Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/130

 an aching tenderness. Another passion was of disappointment at seeing something of a peculiar deliciousness, which he had been about to eat, spoiled. There were other passions in the mixture. And the least of these was the wish to do murder then and there upon the person of young Jepson.

As a preliminary Edward stepped suddenly forward and violently scrubbed the Jepson boy's face with the bread and the butter and the jam and the sand and the ants.

Blows must then and there have been struck had not big boys intervened. A dozen of them, scenting a difference of opinion, had swiftly gathered like so many buzzards from different parts of the playground, and these now took charge of the affair. Two appointed themselves Edward's seconds and two took charge of Jepson. Then the principals were taken at a sharp run—for recess was short and there was no time to be lost—to the hickory wood back of half-way house, and had their jackets stripped off, and were then thrown at each other with a brutal and joyous violence.

Americans believe that the average American is born with a knowledge of how to use his fists, and that in this he differs from foreigners as clearly as any man whose thumb meets up with his fore finger differs from a monkey whose thumb doesn't.