_Sunday Night._
Last night the Trojan War reached a climax in the death of Horse-Taming
Hector, amid shouts of joy from Killis, and howls of fury from Nucky. I
have seen for two weeks that considerable feeling has developed between
the two on the subject, intensifying the natural jealousy each has of
the prowess and reputation of the other.
This morning I had left the boys at the big house to help with the
breakfast dishes--the regular Sunday proceeding--and was standing in the
back cottage door drinking in the beauty of the morning and the Sabbath
peace of the hills, when savage yells smote my ears. Following the
sound, I ran to the school-yard. When I arrived, Nucky had just buried
his teeth in Killis's arm, from which the blood was spurting, while
Killis was striking out fiercely with his knife. Around the combatants
the other boys formed a delighted, cheering circle, within which Philip
danced madly about, shouting,
Fight, dogs, you haint no kin,
'F you kill one another, taint no sin!
In another second, Nucky had abandoned the hold with his teeth, and was
flashing his own knife around Killis's throat. With a shinny-stick, I
knocked up one knife after the other, and kept death at bay until four
of the grown-up boys arrived and with difficulty separated the heroes
and escorted them to the hospital to have their wounds staunched and
dressed. Later, I heard that Nucky had begun it by leaping upon Killis
with the words, "I'll show you Hector haint dead yet!"
[Illustration: "'Fight, dogs, you haint no kin, 'F you kill one another,
taint no sin!'"]
To-night when I had the two in durance vile, and talked to them more
severely than I had yet done on the evils of fighting, Nucky, the
aggressor, gave as his excuse that his great-great-great-grandpaw had
fit the British, his great-great-grandpaw the Indians, his
great-grandpaw the Mexicans, his grandpaw the Rebels, and his paw and
Blant the Cheevers ever since he could recollect, and that he himself
was just bound to fight.
This was sound reasoning; and it brought before me with hitherto
unrealized force the fact that these boys are in very truth the sons of
heroes,--of forefathers who fought gloriously for freedom in the
Revolution, afterward subdued the wilderness and the savages, and have
since poured forth as one man from their fastnesses to safeguard the
Union in every emergency; and that here, forgotten and neglected by an
ungrateful state and nation, is the precious stuff of which great
patriots and heroes are made.
Therefore I did not upbraid Nucky and Killis further; I merely explained
to them the difference between fighting just to be fighting, and
fighting to save one's country, and, since they had no idea who the
"British," the "Mexicans" and the "Rebels" were, told them something of
the history and causes of those wars, and how I hoped that they, too,
when necessary, would fight for their nation. And though to them at
first their country meant their mountains only, and they were surprised
to hear that the great "level land" beyond was also theirs to love and
fight for, their affections were hospitable, and with one voice they
demanded that an enemy of the nation be produced at once.
Here endeth the Trojan War,--I see that it has fanned a flame already
too intense. Even little Jason slipped out under the benches at church
this morning, while I played the organ, and was found an hour later out
in the road in front of the court-house, covered with mud, but glowing
with the white-hot joy of having "whupped-out four-at-a-time" of the
little village boys. Hereafter I shall tell and read stories of heroes
who won glory by fighting, not one another, but dragons, giants,
gorgons, and like destroyers of their countries.
Nucky inquired of me at supper to-night when he might make a visit home
to Trigger; whereupon there was an instant and unanimous offer on the
part of the boys to accompany him, when he goes, and see the hero Blant.
He shook his head. "I haint aiming to take none of you," he said, "not
if she'll go 'long with me," looking at me.
"I?" I said, much complimented. "Why, surely I will if I can. But it is
three weeks yet before your time comes:"--the children are permitted to
go home over week-ends every seven or eight weeks, in rotation. I am
glad he wants me, and feel a considerable desire to visit Trigger.