Clods were handy and
the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a
hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties
and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect,
and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general
thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at
peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his
black thread and getting him into trouble.

Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by
the back of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the
reach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square
of the village, where two "military" companies of boys had met for
conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of
these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These
two great commanders did not condescend to fight in person--that being
better suited to the still smaller fry--but sat together on an eminence
and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through
aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and
hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged,
the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the
necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and
marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.

As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new
girl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair
plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered
pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A
certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a
memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction;
he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor
little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had
confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest
boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time
she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is
done.

He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she
had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present,
and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to
win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque fool