Shelley was getting lanky now, with big joints and calf knees showing below his velvet pants; and he was making great headway, I want to tell you, in what seemed to be his chosen profession of pugilism. He took to going out of his class, taking on boys two or three years older. I never had the rare pleasure of seeing him in action, but it was mere lack of enterprise on my part. Before he found out that curls could be relieved by a barber he had merely took such fights as come to him. But now he went out of his way looking for 'em, and would start the action himself. It got so that boys used to travel in bands--them that had criticized his appearance so he'd hear it--but he'd lie in wait for stragglers that was left behind by the convoy, and it would be the same old sad story. You can know what it meant when I tell you that the last year Shelley went to school they say he could come onto the playground with his long yellow curls floating in the breeze, and not a word would be heard from the fifty boys that might be there. And so it went till he was thirteen. One succession of fights and a growing collection of words that would of give his fond pastor something to think about. Of course word of the fights would get to Shelley's ma from mothers whose little ones he had ravaged, but she just simply didn't believe it. You know a woman can really not believe anything she don't wish to. You couldn't tell that lady that her little boy with the angel face and soft voice would attack another boy unless the other boy begun it. And if the other boy did begin it it was because he envied Shelley his glorious curls. Arline was certainly an expert in the male psychology, as they call it. But at thirteen Shelley was losing a lot of the angel out of his face. His life of battle had told on him, I guess. But he was still obedient and carried the cross for his mother's sake. Poor thing! He'd formed the habit of obedience and never once suspicioned that a woman had no right to impose on him just because she was his mother. Shelley just took to fighting a little quicker. He wouldn't wait for words always. Sometimes mere looks of disgust would start him. Then, when he got to near fourteen, still with the beautiful curls, he begun to get a lovely golden down on his face; and the face hadn't hardly a trace of angel left in it. The horrible truth was that Shelley not only needed a haircut but a shave. And one day, goaded by certain taunts, he told his mother this in a suddenly bass voice. It must of startled Arline, having this roar come out of her child when his little voice had always been sweet and high. So she burst into some more tears and Shelley asked her forgiveness, and pretty soon she was curling his hair again. I guess he knew right then it was for the last time on earth, but nothing warned the mother.