"D' you think he kin do it?" Jimmy Thurston finally inquired, as the spare, ridiculous figure of the man brought up behind the tenantless judges' stand and for an instant was lost to sight. Willie Trigger sneered. He was very superior, was Willie. "Sure he kin!" he exclaimed. "Sure he kin!" "I bet he can't," Jimmy replied curtly. "He kin too--'sides----" "'Sides what?" the challenging Jimmy asked, contemptuously. "My father says he kin." "Aw----" "He does too." "Aw, my pa says he _can't_----" "I d'care; he kin." "How d'you know?" "Well"--Willie Trigger hesitated. "Well, my father says he guesses he kin beat a _nengine_!" At that Jimmy Thurston burst into jeering laughter. "He! he! he!" he cackled--"a _nengine_! He! He! Why, a nengine goes--a nengine goes _a mile in a minnit_!" Willie Trigger had become very red; moreover he was choking, half with rage, half with confusion. He recognized the need of personal support. So he blurted:-- "I know he kin, 'cause I seen him--onct!" "Aw, yeh didn't neether," Jimmy Thurston flatly contradicted. Willie wriggled and dug his heel into the soft earth. "I _did_----" "Didn't _neether_!" Willie Trigger sprang to his feet, his fists clenched. Tears were rising now. With his eye Jimmy Thurston measured the distance across the field to the white house at the gate where he knew his mother was. Leaping forward he dashed suddenly away, and as he dodged the gurgling Willie, cried: "_Li_-ar! _Li_-ar! _Li_-ar!" It took Willie Trigger three seconds to perceive the situation and to act. Like a hound, then, he was off in the other's wake. The straining Jimmy, his heart bursting with regret, heard his pursuer panting at his heels.... Nearer! Nearer! A scream suddenly rent the air, a scream that was carried on by a willing wind to the keen appreciative ears of motherhood. As Willie Trigger was about to close upon the plunging form of Jimmie, Mrs. Thurston flung back the screen door and appeared upon the narrow back porch, wiping her hands on her apron. "Jim-_mee_! _Jim_-mee Thurston!" she screamed. "Maw!" yelled Jimmy dolorously. At the maternal screech, Willie Trigger brought up standing. One instant he hesitated and then, showing his heels to the woman on the porch whose arms were outstretched to receive her own, he scurried off in the direction of the judges' stand, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He heard the warning cry from the back porch:-- "Willie Trigger, if you hurt Jimmy, I'll skin you alive!" And at the corner of the judges' stand he ran full into the long, lank creature in the flapping "shorts"--and brought up, gaping. "Well, well, who was after _you_?" asked the towering runner, gazing down at the little grimy boy whose head seemed to come somewhere about his high-set knees. "Nobody," Willie Trigger mumbled. "Who was that calling?" "I dunno." Willie looked up and the runner smiled down at him. "Where do you live?" he asked. "On Thayer Street."