TOUCHES OF NATURE 67 



of all sizes had collected upon the bridge. The 

 new-comer was presently challenged by the boys of 

 his own age to jump with them. This he readily 

 did, and cleared their farthest mark. Then he gave 

 them a sample of his stone-throwing, and at this 

 pastime he also far surpassed his competitors. Be- 

 fore long, the feeling of the crowd began to set 

 against him, showing itself first in the smaller fry, 

 who began half playfully to throw pebbles and 

 lumps of dry earth at him. Then they would run 

 up slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the 

 large ones began to tease him in like manner, till 

 the contagion of hostility spread, and the whole 

 pack was arrayed against the strange boy. He kept 

 them at bay for a few moments with his stick, till, 

 the feeling mounting higher and higher, he broke 

 through their ranks, and fled precipitately toward 

 home, with the throng of little and big at his heels. 

 Gradually the girls and smaller boys dropped behind, 

 till at the end of the first fifty rods only two boys 

 of about his own size, with wrath and determination 

 in their faces, kept up the pi\rsuit. But to these 

 he added the final insult of beating them at run- 

 ning also, and reached, much blown, a point beyond 

 which they refused to follow. 



The world the boy lives in is separate and dis- 

 tinct from the world the man lives in. It is a 

 world inhabited only by boys. No events are im- 

 portant or of any moment save those affecting boys. 

 How they ignore the presence of their elders on the 

 street, shouting out their invitations, their appoint- 



