"Aw, my pa says he _can"t_----"
"I d"care; he kin."
"How d"you know?"
"Well"--Willie Trigger hesitated. "Well, my father says he guesses he kin beat a _nengine_!"
At that Jimmy Thurston burst into jeering laughter.
"He! he! he!" he cackled--"a _nengine_! He! He! Why, a nengine goes--a nengine goes _a mile in a minnit_!"
Willie Trigger had become very red; moreover he was choking, half with rage, half with confusion. He recognized the need of personal support.
So he blurted:--
"I know he kin, "cause I seen him--onct!"
"Aw, yeh didn"t neether," Jimmy Thurston flatly contradicted.
Willie wriggled and dug his heel into the soft earth.
"I _did_----"
"Didn"t _neether_!"
Willie Trigger sprang to his feet, his fists clenched. Tears were rising now.
With his eye Jimmy Thurston measured the distance across the field to the white house at the gate where he knew his mother was. Leaping forward he dashed suddenly away, and as he dodged the gurgling Willie, cried:
"_Li_-ar! _Li_-ar! _Li_-ar!"
It took Willie Trigger three seconds to perceive the situation and to act. Like a hound, then, he was off in the other"s wake.
The straining Jimmy, his heart bursting with regret, heard his pursuer panting at his heels.... Nearer! Nearer!
A scream suddenly rent the air, a scream that was carried on by a willing wind to the keen appreciative ears of motherhood. As Willie Trigger was about to close upon the plunging form of Jimmie, Mrs.
Thurston flung back the screen door and appeared upon the narrow back porch, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n.
"Jim-_mee_! _Jim_-mee Thurston!" she screamed.
"Maw!" yelled Jimmy dolorously.
At the maternal screech, Willie Trigger brought up standing. One instant he hesitated and then, showing his heels to the woman on the porch whose arms were outstretched to receive her own, he scurried off in the direction of the judges" stand, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He heard the warning cry from the back porch:--
"Willie Trigger, if you hurt Jimmy, I"ll skin you alive!"
And at the corner of the judges" stand he ran full into the long, lank creature in the flapping "shorts"--and brought up, gaping.
"Well, well, who was after _you_?" asked the towering runner, gazing down at the little grimy boy whose head seemed to come somewhere about his high-set knees.
"n.o.body," Willie Trigger mumbled.
"Who was that calling?"
"I dunno." Willie looked up and the runner smiled down at him.
"Where do you live?" he asked.
"On Thayer Street."
"Way down there, eh? What you doing up here, then?"
Willie Trigger again looked up into the gaunt creature"s long, thin face, then down at the ground into which he proceeded to bore with the stubbed toe of one small shoe.
"Come to see you run," he mumbled, and grinned sheepishly.
Bunny laughed drily.
"Well, I"ll"--he began and stopped. Then he said:--"You wait here, little chap; I"ll just get into some clothes and we"ll go home together; it"s nearly noon. I live down your way----"
The gentleness of his voice gave Willie Trigger a new courage.
"I know it," he exclaimed proudly; "I live "cross the street."
The runner plunged into the box-like compartment of the disused judges"
stand from which he issued in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time more properly and far more becomingly clad.
"How did you know I was going to practice out here?" he inquired with a show of interest. He made no effort to look down--for it would have meant an effort.
"I follered yeh," was the now prompt reply.
And into Bunny"s man-heart that instant there welled a certain pride, but it was nowise to be compared to that which swelled the boy-heart of Willie Trigger, hero-worshipper.
And so, down Washtenaw Avenue they walked together, through College Street and on into the campus and across; Willie Trigger the while attempting vainly to keep step with his ill-matched companion.
At a corner they separated.
"You"re going out to Field Day on Sat.u.r.day, aren"t you?" Bunny asked.
Willie Trigger grinned, and nodded.
"Don"t buy a ticket," the giant said, "I"ll give you one; you remind me; will you?"
The small but agile heart of Willie Trigger leaped into his throat. All he could say was "Whoop!" And saying that he ran, in the very excess, the richness and the wealth, of the joy that was his. A ticket! A ticket whereby he might enter through the gate with the crowd--a part of it--a proud part of it! And all this to be granted him by Bunny himself--Bunny who was to run in the hundred yards for the Western Intercollegiate championship; he, William Watts Trigger whose father was a mere night watchman, and who for a week had been examining the fair ground fence for vulnerable points! Willie Trigger found himself, of a sudden, voiceless, too full, by far, for utterance.
Surely, one day--some day--there would come an opportunity of repaying in kind the beneficence of Bunny, Willie Trigger considered. But the beneficence was very great. Little did he realize that soon, and by the very beneficence itself was he to be put in the way of paying back his benefactor by casting light upon an unforeseen occurrence of great import, that but for him, must forever remain obscure.
As it was, Bunny had made a friend, a champion, though he knew it not.