Less than a month following the events clustered about the rise and fall of the unfortunate circus, a certain tow-headed, freckled-faced boy, whom I knew once upon a time, long ago, might have been found seated on the lar-board side of the ferry float, hidden away from his fellow men, that he might contemplate. I am sure Izaak Walton knew a deal about boys, and that much of his gentle philosophy was developed into tangibility because he occasionally consulted them.

Early in the morning Jean FranÇois and Doctor Longstreet had tramped up the river seeking a favorite fishing pool. They had invited the boy to go with them, but even the all-day companionship of his two heroes could not withdraw him from the problem which now completely occupied his mind and heart.... Nance was spending her time at home, doubtless enjoying certain triumphs of the previous night. The fellows couldn't interest him. The river—his river now—alone seemed adequate. The great stream lay at his feet, stretching away to the Indiana hills, beautiful, calm, majestic, yet sympathetic and inviting to confidences. At any rate, so it seemed to the boy in whose life something new, mysterious, wonderful was coming to birth.

On the evening previous to this thoughtful dabbling in the water there had happened in the life of this boy an event. Not such an event as it might be if you were to find the rainbow's end; more important than if you were granted three wishes by the queen of fairies. You have been expecting these rather commonplace happenings all of your life. This particular event came without the slightest warning or preparation, at least so far as he knew; like you might wake some morning and find your wings attached behind your ears instead of on your shoulder-blades, where you are really expecting to wear them. The boy, it might be said, was made of marbles and tops and little mud puddles; of rivers and trees and all out of doors; of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, and Kit Carson; and, of nights by the winter's fireside, of good adventurous books. For him all of the rest of the world was yet to be created. To him his mother wasn't a woman; she was just mother. Girls, like flies, were inevitable nuisances, mostly to be ignored, but occasionally shot at with a broken bit of rubber band.... He didn't even know that he was ugly. Yet he had learned early that the boys best suited for "knux," fishin', and the like had freckles, snub-noses, and cow-licks. Had not father often remonstrated with mother at too much washing, insisting that it was part of a small boy's portion to get dirty and to sniffle? Hadn't he seen through old Doctor Longstreet's derision when he would take such evident delight in saying to hovering little motherettes:

"Madame, I congratulate you upon the hideousness of your son. Thank God for ugly boys—they make men. A pretty boy, madame, is a misprint—the wrong title under the wrong picture. I congratulate you!... Ah, it reminds me of the story of—"

Never mind the doctor's story. Sufficient to say it was not about a pirate or a captain of the guards, or I'd tell it here. One thing: he was generally right about boys, angle worms, and pills.

So, in the late afternoon of yesterday, when he was informed by his mother that Nance—Jean FranÇois' red-headed jade—was to have a birthday party, and that he was expected to go, his heart became sick and then rebellious. In the first place she held no interest for him. She had always been in the world, he supposed. He couldn't remember when she hadn't lived over the alley. It seemed that always she had made herself conspicuous through the crack in the fence. For the first time he genuinely regretted that he had not nailed it up long ago.

Then another good reason for protest, upon the suggestion that it would not be healthful for him if he failed to attend the party, was the fact that he would have to wash his feet and put on shoes and stockings. It was under such circumstances he wished he belonged to the Rices, who lived on a shanty boat, fishing for a living. The little Rices never had to wash except accidentally as they got wet helping their father trace his trot-lines, or for fun when they went swimming. This time he pleaded with his mother to let him run to the river and "go-in"; this being a sure way of getting amusement out of an otherwise unpleasant task. However, mother was very serious and father looked like a newspaper with legs to it. He refused to be inveigled into sympathy. So the boy was duly scrubbed, shined, stocking-and-shoed. Thus, feeling very stiff, dry all over, and exceedingly unlike Robinson Crusoe, he was thrust unceremoniously through the crack in the fence with a parting injunction similar to the one he had seen administered to Nance not a great while ago. He did not cry, however, but, very much of a martyr, he tramped with reckless delight over Aunt Barbara's flower-beds to the front door and lifted the knocker. Here he paused for fully a minute with timid dignity, then let it fall. It seemed an earthquake.

When he had once gotten in, had his hat, a very superfluous piece of wearing apparel, disposed of, he was formally presented to many uncomfortable-looking small boys in the strange disguise of Sunday suits and fluttering, beribboned little girls who now, for the first time, seemed to have the occasion better in hand than himself. The dry feeling now left him for one that was hot and smothery, seemingly caused by having on too much clothing. He accepted the chair thrust beneath him by her Aunt Barbara, whose glance was one of withering disapproval. Knowing that he had surely broken some rule of conduct, his eyes sought the open window as if measuring his chance for escape. Evidently none presented itself, for he turned resignedly to the gay group of tiny flutterers about him. He mentally calculated how many times he could chin the curtain pole if he were allowed to remove his coat; he wondered if she ever tried it; and remembering the cat-skinning episode he concluded that she was no doubt a practised hand. Suddenly he straightened up and regained a portion of self-respect as he thought how he could throw the whole lot of them out of the window if he chose.

It was then that the games began. Even the boys—Jim, "Capt." "Leggins," and the rest—seemed more at ease, and the chances were, from appearances, he believed, that they were actually going to have some fun. Before he knew just how it happened, and wholly unconscious of its nature, he was in a game in which the reward, or penalty it would have seemed to him, was kissing the upturned cheek of some fluttering little maid. Very abruptly, so it seemed, Nance stood before him. There was a look of mischief in her dancing eyes, a droop of mock timidity about her mouth, and a round, flushed, dimpled cheek was held for his lips. As the other girls were always inclined to let him alone, this was a part of the game he had not anticipated. Just as a drowning man thinks in a second of every wicked act of his life, so the boy thought of every worm he had ever put on her, of every pinch, every twitch of her hair, of every bit of tantalizing of which he had ever been guilty. Most of all he remembered the vengeance she had promised him for refusing to go away while she skinned the cat.... At any rate, there she stood, her happy little face sparkling from without a perfect mass of fluffy red curls, that, to the boy, seemed quite as bright and beautiful as the sunshine on the river in the early morning. Beneath this hair and lifted cheek stood an eager small body, very much frilled and furbelowed, which to him, for the first time, was very mysterious and alluring. It was decidedly a new experience for him. For a moment he hesitated, uneasy, blushing vigorously; then he glanced behind. Yes, it was there and open! One bound and he was through the window, running and stumbling toward the crack in the fence. For a second Nance gazed in amused amazement at the place left vacant, and out into the night into which he had escaped. Then she turned to another and the game continued. Within her heart was a feeling of deep satisfaction.

The boy was down in the buggy shed, his coat off, hanging on the bar skinning the cat several times in rapid succession.

"Huh," he exclaimed as he came to a sudden stop. "I bet she couldn't do it agin!" It might be well to here record the fact that so far as anybody ever knew, she never did.

All of this was what passed in review as he sat paddling in the water that June morning. He wondered what Jean FranÇois would say when he heard about it. He was filled with pride and humiliation all at one time. An unusual relationship was now evident. She was in the ascendancy.... He wanted to think it all out, if it were possible, and the river, rippling about his bare feet, felt very cool and very soothing.