Sam started violently. Mabel ceased to swing her foot, and both, encarnadined, looked up and down and everywhere for the invisible but well-known owner of that voice. It came again, in taunting mockery:
“Sammy's mad, and I am glad,
And I know what will please him:
A bottle o' wine to make him shine,
And Mabel Rorebeck to squeeze him!”
“Fresh ole thing!” said Miss Rorebeck, becoming articulate. And unreasonably including Sam in her indignation, she tossed her head at him with an unmistakable effect of scorn. She began to walk away.
“Well, Mabel,” Sam said plaintively, following, “it ain't MY fault. I didn't do anything. It's Penrod.”
“I don't care,” she began pettishly, when the viperish voice was again lifted:
“Oh, oh, oh! Who's your beau? Guess I know: Mabel and Sammy, oh, oh, oh! I caught you!”
Then Mabel did one of those things that eternally perplex the slower sex. She deliberately made a face, not at the tree behind which Penrod was lurking, but at the innocent and heart-wrung Sam. “You needn't come limpin' after me, Sam Williams!” she said, though Sam was approaching upon two perfectly sound legs. And then she ran away at the top of her speed.
“Run, rigger, run!” Penrod began inexcusably. But Sam cut the persecutions short at this point. Stung to fury, he charged upon the sheltering tree in the Schofields' yard.
Ordinarily, at such a juncture, Penrod would have fled, keeping his own temper and increasing the heat of his pursuer's by back-flung jeers. But this was Wednesday, and he was in no mood to run from Sam. He stepped away from the tree, awaiting the onset.
“Well, what you goin' to do so much?” he said.