, struck with a
stone from his cunning right hand, was carried home in a carriage.
Another, being thrown by one convulsive effort, fell upon his arm,
breaking it at the elbow. In less than a week every boy in Rock River
knew something of Harry Excell's furious temper, and had learned that it
was safer to be friend than enemy to him.

He had his partisans, too, for his was a singularly attractive nature
when not enraged. He was a hearty, buoyant playmate, and a good scholar
five days out of six, but he demanded a certain consideration at all
times. An accidental harm he bore easily, but an intentional
injury--that was flame to powder.

The teachers in the public school each had him in turn, as he ran
rapidly up the grades. They all admired him unreservedly, but most of
them were afraid of him, so that he received no more decisive check than
at home. He was subject to no will but his own.

The principal was a kind and scholarly old man, who could make a boy cry
with remorse and shame by his Christlike gentleness, and Harold also
wept in his presence, but that did not prevent him from fairly knocking
out the brains of the next boy who annoyed him. In his furious, fickle
way he often defended his chums or smaller boys, so that it was not easy
to condemn him entirely.

There were rumors from the first Monday after Harold's pin-sticking
exploit that the minister had "lively sessions" with his boy. The old
sexton privately declared that he heard muffled curses and shrieks and
the sound of blows rising from the cellar of the parsonage--but this
story was hushed on his lips. The boy admittedly needed thrashing, but
the deacons of the church would rather not have it known that the
minister used the rod himself.

The rumors of the preacher's stern measures softened the judgment of
some of the townspeople, who shifted some of the blame of the son to the
shoulders of the sire. Harry called his father "the minister," and
seemed to have no regard for him beyond a certain respect for his
physical strength. When boys came by and raised the swimming sign he
replied, "Wait till I ask 'the minister.'" This was considered "queer"
in him.

He ignored his stepmother completely, but tormented his sister Maud in a
thousand impish ways. He disarranged her neatly combed hair. He threw
mud on her dress and put carriage grease on her white stockings on
picnic day. He called her "chiny-thing," in allusion to her pretty round
cheeks and clear