In the mean time Harold Jones had heard a long, shrill whistle in the alley, and, answering it, he ran as rapidly as his spindling legs would carry him. He knew it was the boys. They were grinning broadly when he came to them. It was Piggy Pennington who first spoke, "Oh, pa, I won't do it any more," repeating the phrase several times in a suppressed voice, and leering impishly at Mealy.
"Aw, you're makin' that up," answered Mealy in embarrassment. But Piggy continued his teasing until Abe Carpenter said: "Say, Mealy, we want you to go to the cave with us to-morrow; can you?"
The "can you" was an imputation on his personal liberty that Mealy resented. He replied "Uh-huh! you just bet your bottom dollar I can." Piggy began teasing again, but Abe silenced him, and the boys sat in the dirt behind the barn, chattering about the new boy, whose name, according to the others, was "Bud" Perkins. Mealy entered the conversation with much masculine pomp—too much, in fact; for when he became particularly vain-glorious some one in the group was certain to glance at his shoes—and shoes in June in Boyville are insignia of the weaker sex, the badges of shame.
But Mealy did not feel his disgrace. He walked up the ash path to the kitchen with an excellent imitation of manly pride in his gait. He kicked at a passing cat, and shook his head bravely, talking to himself about the way he would have whipped the new boy if his father had not interrupted the fight.
As Mrs. Jones heard the boy's step on the porch, she said to his father, "Now, pa, that boy has been punished enough to-day. Don't you say a word to him." Harold walked by his father with averted face. At supper the boy did not look at his father, and when the dishes were put away, Mr. Jones, who sat in the kitchen smoking, heard his wife and the child in a front room, chatting cheerily. The lonesome father smoked his pipe and recalled his youth. The boy's voice brought back his own shrill treble, and he coughed nervously. After Mrs. Jones had put the lad to bed, and was in the pantry arranging for breakfast, the father knocked the ashes from his briar into the stove, and, humming an old tune, went to the boy's bedroom door. He paused awkwardly on the threshold. The boy turned his face toward the wall. The action cut the father to the quick. He walked to the bed and bent over the child, touching a father's rough-bearded face to the soft cheek. He found the soft hand—with a father's large hand—under the sheet, and he held the little hand tightly as he said:
"Well, Harold"—there he paused for a second. But he continued, "Do you think you'd a-licked that boy—if—if—I hadn't a-come?"
Then the two laughed, and a little throb of joyous pain tingled in their throats—such as only boys may feel.
A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
A LITTLE DREAM-BOY