“‘WE GOT EACH OTHER DOWN’”
IN THE ARENA
WHEN a boy retorted with the direct challenge, “An’ you da’sn’t back it!” it was a case, if you did not wish to lose caste, of your either taking the aggressive or effecting some honorable compromise.
It was difficult to explain to an outsider, to one not in sympathy with the duello, the deep significance of “da’sn’t back it.” You felt the term, but you could not elucidate it, save, to some extent, by example; you yourself, with a red spot on your forehead, a scratch on your nose, a torn collar to your waist, a rent in your knickerbockers, and a proud spirit in your bosom, being the example.
“Now, I should like to know what you were fighting about,” declared your mother, holding you prisoner at her knee while she stitched your collar so as to make you presentable for supper.
You squirmed, realizing the task before you.
“Well, we were playin’, an’ Ted he tripped me, an’ I said he did it on purpose (an’ he did, too), an’ he said he didn’t an’ I said he did, an’ he said I was a liar an’ da’sn’t back it, an’ I went to back it, an’ he hit me, an’—”
“But what is to ‘back it’?” interrupted your mother.