The two boys had
sat on the same bench at Sunday-school not three hours before; yet
what a change had come over the world for one of them since then!
"Hello! Where you goin', Ab?" asked the newcomer, gruffly.
"Callin'," replied the boy in the collar, laconically, but with
carefully averted gaze.
"On the girls?" inquired the other, awestruck. In Mount Pisgah you saw
the girls home from night church, socials, or parties; you could hang
over the gate; and you might walk with a girl in the cemetery of a
Sunday afternoon; but to ring a front-door bell and ask for Miss
Heart's Desire one must have been in long trousers at least three
years--and the two boys confronted in the dusty road had worn these
dignifying garments barely six months.
"Girls," said Abner, loftily; "I don't know about girls--I'm just
going to call on one girl--Champe Claiborne." He marched on as though
the conversation was at an end; but Ross hung upon his flank. Ross and
Champe were neighbors, comrades in all sorts of mischief; he was in
doubt whether to halt Abner and pummel him, or propose to enlist under
his banner.
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