"I just made faces at her; I didn't
cry!" he bragged.
"Never your mamma or your papa?"
"Course not," said Johnny with a haughty air; "but, Peggy," he said very
low, "were you--did--"
"Oh, my, yes! Mammy did when I was little. I'm too big now."
"I'm too big, too, now, ain't I?"
"I don't know," said Peggy. "Wulf Greiner was licked by teacher, and
he's thirteen. It's whether it's mighty bad, you know."
Johnny-Ivan caught his breath and his legs shook under him; the horror
of his father's "licking" him came over him cold; it was not the pain;
he had never minded Hilma's sturdy blows and he had let Michael cut a
splinter out of his thumb with a pocket-knife, and never whimpered; it
was the ignominy, the unknown terror of his father's wrath that looked
awful to him. As he looked down the crowded room and suddenly beheld
Winslow's face bent gravely over Miss Hopkins, who was talking
earnestly, he could hardly move his feet. Yet he had no thought of
wavering. "I _got_ to tell," he said, and walked as fast as he could,
with his white face, straight to the group.
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