The term of school drew to an end and July began, hot and with no sign of a refreshing rain for weeks to come. In his junkyard Saint Harvey sat and panted and fanned himself with a palm-leaf fan and felt miserable. He felt especially miserable in the region of his belt and just above and below it, for he had a huge pitcher of water always at his elbow and drank copiously, and he had a sensation of being merely a large globe full of water that swished to and fro as he moved.

He was seriously alarmed by this imagined condition. His continued existence seemed exceedingly precarious. It was not as if he had been eating good, solid food—ham and eggs, for example. When he drank another glass of water, it did not seem to go anywhere in particular; it seemed to flow down into an already vast ocean of water. When he thumped himself he was sure he heard waves splashing around inside of him, and he thought he knew what would happen if he was wounded deeply in any way: there would be a sort of Niagara for a minute or two, and then there would be left only a deflated, extinct Saint Harvey.

It was to this worried Saint Harvey that Moses Shuder came on the third of July, appealingly offering him fifty dollars for his remaining junk and one hundred dollars for a year's lease of the junkyard and shanty.

For several nights Lem's sandwich barrage had been especially trying to Saint Harvey.

“Cash money?” he asked Moses Shuder.

“Sure, cash money! I got it in my pocket the cash money. I could show it to you.”

He did. Saint Harvey looked at the crisp, new bills and at the pitcher of water at his elbow and at the lump of bread beside the pitcher. It was the hour for his frugal midday meal. From somewhere came the odor of ham frying.

“Please, Misder Redink!” urged Moses Shuder meekly, and from his pocket he took—with exquisite care—a large, costly-looking cigar.

Saint Harvey reached for the cigar.

“I 'll go you, dod-baste the dod-basted luck!” he exclaimed, and with the other hand he reached for the money.

From the shed at the rear of the yard came the sharp, angry yelps of two of Saint Harvey's stray dogs beginning hostilities. Saint Harvey eased himself carefully out of his chair.

“You wait,” he said to Shuder.

Three minutes later three stray dogs, their tails trailing their legs, their eyes looking backward, dashed through the gate of the junkyard and down the street. Three pieces of old iron hurtled through the air after them.

“There!” puffed the Little Brother to Stray Dogs; “that's what I think of you, you worthless curs!”—and then he added, “Dod-baste you!”

The next morning, which was the morning of the anniversary of the day of our glorious independence, Lem, finishing the task of the breakfast dishes, had the final and crowning indignity thrust upon him. He was sore, anyway, because Miss Sue had forbidden firecrackers and other noise-makers, and now she told him to go upstairs and make his own bed.

“You're old enough, and you know enough, to make it,” she said, “and if you ain't it's time you was.”

“I won't! I won't do that! Boys don't make beds. That's girls' work.”

“Lem!”

“Well—well, I don't see why—well, I'm goin' to, ain't I? You don't have to be in such a hurry about it, do you?”

“Lem!”

“All right, I'm goin'. But all right for you!” On his way up the stairs he passed Henrietta coming down, and she touched him lightly on the shoulder in sign of her good-will. She was going down to meet Carter Bruce, who had insisted that she see him that morning. She found him awaiting her on the porch, in a mood not exactly pleasant.

“I've got to have something definite,” he said, when he had told her why he had come. “This can't go on a day longer.”

“I'm glad,” said Henrietta.

“Glad about what? Glad Gay is so thoroughly infatuated with that sneak—with Freeman?”

“No, glad you know now that you do love Gay,” said Henrietta. “That was what I hoped for, Carter: that you would discover it. For you do love her. And, if you do, I need not worry. Gay will not prefer Freeman to you; not if you are bold, as a lover should be.”

“She does, though,” said Carter. “I don't care what he is, he has a way with women.”

“Why don't you have a way with them, then, if that is what is needed?”

“Because I have n't it, that's all! I'm slow. Henrietta, she likes him best. She likes me, but I have no chance with him around. He has to go. You've got to give me facts. Where is this wife of his? How can I prove he has a wife? You owe it to me, and to Gay, and to the wife, to tell me.”

“It is enough that I say so. You can tell him I told you.”

Carter Bruce hesitated.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “but that is n't enough. I—”

Henrietta looked at him steadily for a moment and then let her eyes fall.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “You mean you can't trust my words. You mean I am a liar.”

“I have to be frank,” Carter said. “Gay has told me about William Vane. She does not believe there is a William Vane. When I told her—”

“You told her I had said Freeman has a wife?” asked Henrietta. “And you promised not to tell, Carter!”

“I told her.”

“Well?”

“She said, 'Perhaps Henrietta is romancing again.'”

Across the street Gay came out upon her porch. She waved a hand, and Henrietta returned the salutation, but the next moment she guessed it had not been meant for her, for Freeman came around the house, waving to Gay as he came. Henrietta put her hand on Carter's arm.

“No, I can't tell you more,” she said breathlessly. “I'm sorry—only it is true he has a wife. It is true, Carter.”

Carter's eyes hardened. He walked down the steps of the porch and toward Freeman, until he faced him.

“You are a sneak and a cur and a cad,” he said, “and I am going to give you this every time I see you.”

He shot out his fist and it struck Freeman on his cheek, throwing him to the ground. An instant he lay there and then he was on his feet and, mad with rage, had leaped for Carter. Henrietta screamed. From across the street Gay came, her palms pressed to her cheeks. The fight was all over before she reached the two men. Bruce stood arranging his tie, but Freeman lay where the last blow had sent him, prone on the grass.

Carter laughed, pantingly.

“Every time I meet you, remember,” he said, and turned to Gay.

“I thrashed him,” he said, but Gay dropped to her knees beside the prostrate man.

“Freeman! Freeman!” she cried; and then to Carter, “You brute! You cruel brute!”

“Oh, just as you wish!” said Carter Bruce, and laughed again, and went across the yard to the steps and out of the gate.

“Get up!” Henrietta said, coldly, to Freeman.

“Oh! how can you be so cruel!” Gay cried, but Henrietta did not change her tone.

“Get up!” she repeated. “Get up and go into the house.”

“How can you speak to him like that!” cried Gay, and she helped Freeman to arise.

He was rather badly battered, and tried to hide the side of his face where the worst blows had fallen. He laughed thinly.

“He's bigger than I am,” he said. “He hit me before I expected it.”

“He's a brute!” said Gay again.

“Go in the house!” Henrietta ordered; and without more ado Freeman picked up his hat and went into the house. Henrietta followed him.

For a minute more Gay stood where she was, and then she went homeward.

“The brute! The big bully! I'll never speak to Carter Bruce again as long as I live. Never!”