“The next feller that calls him that, I'll break his face!” he threatened. “An' I ain't foolin', neither.”
They saw that he was not, and they waited respectfully as Red Head and Willie walked away.
Willie went with Red Head to drive the cow home, and Red Head taught him how to double up his fist for battle according to the traditions of the school, with the knuckle of the second finger protruded.
“You jist do that,” he explained, “an' you can hurt 'em worse. An' if they fight back, kick 'em in the legs. That's how I do. Why, you're as big as I am, an' I bet you're jist as strong. You jist stand up to 'em. There ain't nothin' in fightin' when you know how. If you jist stand up to 'em, they 'most always back down. You begin on Tom Ament. He's a bigger baby'n you are. Anybody kin lick him I kin lick him with my little finger. An' then you tackle Shorty. He's a baby, too. You're jist afraid.”
It was Red Head who egged Willie on to strike Tom Ament the next day, and Red Head coached him until Tom took to his heels, defeated. Then Red Head made him lick Shorty, and with the lust of victory in his veins Willie worked his way upward, and soon the other mothers began telling Willie's mother that he was a bad boy, always fighting, and Mrs. Gary wept over him. But no one called him Whistle Breeches, and he learned that he was as much of a man as any of them, and more of a man than most.
Then came a battle royal, when Red Head and Willie stood face to face and pounded each other for a good half hour for supremacy, and Willie went down with a bleeding nose and an eye that was dark for days.
But Red Head had taught him self confidence, and self confidence made him the Governor of a great State.