“Girls on stilts!” jeered some loud voice from the crowd, and the speaker laughed and nodded.
But Reginald Steele’s clear tones rose above the clamor. “You know what Jones means, Jim Barney. Last week your man, Buckman, and two of his fellows followed some ladies and girls for nearly a block, using language that is a disgrace to any school.”
“Rot! I suppose you think girls ought to run this high school. And that’s what they’ll do if Hec Price gets elected.” He glared around on them, and let his eyes rest on Reginald an instant before continuing. “I put it up to you fellows, what sort of a president will that grandmother prig make, that’s in with the girls and mollycoddles, in with the teachers, in with everybody that’s for style, and against a square deal for all. What sort of a fellow is Hec Price for president?”
“A good one!” Billy called cheerily, coming forward from the rear of the crowd, where he had been listening.
Billy was good to look at these days. His freckles were gone; and his skin, free from the blemish that mars so many growing boys, was girlishly fair. His cheeks had the red of full health, and his form was well knit and firm from plenty of work in the “gym”; and although the dimple, much to his disgust still adorned his chin, it had broadened and squared to match his strong shoulders.
Since entering school he had been allied with those opposing “the Kid’s crowd,” yet he had been able through sheer good-nature to avoid a clash with the bully. But lately that had seemed inevitable, though Billy himself could not understand why.
The speaker sighted Billy and challenged him. “You, Billy To-morrow, or Yesterday, or Billy Next Week, whatever you call yourself, what have you got to say about the teachers butting into student affairs?” He looked around over the boys, an angry gleam in his red-rimmed eyes. He was stocky, red of hair and skin, red of hose and tie, blustering, blowsy, yet powerful. The strong, uncontrolled passions of generations of ancestors culminated in him in conscious power, plus a tenacity and stratagem that were his own. His silent presence in the room would attract any eye. A reader of men was likely to turn away with regret, as when one sees a mighty stream capable of producing wealth and happiness for mankind, instead tearing through the smiling valley, leaving destruction in its way.
He continued. “Have we, or have we not, a right to run our student business ourselves? to elect our officers, whether class president or school president, without interference? Answer me that. Are we all sissies, to let the girls butt in, to let the high-brows whip us into knuckling to the teachers like kindergarten kids? You, Bill Bennett, what do you say to that?”
“What’s the matter with the Kid?” asked Charley Harper, called “Redtop” because of his hair. “I thought he rather liked Billy.”
“Don’t you know? Billy’s copped his girl.” Sis Jones winked knowingly.