The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1909-04-02
THE new BOY ANDTHE BULLY.
A Meeting That Didn't End in the
Manner Favored in Fiction. va

1t was in Commutersville. The
new small boy in the neighborhood
swung on the front gate, humming
to himself.
He was a nice if somewhat waxy
looking boy with hair chopped off at
the back like Russian mujik's and
peachy cheeks and blue eyes like
moss agates and pretty manners, and
his mother saw to it that he brushed
his teeth every morning and evening,
and she used a nail file on his finger
nails, too, and he wore those queer,
outdoor playing suits with the fioppy,
hanging belts, and all like that way.
But for all these things he looked
like nice little boy.
He was finding it pretty bard to get
acquainted with the other boys in the
neighborhood. It is difficult, for that
matter, for any boy whose mother has
his hair chopped mujik style to get
acquainted with the other boys in the
new neighborhood. Think this over.
The other boys in the neighborhood
sort of held aloof from him. They
were all boys whose hair was cut
short, and those of them that didn't
go about all the time in their regular
clothes wore those suits of playing
dungarees that give youngsters a
chance to move around in the dirt
without doing any particular damage
when they muss.
The other boys in the neighborhood
played football on the vacant lot quite
good deal, and duck on the rock
and follow my leader.
They weren't addicted to the habit
of swinging on their front gates. Sew
eral of them could spit through their
teeth and two or three of them could
whistle shrilly with their fingers in
their mouths. These facts are men
toned to show how different they
were from the new boy in the neigh
borhood, that it may be better under
stood how lonesome he was.
Not only did the other boys seem
to hold aloof from the new boy, but
two or three of them actually evinced
an inclination to pick on him.
For example, when they passed by
with their football gear on, on their
way to the vacant lot, they'd catch
sight of the new little boy in the
neighborhood swinging lonesomely on
his front gate, and they'd stick their
fingers to their noses at him-and
then the real rough, rowdy boys in
the gang would call out to him:
"Hey, there, Winnie, why haint you
choshayin', hey?" or Pipe the cutey
with his sisters hair!" or "Say,
Edith, why don't you git some jacks
and play with 'em?" and address him
in terms of similar disparagement.
For several days the new boy in
the neighborhood stood for this, but
at length it began to get him on the
raw.
He couldn't help it, he argued to
himself-yes, small boys argue these
things out with themselves-he
couldn't help it if his mother insisted
against his fathers wish that his hair
be cut in that fool way, and il wasn't
his fault, either, that his mother
made him wear those white stock
inettes that made him show his sort
o. chilly blush legs to everybody, and
it wasn't his fault, either, that he
had to wear those foppy suits like the
pictures his mother cut out from the
Ladies' Hearthstone, with the sag
ging belt hanging all around it.
None of these things, he argued to
himself, was his fault. He himself
was not only willing but eager to be
like the rest of the boys in the neigh
borhood, but he couldn't get away
with it,
But, at that, still arguing to him
self, he wasn't going 70 stand for
many more of the fancy cracks of
those other boys. He sure was not.
Nom.
He was going to show EN- that he
resented it the very next time.
And so when on the following day
the BULLY boy of the neighborhood
swung by and made faces at the nice
little boy who again was swinging on
the front gate and humming to him
self, the new little boy in the neigh
borhood summoned himself 20 meet
the situation.
Say, don't want you to do that tc
me, he said, just like that.
"Oh. y don't, hey?" said the bully