Going home from school one Friday afternoon, Moses heard sniggering half-suppressed comments behind him. He walked along slowly, contemplating his big toe that protruded pathetically from a large hole in his shoe. It reached his ears that one aesthetic youth was dazzled by the kaleidoscopic effect of his checked trousers; in other words, it made him sea-sick. Moses quickened his pace slightly, but his face looked like an advance notice of calamity. Presently he turned and glowered at his tormenters.
dpi-sports, Up, up Billy climbed. On the bare spaces, or balanced on the point of some slender rock, he stopped frequently to look down on the beautiful valley below; on little farms laid out checker-board fashion, dark green squares for orchards, lighter green for vineyards, with tree-lined lanes running between. Overhead fleecy clouds chased one another like freshly washed, woolly sheep across the blue pasture of the heavens. In the north the great blue mountain loomed, all its opalescent tints and shadows hidden till the setting of the sun should light them forth.
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dpi-sports Billy read the note several times. He knew that Jimmy meant much more than the words said; it was his offer of the “olive branch.” And Billy, thinking over that miserable afternoon, wondered again how it had been possible for him to feel such murderous hate for anything living. And for Jimmy! His mate at school, in play! The picture came to him of Jackson crying, of Vilette,—yes, it was not strange he had been angry. But it was not his duty to punish; even if it had been, he knew he had forgotten Jackson and Vilette, forgotten everything except the rage of the fight. Why was it? Older heads than Billy’s have asked in sorrow that same question after the madness of some angry deed has passed to leave in its wake sleepless remorse..
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