“No—thoroughbred”—came back, and with it a blow which sent the intruder backward on the grass.
Several old men nodded at him approvingly as he walked calmly on by the side of his mother.
“Jimmie—Jimmie!” was all she said as she slipped into the church.
“I guess you must be a new-comer,” remarked Archie B. indifferently to the boy who was wiping the blood from his face as he arose from the ground and looked sillily around. “That boy Jim Adams is my pardner an' I could er tole you what you'd git by meddlin' with him. He's gone in with his mother now, but him an' me—we're in alliance—we fights for each other. Feel like you got enough?”—and Archie B. got up closer and made motions as if to shed his coat.
The other boy grinned good naturedly and walked off.
To-day, just outside of the church Ben Butler had been hitched up and the Bishop sat in the old buggy.
Bud Billings stood by holding the bit, stroking the old horse's neck and every now and then striking a fierce attitude, saying “Whoa—whoa—suh!”
As usual, Ben Butler was asleep.
“Turn him loose, Bud,” said the old man humoring the slubber—“I've got the reins an' he can't run away now. I can't take you home to-day—I'm gwinter take Margaret, an' you an' Jimmie can come along together.”
No other man could have taken Margaret Adams home and had any standing left, in Cottontown.