fight?”
Leonard laughed. “Lord, no! Don’t you know Bayliss? I went in
there to pay a bill yesterday, and Susie Gray and another girl
came in to sell tickets for the firemen’s dinner. An advance man
for this circus was hanging around, and he began talking a little
smart,—nothing rough, but the way such fellows will. The girls
handed it back to him, and sold him three tickets and shut him
up. I couldn’t see how Susie thought so quick what to say. The
minute the girls went out Bayliss started knocking them; said all
the country girls were getting too fresh and knew more than they
ought to about managing sporty men and right there I reached out
and handed him one. I hit harder than I meant to. I meant to slap
him, not to give him a black eye. But you can’t always regulate
things, and I was hot all over. I waited for him to come back at
me. I’m bigger than he is, and I wanted to give him satisfaction.
Well, sir, he never moved a muscle! He stood there getting redder
and redder, and his eyes watered. I don’t say he cried, but his
eyes watered. ‘All right, Bayliss,’ said I. ‘Slow with your
fists, if that’s your principle; but slow with your tongue,
too,—especially when the parties mentioned aren’t present.’”
“Bayliss will never get over that,” was Claude’s only comment.
“He don’t have to!” Leonard threw up his head. “I’m a good
customer; he can like it or lump it, till the price of binding
twine goes down!”
For the next few minutes the driver was occupied with trying to
get up a long, rough hill on high gear. Sometimes he could
make that hill, and sometimes he couldn’t, and he was not able to
account for the difference. After he pulled the second lever with
some disgust and let the car amble on as she would, he noticed
that his companion was disconcerted.
“I’ll tell you what, Leonard,” Claude spoke in a strained voice,
“I think the fair thing for you to do is to get out here by the
road and give me a chance.”
Leonard swung his steering wheel savagely to pass a wagon on the
down side of the hill. “What the devil are you talking about,
boy?”
“You think you’ve got our measure all right, but you ought to
give me a chance first.”
Leonard looked down in amazement at his own big brown hands,
lying on the wheel. “You mortal fool kid, what would I be telling
you all this for, if I didn’t know you were another breed of
cats? I never thought you got on too well with Bayliss yourself.”
“I don’t, but I won’t have you thinking you can slap the men in
my family whenever you feel like it.” Claude knew that his
explanation sounded foolish, and his voice, in spite of all he
could do, was weak and angry.
Young Leonard Dawson saw he had hurt the boy’s feelings. “Lord,
Claude, I know you’re a fighter. Bayliss never was. I went to
school with him.”
