Quite a gang of boys gathered daily about the big rock, generally on the farther side of it where they could not be seen from the house.  Beyond the rock in that direction was nothing but an open field, and then the woods, rarely disturbed by a visitor.  Thus they were really more safe than indoors as no one could approach them without being detected while still far away.

The two sons of the sexton were there, and a couple of boys from the city besides Keith, and three or four sons of neighbouring farmers.  They ranged in ages from eight to eleven or twelve.  Keith was the baby, but this was never held up against him.  He was commonly treated as an equal, which raised his self-confidence tremendously, but it had also a somewhat embarrassing effect when the others seemed to take for granted that he knew as much as they concerning the matters that most occupied their minds—­to judge by their talk at least.

The oldest of the lot, and their undisputed leader, was a peasant boy of remarkable ugliness, squint-eyed and snub-nosed, with tufts of yellow hair always falling over his face and several teeth missing.  His clothes were in rags and he never wore shoes.  He boasted of never washing unless “the old one” stood over him with a stick, and his language was worse than both his manners and his looks.  An unbroken stream of profanity and obscenity poured from his rarely silent mouth, and he heaped withering scorn on any attempt at decent speech.

Keith had now and then picked up questionable words while playing in the lane where he lived.  Johan sported some of them in moments of furious rebellion against his mother’s “holiness,” as he called it.  Once or twice Keith had repeated such words at home and suffered for it.  Soon he learned to know the type at first hearing, and he disliked this part of the vocabulary even when he could use it without danger to himself.  He developed a greater daintiness in words than in anything else, but this summer formed an exception.  The force of suggestion brought to bear on him was too overwhelming, and he strove boldly to vie with the rest in foulness of tongue and thought.  As soon as he was back in the city, this habit dropped off him as the soap lather is washed off a bather when he dives into the clear waters of a lake.  But the game he had learned to play back of the big rock could not be unlearned in the same way.

This game was in itself a revelation to Keith.  He was not shocked or startled, because he had no standards in the matter, but at first he experienced a distinct revulsion.  This wore off quickly, however, and soon he accepted what he saw as a natural thing.  The boy whose face stuck in Keith’s mind with such strange persistency set the pace, and everybody seemed to hold him a hero on that account.  Even the other city boys surrendered after a brief resistance and tried humbly to emulate the acknowledged leader.