of the
teacher's half-pleading commands, they made a rush and formed a ring
around the fighters.

"Go it, J'rome!" they shouted. "Give it to him! You're a fighter, you
be. Look at J'rome Edwards lickin' a feller twice his size. Hi! Go
it, J'rome!"

"Boys!" called the teacher. "Boys!"

Some of the smaller girls began to cry and clung to her skirts; the
elder girls watched with dilated eyes, or laughed with rustic
hardihood for such sights. Elmira still waited on the outskirts.
Jerome paid no attention to the teacher or the shouting boys. "Will
you say it again?" he kept demanding of 'Lisha, until finally he got
a sulky response.

"No, I won't. Now lemme up, will ye?"

"Say you're sorry."

"I'm sorry. Lemme up!"

Jerome, without appearing to move, collected himself for a spring.
Suddenly he was off 'Lisha and far to one side, with one complete
bound of his whole body, like a cat.

'Lisha got up stiffly, muttering under his breath, and went round to
the well to wash off the blood. He did not attempt to renew the
combat, as the other boys had hoped he might. He preferred to undergo
the ignominy of being worsted in fight by a little boy rather than
take the risk of being pounced upon again with such preternatural
fury. When he entered school, having washed his face, he was quite
pale, and walked with shaking knees. Rather physical than moral
courage had 'Lisha Robinson, and it was his moral courage, after all,
which had been tested, as it is in all such unequal combats.

As for Jerome, he had to stand in the middle of the floor, a
spectacle unto the school, folded in his father's coat, which had,
alas! two buttons torn off, and a three-cornered rag hanging from one
tail, which fluttered comically in the draught from the door; but
nobody dared laugh. There was infinite respect, if not approbation,
for Jerome in the school that day. Some of the big boys scowled, and
one girl said out loud, "It's a shame!" when the teacher ordered him
to stand in the floor. Had he rebelled, the teacher would have had no
support, but Jerome took his place in the spot indicated, with a
grave and scornful patience. The greatness of his triumph made him
magnanimous. It was clearly evident to his mind that 'Lisha Robinson
and not he should stand in the floor, and that he gained a glory of
martyrdom in addition to the other.

Jerome had never felt so proud in his life as when he stood there, in
his father's old coat, having establishe