THE STEADFAST HEART
permit. “Boy…. Boy…. Stop. I want to talk to you.”
Angus stopped. He wanted to run, but somehow he was fascinated. It seemed incredible to him that this mite of daintiness could have conducted herself as he had seen her do. He was more afraid of her than ever he had been of a mob of boys, but something in him would not allow him to run. He stood, head hanging, cheeks blazing, and waited in his tracks.
“I—I won’t let him pick on you, not when he’s in my yard,” Lydia panted as she came to the fence. “I won’t let anybody pick on anybody. It’s my yard and folks got to do in it what I want, ’cause it’s my grandfather’s prop’ty, so there…. My grandma, she says folks hadn’t ought to put up with bein’ put on by other folks, that’s what she says, and my grandma knows! When Mal Crane went pickin’ on you, why didn’t you fight him yourself?”
Angus let his head fall farther forward, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and kicked the walk with his toe. Lydia did not wait for an answer, but, peering sharply between the pickets, said, “I s’pose you’re that boy that’s so wicked, like everybody says, and shot Mr. Bates and lived in a shanty out there—and you’re a tramp and your papa was a bad man and stole things, and your fam’ly was shif’less and didn’t amount to
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