"If you tell anybody, I'll lick you."

"Guess I ain't afraid."

"Guess you'd be afraid to go home after you'd
been licked."

"Guess my mamma would give it to you."

"Run home and tell mamma you'd been whopped,
would you, then?"

Little Arnold, beautiful baby boy, straightened
himself with a quick remembrance that he was
born a man. "You know I wouldn't tell, Johnny
Trumbull."

"Guess you wouldn't. Well, here it is --" Johnny
spoke in emphatic whispers, Arnold's curly head close
to his mouth: "There are a good many things in
this town have got to be set right," said Johnny.

Little Arnold stared at him. Then fire shone in
his lovely blue eyes under the golden shadow of his
curls, a fire which had shone in the eyes of some
ancestors of his, for there was good fighting blood
in the Carruth family, as well as in the Trumbull,
although this small descendant did go about curled
and kissed and barelegged.