As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the belligerents replied: "No, there isn't no mistake either. My boy is a good little boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in this town. And because I don't allow him to fight, that Perkins boy picks on him all the time. I've told him to keep out of his way and not to play with Henry Perkins, but he can't be runnin' all over this town to keep——"
And then Exhibit B, with scratched face, tattered raiment, and grimy features, stood in the doorway. The witness for the State looked in dumb amazement at the wreck. Miss Morgan saw Bud, and her temper rose—not at him, but at his adversary. Exhibit A sulkily turned his face from Exhibit B, and Exhibit B seemed to be oblivious of the presence of Exhibit A; for the boys it was a scene too shameful for mutual recognition. Miss Morgan broke the heavy silence with: "Henry, where on earth have you been?"
"Been t' the circus," replied the boy.
"Henry, did you blacken that little boy's eyes, and tear his clothes that way?" inquired Miss Morgan when her wits returned.
"Why—no'm—I didn't. But he was one of four fellers that picked on me comin' home from the circus, and tried to lick me."
"Willie," demanded the head of the attacking posse, "did you pick a fight with that Perkins boy?"
"Oh, no 'm, no 'm! I was just playin' round the tent, me and another boy, and Bud he come up and jumped on us." And then to add verisimilitude to his narrative, he appended: "Him and four other boys."
"Henry," asked Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of Henry's Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer of them began to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this little boy telling the truth? Now, don't you story to me, Henry."
"Honest injun, Miss Morgan, I cross my heart and hope to drop dead this minute if I ain't tellin' you the way it was. Him and them North-enders, why they come along and called me names, and he tried to hit me, and I just shoved him away like this," and Henry executed a polite pantomime. "And I was swingin' my arms out to keep 'em all from hittin' me, and he got in the way, and I couldn't help it. And they was all a pickin' on me, and I told 'em all the time I didn't want to fight."
But Exhibit A kept looking at his mother and shaking his head in violent contradiction of Bud, as the story was told.