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In: Children & Young Adult Reading·Adventure·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #59853.
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THE PEACEMAKER.
"A fight! A fight! Form a ring!" A dozen or more excited boys shouted these words, and, rushing forward, hastily formed a ring around two playmates who stood in the middle of the road, their hats off, eyes glaring, fists clenched, while they panted with anger, and were on the point of flying at one another with the fury of young wildcats.
They had been striking, kicking and biting a minute before over some trifling dispute, and they had now stopped to take breath and gather strength before attacking each other again with a fierceness which had become all the greater from the brief rest.
"Give it to him, Sam! Black his eyes for him! Hit him under the ear! Bloody his nose!"
Thus shouted the partisans of Sammy McClay, who had thrown down his school books, and pitched into his opponent, as though he meant to leave nothing of him.
The friends of Joe Hunt were just as loud and urgent.
"Sail in, Joe! You can whip him before he knows it! Kick him! Don't be a coward! You've got him!"
A party of boys and girls were on their way home from the Tottenville public school, laughing, romping and frolicking with each other, when, all at once, like a couple of bantam chickens, these two youngsters began fighting.
The girls looked on in a horrified way, whispering to each other, and declaring that they meant to tell Mr. McCurtis, the teacher, including also the respective mothers of the young pugilists.
The other boys, as is nearly always the case, did their utmost to urge on the fight, and, closing about Sam and Joe, taunted them in loud voices, and appealed to them to resume hostilities at once.
The fighters seemed to be equally matched, and, as they panted and glared, each waited for the other to renew the struggle by striking the first blow.
"You just hit me if you dare! that's all I want!" exclaimed Sammy McClay, shaking his head so vigorously that he almost bumped his nose against that of Joe Hunt, who was just as ferocious, as he called back:
"You touch me, Sam McClay, just touch me! I dare you! double, double dare you."
Matters were fast coming to the exploding point, but not fast enough to suit the audience. Jimmy Emery picked up a chip, and running forward, balanced it in a delicate position on the shoulder of Sam McClay, and, addressing his opponent said: "Knock that off, Joe!"
"Yes, knock it off!" shouted Sam, "I dare you to knock it off!"
"Who's afraid?" demanded Joe, looking at the chip, with an expression which showed he meant to flip it to the ground.
"Well, you just try it--that's all!"
Joe was in the very act of upsetting the bit of wood, when a boy about their own age, with a flapping straw hat, and with his trousers rolled far above his knees, ran in between the two, and used his arms with so much vigor that the contestants were thrown quite a distance apart.
"What's the matter with you fellows?" demanded this boy, glancing from one to the other. "What do you want to make fools of yourselves for?"
"He run against me," said Sammy McClay, "and knocked me over Jim Emery."
"Well, what of it?" asked the peacemaker. "Will it make you feel any better to get your head cracked? What's the matter of you, Joe Hunt?" he added, turning his glance without changing his position, toward the other pugilist.
"What did he punch me for, when I stubbed my toe and run agin him?" and Joe showed a disposition just then to move around his questioner, so as to get at the offender.
The other boys did not like this interference with their enjoyment, and called on the peacemaker to let them have it out; but he stood his ground, and shaking his right fist at Sammy McClay, and his left at Joe Hunt, he told them they must let each other alone, or he would whip them both.
This created some laughter, for the lad was no older than they, and hardly as tall as either; but there is a great deal in the manner of a man or boy. If his flashing eye, his stern voice, and look of determination show that he means what he says, or is in dead earnest, his opponent generally yields.
At the critical juncture, the girls added their voices in favor of peace, and their champion, stooping down, picked up the hats from the ground, and jammed them upon their owners' heads with a force that nearly threw them off their feet.
"That's enough! now come on!"
Sam and Joe walked along, rather sullenly at first. They glowered on each other, shook their heads, muttered and seemed on the point of renewing the contest more than once; but the passions of childhood are brief, and the storm soon blew over. Before the boys and girls had reached the cross-roads, Sam McClay and Joe Hunt were playing with each other like the best of friends, as indeed they were.
The name of the lad who had stopped the fight was Fred Sheldon, and he is the hero of this story.
He was twelve years of age, the picture of rosy health, good nature, bounding spirits and mental strength. He was bright and well advanced in his studies, and as is generally the case with such vigorous youngsters he was fond of fun, which too often, perhaps, passed the line of propriety and became mischief.
On the Monday morning after the fight, which Fred Sheldon interrupted, some ten or twelve boys stopped on their way to the Tottenville Public School to admire in open-mouthed wonder, the gorgeous pictures pasted on a huge framework of boards, put up for the sole purpose of making such a display.
These flaming posters were devoted to setting forth the unparalleled attractions of Bandman's great menagerie and circus, which was announced to appear in the well-known "Hart's Half-Acre," near the village of Tottenville.
These scenes, in which elephants, tigers, leopards, camels, sacred cows, and indeed an almost endless array of animals were shown on a scale that indicated they were as high as a meeting-house, in which the serpents, it unwound from the trees where they were crushing men and beasts to death, would have stretched across "Hart's Half-Acre" (which really contained several acres), those frightful encounters, in which a man, single-handed, was seen to be spreading death and destruction with a clubbed gun among the fierce denizens of the forest; all these had been displayed on the side of barns and covered bridges, at the cross-roads, and indeed in every possible available space for the past three weeks; and, as the date of the great show was the one succeeding that of which we are speaking, it can be understood that the little village of Tottenville and the surrounding country were in a state of excitement such as had not been known since the advent of the preceding circus.
Regularly every day the school children had stopped in front of the huge bill-board and studied and admired and talked over the great show, while those who expected to go in the afternoon or evening looked down in pity on their less fortunate playmates.
The interest seemed to intensify as the day approached, and, now that it was so close at hand, the little group found it hard to tear themselves away from the fascinating scenes before them.
Down in one corner of the board was the picture of a hyena desecrating a cemetery, as it is well known those animals are fond of doing. This bad creature, naturally enough, became very distasteful to the boys, who showed their ill-will in many ways.
Several almost ruined their new shoes by kicking him, while others had pelted him with stones, and still others, in face of the warning printed in big letters, had haggled him dreadfully with their jack-knives.
It was a warm summer morning and most of the boys not only were bare-footed, but had their trousers rolled above their knees, and, generally, were without coat or vest.
"To-morrow afternoon the show will be here," said Sammy McClay, smacking his lips and shaking his head as though he tasted a luscious morsel, "and I'm going."
"How are you going," asked Joe Hunt, sarcastically, "when your father said he wouldn't give you the money?"
"Never you mind," was the answer, with another significant shake of the head. "I'm goin'--that's all."
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