He did not dream, as he raced along home with his sister's shoes, of the different construction which they had put upon his words, but he felt angry and injured.
"That Sim' Basset pickin' on me that way," he thought.

A wild sense of the helplessness of his youth came over him.

"Wish I was a man," he muttered--"wish I was a man; I'd show 'em! All them men talkin'-- sayin' anything--'cause I'm a boy." Just before he reached home Jerome met two more men, and he heard his father's name distinctly.

One of them stretched out a detaining hand as he passed, and called out, "Hullo! you're the Edwards boy ?" "Let me go, I tell you," shouted Jerome, in a fury, and was past them with a wild flourish of heels, like a rebellious colt.
"What in creation ails the boy ?" said the man, with a start aside; and he and the other stood staring after Jerome.
When Jerome got home and opened the kitchen door he stood still with surprise.

It was almost ten o'clock, and his mother and Elmira had begun to make pies.