But they were too thoroughly vanquished. Their plight was laughable, and yet pitiable. They were coated with mud from head to foot, and their pretty hats, with their polka-dot bands, were gone too far down the river to be recovered.
They seemed dazed for a minute or so, but as soon as they realized they were on their feet they started off after their flying companion, never pausing to look behind them, but running as though a Bengal tiger was at their heels.
“Ben,” said I, walking forward as soon as I could assume a serious expression of countenance, “do you not know it is very wrong to fight?”
“That’s what I was tryin’ to teach them city chaps. I guess they’ll think so after this.”
“You certainly did your best to convince them it isn’t wise to attack you; but, Ben, what have you been doing lately?”
“My last job was whipping them,” replied the urchin, with a roguish twinkle of his blue eyes; “but that was fun, and if you mean work, I hain’t had anything but selling papers since last summer, but sometimes I run errands.”
“Do you go to school?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you like a job?”
“Indeed I would, sir, for mother finds it hard work to get along, and sometimes there isn’t anything to eat in the house. Once, when I was a little fellow, when I saw mother crying, and there was no bread, I slipped out at night and stole a loaf, but mother would not touch it when I brought it home, and made me take it back. She told me I must starve before I did wrong, and so I will. I have been trying to get a job all summer, but everybody says I am too young and small. I take all the exercise I can, so as to make me grow, and that’s one reason why I pitched into them city chaps and laid ’em out.”