A crawler, a creeper, toddler, a stumbler and a sneaker
As the churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup began to sputter, dissolving into that which in his older sister's heart would have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took the form of convulsive sniffling. The boy could hear his sister clattering the breakfast dishes in the kitchen. The thing that ground upon his heart was the firm footfall of Mrs. Jones, a neighbor woman, who was overseeing the affairs of the household. Jimmy could not remember hearing that footstep except in times of what seemed to him to be the family's disgrace. He hated Mrs. Jones because she tried to cool his ire by describing the superior points of the particular new baby that had arrived each time she came upon her errands of neighborly mercy. Just as the yellow granules began to appear in the buttermilk pool on the churn-top, Jimmy heard a step on the gravel walk behind him. The step came nearer; when Jimmy lifted his eyes, they glared into the face of Harold Jones. Choler cooled into surprise, and surprise exploded into a vapid, grinning "Huh!" which was followed by another "Huh!" that gurgled out into a real laugh as Jimmy greeted the visitor. The Jones boy giggled, and Jimmy found his tongue and asked: "Did you ever churn?" When Harold admitted that he, too, was a slave of the churn, the freemasonry of Boyville was established. A moment later Mealy—Harold's title in the Court—was exemplifying the work. When Mrs. Jones came out of the house to take care of the butter, she saw her son and Jimmy lying on the grass. Half an hour later the boys in the barn heard Mrs. Jones's voice calling,—
"Harold, O Harold, don't you want to come and look at the baby?" Now James Sears in the twenty-four hours of his new sister's life had not let the fact of her existence form expression on his lips. Much less had he lowered his hostile flag to salute her; but he knew instinctively that Harold Jones was the sort of a boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby. When Mealy answered, "Yes'm," and trotted down the back-yard path to the kitchen, Jimmy Sears scorned him heartily enough to fancy Mealy in the act of holding the loathsome thing in his arms. Further contumely was beyond Jimmy's imagination.
When Mealy Jones came back, the barn wherein he had left Jimmy was empty; and only when Mealy had started homeward, and a clod came whizzing down the alley, hitting him under the ear, did Mealy know how Jimmy Sears resented an insult. Mealy looked around; no one was in sight.
