The Vision Splendid | Page 2

faces he found no sympathy. He had to stand up to the bully of the class, a boy who could have given him fifteen pounds. Looking around for help, he saw that none was at hand. The thin legs of the rescued Italian girl were flashing down the street. On the steps of the big house of P. C. Frome a six-year-old little one was standing with her nurse. Nobody else was in sight except his cousin, James, and the Apaches.
"You're goin' to get the maulin' of your life," Ned Merrill promised as he slipped out of his coat. "Webber'll lick you if he finds out you been fightin'," James Farnum prophesied cheerfully to his cousin. He intended to do his duty in the way of protest and then watch the fight.
Ned worked his wiry little foe to the fence and pummeled him. Jeff ducked and backed out of danger. Keeping to the defensive, he was being badly punished. Once he slipped in the mud and went down, but he was up again before his slower antagonist could close with him. Blood streamed from his nose. His lip was gashed. Under the buffeting he was getting his head began to sing.
"Punch him good, Ned," one of the champion's friends advised.
"You bet he is," another chortled.
Their jeers had an unexpected effect. Jeff's fears were blotted out by his desperate need. Some spark of the fighting edge, inherited from his father, was fanned to a flame in the heart of the bruised little warrior. Like a tiger cat he leaped for Ned's throat, twisted his slim legs round the sturdy ones of his enemy, and went down with him in a heap.
Jeff landed on the bottom, but like an eel he squirmed to the top before the other had time to get set. The champion's patrician head was thumped down into the mud and a knobby little fist played a painful tattoo on his mouth and cheek.
"Take him off! Take him off!" Merrill shrieked after he had tried in vain to roll away the incubus clamped like a vise to his body.
His henchmen ran forward to obey. An unexpected intervention stopped them. A one-armed little man who had drifted down the street in time to see part of the fracas pushed forward.
"I reckon not just yet. Goliath's had a turn. Now David gets his."
"Lemme up," sobbed Goliath furiously.
"Say you're whopped." Jeff's fist emphasized the suggestion.
"Doggone you!"
This kind of one-sided warfare did not suit Jeff. He made as if to get up, but his backer stopped him.
"Hold on, son. You're not through yet. When you do a job do it thorough." To the former champion he spoke. "Had plenty yet?"
"I--I'll have him skinned," came from the tearful champion with a burst of profanity.
"That ain't the point. Have you had enough so you'll be good? Or do you need some more?"
"I'm goin' to tell Webber."
"Needs just a leetle more, son," the one-armed man told Jeff, dragging at his goatee.
But young Farnum had made up his mind. With a little twist of his body he got to his feet.
Merrill rose, tearful and sullen. "I--I'll fix you for this," he gulped, and went sobbing toward the schoolhouse.
"Better duck," James whispered to his cousin.
Jeff shook his head.
The little man looked at the boy sharply. The eyes under his shaggy brows were like gimlets.
"Come up to the school with me. I'll see your teacher, son."
Jeff walked beside him. He knew by the sound of the voice that his rescuer was a Southerner and his heart warmed to him. He wanted greatly to ask a question. Presently it plumped out.
"Was it in the war, sir?"
"I reckon I don't catch your meaning."
"That you lost your arm?" The boy added quickly, "My father was a soldier under General Early."
The steel-gray eyes shot at him again. "I was under Early myself."
"My father was a captain--Captain Farnum," the young warrior announced proudly.
"Not Phil Farnum!"
"Yes, sir. Did you know him?" Jeff trembled with eagerness. His dead soldier-father was the idol of his heart.
"Did I?" He swung Jeff round and looked at him. "You're like him, in a way, and, by Gad! you fight like him. What's your name?"
"Jefferson Davis Farnum."
"Shake hands, Jefferson Davis Farnum, you dashed little rebel. My name is Lucius Chunn. I was a lieutenant in your father's company before I was promoted to one of my own."
Jeff forgot his troubles instantly. "I wish I'd been alive to go with father to the war," he cried.
Captain Chunn was delighted. "You doggoned little rebel!"
"I didn't know we used that word in the South' sir."
Chunn tugged at his goatee and laughed. "We're not in the South, David."
The former Confederate asked questions to piece out his patchwork information. He knew that Philip Farnum had come out of the war with a constitution weakened by the