ion, the apex
of a human movement, and gets all the punishment."

The cowboy, injured and rebellious, cried out blindly into this fog of
mysterious theory: "Well, I didn't do anythin', did I?"

------

HIS NEW MITTENS

I

Little Horace was walking home from school, brilliantly decorated by a
pair of new red mittens. A number of boys were snowballing gleefully
in a field. They hailed him. "Come on, Horace! We're having a battle."

[Illustration: "Little Horace"]

Horace was sad. "No," he said, "I can't. I've got to go home." At noon
his mother had admonished him: "Now, Horace, you come straight home as
soon as school is out. Do you hear? And don't you get them nice new
mittens all wet, either. Do you hear?" Also his aunt had said: "I
declare, Emily, it's a shame the way you allow that child to ruin his
things." She had meant mittens. To his mother, Horace had dutifully
replied, "Yes'm." But he now loitered in the vicinity of the group of
uproarious boys, who were yelling like hawks as the white balls flew.

[Illustration: "...Yelling Like Hawks as the White Balls Flew"]

Some of them immediately analyzed this extraordinary hesitancy.
"Hah!" they paused to scoff, "afraid of your new mittens, ain't you?"
Some smaller boys, who were not yet so wise in discerning motives,
applauded this attack with unreasonable vehemence. "A-fray-ed of his
mit-tens! A-fray-ed of his mit-tens." They sang these lines to cruel
and monotonous music which is as old perhaps as American childhood,
and which it is the privilege of the emancipated adult to completely
forget. "Afray-ed of his mit-tens!"

Horace cast a tortured glance towards his playmates, and then dropped
his eyes to the snow at his feet. Presently he turned to the trunk of
one of the great maple-trees that lined the curb. He made a pretence
of closely examining the rough and virile bark. To his mind, this
familiar street of Whilomville seemed to grow dark in the thick shadow
of shame. The trees and the houses were now palled in purple.

"A-fray-ed of his mit-tens!" The terrible music had in it a meaning
from the moonlit war-drums of chanting cannibals.

[Illustration: "Horace: I've got to go home."]

At last Horace, with supreme effort, raised his head. "'Tain't them I
care about," he said, gruffly. "I've got to go home. That's all."

Whereupon each boy held his left forefinger as if it were a pencil and
began to sharpen it derisively with his right fore