Red Bird, He Can See

‘JIMMIE,’ said George Washington Morris, better known among the blind boys at the Lomax School for deaf and blind children as ‘Red Bird,’ because he hailed from a little post-office place of that name. ‘Jimmie, what would you do if you was to fall into a gre-at big ditch?’

Red Bird was given to facing Jimmy Little, his small running mate, with terrifying problems of the foregoing nature.

‘Just Jimmie,’ the teachers called the latter among themselves, from his habit of repudiating his last name.

‘No, sir,’ he would say, wrinkling up his thin gray-mouse little face with its shrunken, scared eyes. ‘No, sir, I don’t know nothin’ about no Little name. Mr. Todd at the poorhouse he tagged that on to me, when he sent me here to school. I reckon he thought it sort of finished a fella out like, to have a second name. But I never had no folks, they found me when I was a baby just throwed away ’long side of the Mill Creek highroad — that’s one of the roads down in Lupin County — and I never was called nothin’ but just Jimmie. But,’ he was apt to add as a triumphant afterthought, ‘Red Bird he’s got folks, an’ he kin see too!’

At Red Bird’s question in regard to the big ditch, Just Jimmie’s upraised listening face twitched all over with excitement as it always did whenever his hero spoke. It was as though the words actually fell upon his waiting little visage.

‘Why — why, Red Bird, I think I’d pray,’ he offered eagerly, after due consideration.

‘Hem,’ the other retorted. ‘Bet yer I could git out a heap quicker ’n that!’

‘Well, maybe you could, Red Bird — maybe you could, ’cause you kin see, you kin see real good.' (Red Bird’s face screwed itself into a curious little frown at this tribute.) ‘An’ course,’ Jimmie went on, elaborating his philosophy, ‘if a fella kin see he don’t have to pray so much.’

‘A fella has to pray, anyhow, whether he kin see or not,’ Red Bird declared severely. ‘You don’t reckon seein’ makes any difference to the Lord, do you?’

Though this last was put in the shape of a reproof, there was, nevertheless, the hint of a wistful question in Red Bird’s tone.

‘Er course it don’t make no difference to the Lord whether you kin see er not.,’ Jimmie returned, waving about excitedly, ‘but— but it makes a heap of difference to yourself.’

It was George Washington’s Birthday, not Red Bird’s, but that of the father of his country. The school in consequence was indulging in a half holiday, for which reason Red Bird and Jimmie were free to perch at leisure on the steps of the blind boys’ sitting-room, and speculate over such high problems as prayer and big ditches.

When Jimmie Little had arrived the previous autumn at Lomax, Mr. Lincoln, the Superintendent, thought he had never before seen such a forlorn, gray-mouse bit of a blind boy of eight. Just a little human derelict tossed over to Lomax from the Lupin County Poorhouse. Blind he was, of course; thin as a little skeleton; bewildered by his new surroundings; dazed by all the babble and confusion of the sixty or so other blind children; and more than usually handicapped in finding his way about by having slipped down a flight of stairs and broken one arm. He was forever missing his bearings and getting lost. This, however, he appeared to be used to, and if no friendly hand arrived to guide him into port, he curled himself up wherever he happened to be and dropped off to sleep. And being stumbled over and furiously berated by the other blind boys, ‘for allus layin’ ’round in the way!’ was apparently just one more drop in his bitter bewildered cup of existence, and wrung from him no retort or defense.

On the fourth day of school, however, George Washington Morris, Red Bird the masterful, the braggart, the triumphantly self-confident, blundered over Just Jimmie’s little curled-up person lost in the wide courtyard between two of the school buildings, and at once took him in tow.

‘You just hitch on to me, kid,’ he had commanded; ‘I’m pretty nigh nine years old, an’ I been at Lomax for more ’n a year, an’ I kin tell you there ain’t much erbout this ole school I don’t know. An’ anyhow I kin see real good.’

Jimmie closed joyfully with the friendly offer, and from that time Red Bird became his hero — nay, he was more than a mere hero, he made up the romance, the poetry, the zest, of Just Jimmie’s existence. To him the other boy was as exciting as a pitched battle, as intoxicating as wine. The contagion of this new buoyant personality wrought an extraordinary change in him. He began to hold up his head, to walk with more confidence, even to develop a comical little swagger of his own. And all day long his thin little voice was forever proclaiming the wonders of Red Bird. How strong Red Bird was, how he could fight —‘Yes, sir! Lick any boy at Lomax!’ IIow he had folks — folks who sent him postcards — ‘Why — why Red Bird, he — lie gits a postcard from his folks most — most every day — leastways he gits one onct a week anyhow.' But most of all Just Jimmie’s pæan was, ‘Red Bird, he kin see!’

When Red Bird’s parents had brought him to Lomax the year before, his mother had seized an opportunity to say privately to Mr. Lincoln, ‘Georgic can see a little with one eye — just the least little bit. It ain’t anything really, not much more than telling light from dark, but,’ she went on with wistful shamefacedness, ‘maybe we’ve kind of humored him into thinkin’ he can see more than he really can. He’s so terrible proud of it that —some way’ — she swallowed — ‘wejust couldn’t tell him the truth. But he ain’t really lyin’ when he says all that about how well he can see,’ she added in quick defense, ‘ ’cause he thinks he can see real good.’

And later on when Mr. Lincoln saw Red Bird staring at an intensely bright electric flashlight held within a few inches of his eye, and heard him announce triumphantly, ‘There now I kin see that light just fine, an’ yet some folks says I’m nearsighted,’ he had understood.

Through the open door of the sittingroom there came all at once a burst of shouts for Red Bird.

‘Here, Red Bird, where you —’

‘ Read my postcard for me —’

‘ No, sir! He’s not, he’s goin’ to read mine for me —’

Red Bird and Jimmie scrambled up from the steps and groped their way to the shouting group of boys within, Jimmie’s quavering little voice keeping up a devoted refrain of ‘Red Bird he kin see, he kin see to read postcards ’most as good as sighted folks,’ though nobody was paying any attention to him.

‘Well boys, how are you? an unexpected grown-up voice inquired pleasantly.

For an instant the animation of the little company fell to a dead listening silence. Then realizing that the voice belonged to Miss Lyman, their matron, they burst into a chorus of friendly greeting, Jimmie coming in behind all the rest with—‘I’m-very-well-Ithank-you’m-How-are-you?’ said all in one breath, and very much as if her query had pulled a string, or touched a button somewhere or other in his small anatomy.

‘Isn’t this a beautiful holiday?’ she went on. ‘It’s real spring weather, and don’t the mountains look beautiful — ’ She caught herself up sharply, biting her lips.

‘I heard Mrs. Lincoln say they was looking lovely this morning,’ one of the older boys answered politely, possibly divining the reason for her sudden pause.

' Gee! I don’t have to have nobody tell me mountains is pretty, I kin see ’em for myself,’ Red Bird boasted.

‘Well, I can’t see er mountain, but — but I kin smell ’em,’ Jimmie announced, crinkling up his nose, and sniffing excitedly from side to side.

One of the other boys gave a great shout of laughter. ‘Well, just listen to that kid, will you! He says he can smell a mountain! ’ he cried. ‘ Say, what does it smell like anyhow, Jimmie?’

Jimmie’s sensitive little face went crimson. ‘It — it smells like woods, an’ — an’ like things growin’, an’ wet leaves, an’ that’s a all-right way to tell about a mountain, ain’t it, Red Bird? You — you can’t hear a mountain, an’ — an’ — an’ ’ (Just Jimmie always fell to wild stuttering when put on the defensive) ‘an’ it’s too big to feel, so if you c-can’t see, why smellin’s a allright way to tell about it. Ain’t it, Red Bird? Ain’t smellin’ a all-right way to tell about a mountain?’ he appealed shrilly.

‘Course it is,’ Red Bird returned, ‘an’ —’ he whirled suddenly and, with swift fingers ascertaining the direction of the boy who had laughed, implanted on his face a sudden and stinging blow — ‘an’ maybe that ’ll learn you to know it is,’ he wound up.

‘Why, George!’ Miss Lyman cried, flinging herself between him and his outraged victim. ‘ Why, what on earth makes you act like that!’

Red Bird thrust his hands into his pockets, and executed an awkward and wholly unrepentant double shuffle.

‘I dunno,’ he returned engagingly, ‘but sometimes seems like I feel so good, I just naturally have to smack somebody.’

‘You could have told Edward Jimmie’s way of telling about a mountain was all right, without hitting him — ’

‘Maybe so, Miss Lyman,’ Red Bird interrupted, with airy confidence, ‘but if you’ll notice you’ll see er fella is mighty apt to know a thing a heap better if you tell it to him with your fist.’

Catching his hero’s spirit, Jimmie thrust his thumb and forefinger gruesomely into his eye-sockets, and spun round and round in a grotesque little war-dance of his own.

‘Yes, sir! That’s the way to tell ’em, Red Bird! That’s the way!’ he cried, the shrill anxiety of his voice changed to triumph, ‘an’ I just knowed that was a all-right way to tell a mountain, an’ Red Bird, he knows, ’cause he kin see! ’

‘Yes, Red Bird can see,’ another boy chimed in. ‘Gee! If I could see good as him, bet I would n’t be at no blind school.’

Red Bird let this pass.

‘Here, boys,’ he cried briskly, ‘gimme yer cards so’s I kin read ’em for you; I ain’t got all day to fool with you all.’

Putting out a groping hand, he took a card from the nearest boy, and holding it up before his face he began, ‘Dear Son, this is to let you know I am well, an’ hopes you are the same. You must be a good boy, an’ learn your lessons good. From your respectful father.’

‘Why, George! how well you read!” Miss Lyman exclaimed in astonishment. Involuntarily she took the card from him, but the words which stared up at her were, —

‘ Dear little Robert,—How are you getting along? Sadie was sick a spell but is now better. Don’t forget your father and mother.’

‘ Why, the little liar! ’ she cried sharply to herself, and turned upon Red Bird.

He had shrunk slightly away, every line of his body speaking of a strained consciousness of her reproachful eyes upon him, and his averted face was half-pleading, half-defiant.

‘George,’ she began gravely.

But suddenly Jimmie’s quavering pipe cut in with, ‘Yes, sir! Red Bird kin see to read writin’ good as anybody.’

Miss Lyman shut her lips tight. Jimmie had choked her intended reproof to silence. It did not seem to her that she could shatter his idol in his very presence, but she registered a vow to have a serious talk with George in private.

At this moment word came that Miss Cynthia — the teacher who was managing the entertainment to be held that evening by the blind department of the school, in celebration of the day — wanted all the boys who were to take part in it to come and rehearse.

‘Come on, kid,’ Red Bird cried, reaching out an arm for Jimmie in the general scramble. ‘Mind out now for that bench—’

But alas! in thus masterfully guiding Jimmie, Red Bird struck his own head against the sharp edge of a half-open door.

‘Oh! cried Miss Lyman, starting forward.

‘What’s the matter, Red Bird? What’s the matter — what’d you run into?’ Jimmie cried distractedly.

Fora moment the blow had staggered Red Bird, and he leaned dizzily against the door, breathing hard and struggling against the surge of tears; but at Jimmie’s words he flashed up straight and flung his shoulders back.

’I didn’t run into nothin’! Course I did n’t! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know I kin see?’ he cried passionately, proudly, while the blow on his forehead swelled to a hot finger of red.

The entertainment in celebration of Washington’s Birthday that evening was drawing to its close. It had been a great success. There had been patriotic songs, recitations, and dialogues. There had even been a one-act play, in which Red Bird’s engaging self-confidence, umblemished by any hint of stage fright, had brought down the house, and had so inspired Jimmie that he had even achieved a small success of his own.

An address by Mr. Lincoln had followed the play. He made no attempt at impassioned oratory, but he had a clear-voiced, earnest, direct manner of appeal which aroused every child, boy or girl, from fiddling with fingers or buttons, to listen with all his or her attention. And as with swift, vivid word-strokes he presented the glories of patriotism and of truth, there was not a small heart there which did not go a beat or two faster, or a little soul which did not dedicate itself to a stricter truth, and a higher devotion to its country.

There remained just one more number on the programme, then the general singing of ‘My Country, ’t is of Thee,’ and then, ice-cream and cake and bed, with Washington’s Birthday of nineteen hundred and twelve swinging into its place among the years crowned with all the honor and glory of which the Lomax School was capable.

‘I’m glad you said what you did about truth,’ Miss Lyman commented warmly, as Mr. Lincoln dropped to a seat beside her and Mrs. Lincoln. ‘ I trust our small George Washington may take it to heart. You know what stories he tells about how much he can see.’

‘Yes,’said Mr. Lincoln thoughtfully, ‘I had Red Bird very much in mind. He always exaggerated about that, but it seems to me his imagination has grown perfectly unbridled ever since I let him go home for the Christmas holidays. His parents are extremely foolish, but of course he can see a very little, and it must be hard for them to check him. But why don’t the festivities proceed?’ he broke off, realizing that for some reason there was an unusually long wait.

‘What do we finish with?’ He glanced at his programme. ‘Oh, “My Name it is George Washington,” sung by George Washington Morris. Red Bird seems slow in testifying to the fact.’

‘I don’t wonder,’ Miss Lyman laughed. ‘Ah, here he is,’ she added in relief, as the curtains, manipulated by two of the big deaf boys, swung apart to reveal the small performer holding a large American flag over his head.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, a sharp ache clutched Miss Lyman’s throat. Red Bird was all alone upon the stage, and somehow she had never before realized what a little boy he was. Moreover, there was something about his face that seemed to blur and soften away its usual swaggering conceit.

‘ Why — why he’s been crying! ’ she whispered sharply.

Nevertheless, flinging his head back with his old arrogance, Red Bird struck bravely into his song. It was one of exalted sentiment in which a small boy enumerates the different things he cannot do, because (the refrain)

My name it is George Washington, I cannot tell a lie,

Beneath this flag he gave to us, So let me live and die.

Red Bird’s clear voice managed the opening lines well enough until he came to the refrain. There he faltered, almost stopped, recovered himself desperately, struggled on somehow to the end, waved his flag, and rushed on to the next verse.

‘Think of Red Bird having stage fright,’ Miss Lyman commented uncomfortably.

‘That’s not stage fright.,’ Mr. Lincoln whispered. ‘Look at Jimmie,’ he added sharply.

Across the aisle from them, in his place among the smaller blind boys, Jimmie sat — a keyed-up, tense little figure, all the usual eager waving of his body fallen now to a frightened stillness. His elbow on his knee, thumb and forefinger thrust into his eye-sockets, he sat, bowed over, listening — listening with his whole body. He was perfectly motionless save for a faint agonized quiver, responding like some tuned instrument to that throb of emotion in Red Bird’s voice, and there was nothing that he could do. Nothing save sit there in the dark and wait and listen, while there, almost in touch of him, the being who made up the romance and delight of his existence met his tragedy all alone.

Red Bird was nearing the end of the second verse, and with every word the refrain was looming nearer. He stumbled on somehow to the last line, then—

' My name it is George Washington, I — I — ’

He could get no further. He stopped dead, panting, struggling, breathless, fighting with all his proud little boy soul to choke the tears back. But it was no use. The flag dropped from his hands, he flung his arm across his face, gave one little sharp gulp, and broke down before them all.

Someone with presence of mind hurried the curtains together, while Miss Cynthia at the piano dashed into ‘My Country, ’t is of Thee,’ and after a dazed moment the audience rose and sang, and the entertainment came to an end.

‘ Well, sirs! What do you know about that! Red Bird he ’s a great, singer, now ain’t he!’one of the blind boys jeered.

A little wild ball of fury launched itself upon him.

‘ I ’ll learn you to laugh at Red Bird! ’ Jimmie screamed.

’Doggone you, Little! Get out er here!’ bellowed the outraged boy.

‘An’ I’ll learn you my name ain’t Little! It’s Jimmie! Jimmie! nothin’ but just Jimmie! Now do you know it!’ Beside himself with passion Jimmie hammered the information home, until Miss Lyman and Mr. Lincoln rushing up shook the two apart.

‘Where’s Red Bird?’ Jimmie demanded, stemming all rebuke.

’He has gone to bed,’Miss Lyman answered. ’I promised to save his candy and cake for him. No,’ she added, seeing Mr. Lincoln’s questioning eyes upon her, ’I could n’t get him to tell me what the trouble was.’

’I’m goin’ to bed, too, I don’t want no ice-cream,’Jimmie announced.

‘No, you are not,’ Miss Lyman returned firmly. ’I want George to go to sleep, and if you’re there you’ll just wake him up.’

Later that evening, when the small blind boys trooped into their dormitory, Red Bird lay very straight and still in his cot, his head buried deep among the pillows.

Later still when all the scuffle of going to bed was quiet, and everyone supposedly asleep, Jimmie, after a long, long time of lying on his back and waiting with the dark stillness pressing down on his face, heard — what he had known he would hear—the creaking sound of Red Bird’s cot, as the figure in it relaxed, a sobbing breath, and then stifled crying.

Jimmie slipped out of his own cot which was next, and stumbled across the way.

‘Red Bird, it’s me, it’s just Jimmie,’ he whispered wistfully. His groping arm crept timidly about the other’s neck.

‘Don’t cry, Red Bird,’ he implored.

But Red Bird shrugged him angrily away.

‘ Git out! ’ he gasped.

Jimmie hesitated a moment, then crept away through the dormitory between the long rows of sleeping boys.

There came presently at Miss Lyman’s door the soft faint sound of groping fingers, and then a timid knock. In the dim light of the hall she found Jimmie’s shivering little figure.

’It’s — it’s Red Bird,’ he whispered, touching her dress lightly to assure himself that she was really there. ‘He ’s cryin’ just awful.’

Miss Lyman went down the dormitory to investigate, stopping on the way to jump Jimmie back into his bed.

Red Bird was indeed crying just ‘awful,’ the difficult strangled tears of a proud child.

He quivered away from her touch, seeming to desire to burrow into the very mattress.

‘Come into my room, honey, where there’s a nice fire, and tell me what the trouble is,’ she whispered, urging his reluctant little figure out of bed.

In her room he crumpled up in a big chair before the fire, his head buried deep in his arms, and all his gay conceit utterly routed.

‘I’m —I’m a liar, Miss Lyman!’ he broke out at length with a gasp.

Miss Lyman was conscious of the sudden twinkle of tears in her eyes. It was one thing to call him a ‘ dreadful little liar’ in her own heart, faced by his lordly boasting, but quite another to have him admit it in that small heart-broken voice.

‘Why, dear?’ She compromised softly.

‘I can’t see one thing.’

The five short words came in a gust desperately.

‘Oh, but you can see a little,’ she cried in quick extenuation. ‘Of course I know you can’t see as much as you pretend to, but —’

‘I can’t! I can’t—I tell you!’ he interrupted her passionately. ’I can’t see one thing any more! An’ I’ve lied, an’ lied, an’ lied—’

His voice went out in a little sharp sob, but presently he began again.

‘I uster could see real good, most

— most as good as sighted folks, but

— but when I was home Christmas there was a kind of a quack doctor fella come ’round an’ told my mother for — for ten dollars he’d fix my eyes so’s I could see sure ’nough. An’ she gave him the money — it was some she was saving to buy a tombstone for our baby that died —an’ the doctor he made a kind of a cut in my eye — an’ — I ain’t never seen a thing since, not — not one thing.’

‘O my little boy!’ Miss Lyman cried pitifully.

And now he let her warm sorry arms creep about him, and turning, pressed his face against her shoulder.

‘I uster could see. I was n’t tellin’ no lies then,’ he sobbed. ‘I uster could see sure ’nough. I could see ’lectric lights if they was close. An, onct in er thunder-storm, I seen er lightnin’ flash, an’ most always on clear days, I could see the sun — honest I could, Miss Lyman, I could see it real good. But now I can’t see nothin’,’ he whispered. ‘An’ I’ve just lied an’ lied erbout it.’ His broken little story came with long breaks between. ‘Some way I just could n’t tell the fellas the truth, an’ so — so I just went on an’ lied, an’ acted like I could see better ’n’ ever — An’ I never thought ’bout havin’ to tell the truth ’cause of my name till — till after what Mr. Lincoln said — but now I reckon I’ll just have to tell. I — I sort of hate to tell Jimmie worst of all,’ he dragged out at last.

And Miss Lyman knew that the telling Jimmie was the bitterest drop in all the bitter cup.

‘ Some way he — he thinks I can see so awful good,’Red Bird explained brokenly.

She caressed him soft ly for a moment in silence, her heart full of rage at the ‘quack doctor fella.’ At length she said,—

‘How would it do to tell Jimmie now and get it. over with?’

‘Well—’ he said after a long moment, a reluctant crushed consent.

Miss Lyman brought Jimmie in, a very small white-clad father confessor. His little face, sharp with anxiety, turned from side to side, as he seemed to feel the aura of his friend’s misery.

‘Red Bird has something to tell you, Jimmie,’ Miss Lyman said.

He put out his eager hands — which for all their thinness and smallness were so alive with character—and found his hero’s bowed shoulders.

‘Such little boys!’ Miss Lyman thought, as she looked at the two white figures there in the circle of firelight which they could not see.

Red Bird took a fierce breath and began.

‘Jimmie, I’ve just lied an’ lied to you, kid. I can’t see a bit more’n you; my eyes was ruined when I was home Christmas an’ I been lyin’ to you ever since, an’ I — ’

But Jimmie cut him short all in a breath.

‘Why—why, Red Bird,’ he cried, stuttering, and stumbling over his words in his haste to get them out, ‘why, that don’t matter — I — I knowed all the time you could n’t see. I knowed it right off — soon as ever you come back.’

Red Bird shot up straight and furious.

‘Why, you doggoned little liar!’ he cried. ‘If you knowed, what made you go on actin’ like you thought I could see so good!’

Jimmie winced away from his hero’s wrath, but he stumbled bravely on, a faithful little Jonathan.

‘Well — well, you see, Red Bird, I sort of — sort of knowed you hated awful bad bein’ sure ’nough blind — you’d hate it maybe sort of worse ’n a fella would that ’d allers been that away, — an’ so when you kept er actin’ like you could see better ’n ever I thought you’d kind of— kind of like it if I acted that away too. An’ — an’

I ’lowed it did n’t matter what I did ’cause my name ain’t George Washington, it’s just Jimmie, an’ I ain’t got no folks to keer how I act. Maybe I’ll go to Hell for it,’ he pursued calmly, — having evidently faced this possibility in his small mind, — ‘but’said Just Jimmie quite simply, ‘course a fella would n’t mind that if — if it would make it any better for — for the fella he — he keered erbout.’ And after a moment he added ‘Sort of,’ vaguely, which two little last words were wholly irrelevant and were merely thrown in as a cover to his shyness.

’But course,’ he resumed, ‘when I heard all this George Washington truth talk, why — why I knowed then you’d have to tell, Red Bird, ’cause of your name.’

Suddenly Miss Lyman remembered the picture of Jimmie’s agonized little figure during Red Bird’s song. So he had known all along what his friend was facing. She wondered how much else Just Jimmie knew back there behind those blind eyes of his.

‘Jimmie,’ Red Bird gasped presently, ‘it’s awful! Bein’ sure ’nough blind is just — just awful! ’

He had not admitted this to Miss Lyman.

Jimmie started as though he had been stung and his hands fell to patting the other’s head with acute awkward tenderness.

‘ Why — why, Red Bird, it — it ain’t really so awful after a fella gits used to it,’he stuttered. ‘It’s — it’s just ’cause you ain’t, really used to it yet. Why — why, he stumbled — he whose sight had been wiped out by Infant Ophthalmia at the age of two weeks — ‘why, I recollect / felt just like you do when I first went blind, but ?now — why — why now I kind of like it,’ he protested valiantly. ‘Why — er—’ his little gray-mouse face with its disfigured eyes waved about as he hunted desperately for the advantages of being blind — ‘Why, Red Bird, you an’ me is awful bad fellas, an’ maybe if we could see we’d do somepun ’at ’ud git us locked up in the penitentiary. An’ — an’ anyway, er fella don’t want to be bothered with havin’ to see such a heap of things all the time, an’ so— an’ so — so — bein’ blind is — is kind of nice and quiet,’ he brought out triumphantly at last.

‘ Gee! ’ Red Bird retorted in a muffled voice, ‘you’re mighty right, your name ain’t George Washington. But all the same you’re a awful good little kid.’

He reached out one moist tear-dabbled hand, and finding Jimmie’s, hugged it close, as though trusting to its small wise strength to guide him along that dark path which the other knew so well.

Suddenly a fresh inspiration came to Jimmie, and he gave a joyous squirm, like an ingratiating puppy.

‘Red Bird,’ he said, ‘the fellas is goin’ to be awful mad when you tell ’em how you’ve fooled ’em. I would n’t be s’prised if you — if you had to lick quite a few of ’em.’

A swift delighted stiffening up of muscle animated Red Bird.

‘Why — that’s so,’ he cried in happy anticipation. ‘I just b’lieve that’s so, kid. An’ I can fight, can’t I?’ he demanded wistfully.

At last Just Jimmie felt himself upon familiar ground, and took his cue joyfully.

‘Fight? Great snakes! Red Bird! I just everlastin’ly bet you kin! Why, why there ain’t er boy in school you can’t lick! Yes, sirs, fellas,’ he proclaimed, addressing the whole school in imagination, ‘yes, sir! Red Bird he certainly kin fight!’