Arlo Junior had black, curly hair like his father. He had snapping brown eyes, too, and was quick and nervous in his movements. Of all the Weeks' children (Daddy said there was a "raft" of them!) Arlo Junior was the worst behaved. He was forever in trouble.
To report him to his parents was just like shooting cannon balls into a stack of feathers. His mother, tall, cadaverous, and of complaining voice and manner, only declared:
"He's too much for me. I tell Arlo that Junior ought to be locked up, or handcuffed, or something. And that's all the good it does."
To complain to Mr. Weeks of his namesake was quite as unsatisfactory.
"What? The young rascal!" Mr. Weeks would emphatically say. "Arlo did that? Well, I tell you what. If you catch him at any of his tricks, you thrash him. That's what you do—thrash him! You have my full permission to punish him as though he were your own boy. That's the only way to deal with a rascal like him."
So, you see, both parents shed responsibility, both for Arlo Junior's mischief and punishment, just as easily as a duck sheds rainwater. Under these circumstances , Arlo Junior usually went without punishment, no matter what he did.
And here he was, swaggering along the walk with some of his mates, hilariously telling them, perhaps, of how he had tolled all the cats of the neighborhood into the Days' back kitchen.
Janice Day was a very human girl indeed. The thought of Junior's trick and all it had brought about made her very, very angry. She rushed right into the group of boys, all fully as big as she was, soundly boxed Arlo Weeks' ears, and just as many times as she could do so before he outran her and left her, panting and still wrathful, on the curb.
The other boys backed away, leaving Arlo Junior to fight his own battle—or run, if that seemed to him the part of wisdom, as evidently it had.
"I hope that will teach you to bring cats into our kitchen, Arlo
Junior!" Janice cried after him.