But there was no fight; at least it lasted only until Harry Hawkins could spring forward and pull the two apart. “Stop it!” he cried and pushed Tom’s assailant away. “And you,” he said sharply to Tom, “get along and be quick about it! I thought better than that of you!”
“Why, Hawkins——”
“Never mind that; you deserve a licking, and if the boy hadn’t been smaller than you, I’d have stood and watched you take it. Kick a dog! You ought to be kicked, yourself!”
Tom Bullard’s mouth opened and closed. He gulped several times and then turned for sympathy to the other soldiers; but they were laughing at him. With low mutterings he picked up his hat and strode abruptly off across the Common. The soldiers, still laughing, started toward the tented area.
Don gathered Sailor in his arms and walked to where the boy was standing; he had shouldered his fishing pole and was blowing on the knuckles of his right hand.
He was a boy very much like Don in general appearance—sturdy, active and alert-looking. His hair was of a reddish brown, and his eyes, dark and sparkling, seemed to flash with little points of fire. As Don approached him, a smile played about the corners of his rather large mouth.
Don extended his hand, and the boy grasped it. “I want to thank you,” said Don, “for thrashing Tom Bullard. My name is Donald Alden; I live in Pudding Lane.”
The boy grinned. “Mine’s Jud Appleton.” He patted the head of the terrier. “Nice looking dog you have. When that big Tory kicked him I couldn’t help sailing into him. He’d have licked me, though, if it hadn’t been for the Redcoat. My, but didn’t he talk hot to him afterward!”
The two boys laughed heartily. “You surely hit him hard,” said Don.
“Did I?” said Jud. “Well, not hard enough, I reckon. Anybody who’d kick a dog—my, how I hate ’em! I hate Redcoats too, and Tories worse—and when a Tory kicks a dog I just boil over.”