chanced to offer itself. He had imagined what might occur if he were
with Katie Welwood and they should be assailed by anything or anybody.
He had large ideas of what was a lover's duty, and was under the
impression, from what he had read, that a proper knight should go
always prepared for combat. So he had fashioned him a spear, a
formidable weapon contrived with great exactitude after the South Sea
island recipe. He had gone into the woods and selected a blue beech,
straight as could be found, and nearly an inch in thickness. From this
he had cut a length of perhaps ten feet, which, with infinite labor and
risk of jack-knife, he had whittled down to smoothness and to
whiteness. Upon one end he left as large a head as the sapling would
allow, and this, after shaving it into the fashion of a spear-blade, he
had plunged into the fire until it had begun to char. He had scraped
away the charring with a piece of broken glass, and, as a result of his
endeavors, had really a spear with a point of undoubted sharpness and
great hardness. He took huge pride in his new weapon, and carried it
to school with him for days and on his various woodland expeditions,
but there had come no chance to rescue any distressful maiden anywhere,
and the envy and admiration of the other boys had but resulted in
emulation and in the appearance of similar warlike gear among them.

He had tired of carrying the thing about, and had for some time left it
peacefully at home, leaning beside the hog-pen. Now all was different.
The time had come! He would have revenge, and have it in a gory way.
As the South Sea islanders treated their foes, his should be treated.
He would go upon the war-path, and as for Alf--well, he was sorry for
him in a general way, but all mercy was dead within his breast
specifically. He remembered something in the reader:

"'Die! spawn of our kindred! Die! traitor to Lara!'