CHAPTER VIII
“HE STAYED NOT FOR BRAKE AND HE STOPPED NOT FOR STONE”
Gwen and Jan, with Gladys accompanying them protestingly, and with an air suggestive of being about to walk on the other side of the street, were on their way home from school. Except for a slight tenderness lingering about her reddened palms, Jan’s hands were healed, and she had resumed her former life, very glad to get back to the world of fresh air and sunshine. It was late November, and the air around the park was full of suggestions of country odors—the sunshine soft and warm through the haze overlapping from Indian summer.
There were rumors afloat of great events to come, events of absorbing interest to all the young people. First of all, Sydney’s school was to have a tournament at Thanksgiving, in which not only were there to be races—foot and bicycle races—and wrestling matches, and jumping, as in most schoolboy tournaments, but there were to be tennis-matches, singles and doubles, and in the latter girls were to compete, the lads being allowed to ask sisters or friends to play with them. Sydney had very little to do with the girls of his household, but when the hour came that he was to strive with his mates for honor and prizes family pride stirred, and Gwen and Gladys were profoundly interested. They were to go to see the games, and Gwen, at least, who was fonder of sports than Gladys, wished with all her heart that Sydney would ask her to play the tennis-match with him. She felt quite certain that with a little practise she could hold her own against her adversaries. Jan kept discreetly the secret that she had been champion of the girls’ singles at home, but though it never occurred to her to wish for the impossible—that Sydney might ask her to play with him—she was very much excited at the prospect of the games, and nervously reiterated that “she was sure Sydney would win.” And more thrilling, though less definite, was the rumor, gaining force every day, that something splendid and unusual was to take place at “the Hydra” in celebration of the Christmas holidays, and though there was no possibility of an answer, each girl asked every other girl daily what she did suppose it would be, and if they thought everybody would take part.
It was this indefinitely glorious prospect which Gwen and Jan were discussing volubly as they walked home in the soft November sunshine, Gladys occasionally adding a word from inability to maintain perfect silence.
There was a knot of men and boys gathered ahead of them, and Jan quickened her pace. She was so constituted that she could not see such a gathering without her first thought being that perhaps some one was maltreating a helpless animal, and her quick impulse was to fly to the rescue. As the three girls came nearer they saw that this time what Jan feared was really happening. A poor little dog, hair matted and body thin, was in a convulsion on the sidewalk, and the crowd, with the usual stupid terror in such a gathering of an animal showing symptoms of sickness, was kicking the poor little creature from side to side, as he staggered about blindly, instinctively trying to get somewhere, but with no power in his tortured brain to select that somewhere.
“Put him in the gutter!” cried a voice, its owner evidently having a vague recollection that water was the proper treatment for spasms. A rough hand caught the dog by the tail and threw him into the gutter, still wet from flushing the street from the hydrant. The bewildered creature staggered to his feet and essayed to escape from the puddle into which he had fallen, but the heavy boot of a laborer kicked him back.
Jan saw no more—indeed she had not stood seeing all this, but had witnessed the torture in agony as she and Gwen approached.
Dropping her books without looking to see where they fell, she started on a dead run for the group ahead of her. Her hat flew off, her hair began to break its bounds, but Jan did not think of appearances just then. Like a young Valkyrie she swept down on the amazed men and boys, who fell back before the vigor and suddenness of her onslaught, as human beings generally give away to some one wholly in earnest.
“You brutes! You cruel, cruel, stupid men!” cried the clear young voice, shaking with rage and tears. “To treat a little, tiny dog like that! Don’t you see he’s sick? I only hope giants will come and torture you the next time you’re sick! Give me that dog.”
“He’s mad, miss,” said the big workman who had given the last blow.