The Major Part 5

Head down, jump in--head down, jump in. Why you run so queek on dat Mop feller? Why you not make him run after you?"

"He's right, Larry," said Ben. "Use your feet; make him come after you.

You will sure get his wind."

But Larry stood recovering his breath, glowering meanwhile at his enemy across the ring. He neither heeded nor heard the entreaties of his friends. In his ears one phrase only rang with insistent reiteration.

"He's a coward, an' his mother's a coward before him." Only one obsession possessed him, he must keep hard at his enemy.

"Time!" The second round was on. Like a tiger upon his prey, Larry was upon his foe, driving fast and furious blows upon his head and face. But this time Mop was ready for him, and bearing in, head down, he took on his left guard the driving blows with no apparent injury, and sent back some half a dozen heavy swings that broke down Larry's guard, drove him across the ring and finally brought him gasping to his knees.

"Stay where you are," yelled Ben. "Take your count, Larry, and keep away from him. Do you hear me? Keep away, always away."

At the ninth count Larry sprang to his feet, easily eluded Mop's swinging blow, and slipping lightly around the ring, escaped further attack until he had picked up his wind.

"That's the game," yelled Ben. "Keep it up, old boy, keep it up."

"C'est bon stuff, Larree," yelled Joe, dancing wildly in Ben's corner.

"C'est bon stuff, Larree, for sure."

But once more master of his wind, Larry renewed his battering a.s.sault upon Mop's head, inflicting some damage indeed, but receiving heavy punishment in return. The close of the round found him exhausted and bleeding. In spite of the adjurations and entreaties of his friends, Larry pursued the same tactics in the third round, which ended even more disastrously than the second. His condition was serious enough to bring Mack Morrison to his side.

"What's up with you, Larry?" said Mack. "Where's your science gone? Why don't you play the game as you know it?"

"Mack, Mack," panted Larry. "It ain't a game. I'm--I'm fighting, and, Mack, I'm not afraid of him."

Mack whistled. "Who said you are afraid of him, youngster?"

"He did, Mack, he called me a coward--you remember, Ben, up in the cedar bush that day we played hookey--you remember, Ben?" Ben nodded. "He called me a coward and"--grinding the words between his teeth--"he called my mother a coward. But I am not afraid of him, Mack--he can't make me afraid; he can't make me run away." What with his rage and his secret fear, the boy had quite lost control of himself.

"So that's it," said Mack, reading both rage and fear in his eyes.

"Listen to me, Larry," he continued in a voice low and stern. "You quit this monkey work right now or, by the jumping Jehoshaphat, I will lick the tar out of you myself when this is over. You're not afraid of him; I know that--we all know that. But you don't want to kill him, eh? No.

What you want is to make him look like a fool. Well, then, fight, if you want to fight, but remember your rules. Play with him, make him follow you round until you get his wind; there's your chance. Then get him hard and get away."

But the boy spoke no word in reply. He was staring gloomily, desperately, before him into s.p.a.ce.

Mack seized him, and shaking him impatiently, said, "Larry boy, listen to me. Don't you care for anybody but yourself? Don't you care for me at all?"

At that Larry appeared to wake up as from a sleep.

"What did you say, Mack?" he answered. "Of course I care, you know that, Mack."

"Then," said Mack, "for G.o.d's sake, get a smile on your face. Smile, confound you, smile."

The boy pa.s.sed his gloved hand over his face, looked for a moment into Mack's eyes, and the old smile came back to his lips.

"Now you're all right," cried Mack in triumph. "Remember your father's rule, 'Keep your head with your heels.'" And Larry did remember! For on the call of "Time" he slipped from Ben's knees and began to circle lightly about Mop, smiling upon him and waiting his chance. His chance soon came, for Mop, thinking that his enemy had had about enough and was ready to quit, adopted aggressive tactics, and, feinting with his right, swung heavily with his left at the smiling face. But the face proved elusive, and upon Mop's undefended head a series of blows dealt with savage fury took all the heart out of him. So he cried to the referee as he ducked into his corner:

"He's fightin'. He's fightin'. I'm not fightin'."

"You'd better get busy then," called Ben derisively from his corner.

"Now, Larry, sail into him," and Larry sailed in with such vehemence that Mop fairly turned tail and ran around the ring, Larry pursuing him amid the delighted shouts of the spectators.

This ended the contest, the judges giving the decision to Mop, who, though obviously beaten at the finish, had showed a distinct superiority on points. As for Larry, the decision grieved him not at all. He carried home a face slightly disfigured but triumphant, his sole comment to his mother upon the contest being, "I was not afraid of him anyway, mother; he could not make me run."

"I am not so sure of this boxing, Lawrence," she said, but the boy caught the glint in her eyes and was well enough content.

In the late evening Ben, with Larry and Joe following him, took occasion to look in upon Mop at the butcher shop.

"Say, Mop," said Ben pleasantly, "what do you think of Larry now? Would you say he was a coward?"

"What do you mean?" asked Mop, suspecting trouble.

"Just what I say," said Ben, while Larry moved up within range, his face white, his eyes gleaming.

"I ain't saying nothing about n.o.body," replied Mop sullenly, with the tail of his eye upon Larry's white face and gleaming eyes.

"You say him one tam--in de cedar swamp," said Joe.

"Would you say Larry was a coward?" repeated Ben.

"No, I wouldn't say nothing of the sort," replied Mop promptly.

"Do you think he is a coward?" persisted Ben.

"No," said Mop, "I know he ain't no coward. He don't fight like no coward."

This appeared to satisfy Ben, but Larry, moving slightly nearer, took up the word for himself.

"And would you say my mother was a coward?" he asked in a tense voice, his body gathered as if for a spring.

"Larry, I wouldn't say nothing about your mother," replied Mop earnestly. "I think your mother's a bully good woman. She was awfully good to my mother last winter, I know."

The spring went out of Larry's body. He backed away from Mop and the boys.

"Who said your mother was a coward?" inquired Mop indignantly. "If anybody says so, you bring him to me, and I'll punch his head good, I will."

Larry looked foolishly at Ben, who looked foolishly back at him.

"Say, Mop," said Larry, a smile like a warm light pa.s.sing over his face, "come on up and see my new rabbits."

CHAPTER IV

SALVAGE

Another and greater enterprise was diverting Mr. Gwynne's attention from the delinquencies of his debtors, namely: the entrance of the National Machine Company into the remote and placid life of Mapleton and its district. The manager of this company, having spent an afternoon with Mr. Gwynne in his store and having been impressed by his charm and power of persuasive talk, made him a proposition that he should act as agent of the National Machine Company. The arrangement suggested was one that appealed to Mr. Gwynne's highly optimistic temperament. He was not to work for a mere salary, but was to purchase outright the various productions of the National Machine Company and receive a commission upon all his sales. The figures placed before Mr. Gwynne by the manager of the company were sufficiently impressive, indeed so impressive that Mr. Gwynne at once accepted the proposition, and the Mapleton branch of the National Machine Company became an established fact.

There was no longer any question as to the education of his family. In another year when his boy had pa.s.sed his entrance examinations he would be able to send him to the high school in the neighbouring town of Easton, properly equipped and relieved of those handicaps with which poverty can so easily wash all the colour out of young life. A brilliant picture the father drew before the eyes of his wife of the educational career of their boy, who had already given promise of exceptional ability. But while she listened, charmed, delighted and filled with proud antic.i.p.ation, the mother with none the less painful care saved her garden and poultry money, cut to bare necessity her household expenses, skimped herself and her children in the matter of dress, and by every device which she had learned in the bitter school of experience during the ten years of her Canadian life, made such preparation for the expenses of her boy's education as would render it unnecessary to call upon the wealth realised from the National Machine Company's business.