“What fer? What did he do to make you so mad?”
“He said my mother was a washerwoman and my father a convict! Let me go! I’ll kill him!”
With a returning rush of his passion, David struggled in the man’s grasp.
“Wait, Dave, I’ll tend to him. Go to the barn, Jud!” he commanded his son.
Jud quailed before this new, strange note in his father’s voice.
“David was fighting. You said neither of us was to fight. ’T ain’t fair to take it out on me.”
Fairness was one of Barnabas’ fixed and prominent qualities, but Jud was not to gain favor by it this time.
“Well, you don’t suppose I’m a-goin’ to lick Dave fer defendin’ his parents, do you? Besides, I’m not a-goin’ to lick you fer fightin’, but fer 60 sayin’ what you did. I guess you’d hev found out that Dave could wallop you ef he is smaller and younger.”
“He can’t!” snarled Jud. “I didn’t have no show. He came at me by surprise.”
Barnabas reflected a moment. Then he said gravely: