Jud came with deliberate precision and a swing of his left. He was heavier and harder, but David was more agile, and his whole heart was in the fight this time. They clutched and grappled and parried, and finally went down; first one was on top, then the other. It was the wage of brute force against elasticity; bluster against valor. Jud fought in fear; David, in ferocity. At last David bore his oppressor backward and downward. Jud, exhausted, ceased to struggle.
“Thar!” exclaimed Barnabas, drawing a relieved breath. “I guess you know how you stand now, and we’ll all feel better. You’ve got all that’s comin’ to you, Jud, without no more from me. You can both go to the house and wash up.”
Uncle Larimy had arrived at the finish of the fight.
“What’s the trouble, Barnabas?” he asked interestedly, as the boys walked away.
The explanation was given, but they spoke in tones so low that David could not overhear any part of the conversation from the men following 62 him until, as they neared the house, Uncle Larimy said: “I was afeerd Dave hed his pa’s temper snoozin’ inside him. Mebby he’d orter be told fer a warnin’.”
“I don’t want to say nuthin’ about it less I hev to. I’ll wait till the next time he loses his temper.”
David ducked his head in the wash basin on the bench outside the door. After supper, when Barnabas came out on the back porch for his hour of pipe, he called his young charge to him. Since the fight, David’s face had worn a subdued but contented expression.
“Looks,” thought Barnabas, “kinder eased off, like a dog when he licks his chops arter the taste of blood has been drawed.”
“Set down, Dave. I want to talk to you. You done right to fight fer yer folks, and you’re a good fighter, which every boy orter be, but when I come up to you and Jud I see that in yer face that I didn’t know was in you. You’ve got an orful temper, Dave. It’s a good thing to hev––a mighty good thing, if you kin take keer of it, but if you let it go it’s what leads to murder. 63 Your pa hed the same kind of let-loose temper that got him into heaps of trouble.”
“What did my father do?” he asked abruptly.