"Mealy's got to chaw beef," cried Piggy Pennington. The other boys echoed Piggy's merriment. Great sorrows come to grown-up people, but there is never a moment in after-life more poignant with grief than, that which stabs a boy when he learns that he must wrestle with a series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As Mealy sat in the broiling sun, gripping the knots with his teeth and fingers, he asked himself again and again how he could explain his soiled shirt to his mother. Lump after lump rose in his throat, and dissolved into tears that trickled down his nose. The other boys did not heed him. They were following Piggy's dare, dropping into the water from the overhanging limb of the elm-tree. They did not see the figure of another boy, in a gingham shirt, blue overalls, and a torn straw hat, sitting on a stone back of Mealy, smiling complacently. Not until the stranger walked down to the water's edge where Mealy sat did the other boys spy him. "Who is it?" asked Abe. "I never saw him before," replied Jimmy Sears. "Oh, I'll tell you who it is," returned Abe, after looking the stranger over. "It's the new boy. Him an' his old man come to town yesterday. They say he's a fighter. He licked every boy in the Mountain Jumpers this mornin'." By this time the new boy was standing over Mealy, saying, "How you gittin' along?" Mealy looked up, and said with the petulance of a spoiled child, "Hush your mouth, you old smartie! What good d't do you to go an' tie my clo'es?" Piggy and Jimmy and Abe came hurrying to the landing. They heard the new boy retort, "Who said I tied your clo'es?" Mealy made no reply. The new boy repeated the query. Mealy saw the boys in the water looking on, and his courage rose; for Mealy was in the primary department of life, and had not yet learned that one must fight alone. He answered, "I did," with an emphasis on the "I," as he tugged at the last knot. The new boy had been looking Mealy over, and he replied quickly, "You're a liar!" There was a pause, during which Mealy looked helplessly for some one to defend him. He was sure that his companions would not stand there and see him whipped. One of the boys in the water said diplomatically, "Aw, Mealy, I wouldn't take that!" "You're another," faltered Mealy, who looked supplication and surprise at his friends, and wondered if they were really going to desert him. The new boy waded around Mealy, and leaned over him, and said, shaking his fist in the freckled face, "You're a coward, and you don't dast take it up and fight it out." Mealy's cheeks flushed. He felt anger mantling his frame. He was one of those most pitiable of mortals whose anger brings tears with it. The last knot in the shirt was all but conquered, when Mealy bawled in a scream of passionate sobs,-- "When I git this shirt fixed I'll show you who's a coward." The new boy sought a level place on the bank for a fight, and sneered, "Oh, cry baby! cry baby! Say, boys, where's its bottle?"