"My Uncle Mose sat an' watched one day up in the limb of a tree above the hole of a badger. By-an'-by an ol' he badger come out, an' my uncle dropped onto his back, an' rode him round an' round the hill 'til he was jes' tuckered out.
Then Uncle Mose put a rope on his neck an' tied him to a tree, an' the ol' badger dug an' dug until they was a hole in the ground so big you could put a house in it. An' my uncle he got an idee, an' so one day he fetched him out to South Colton an' learnt him how to dig wells an' cellars, an' bym-by the ol' badger could earn more money than a hired man."
"Shucks!" said Socky, turning upon his adversary with sneering, studied scorn. "That's nothing!"
Then proudly stepping forward, he flung the latest exploit of his Uncle Silas into the freckled face of the red-headed boy. It stunned the able advocate of old Moses Leonard—a mighty hunter in his time—and there fell a moment of silence followed by murmurs of applause.
The little barbarian—Lizzie Cornell—had begun to scent the battle and stood sharpening an arrow.
"It's a lie," said the red-headed boy, recovering the power of speech.
"His father's a thief an' a drunkard, anyway." That was the arrow of Lizzie Cornell.
Socky had raised his fists to vindicate his honor, when, hearing the remark about his father, he turned quickly upon the girl who made it.
What manner of rebuke he would have administered, history is unable to record. The minister had come. The children began to scatter. Lizzie and her red-headed cousin ran around the church. Socky and Sue stood with angry faces.
Suddenly Socky leaned upon the church door and burst into tears. He dimly comprehended the disgrace which Lizzie had sought to put upon him. The minister could not persuade him to enter the church or to explain the nature of his trouble.