He struggled to his feet mad with rage, and "pitched into" Frank, as the boys express it, and endeavored to retaliate in kind. But Frank was watchful and wary, and evading the attack, seized him again when his strength was half spent, and Sam found himself once more occupying an involuntary bed in the snow.
A third struggle resulted in the same way. Sam was furious, but he saw that Frank was more than a match for him.
Just then a servant called out from the door:
"Master Sam, your mother says it's time for you to be going to school."
To tell the truth, Sam was rather glad of the summons, as it gave him an excuse for retiring from the contest.
"I'll be even with you yet," he said, shaking his fist at Frank. "I'll let my father know how you insulted me, you young beggar!"
"If anybody has been insulted, I have," said Frank. "You must remember that you began it."
Sam scowled vindictively, and brushing the snow from his coat went into the house. Before Frank finished the path at the back of the house he was gone to school.
Mrs. Ashmead sent out fifty cents to Frank for his morning's work, with which he went home, well satisfied, wishing that he might earn as much every day. He wondered a little whether Sam would tell his father what had occurred between them. He did not speak of it to his mother, for she was nervous, and would be troubled by it, as she received considerable work to do from the Ashmead family which she might fear would be taken away.
On the afternoon of the next day, however, Frank received a note, which proved to come from Squire Ashmead. It ran as follows: