“You know Ives, don’t you, Ruth? And Monroe?” Wallace performed the belated introduction.
“Oh, yes, I know everybody.” She shook hands with each of them. “Your name’s Clarence, and yours is David. Oh, don’t you want to have a game of scrub?”
She looked from one to another with hopeful, boyish eyes. Wallace was the ready-tongued one of the three. “Sorry, Ruth, but we have a date to go for a walk—going to meet some fellows in the woods.”
“Oh!” Her voice was regretful. “Well, good-bye.”
The boys touched their caps to her as she turned away; David glanced back at her remorsefully.
“She’s a pretty good kid,” Wallace remarked. “Sort of hard luck on her; there are no other girls of her age round here for her to play with. She’s very decent about not butting in; fellows can’t always be having a girl round.”
“No, you bet not,” agreed Monroe, though like David he had cast sheepish backward glances.
As for David, the sight of the girl had revived the sense of loathing for the brutalities of battle that Mr. Dean’s cheerful words of encouragement had aided him temporarily to suppress. He walked on silently, thinking how that girl would hate him if she knew what he was about to do. His mood again became one of sullen revengefulness against Henshaw, whose behavior had forced the situation upon him.
He and his friends entered the pine woods that bordered the pond behind the gymnasium. Soon they passed beyond sight of the school buildings; they walked on until they emerged from the quiet woods upon a hillside crowned with a decrepit apple orchard; they climbed a hill and followed a path that led them into a thicket of birch and oak; and at last they came out into an open space behind a disused sawmill. There seven or eight fellows, among them Henshaw, were waiting.