upset it, she was the only girl who did not scream at the shock
of the sudden tumble into the water or rise in tears from the
shallow, muddy bottom.

She tried going barefooted; she was always getting bruised or cut
in attempts--usually successful-- at boys' recklessness; yet her
voice was sweet and her manner toward others, gentle. She hid
her face when Miss Stone whipped any one-- more fearful far than
the rise and fall of Miss Stone's ferule was the soaring and
sinking of her broad, bristling eyebrows.

From the outset John Dumont took especial delight in teasing
her--John Dumont, the roughest boy in the school. He was seven
years older than she, but was only in the Fourth Reader--a
laggard in his studies because his mind was incurious about books
and the like, was absorbed in games, in playing soldier and
robber, in swimming and sledding, in orchard-looting and
fighting. He was impudent and domineering, a bully but not a
coward, good-natured when deferred to, the feared leader of a
boisterous, imitative clique. Until Pauline came he had rarely
noticed a girl--never except to play her some prank more or less
cruel.

After the adventure of the raft he watched Pauline afar off,
revolving plans for approaching her without impairing his
barbaric dignity, for subduing her without subduing himself to
her. But he knew only one way of making friends, the only kind
of friends he had or could conceive--loyal subjects, ruled
through their weaknesses and fears. And as that way was to give
the desired addition to his court a sound thrashing, he felt it