She did, the cruel thing, and like many an older heroine, she would not desist until she saw her lover's blood
"It still does not hurt, does it?" she asked, wiping away a red drop from her lips.
I shook my head contemptuously
"When you are a man you will be strong as Samson the Strong."
I was the strongest boy in her father's school. She knew that most of the other boys were afraid of me, but that did not seem to interest her. At least when I began to boast of it she returned to my ability "to stand punishment," as the pugilists would put it
One day one of my schoolmates aroused her admiration by the way he "played" taps with his fist for a trumpet. I tried to imitate him, but failed grievously. The other boy laughed and Sarah-Leah joined him. That was my first taste of the bitter cup called jealousy
I went home a lovelorn boy
I took to practising "taps." I was continually trumpeting. I kept at it so strenuously that my mother had many a quarrel with our room-mates because of it
My efforts went for nothing, however. My rival, and with him my lady love, continued to sneer at my performances
I had only one teacher who never beat me, or any of the other boys. Whatever anger we provoked in him would spend itself in threats, and even these he often turned to a joke, in a peculiar vein of his own