CHAPTER VII
THE SCENE OF THE SCHOOL FIGHTS
The proof that a robust, daring, well-fed boy starts by being a sort of half domesticated little animal as well as a Sunday school immortal is set out in his school fights. These best illustrate how hard it is to eradicate the savage, hereditary traits of our early barbaric ancestry. It is suggested that all fully domesticated animals dislike children. They have an instinctive fear of their tricks and their thoughtlessness.
The rude jostle, pretty nearly instinctive with boys coming from school, breaks the peace. There is the quick impulse to resist aggression with violence, particularly on the part of an impulsive unrelenting temper, not adverse to battle. Wrestling and boxing were very much in vogue, a generation ago, which made the average boy very ready with his fists and anxious if there was to be a clinch, to get "the underholt." This preparedness increased the likeliness of a clash. If a boy took occasion to state the events that led up to Armageddon, we used to hear, He called me names. His budding sense of honor, an exaggerated feeling of obligation to take care of his better self, his name, was the most frequent incentive to try conclusions.
Precipitating a Fracas
The tendency to give a nickname, to remind a boy in a word of the color of his hair, or the cut of his clothes, or of some unfortunate incident in his life or that of his family was painfully wide-spread, and it hurt like a blow and started resentment. A boy, that by his disposition and taste, was too proud to fight could not always keep out of it as the active belligerent might be overbearing or might be, at the time, imposing on some helpless party. This is an unprovoked declaration of war when peace can only be had by conquering it. It is interesting to study a man's life in terms of those early scuffles. In Pilgrim's Progress the fight of Christian and Apollyon was the kernel of the story. Henry Higginson, "Bully Hig," a business man of remarkable success in Boston, was the leader of the Latin school forces and engagements which were as fiercely fought as some in which the same boys later took part on the battle fields of the South. A boy's anger and a boy's pain pass away like clouds on a summer morning and leave the sky purer and fairer than before. Boy's fights often began with snow-balling. They were implied by the use of the word snow-forts, on the old site of which we took occasion to stand. For days the boys would roll up immense snow-balls to form the redoubt. They worked, like the ants, those sociologists of the insect-world who combine their efforts to move an object toward the ant hill, approach the thing to be moved, using all their strength wherever they can apply it, causing the object to stagger along, and the small, industrious, courageous creatures by frantic partisan effort landed it where individual work never could have so well located it. Those who built the fort were determined to defend it. They talked over their grievances until they seemed bigger than they were. Trouble would soon begin to boil, like the witches' brew into which all kinds of ingredients entered and the situation soon forced all boys to take sides.
Sectional and Factional Fights
It was common to hear the inquiry, Are you on my side? It started a campaign. There was no neutral zone. There were no pacifists. If a snow fort was to be stormed the snow-balls were dipped in water and were as hard as canister. The contending forces were under boy commanders. The volatile spirit of the organization lasted after the snow was gone. The contending parties were easily provoked. Boys used to take off their coats and lay them aside like those that stoned Stephen. The question to be settled was Who is bigger? The custom was to place a chip upon the shoulder and flatly dare a fancied antagonist to knock it off, which being done, hostilities were let loose with a spring. The other boys would gather about and witness the excitement, their only concern being to see that there was every way a square deal. Until such a time as one or the other would say, Hold, enough, I am through. Things were then deemed settled. An incidental indication that boys before re-birth were little animals, was the use of their nails. The face of him that was worsted would bear a diagram of the battle.