"I live here," said Jim, "over in Strawberry Hill. An' Mrs. Green's my a'nt; and I've just come home from my grandmother's."
Joel said nothing as to this family history, but continued to gaze at the horses. David picked himself up from the barn floor, and hurrying out over the sill, began to dust his clothes, glad that Joel had not seen him tumble in.
"I knocked him over," snickered Jim. "Hee-hee! Cry-baby!" and he pointed to little David, whose face was quite red as he tried to brush his best clothes clean again.
"I'm not crying," said Davie, indignantly, and raising his hot face.
"You knocked him over!" cried Joel, boiling with wrath, and, deserting the big post, he squared off toward the Strawberry Hill boy, and doubled up his little brown fists. "Then you've got to fight me."
"All right," said Jim, glad he was so much bigger. "I know a place down in th' cow-pasture where I can lick you's easy's not."
"You ain't a-goin' to lick me," cried Joel, sturdily, "I'm goin' to lick you," while little David, sick with terror, screamed out that he wasn't hurt; that he didn't care if Jim did push him over, and for Joel to come back--come back! But Joel and Jim were already halfway to the cow-pasture, and Davie, wild with fright, stumbled over across the barnyard, and off to the house to find Mr. Tisbett.
"He's just gone into th' house," said one of the farmers who always took this hour, on the occasion of the stage-driver's weekly visit, to come to the tavern porch and get the news. "He'll be out in a minute or two. Sit down, sonny; you're dreadful hot."
But David wrung his hands, and rushed into the tavern. The dining room was dark and cool, all the dinner things being carried out, except the pickle dish and the sugar bowl; and the crumbs swept off from the table, and the green blinds pulled to. He could hear the rattle of the dish-washing and the clearing-up generally out in the kitchen, and he plunged in. "Where--where's Mr. Tisbett?" he cried, his breath most gone, from fright, and his little face aflame.
"Goodness me, how you scart me!" exclaimed the tavern-keeper's wife, who, with another woman, was flying around to get the work done up. "Oh, it's one of the Pepper boys. What's the matter, dear?" with a glance at David's hot face. "What you ben a-runnin' so for?"