CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER IX

THE tide in Mrs. Tarleton rose once more; on Monday she was able to sit up, and Cecil took Lee for a walk; but returned betimes, having received a brief parental admonition that if he did not, he’d be caned. After that, they explored Market Street every afternoon, and on Sunday trotted off to church together.

On the following afternoon, as Lee was walking down the hill from school, she saw an excited group of boys in the street, before the side entrance of Mrs. Hayne’s boarding-house. As she approached, she inferred that two were fighting, as some eight or ten others were cheering and betting.

Lee raised herself on tiptoe and looked over the shoulder of a short boy. The belligerents were Bertie Reynolds and Cecil Maundrell. Her first impulse was to scream—an impulse which she quickly repressed. Her second was to cheer Cecil. This she also repressed, remembering that she was a girl, or, as her mother would have put it, a Southerner.

She mounted a box and watched the battle, her hands clenched, her eyes blazing, her heart sick; for her Cecil was getting the worst of it. He looked as sturdy as a little oak, and he planted his blowsscientifically; but his antagonist was twice his size, lean and wiry, and full of nervous fire. Moreover, the surrounding influences were all for the American: Cecil was not only English, but he had snubbed these boys of Mrs. Hayne’s boarding-house for three consecutive weeks. Vengeance had been in the air for some time.

The boys fought like young savages. Their faces made Lee shudder and ponder. But that impression passed, for there was worse to come. Cecil got a huge lump over his right eye. Cecil got a damaged nose. Cecil’s immaculate shirt turned an angry scarlet. Cecil got a blow under his jaw, and went down.

Then was Lee’s opportunity. She leaped from the box, straight into the ring—which was giving unearthly cat-calls—and took Cecil’s head in her arms.

“You just help me carry him inside, you horrid, hateful bully,” she commanded young Reynolds. “Take his feet—there!”

The national instinct prompted obedience, and Cecil was safely deposited on the lower step of the side entrance, Reynolds retiring in haste before the concentrated fury in Lee’s eyes and teeth and nails. She gathered Cecil into her bosom, and wept bitterly.

“I say!” murmured the wounded hero. “Don’t cry! I’m all right. I’ve got a beastly headache, that’s all.”

“Those loathsome boys!” sobbed Lee.

“Well, they know I can fight, if I didn’t beat.”But his voice was thick, and there was no pride about him anywhere.

Lee’s tears finished, and were succeeded by curiosity.

“What did you fight about?” she asked, drying her eyes on her ensanguined pinafore.

“They all said the United States licked England twice, and I said it didn’t. They said I didn’t know history, and I—well, I told them they were liars, and that Reynolds offered to fight for the crowd, and we fought.”

“Don’t get excited,” said Lee soothingly. “Do you think you can walk up to your room? You’ll feel better if you lie down, and I can do a lot of things for you.”

He got to his feet, climbed wearily to his room, and flung himself on the bed. Lee was in her element. She sponged him off, and fetched ice, and bound up his damaged face. She felt his nose to see if it was broken. It was swelling rapidly, and he shrieked as she prodded it. Lee wished that she did not feel a disposition to laugh, but her hero certainly looked funny. When she had bound two compresses about his face—his upper lip was also cut—she closed the inside blinds, and sat down beside the bed. It was her duty to go to her mother, but she was loath to leave her comrade.

“Lee,” said a stifled voice, “pull off my boots.”

Lee rose, hesitated a moment, then removed the boots, and threw his jacket over his feet. She walked to the window, peered through the slats, then returned to the bed.

“The United States did lick England,” she said.

Cecil was on his elbow in an instant.

“It did not,” he cried hoarsely. “If you were a boy I’d thrash you.”

“I finished United States history last term. We licked you in the Revolution and in 1812.”

Cecil was erect on the edge of his bed, glaring at her out of his attenuated eye, over the rising sun of his nose. “I tell you you didn’t,” he growled. And his bandages slipped, and his wounds bled.

Lee flung her arms about him in an agony of remorse and pushed him back among the pillows.

“I’m just horrid,” she sobbed; “I don’t know why I said that.” And once more she bathed and bound him.

“Lee,” whispered a weary voice. “Say that you didn’t lick us.”

Lee gave him a little hug. “Of course not,” she said, as to a sick child; “of course not.”

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