dark curls.  His face was as tenderly pretty as his sister’s, whom he strongly resembled, although he was somewhat fairer of complexion.  But it was full of the utmost bravado of rage and defiance, and his two small hands were clinched, until the knuckles whitened, in the faces of the little crowd who confronted him.  The color had not left his face, for his cheeks burned like roses, but his pretty mouth was hard set and his black eyes blazed.  The boys danced and made threatening feints at him.  They called out confused taunts and demands whose purport Anderson at first did not comprehend, but the boy never swerved.  When one of his tormentors came nearer, out swung the little white fist at him, and the other invariably dodged.

Anderson’s curiosity grew.  He went closer.  Amidon and Ray, the postmaster, on his way home to his dinner, also joined him, and the little barber, smelling strongly of scented soap and witch-hazel.  They stood listening interestedly.

“Most too many against one,” remarked the postmaster.

“He don’t look scared,” said Amidon.  “He’s Southern, and he’s got grit.  He’s backed up there like the whole Confederacy.”

A kindly look overspread the sleek, conceited face of the man.  His forebears were from Alabama.  His father had been a small white slave-owner who had drifted North, in a state of petty ruin after the war, and there Amidon, who had been a child at the time, had grown up and married the thrifty woman who supported him.  The wrangle increased, the boys danced more energetically, the small fists of the boy at bay were on closer guard.

“Hi, there!” sung out Amidon.  “Look at here; there’s too many of ye.  Look out ye don’t git into no mischief, now.”

“Hullo, boys! what’s the trouble?” shouted the postmaster, in a voice of authority.  He was used to running these same boys out of his office when they became too boisterous during the distribution of the mails, making precipitate dashes from the inner sanctum of the United States government.  They were accustomed to the sound of his important shout, and a few eyes rolled over shoulder at him.  But they soon plunged again into their little whirlpool of excitement, for they were quick-witted and not slow to reason that they were now on the king’s highway where they had as much right as the postmaster, and could not be coerced under his authority.

“What is it all about?” the postmaster called, loudly, above the hubbub, to Anderson.

Anderson shook his head.  He was listening to the fusillade of taunting, threatening yells, with his forehead knitted.  Then all at once he understood.  Over and over, with every pitch possible to the boyish threats, the cry intermingling and crossing until all the vowels and consonants overlapped, the boys repeated:  “Yerlie—­yerlie—­yerlie—­” They clipped the reproach short; they elongated it into a sliding thrill.  From one boy, larger than the others, and whose voice was changing, came at intervals the demand, in a hoarse, cracking treble, with sudden descents into gulfs of bass:  “Take it ba-ck!  Take it ba-ck!”