talked to them
very solemnly on the subject. "Why, it's just an accident you didn't
kill one another or me," I said, "and then how should you have felt?"

"I'd hate right smart to kill a woman," replied Nucky Marrs; "but gee, I
wouldn't mind laying out a few boys. I got to begin somewheres,--a man
haint nobody till he's kilt off a few!"

To-night when I announced that regular twice-a-week baths must begin at
once, and that four of the boys must get ready to wash themselves, a
shout of delight went up, "Whoopee! We git to go in the creek,--git to
go in Perilous!"--and every boy demanded to be one of the lucky four.
When I explained that I did not mean go in the creek, but that they must
heat water in the kettles in the yard, and carry it to the tubs in the
wash-house, and bathe there, howls of indignation succeeded. "We haint
no women!", "I'll go home first!", "Dad burn if I'll do it!", "Creeks is
for men!", and Philip remarked scathingly, "Nobody but quare women would
wash in a house when there's a creek handy!" It was only by Cleo's
splendid strength that four were finally corralled in the wash-house.

_Friday._

This has been an anxious week. The ice once broken by the fight Sunday
night, every boy has felt free to be himself again. Nucky has fought
every boy of his size and larger at the cottage, and, I hear, most of
the hundred day-school boys; Killis, though not so aggressive, is quite
as warlike; and the others, with the sole exception of Geordie, are not
much behind. It is almost impossible for me to get garden-work done, so
much of my time must be spent breaking up fights.

Even at meals (fortunately the boys and I have a table to ourselves in
the dining-room at the big house) behavior is far from being what it
should. Tuesday at breakfast, when Geordie undertook to instruct the new
boys in table manners, and informed Killis it was not proper to eat with
his knife, he was silenced by a jab of the knife in his direction and a
threat to cut out his liver; at dinner Wednesday, when Philip snatched a
corn-dodger from Keats's plate, he received a spoonful of "sop" (gravy)
full in the face; yesterday when Taulbee made disparaging remarks about
Trigger Branch, Nucky plunged the prongs of a steel fork so deeply into
his scalp that he had to receive attention from the trained nurse. It is
difficult to eat with one's mind so distracted; but distraction is far
better than desolation.

V

GETTING BETTE