“And all those boys thought the reason he turned and ran was because he was afraid—afraid that coward and bully was going to hit him. Ugh! I just wish Wilfred had pommeled him.”
Tom laughed, for “pommel” is the word a girl uses when referring to pugilistic exploits.
“Just then he reeled and fell in a dead faint,” said Mrs. Cowell. “Mr. Atwell, our neighbor, brought him in here unconscious. I don’t know what it can be,” she sighed; “we’re waiting for the doctor now. It does seem as if he’d never come.”
Tom looked sober. Wilfred rocked his head from side to side smiling at Tom, a touching smile, as he caught his eye. The clock ticked away sounding like a trip-hammer in the silence of the room. The mother held the boy’s hand, watching him apprehensively. The little express wagon rattled past outside. The muffled hum of the lawn-mower could be heard in the distance. And somehow these sounds without seemed to harmonize with this drowsy mid-day of early summer.
Tom hardly knew what to say so he said in his cheery way, “Well, you made him give up the ball anyway, didn’t you, Billy?”
“That’s all I wanted,” Wilfred said.
“He would have got it no matter what,” said Arden.
“I bet he would,” Tom laughed.
It was rather amusing to see how deeply concerned the mother was about the boy’s condition (which manifestly was improving) and how the girl’s predominant concern was for her brother’s courage and honor.
“They just stood there—all of them,” she said with a tremor in her voice, “calling him coward and sissy.”