Keith had now and then picked up questionable words while playing in the lane where he lived. Johan sported some of them in moments of furious rebellion against his mother's "holiness," as he called it. Once or twice Keith had repeated such words at home and suffered for it. Soon he learned to know the type at first hearing, and he disliked this part of the vocabulary even when he could use it without danger to himself. He developed a greater daintiness in words than in anything else, but this summer formed an exception. The force of suggestion brought to bear on him was too overwhelming, and he strove boldly to vie with the rest in foulness of tongue and thought. As soon as he was back in the city, this habit dropped off him as the soap lather is washed off a bather when he dives into the clear waters of a lake. But the game he had learned to play back of the big rock could not be unlearned in the same way.
This game was in itself a revelation to Keith. He was not shocked or startled, because he had no standards in the matter, but at first he experienced a distinct revulsion. This wore off quickly, however, and soon he accepted what he saw as a natural thing. The boy whose face stuck in Keith's mind with such strange persistency set the pace, and everybody seemed to hold him a hero on that account. Even the other city boys surrendered after a brief resistance and tried humbly to emulate the acknowledged leader.
Everything took place openly in the most brazen fashion, as if they had been playing leap-frog or hide-and-seek. Every one boasted of his own achievements and tried to outdo the rest in unashamed performance. Yet it was not so much a question of companionship in indulgence as of sportsmanlike competition. Pleasure had little to do with it. What they did, and still more what they pretended to have done, was an assertion and a proof of manliness, and so was the language they used among themselves. If they hid from the older people, that was not because they regarded themselves as engaged in any sinful pursuits, but because the grown-ups to them appeared jealous of all childish pleasures, and particularly jealous of the pleasures most treasured by themselves.
Outwardly Keith played the part of an interested but passive observer. When taunted for his timidity, or as being a mere infant, he parried by using a number of nasty words, some of which he did not know the meaning of. When by himself, he soon found that he could play the game as well as the rest, and it increased his sense of self-importance very much, but of this he said nothing to any one. Something within his own nature protested against the flaunting of such an act, though the act itself carried no offence to his childish mind. The inner protest was not strong enough to break into words or to make the companionship of the other boys seem repulsive to him. Nor was it concerned with anything Keith did by himself.
The summer went very fast. Keith was sorry when told that it was time for him to go home. He would come back, of course, but his regrets were only momentary. No sooner was he started than the idea of seeing his mother, Granny, and his tin soldiers again, put everything else out of his mind.
His mother was overjoyed to see him and revelled in his healthy looks. She made him tell her at great length, over and over again, about everything he had seen and done, about the place and the people, about the food and the games he had played. Keith talked and talked, eagerly and freely, but of the game played behind the big rock he never said a word.
He was then not quite seven years old.
XII
That autumn and winter he was permitted to play a good deal with Johan, and always in Johan's home. His mother had a bad spell of depression, and while it made her fret and worry more than ever about Keith, as well as about everything else, she was either too weak to resist his pleas, or she felt his absence as a relief.