Bud’s instinct piloted him by a circuitous route up the alley to the kitchen door.  Miss Morgan sat on the front porch, waiting for the boy to return before serving supper.  He stood helplessly in the kitchen for a minute, with a weight of indecision upon him.  He feared to go to the front porch, where Miss Morgan was.  He feared to stay in the kitchen.  But when he saw the empty wood-box a light seemed to dawn.  Instinct guided him to the woodpile, and the law of self-preservation filled his arms with wood, and instinct carried him to the kitchen wood-box time and again, and laid the wood in the box as gently as if it had been glass and as softly as if it had been velvet.  Not until the pile had grown far above the wainscoting on the kitchen wall, did a stick crashing to the floor tell Miss Morgan that Bud was in the house.

But there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and just as the falling wood attracted Miss Morgan’s attention, it was diverted by a belligerent party at her front gate.  This belligerent party was composed of two persons, to wit:  one mother from the north end of Willow Creek, irate to the spluttering point, and one boy lagging as far behind the mother as his short arm would allow him to lag.  The mother held the short arm, and was literally dragging her son to Miss Morgan’s gate to offer him in evidence as “Exhibit A” in a possible cause of the State of Kansas vs.  Henry Perkins.  Exhibit A was black and blue as to the eyes, torn as to the shirt, bloody as to the nose, tumbled and dusty as to the hair, and as to the countenance, clearly and unquestionably sheep-faced.  The mother opened the bombardment with:  “Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy.”

[Illustration:  “Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy.”]

Miss Morgan looked in horror, and exclaimed:  “Well, for mercy sakes!  Where on earth’s he been?”

And the leader of the war party returned:  “Where’s he been?  Well, I’ll tell you where he’s been.  And I just want you to know who done this.”  Here Exhibit A got behind a post.  The recital of the details of his catastrophe was humiliating.  But the mother continued:  “Henry Perkins done this.  I don’t believe in stirring up neighborhood quarrels and all that, but I’ve just stood this long enough.  My boy can’t stick his nose out of the door without that Perkins boy jumpin’ on him.  If you can’t do anything with that Perkins boy, I’ll show him there’s a law in this land.”

Miss Morgan wilted as the speech proceeded.  She had voice only to say, “I’m sure there’s some mistake;” and then remembering the crash of the wood on the kitchen floor, she called:  “Henry, come here!”

As Bud shambled through the house, the spokesman of the belligerents replied:  “No, there isn’t no mistake either.  My boy is a good little boy, and just as peaceable a boy as there is in this town.  And because I don’t allow him to fight, that Perkins boy picks on him all the time.  I’ve told him to keep out of his way and not to play with Henry Perkins, but he can’t be runnin’ all over this town to keep—­”