“You mean, ungrateful little boy,” said his parent, furiously, shaking the hand she held. “Don’t talk back to me. You’ll go with me this afternoon and see that balloon if I have to drag you all the way. Yes, you will.”
“I won’t,” roared Benito, now enraged past all control; and in his frenzy to escape he kicked at his mother’s ankles through her intervening skirts.
This was too much for Mrs. Garcia’s feelings as a mother. She took her free hand and boxed Benito smartly on the ear. Then for a moment there was war. Benito kicked, roaring lustily, while his mother cuffed. The din of combat was loud on the balcony, and several of the geranium pots were knocked over.
It remained for Barron to descend from the railing and drag the boy away from his wrathful parent.
“Here, stop kicking your mother,” he said peremptorily; “that won’t do at all.”
“Then make her stop slapping me,” howled Benito. “Ain’t I got a right to kick back? I guess you’d kick all right if you was slapped that way.”
“All right,” said his mother from the doorway, “next time you come to me, Benito Garcia, to be taken to the circus or the fair, you’ll find out that you’ve barked up the wrong tree.”
“I don’t care,” responded Benito defiantly; “grandma or Uncle Gam will.”
Five minutes after her irate withdrawal she reappeared, calm and smiling, the memory of her recent combat showing only in her heightened color, and announced that lunch was ready.
At lunch the stranger was introduced to Mariposa, and she learned that he was Isaac Pierpont, a singing teacher living in the house.