I stopped for a few minutes to play with Henry Wills--a boy not quite a year older than I.While playing there I discovered a piece of the rind of my melon in the dooryard.

On that piece of rind I saw the cross which I had made one day with my thumb-nail.

It was intended to indicate that the melon was solely and wholly mine.

I felt a flush of anger.
"I hate you," I said as I approached him.
"I hate you," he answered.
"You're a snake!" I said.
We now stood, face to face and breast to breast, like a pair of young roosters.

He gave me a shove and told me to go home.