"Three boys!" and Aunt Nancy's tone was an angry one. "I'll venture to say William Dean was among the party; and if he thinks he's going to drive off every decent child in the neighborhood, he is mistaken. I'd do my chores alone, and wait on the city folks too, before he should come here again!"
Then Aunt Nancy peered in every direction as if fancying the evil-doers might yet be in the vicinity where she could punish them immediately, while Jack stood silent, if not quite motionless, wiping the mixture of blood and mud from his face in a most disconsolate manner.
Aunt Nancy's anger vanished, however, as she turned again toward the cripple.
All her sympathies were aroused, but not to such an extent as to smother her cleanly instincts.
"Did they hurt you very much?" she asked solicitously.
"They wasn't any too careful about hittin'," Jack replied with a feeble attempt at a smile, to show that his injuries were not really serious. "If there hadn't been more than one, I'd have hurt him some before he got me into the pond."
"I wish you had flogged every single member of that party in the most severe—No, I don't either, for it wouldn't be right, Jack. We are told when anybody smites us on one cheek, we must turn the other also; but it's terrible hard work to do right sometimes. I'm glad you didn't strike them, though I do wish they could be punished."
Again Aunt Nancy showed signs of giving way to anger, and one could see that a severe conflict was going on in her mind as she tried to obey the injunctions of the Book she read so often.
As if to turn her attention from vengeful thoughts, she immediately made preparations for dressing Jack's wounds.
"If you can stand a little more water," she said, "we'll try to get you into something like a decent condition."