Ramsey Milholland | Page 7

and the teacher thought Lincoln
belonged to them and their crowd of exclusives; they seemed to think
they owned the whole United States; but Ramsey was sure they were
mistaken about Abraham Lincoln.
He felt that it was just like this little Yocum snippet to assume such a
thing, and it made him sicker than ever to look at her.
Then, one day, he noticed that her eye-winkers were stickin' out farther
and farther.
Chapter IV
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