own!"

My fork and knife clattered to the plate as I turned to the girl, and
she saw doubt and wonder in my eyes.

"He did!" she cried. "And oh, Davy, you'd have died laughing if you
had seen Mr. Lukens tumble over the wood-pile and hit his head against
the rain-barrel."

I stared at the Professor. I had liked him for his kindness to me and
had pitied him for his misfortune. Now I was filled with admiration
for the physical prowess of this man who could whip the intrepid
constable, for in Malcolmville there was no one whom I held in so much
awe as Byron Lukens. He was mighty in bulk; his voice was proportioned
to his size; his words fitted his voice. Often I had sat on the
store-porch and listened to his stories of his feats, and I believed
that to cross him in any way must be the height of daring. The tale of
the men whom he had whipped in the past and promised to whip in the
future if they raised a finger against him would almost have made a
census of the valley. That this frail man should have resisted him,
that those thin hands should have been raised against him, that the
intellectual Professor should have knocked down the Hercules of our
village, was beyond my comprehension. So my friend across the table
saw amazement welling up from my open mouth and eyes.

He shrugged his shoulders. "There was nothing else to do, Davy. He
beat you here after all. Probably you missed him in your short cuts
over the fields. Why, it was hardly light when I heard him pounding at
the door. He said he had come to arrest me." Rising and drawing
himself to his full height, the Professor began to tell me of the early
morning conflict, forgetting, in his indignation, how small were his
two auditors, and throwing out his voice as though to reach a
multitude. "He had come to arrest me--me; said that I was a vagrant;
spoke to me as you wouldn't speak to a dog, and told me to come
along--to come along with him, a hulking, boastful brute. Why, it was
all I could do to keep my temper, Davy. I answered him as politely as
I could, said that I had done no wrong, and certainly would not allow
myself to be arrested. And then----"

"Then father knocked him down," cried Penelope, clapping her hands.
"Oh, Davy, you'd otter seen it."

"Should have, Penelope, should have seen," said the Professor
reprovingly, and having done his duty as a father and a man of
education he drove his fist into the air to show with what quickness
an