little boy with long curls might be considered in many respects
superior to their own. He fought them, learning how to go berserk at
a certain point in a fight, bursting into tears of anger, reaching for
rocks, uttering wailed threats of murder and attempting to fulfil
them. Fights often led to intimacies, and he acquired the art of
saying things more exciting than "Don't haf to!" and "Doctor says it
ain't healthy!" Thus, on a summer afternoon, a strange boy, sitting
bored upon the gate-post of the Reverend Malloch Smith, beheld George
Amberson Minafer rapidly approaching on his white pony, and was
impelled by bitterness to shout: "Shoot the ole jackass! Look at the
girly curls! Say, bub, where'd you steal your mother's ole sash!"

"Your sister stole it for me!" Georgie instantly replied, checking
the pony. "She stole it off our clo'es-line an' gave it to me."

"You go get your hair cut!" said the stranger hotly. "Yah! I haven't
got any sister!"

"I know you haven't at home," Georgie responded. "I mean the one
that's in jail."

"I dare you to get down off that pony!"

Georgie jumped to the ground, and the other boy descended from the
Reverend Mr. Smith's gatepost--but he descended inside the gate. "I
dare you outside that gate," said Georgie.

"Yah! I dare you half way here. I dare you--"

But these were luckless challenges, for Georgie immediately vaulted