ory of the civilized world would have been an entirely different
affair from the one now in use. Similarly, if Winfield Hancock
Pennington, of the town of Boyville, had slipped his shoes off in the
second block from his home, instead of slipping them off in the first
block, on his way to school, a great shadow that settled over his life
might have been lifted. For if he had not been sitting exactly where
he sat on the curbing of the street, on that bright, beautiful Monday
morning in September, removing his shoes and stockings, he would have
found no garter snake to kill; and not having killed the snake, he
could not have brought it to school on a stick; and not having brought
it to school on a stick, he could not have chased the little girls
around the yard with it before the teacher came. And if he had not
been doing that, he would not have conceived the chivalrous notion
that he might gain the esteem of his Heart's Desire by frightening
her with a snake. And if Winfield Hancock Pennington had not made his
Heart's Desire angry--without giving her a chance to cool off--she
would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her during
the opening hour. But probably all that happened had to happen in the
course of things; so speculation is idle. But when it did happen, it
seemed to be a hopeless case. Young Mr. Pennington had lived through
the day, a week before, when the teacher changed his seat so that he
could not see his Heart's Desire smile; but he knew that she was sorry
with him, and that helped a little. But when he saw Harold Jones
singing from the same book with his Heart's Desire, he tried in vain
to catch the fragment of a smile from her. Instead of a smile, he
found her threatening to make a face if he persisted. Piggy seemed to
be buried in an avalanche of woe. Then it was that he saw what a small
thing had started the avalanche of calamity thundering down upon him,
and he smarted with remorse. In his anguish he tried to sing alto,
and made a peculiar rasping sound that tore a reproof for him off the
teacher's nerves.

[Illustration: _Chased the little girls around the yard with it_.]

[Illustration: _She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and
sing with her during the opening hour_.]

From the hour of the Jones boy's triumph, he and Winfield Hancock
Pennington--familiarly known as "Piggy"--became boon companions. A
grown-up outsider might have wondered at such a friendship, for Harold
Jones