check on
combative youngsters, and an additional protection was derived from his
small size which caused the hostile elements to overlook his existence
unless he appeared in the company of more developed schoolmates. And as
he mostly walked alone, his comings and goings were uneventful as a
rule. But that did not prevent him from imagining dangers and to suffer
from them almost as much as if they had been real. There were times when
he could not help thinking of himself as a coward.

Such estimates of himself were not wholly checked by an incident that
occurred within the school precincts early in the first term. There was
another boy in the same class named Bauer, who seemed the living
counterpart of Keith--just as undersized and lonely and nervous. From
the first there was a hostile tension between those two, and soon it
came to open war. It broke out in a pause between two lessons when
practically all the boys were gathered in the schoolyard. Before Keith
quite knew what had happened, he found himself fighting Bauer. First
they used their fists and then they wrestled. The rest of the boys
formed a ring about them and egged them on.

They were well matched in their common weaknesses and both developed a
certain courage during the stress of conflict. The difference between
them was that Bauer apparently wanted to lick Keith, while the latter
thought of nothing but to defend himself. The idea of inflicting pain on
another human being was so foreign to Keith that it never took tangible
form in his mind. The result was that Bauer's greater aggressiveness
carried the day, and soon Keith found himself prone on his back with a
triumphant Bauer straddling his chest.

At that moment both boys became guilty of serious breaches against
time-honoured school etiquette. Bauer struck the defenceless Keith
square in the face with his clenched fist, and Keith burst into tears.
Quick as a flash one of the older boys grabbed Bauer by the scruff of
his neck and hurled him halfway across the yard, while another one
plucked Keith from the ground and shoved him toward the stairway with a
contemptuous:

"The classroom for cry-babies."

The humiliation felt by Keith was so intense that he wondered whether he
could stay in the school. Nothing but the thought of his father kept
him from returning home. But the cloud had a silver lining. Though no
one else knew, he knew that he had started crying from rage, and not
from fear. And this fact