IT was only two days after this that Alice witnessed a cryptic performance.
She saw Sara talking with William Travers Jenkins, known as Bill. Sara was at her most ingratiating; it would have seemed she would have moved any boy to admiration; but what did Bill do? At the end of Sara's discourse he flung her violently against the fence. Not daunted by this, Sara pursued him, still sweet. With every evidence of shame and anger he cried rudely, "Shut up! You shut up!" Words unbecoming to a well-brought-up boy like William Travers Jenkins.
The other boys took up the hue and cry, not against Sara, but against Bill. They danced around him in an indecorous manner, and shrilly mocked Sara's beguiling tones. At this, Bill made mud balls, rapidly, hastily, angrily, which he threw at his tormentors. He threw other things, even stones.
Strangely enough, instead of taking part against him it was Sara who performed the act known as "standing up for him." It was Sara who helped throw, disproving that the girl child has naturally a poor aim and cannot throw straight. While she performed these acts of friendly valor, Alice heard him crying menacingly to Sara:
"You get away from here,—we don't want you around!"
Then, anger in his voice and tears in his eyes, he fled the yard, followed by a group of mocking and derisive boys.
