“I had nothing more to do with it than you had.”
“But you can be a little more gentle with him.”
“And let him browbeat and bully me as much as he pleases? I think, mother, if I stand up squarely for my own rights, he will respect me all the more. For my own part, I am about tired of Centreport, for all the people bow down and toady to Colonel Wimpleton. If he takes snuff, everybody sneezes. All the fellows treat Waddie as though he was a prince of the blood. I have been ashamed and disgusted with myself a hundred times after I have let him bully me and put his foot on my neck. I have been tempted to thrash him, a dozen times, for his impudence; and if I didn’t do so, it was not because I didn’t want to.”
“You must try to have a Christian spirit, Wolfert,” said the mother, mildly.
“I do try to have a Christian spirit, mother. I haven’t anything against Waddie or his father. If I could do a kindness to either one of them this minute, I would do it. But I don’t think a fellow must be a milksop in order to be a Christian. I don’t think the gospel requires me to be a toady, or even to submit to injustice when I can help myself. I don’t ask to be revenged, or anything of that sort; I only desire to keep my head out of the dirt. I am going to try to be a man, whatever happens to me.”
“If you will only be a Christian, Wolfert, I can ask no more.”
“I will try to be; but do you think yourself, mother, that I ought to stand still and allow myself to be kicked?”
“You must not provoke your enemies.”
“I will not, if I can help it; but I think it is pretty hard to keep still when you are called a rascal and a villain. If you think I ought to confess that I helped blow up the canal boat when I did not, I will”—
I was going to say I would do it, but the words choked me, and I could not utter them.