"Very quiet, but with a sort o' bulldog set to that chin o' his, just
like his pa, he closed his book an' laid it down beside him.

"'I'll be askin' you,' he said, drawlin' very marked and facin' the bully
o' the crowd that was at least two or three years older than he was--'I'll
be askin' you to say what you been sayin' all over again.'

"The bully did, with trimmin's, an' Willie listened without turnin' a hair
till he got all through.

"'Now,' he says, more quiet than ever--I can see him now, with his big
eyes blazin' black out o' his white face and his little hands that seemed
to me scarce more'n a baby's clenched tight at his side--'Now, I guess, I
got to lick you!'

"An' he did!"

"He beat him?" cried Mollie excitedly. "Oh, weren't you proud?"

"I guess I was!" answered the little old woman, her eyes snapping with the
memory. "That was the day my boy showed what was in him, an' after that
the other boys never called him any more names.

"But, o' course," she added, while the old cloud erased the glow from her
face, "that didn't keep the boys from wantin' to get even.

"Well, then came the awful day when Abner Conway's barn burned an' Abner
himself came over to accuse my Willie of havin' started the fire,
bringin' with him two or three o' the boys who had tried to call Willie