Short Stories
between bed and the front door, and finally went out the latter.
He did not go far. He sat down on the stoop, his knees drawn up
and his narrow shoulders drooping forward, his elbows on his
knees and the palms of his hands supporting his chin. As he sat
there, he did no thinking. He was just resting. So far as his mind
was concerned, it was asleep. His brothers and sisters came out,
and with other children played noisily about him. An electric
globe on the corner lighted their frolics. He was peevish and irri-
table, that they knew; but the spirit of adventure lured them into
teasing him. They joined hands before him, and, keeping time
with their bodies, chanted in his face weird and uncomplimen-
tary doggerel. At first he snarled curses at them—curses he had
learned from the lips of various foremen. Finding this futile, and
remembering his dignity, he relapsed into dogged silence.
His brother Will, next to him in age, having just passed his
tenth birthday, was the ring-leader. Johnny did not possess par-
ticularly kindly feelings toward him. His life had early been em-
bittered by continual giving over and giving way to Will. He had
a definite feeling that Will was greatly in his debt and was un-
grateful about it. In his own playtime, far back in the dim past,
he had been robbed of a large part of that playtime by being
compelled to take care of Will. Will was a baby then, and then, as
now, their mother had spent her days in the mills. To Johnny
had fallen the part of little father and little mother as well.
Will seemed to show the benefit of the giving over and the
giving way. He was well-built, fairly rugged, as tall as his elder
brother and even heavier. It was as though the life-blood of the
one had been diverted into the other's veins. And in spirits it was
the same. Johnny was jaded, worn out, without resilience, while
his younger brother seemed bursting and spilling over with
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