Chapter 11: The Fight

The child life of the neighborhood was sometimes moved in its deeps at the sight of wagon-loads of furniture arriving in front of some house which, with closed blinds and barred doors, had been for a time a mystery, or even a fear. The boys often expressed this fear by stamping bravely and noisily on the porch of the house, and then suddenly darting away with screams of nervous laughter, as if they expected to be pursued by something uncanny. There was a group who held that the cellar of a vacant house was certainly the abode of robbers, smugglers, assassins, mysterious masked men in council about the dim rays of a candle, and possessing skulls, emblematic bloody daggers, and owls. Then, near the first of April, would come along a wagon-load of furniture, and children would assemble on the walk by the gate and make serious examination of everything that passed into the house, and taking no thought whatever of masked men.

One day it was announced in the neighborhood that a family was actually moving into the Hannigan house, next door to Dr. Trescott’s. Jimmie was one of the first to be informed, and by the time some of his friends came dashing up he was versed in much.

“Any boys?” they demanded, eagerly.

“Yes,” answered Jimmie, proudly. “One’s a little feller, and one’s most as big as me. I saw ‘em, I did.”

“Where are they?” asked Willie Dalzel, as if under the circumstances he could not take Jimmie’s word, but must have the evidence of his senses.

“Oh, they’re in there,” said Jimmie, carelessly. It was evident he owned these new boys.

Willie Dalzel resented Jimmie’s proprietary way.

“Ho!” he cried, scornfully. “Why don’t they come out, then? Why don’t they come out?”

“How d’ I know?” said Jimmie.

“Well,” retorted Willie Dalzel, “you seemed to know so thundering much about ‘em.”

At the moment a boy came strolling down the gravel walk which led from the front door to the gate. He was about the height and age of Jimmie Trescott, but he was thick through the chest and had fat legs. His face was round and rosy and plump, but his hair was curly black, and his brows were naturally darkling, so that he resembled both a pudding and a young bull.

He approached slowly the group of older inhabitants, and they had grown profoundly silent. They looked him over; he looked them over. They might have been savages observing the first white man, or white men observing the first savage. The silence held steady.

As he neared the gate the strange boy wandered off to the left in a definite way, which proved his instinct to make a circular voyage when in doubt. The motionless group stared at him. In time this unsmiling scrutiny worked upon him somewhat, and he leaned against the fence and fastidiously examined one shoe.

In the end Willie Dalzel authoritatively broke the stillness. “What’s your name?” said he, gruffly.

“Johnnie Hedge ‘tis,” answered the new boy. Then came another great silence while Whilomville pondered this intelligence.

Again came the voice of authority—”Where’d you live b’fore?”

“Jersey City.”

These two sentences completed the first section of the formal code. The second section concerned itself with the establishment of the new-comer’s exact position in the neighborhood.

“I kin lick you,” announced Willie Dalzel, and awaited the answer.

The Hedge boy had stared at Willie Dalzel, but he stared at him again. After a pause he said, “I know you kin.”

“Well,” demanded Willie, “kin he lick you?” And he indicated Jimmie Trescott with a sweep which announced plainly that Jimmie was the next in prowess.

Whereupon the new boy looked at Jimmie respectfully but carefully, and at length said, “I dun’no’.”

This was the signal for an outburst of shrill screaming, and everybody pushed Jimmie forward. He knew what he had to say, and, as befitted the occasion, he said it fiercely: “Kin you lick me?”

The new boy also understood what he had to say, and, despite his unhappy and lonely state, he said it bravely: “Yes.”

“Well,” retorted Jimmie, bluntly, “come out and do it, then! Jest come out and do it!” And these words were greeted with cheers. These little rascals yelled that there should be a fight at once. They were in bliss over the prospect. “Go on, Jim! Make ‘im come out. He said he could lick you. Aw-aw-aw! He said he could lick you!” There probably never was a fight among this class in Whilomville which was not the result of the goading and guying of two proud lads by a populace of urchins who simply wished to see a show.

Willie Dalzel was very busy. He turned first to the one and then to the other. “You said you could lick him. Well, why don’t you come out and do it, then? You said you could lick him, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” answered the new boy, dogged and dubious.

Willie tried to drag Jimmie by the arm. “Aw, go on, Jimmie! You ain’t afraid, are you?”

“No,” said Jimmie.

The two victims opened wide eyes at each other. The fence separated them, and so it was impossible for them to immediately engage; but they seemed to understand that they were ultimately to be sacrificed to the ferocious aspirations of the other boys, and each scanned the other to learn something of his spirit. They were not angry at all. They were merely two little gladiators who were being clamorously told to hurt each other. Each displayed hesitation and doubt without displaying fear. They did not exactly understand what were their feelings, and they moodily kicked the ground and made low and sullen answers to Willie Dalzel, who worked like a circus-manager.