highway outside his grounds this outrageous anathema:

"You're no more than a thief, Wes Boone; your father stole all he's got.
Some day I'll make him give it back, or send him to jail, where he ought
to be now."

Schoolboy though the railer was, Boone staggered against the hedge, the
words brought a dreadful flush and then a livid pallor to the miserable
parent's cheek. He dared not trust himself to speak then. Nor was the
antipathy the outbreak caused mitigated by the savage thrashing that
Wesley, throwing aside his dignity, proceeded to administer to the
unbridled accuser. After that, by the father's sternest command, neither
of his children was to return the courteous salutation the Perley ladies
had never ceased to bestow in meeting the Boones walking or in company.
Now, Dick was the kind of boy that those who know boy nature would call
adorable. To the Philistine, without humor or sympathy, I'm afraid he
was a very bad boy. He was until late in his teens painfully shy with
grown people and strangers; even under the eyes of his aunts and with
youths of his own age, diffident to awkwardness. He had the face of a
well-fed cherub and the gentle, dreamy, and wistful eye of a girl in
love. With his elders he had the halting, confused speech of a new boy
in a big school. But in the woods or on the playground he was the
merriest, most daring, and winningly obstreperous lad that ever filled
three maiden aunts with terror and delight.




CHAPTER V.