It was the next day that Randolph Anderson, on his way home at noon,
saw ahead of him, just as he turned the corner from Main to Elm
street, where his own house was, a knot of boys engaged in what he at
first thought was a fight or its preliminaries. There was a great
clamor, too. In the boughs of a maple in the near-by yard were two
robins wrangling; underneath were the boys. The air was full of the
sweet jangle of birds and boyish trebles, for all the boys were
young. Anderson, as he came up, glanced indifferently at the
turbulent group and saw one boy who seemed to be the centre of
contention. He was backed up against the fence, an ornate iron affair
backed by a thick hedge, the green leaves of which pricked through
the slender iron uprights. In front of this green, iron-grated wall,
which was higher than his head, for he was a little fellow, stood a
boy, who Anderson saw at a glance was the same one whom he had seen
with the Carrolls in church the day before. His hair was rather long
and a toss of dark curls. His face was as tenderly pretty as his
sister's, whom he strongly resembled, although he was somewhat fairer
of complexion. But it was full of the utmost bravado of rage and
defiance, and his two small hands were clinched, until the knuckles
whitened, in the faces of the little crowd who confronted him. The
color had not left his face, for his cheeks burned like roses, but
his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed. The boys
danced and made threatening feints at him. They called out confused
taunts and demands whose purport Anderson at first did not
comprehend, but the boy never swerved. When one of his tormentors
came nearer, out swung the little white fist at him, and the other
invariably dodged.