ome licked as thoroughly as any
country boy, not hyper-critical, could ask, and should have felt that
all was lost save honor. But he did not feel that way. He did not
consider honor at greater length than is generally done by any boy of
ten, on the way to eleven, but he did want vengeance. To lose his
siren and a portion of his blood--"-'twas from the nose," as Byron
says--together, was too much for his philosophy. He must have
vengeance! He was no lambkin, and he knew things. He had read the
Swiss Family Robinson. He resolved that on the morrow he would spear
his hated rival and successful adversary!

CHAPTER VI.

THE SPEARING OF ALFRED.

"The spears they carried, though entirely of wood, were dangerous
weapons," says the old writer in describing the armament of a tribe of
the South Sea islanders. "Their points are hardened by being subjected
to fire, and, in the hands of those fierce men, they are as deadly as
the assegai of the African."

This passage, which he had stumbled upon somewhere, was of deepest
interest to young Harlson. His armament, he felt, was not yet what it
should be. He had arrived at the dignity of a gun, it was true, but
that was quite another thing. What he needed was something especially
adapted for personal encounter and for any knight-errantry which
chanced to offer itself. He had imagined what might occur if he were
with Katie Welwood and they should be assailed by anything or anybody.
He had large ideas of what was a lover's duty, and was under the
impression, from what he had read, that a proper knight should go
always prepared for combat. So he had fashioned him a spear, a
formidable weapon contrived with great exactitude after the South Sea
island recipe. He had gone into the woods and selected a blue beech,
straight as could be found, and nearly an inch in thickness. From this
he had cut a length of perhaps ten feet, which, with infinite labor and
risk of jack-knife, he had whittled down to smoothness and to
whiteness. Upon one end he left as large a head as the sapling would
allow, and this, after shaving it into the fashion of a spear-blade, he
had plunged into the fire until it had begun to char. He had scraped
away the charring with a piece of broken glass, and, as a result of his
endeavors, had really a spear with a point of undoubted sharpness and
great hardness. He took huge pride in his new weapon, and carried it
to school with him for days and on his