his dimly understood "questioning" to hear; and all his stories of his strange and varied life; and all his reading aloud from his three books, who could read them and put a meaning into them as none other could. And there was the boxing to learn, with Percival a very apt and eager pupil and Japhra insistent that it was a proper game—the only proper game for a man. And once every summer there was the visit of Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus to Great Letham, where Percival,—introduced by Japhra, sponsored by Stingo,—was made enormously welcome by rough, odd van folk who were of "Stingo's crowd." He learnt the sharp and growing difference between Stingo's crowd and Boss Maddox's men. Boss Maddox was boss and of increasing wealth and weight: attracting showmen to his following from many parts of the country and incorporating them in his business, but unable to win the allegiance of the little knot of independents who called Stingo "Boss," and hating them for it. Rough, odd men who made an immense deal of Percival and had rough, odd names: Old Four-Eyes, who wore spectacles and had a Mermaid and a Mummified Man; Old One-Eye, whose left eye was gone and had a Wild West Rifle Range; Old 'Ave One, who was given to drink ("'Ave one, mate?") and had the Ring 'em where Yer Like—A Prize fer All; and the rest of them. Percival never mixed with the Maddox crowd but once, when he boxed, and to the immense delight of Japhra and all the Stingo men, defeated, a red-haired, skinny youth of his own age, whom Boss Maddox was introducing to the public as the Boy Wonder Pugilist. "Looks like a fox to me," Percival said aloud, when he first saw the Boy Wonder. The Boy Wonder heard, and the men who stood about heard and laughed; there certainly was a foxy look about the Juvenile Wonder's cunning face with its red head. The Wonder furiously resented the remark and the laughter; expressed a desire to shut Percival's mouth; succeeded in shutting one of his eyes, but was certainly beaten.
He became Percival's first enemy—and chance set aside the first enemy for further use.
II
Ima, when the van came Lethamwards, was Percival's first girl friend, and chance had use also in store for her. She was a strange, quiet, very gentle thing, but one that could run, as she had told him, and bold and active stuff for any ramble. With odd ways, though.
"Ima, you do look at me an awful lot," Percival told her in the early days, catching her large eyes fixed upon him.
"Well, thou art not like other boys I see," she told him; and a little while after she asked him, "Dost thou know little ladies with white skins like thine, little master?"
"I'm brown!" said Percival indignantly.