remarkable ugliness, squint-eyed and snub-nosed, with tufts of yellow
hair always falling over his face and several teeth missing. His clothes
were in rags and he never wore shoes. He boasted of never washing unless
"the old one" stood over him with a stick, and his language was worse
than both his manners and his looks. An unbroken stream of profanity
and obscenity poured from his rarely silent mouth, and he heaped
withering scorn on any attempt at decent speech.

Keith had now and then picked up questionable words while playing in the
lane where he lived. Johan sported some of them in moments of furious
rebellion against his mother's "holiness," as he called it. Once or
twice Keith had repeated such words at home and suffered for it. Soon he
learned to know the type at first hearing, and he disliked this part of
the vocabulary even when he could use it without danger to himself. He
developed a greater daintiness in words than in anything else, but this
summer formed an exception. The force of suggestion brought to bear on
him was too overwhelming, and he strove boldly to vie with the rest in
foulness of tongue and thought. As soon as he was back in the city, this
habit dropped off him as the soap lather is washed off a bather when he
dives into the clear waters of a lake. But the game he had learned to
play back of the big rock could not be unlearned in the same way.

This game was in itself a revelation to Keith. He was not shocked or
startled, because he had no standards in the matter, but at first he
experienced a distinct revulsion. This wore off quickly, however, and
soon he accepted what he saw as a natural thing. The boy whose face
stuck in Keith's mind with such strange persistency set the pace, and
everybody seemed to hold him a hero on that account. Even the other city
boys surrendered after a brief resistance and tried humbly to emulate
the acknowledged leader.