His discovery irritated him the more. Next thing, this ole Teacher's Pet
would do she'd get to thinkin' she was pretty! If _that_ happened, well,
nobody _could_ stand her! The long lashes made her eyes shadowy, and it
was a fact that her shoulder blades ceased to insist upon notoriety; you
couldn't tell where they were at all, any more. Her back seemed to be
just a regular back, not made up of a lot of implements like shoulder
blades and things.
A contemptible thing happened. Wesley Bender was well known to be the
most untidy boy in the class and had never shown any remorse for his
reputation or made the slightest effort either to improve or to dispute
it. He was content: it failed to lower his standing with his fellows
or to impress them unfavourably. In fact, he was treated as one who has
attained a slight distinction. At least, he owned one superlative, no
matter what its quality, and it lifted him out of the commonplace. It
helped him to become better known, and boys liked to be seen with him.
But one day, there was a rearrangement of the seating in the schoolroom:
Wesley Bender was given a desk next in front of Dora Yocum's; and within
a week the whole room knew that Wesley had begun voluntarily to wash his
neck--the back of it, anyhow.
This was at the bottom of the fight between Ramsey Milholland and Wesley
Bender, and the diplomatic exchanges immediately preceding hostilities
were charmingly frank and unhyprocitical, although quite as mixed-up
and off-the-issue as if they had been prepared by professional foreign
office men. Ramsey and Fred Mitchell and four other boys waylaid young
Bender on the street after school, intending jocosities rather than
violence, but the victim proved sensitive. “You take your ole hands off
o' me!” he said fiercely, as they began to push him about among them.
“Ole dirty Wes!” they hoarsely bellowed and squawked, in their changing
voices. “Washes his ears!”... “Washes his _neck!_”... “Dora Yocum told
his mama to turn the hose on him!”... “Yay-ho! Ole dirty Wes tryin to be
a duke!”
Wesley broke from them and backed away, swinging his strapped books in
a dangerous circle. “You keep off!” he warned them. “I got as much right
to my pers'nal appearance as anybody!”
This richly fed their humour, and they rioted round him, keeping outside
the swinging books at the end of the strap. “Pers'nal appearance!”...
“Who went and bought it for you, Wes?”... “Nobody bought it for him.
Dora Yocum took and give him one!”
“You leave ladies' names alone!” cried the chivalrous Wesley. “You ought
to know better, on the public street, you--pups!”
Here was a serious affront, at least to Ramsey Milholland's way
of thinking; for Ramsey, also, now proved sensitive. He quoted his
friends--“Shut up!”--and advanced toward Wesley. “You look here! Who you
callin' 'pups'?”
“Everybody!” Wesley hotly returned. “Everybody that hasn't got any
more decency than to go around mentioning ladies' names on the public
streets. Everybody that goes around mentioning ladies' names on the
public streets are pups!”
“They are, are they?” Ramsey as hotly demanded. “Well, you just look
here a minute; my own father mentions my mother's name on the public
streets whenever he wants to, and you just try callin' my father a pup,
and you won't know what happened to you!”
“What'll _you_ do about it?”
“I'll put a new head on you,” said Ramsey. “That's what I'll do, because
anybody that calls my father or mother a pup--”
“Oh, shut up! I wasn't talking about your ole father and mother. I said
everybody that mentioned Dora Yocum's name on the public streets was
a pup, and I mean it! Everybody that mentions Dora Yocum's name on the
pub--”
“Dora Yocum!” said Ramsey. “I got a perfect right to say it anywhere I
want to. Dora Yocum, Dora Yocum, Dora Yocum!--”
“All right, then you're a pup!”
Ramsey charged upon him and received a suffocating blow full in the
face, not from Mr. Bender's fist but from the solid bundle of books
at the end of the strap. Ramsey saw eight or ten objectives instantly:
there were Wesley Benders standing full length in the air on top of
other Wesley Benders, and more Wesley Benders zigzagged out sideways
from still other Wesley Benders; nevertheless, he found one of these and
it proved to be flesh. He engaged it wildly at fisticuffs; pounded
it upon the countenance and drove it away. Then he sat down upon the
curbstone, and, with his dizzy eyes shut, leaned forward for the better
accommodation of his ensanguined nose.
Wesley had retreated to the other side of the street holding a grimy
handkerchief to the midmost parts of his pallid face. “There, you ole
damn pup!” he shouted, in a voice which threatened to sob. “I guess
_that'll_ teach you to be careful how you mention Dora Yocum's name on
the public streets!”
At this, Ramsey made a motion as if to rise and pursue, whereupon Wesley
fled, wailing back over his shoulder as he ran, “You wait till I ketch
you out alone on the public streets and I'll--”
His voice was lost in an outburst of hooting from his former friends,
who sympathetically surrounded the wounded Ramsey. But in a measure,
at least, the chivalrous fugitive had won his point. He was routed and
outdone, yet what survived the day was a rumour, which became a sort of
tenuous legend among those interested. There had been a fight over Dora
Yocum, it appeared, and Ramsey Milholland had attempted to maintain
something derogatory to the lady, while Wesley defended her as a
knightly youth should. The something derogatory was left vague; nobody
attempted to say just what it was, and the effects of the legend divided
the schoolroom strictly according to gender.
The boys, unmindful of proper gallantry, supported Ramsey on account of
the way he had persisted in lickin' the stuffin' out of Wesley Bender
after receiving that preliminary wallop from Wesley's blackjack
bundle of books. The girls petted and championed Wesley; they talked
outrageously of his conqueror, fiercely declaring that he ought to be
arrested; and for weeks they maintained a new manner toward him. They
kept their facial expressions hostile, but perhaps this was more for one
another's benefit than for Ramsey's; and several of them went so far out
of their way to find even private opportunities for reproving him that
an alert observer might have suspected them to have been less indignant
than they seemed--but not Ramsey. He thought they all hated him, and
said he was glad of it.
Dora was a non-partisan. The little prig was so diligent at her books
she gave never the slightest sign of comprehending that there had been
a fight about her. Having no real cognizance of Messrs. Bender and
Milholland except as impediments to the advance of learning, she did not
even look demure.