第9章 THE COCK OF THE WALK(2)

He did not stop dust-kicking when he saw his aunt Janet coming, for, as he considered, her old black gown was not worth the sacrifice. It was true that she might see him. She sometimes did, if she were not reading a book as she walked. It had always been a habit with the Janet Trumbulls to read im-proving books when they walked abroad. To-day Johnny saw, with a quick glance of those sharp, black eyes, so unlike the Trumbulls', that his aunt Janet was reading. He therefore expected her to pass him without recognition, and marched on kick-ing up the dust. But suddenly, as he grew nearer the spry little figure, he was aware of a pair of gray eyes, before which waved protectingly a hand clad in a black silk glove with dangling finger-tips, be-cause it was too long, and it dawned swiftly upon him that Aunt Janet was trying to shield her face from the moving column of brown motes. He stopped kicking, but it was too late. Aunt Janet had him by the collar and was vigorously shaking him with nervous strength.

"You are a very naughty little boy," declared Aunt Janet. "You should know better than to walk along the street raising so much dust. No well-brought-up child ever does such things. Who are your parents, little boy?"Johnny perceived that Aunt Janet did not recog-nize him, which was easily explained. She wore her reading-spectacles and not her far-seeing ones;besides, her reading spectacles were obscured by dust and her nephew's face was nearly obliterated.

Also as she shook him his face was not much in evi-dence. Johnny disliked, naturally, to tell his aunt Janet that her own sister and brother-in-law were the parents of such a wicked little boy. He there-fore kept quiet and submitted to the shaking, mak-ing himself as limp as a rag. This, however, exas-perated Aunt Janet, who found herself encumbered by a dead weight of a little boy to be shaken, and suddenly Johnny Trumbull, the fighting champion of the town, the cock of the walk of the school, found himself being ignominiously spanked. That was too much. Johnny's fighting blood was up.

He lost all consideration for circumstances, he for-got that Aunt Janet was not a boy, that she was quite near being an old lady. She had overstepped the bounds of privilege of age and sex, and an alarming state of equality ensued. Quickly the tables were turned. The boy became far from limp. He stiff-ened, then bounded and rebounded like wire. He butted, he parried, he observed all his famous tac-tics of battle, and poor Aunt Janet sat down in the dust, black dress, bonnet, glasses (but the glasses were off and lost), little improving book, black silk gloves, and all; and Johnny, hopeless, awful, irrev-erent, sat upon his Aunt Janet's plunging knees, which seemed the most lively part of her. He kept his face twisted away from her, but it was not from cowardice. Johnny was afraid lest Aunt Janet should be too much overcome by the discovery of his identity. He felt that it was his duty to spare her that. So he sat still, triumphant but inwardly aghast.

It was fast dawning upon him that his aunt was not a little boy. He was not afraid of any punish-ment which might be meted out to him, but he was simply horrified. He himself had violated all the honorable conditions of warfare. He felt a little dizzy and ill, and he felt worse when he ventured a hurried glance at Aunt Janet's face. She was very pale through the dust, and her eyes were closed.

Johnny thought then that he had killed her.

He got up -- the nervous knees were no longer plunging; then he heard a voice, a little-girl voice, always shrill, but now high pitched to a squeak with terror. It was the voice of Lily Jennings. She stood near and yet aloof, a lovely little flower of a girl, all white-scalloped frills and ribbons, with a big white-frilled hat shading a pale little face and.

covering the top of a head decorated with wonder-ful yellow curls. She stood behind a big baby-car-riage with a pink-lined muslin canopy and con-taining a nest of pink and white, but an empty nest.

Lily's little brother's carriage had a spring broken, and she had been to borrow her aunt's baby-carriage, so that nurse could wheel little brother up and down the veranda. Nurse had a headache, and the maids were busy, and Lily, who was a kind little soul and, moreover, imaginative, and who liked the idea of pushing an empty baby-carriage, had volunteered to go for it. All the way she had been dreaming of what was not in the carriage. She had come directly out of a dream of doll twins when she chanced upon the tragedy in the road.

"What have you been doing now, Johnny Trum-bull?" said she. She was tremulous, white with horror, but she stood her ground. It was curious, but Johnny Trumbull, with all his bravery, was always cowed before Lily. Once she had turned and stared at him when he had emerged triumphant but with bleeding nose from a fight; then she had sniffed delicately and gone her way. It had only taken a second, but in that second the victor had met moral defeat.

He looked now at her pale, really scared face, and his own was as pale. He stood and kicked the dust until the swirling column of it reached his head.

"That's right," said Lily; "stand and kick up dust all over me. WHAT have you been doing?"Johnny was trembling so he could hardly stand.

He stopped kicking dust.

"Have you killed your aunt?" demanded Lily.

It was monstrous, but she had a very dramatic im-agination, and there was a faint hint of enjoyment in her tragic voice.

"Guess she's just choked by dust," volunteered Johnny, hoarsely. He kicked the dust again.

"That's right," said Lily. "If she's choked to death by dust, stand there and choke her some more.

You are a murderer, Johnny Trumbull, and my mamma will never allow me to speak to you again, and Madame will not allow you to come to school.