Poor and Proud, or the Fortunes of Katy Redburn: a Story for Young Folks

Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

"Give me a flounder, Johnny?" said a little girl of eleven, dressed in coarse and ragged garments, as she stooped down and looked into the basket of the dirty young fisherman, who sat with his legs hanging over the edge of the pier.

"I'll bet I won't," replied Johnny, gruffly, as he drew the basket out of the reach of the supplicant. "You needn't come round here tryin' to hook my fish."

"You hooked 'em," said another juvenile angler who sat on the capsill of the pier by Johnny's side.

"Who says I hooked 'em?" blustered Johnny, whose little dirty paws involuntarily assumed the form of a pair of fists, scientifically disposed and ready to be the instruments of the owner's vengeance upon the traducer of his character.

"I say so," added Tommy Howard, who did not seem to be at all alarmed at the warlike attitude of his fellow-angler.

"Say it again, and I'll smash your head," continued Johnny, jumping up from his seat.

"Didn't you hear me? Once is enough."

Tommy coolly hauled up a large flounder at that moment, and threw the fish into his basket. It was rather refreshing to see how regardless he was of that pair of menacing fists.

"Jest you say that once more, and see what I'll do," persisted Johnny.

"I won't do it."

"You dasn't say it again."

"Perhaps I dasn't; at any rate, I shan't."

"Do you mean to say I hooked them fish?" exclaimed Johnny, desperately, for it seemed as though he must do something to vindicate his injured honor.

"That's just what I did say."

But Tommy was so confoundedly cool that his fellow-angler had some doubts about the expediency of "pitching into him." Probably a vision of defeat flashed through his excited brain and discretion seemed the better part of valor. Yet he was not disposed to abandon his position, and advanced a pace or two toward his provoking companion; a movement which, to an unpracticed eye, would indicate a purpose to do something.

"Don't fight, Tommy," said the little ragged girl.

"I don't mean to fight, Katy,"—Johnny, at these words, assumed an artistic attitude, ready to strike the first blow,—"only if Johnny hits me, I shall knock him into the middle of next week."

Johnny did not strike. He was a prudent young man.

"Don't fight, Johnny," repeated the girl, turning to the excited aspirant for the honors of the ring.

"Do you suppose I'll let him tell me I hooked them fish?" blustered Johnny.

"He didn't mean anything."

"Yes, I did," interposed Tommy. "He caught 'em on a hook; so of course he hooked em. I hooked mine too."

"Is that what you meant?" asked Johnny, a broad grin overspreading his dirty face, and his fists suddenly expanding into dirty paws again.

"That's just what I meant; and your skull is as thick as a two-inch plank, or you would have seen what I meant."

"I see now."

Johnny was not disposed to resent this last insinuation about the solidity of his cranium. He was evidently too glad to get out of the scrape without a broken head or a bloody nose. Johnny was a bully, and he had a bully's reputation to maintain; but he never fought when the odds were against him; and he had a congressman's skill in backing out before the water got too hot....