Two determined little figures with flushed, resolute two stood opposite one another on a narrow footbridge over a running stream.
Neither could pass the other, but neither intended to go back, and the sturdy maiden in her sailor dress, with her small hands placed on her hips, appeared quite a match for Teddy, who, with his golden head well up, looked like a war-horse scenting the battlefield.
It was thus they met again. Both employing their Saturday afternoon in roaming along the edge of a stream, they had suddenly come face to face with one another.
"You must let me come over first," she asserted very emphatically, "because I'm a girl."
"Boys never go back, and a soldier's son never! I'm not going to turn my back before the enemy—I would disgrace my button if I did."
"That old button!" The tone was that of utmost scorn.
Teddy's cheeks grew rosy red at once, but he said nothing.
"I got to this bridge before you did," she continued.
"I began to cross it first. And you... Who are you? No one knows anything about you. I have been crossing this bridge for years."
"More reason you shouldn't cross it now. My name is Nancy Wright-that's who I am." A princess could not have revealed her name more royally. She added, after a pause, "And I mean to come over first, so go back."
"Never! I never go back!"
"Then I shall push you over in the water."
"Come on and try, then!"
Then there was silence; both the little people eyed each other defiantly, yet a little doubtfully, as if measuring one another's strength. Their faces grew eager at the coming contest.
"Boys always ought to give way to girls. Always," Nancy said, using her strongest plea. "You are not a proper boy at all."
"You are not a proper girl. You are wearing a boy's hat and a boy's jacket."
"I'm a sailor's daughter, and everybody can see I am. You say you are a soldier's son, why don't you dress like one?"
Teddy felt he was getting the worst of it. He fingered his button proudly. "I'm wearing something that has been in the thick of a bloody battle; that's more than you can do. Sailors don't know much of fighting."
"They know just as much as soldiers, and as to your old button, I believe you just picked up the old brass thing from the gutter!"
"If you weren't a girl, I would fight you!" sputtered Teddy now, with rising wrath.
"Pooh! I expect I could lick you. I don't believe you have half as big a muscle as I have on my arm."
"A girl have muscle! It's just a bit of fat!"
The tone of scorn proved too much for Nancy's self-control. With a passionate exclamation, she made a quick rush across the plank. There was a struggle, and the result was what might have been expected a great splash, a scream from Nancy, and both little figures were immersed in the stream. Happily the water was not very deep. After a few minutes scrambling they were on dry ground, considerably sobered by their immersion. Teddy began to laugh a little shamefacedly, but Nancy was very near tears.
"I'll tell my mother you nearly drowned me dead." "If you are a sailor's daughter, you shouldn't be afraid of the water. Sailors and fish are always in the sea." "They are never in it, never!"
"Well, they are on it, as close as they can be to it. Why, you are nearly crying! But you are only a girl, and a sailor's girl can't be very brave—not like a soldier's girl would be."
"Sailors are much braver than soldiers," said Nancy, quickly swallowing down her tears; "and when they do fight they are in much more danger than the soldiers. Father said, 'How would soldiers like the earth to swallow them up just when they've been fighting hard and got the victory?' That's what the sea does to the poor sailors. Their ship begins to sink, and they send up three cheers for queen and country, and then stand on deck with folded arms, and go down, down, down to the bottom of the sea, and never make a cry!"
Nancy forgot her wet clothes in her eloquence, and Teddy stared wonderingly at her.
"Well," he said, as if considering the matter, "they may be brave sometimes, but they don't fight like the soldiers. They have no banners, and red coats, and band; and they don't know how to march. A sailor walks any which way. I saw one once, and I thought he was tipsy, but he wasn't. A sailor walks like a goose he waddles!"
"You are the horridest, rudest boy I've ever seen!"
And with the utmost dignity Nancy walked away, Teddy calling after her, "You made a pretty good charge for a girl, but you couldn't get past me!" And then with one of his loud whoops he raced home, and hardly drew a breath until he reached the farmhouse door. His grandmother confronted him at once.
"You young rascal, what have you been doing? You are never a day out of mischief. If I was your mother I would give you a good whipping; but she spoils you."
"And you do, too, Granny!"
Teddy's laughing blue eyes, as he raised them to the grim face before him, conquered, as they generally did.
"There, go to your mother. She's in the dairy; I wash my hands of you."
But Teddy crept up to his little room to change his wet clothes before he met his mother, and then was very silent about his adventure, merely saying, by way of explanation, that he had fallen into the brook; but at tea, a short time after, he suddenly said, "If you put a sailor and a soldier together, which would you choose, Uncle Jake?"
"Eh, my laddie? Well, they are both good in their way. I couldn't say, I'm sure."
"Mother, wouldn't you say the soldier was the bravest?"
"Perhaps I might, Sonny; but a sailor can be quite as brave."
Teddy's face fell. "I never thought a sailor could fight at all," he said, in a disappointed tone. "I thought they just took care of our ships, and now and then fired a big gun off."
"Who has been bringing up the sailors to you?" asked his grandmother.
"That little girl I told you of-Nancy is her name." "Where did you see her?"
"Down by the brook; we fell into the water together, because we both wanted to cross at once.
"But, my boy, that was naughty of you not to give place to her," and Mrs. John spoke reprovingly.
"I know it was, Mother, but I was not going to turn back. That would be running away from the enemy. You see, we met in the middle, and she is not at all a nice girl. She is so proud and stuck up about the sailors!"
"As proud as you are of the redcoats, I guess!" old Mrs. Platt said.
"Do sailors and soldiers like each other?" questioned Teddy, ignoring the thrust.
"I am sure I don't know," his mother answered, smiling. "I have never seen them together that I remember, but I should think they did. They both fight for their queen and country."
"Well, I'm a soldier's son, and I don't like a sailor's daughter, I know that! I think she is a kind of enemy."
"Oh, hush, Sonny! You must not have any enemies. It is wrong to talk so."
"That's what he was saying to me the other day," put in his uncle slowly. "He says he wants one."
"Yes, I do," and Teddy gave a fervent nod as he spoke. "And Mother, I believe most good people have enemies. So it must be right to have one."
"They never make one, as you are trying to do." Teddy looked puzzled.
"Well," he said presently, "I guess it's because she's a stranger. She doesn't belong to our village. I don't like strangers."
"She's no more a stranger than you were when you first came here," his mother said, "and the fact of her being a stranger ought to make you kind to her."
"I'm thinking of calling on her mother," old Mrs. Platt said, looking at her little grandson with her keen gray eyes. "Shall I take you with me to see the little girl?"
"I've seen her enough, Granny. Please, I think I would rather not."
The subject was dropped, but Teddy's thoughts were busy. He ran down to the village green after tea, and there met one or two of his special chums, to whom he confided the events of the afternoon. They highly applauded the scene at the bridge, but Teddy shook his curly head a little doubtfully.
"Men ought always to give way to women, I've heard Mother say. But I couldn't turn back, you see-it would have disgraced my button."
"Tell you what," cried Harry Brown, commonly known as "Carrots" from his fiery hair, "you could have done what the goats did in the primer at school-you ought to have laid flat down and let her walk across you."
"She would have hurt dreadful," Teddy observed thoughtfully. "Besides, she's so proud, I don't think I would have liked to do that."
"No," put in Sam Waters, "you did fine. I say, let's come up to the turnpike and see if she's around there.
I'll give her a word, if she begins to sauce me."
Teddy agreed to this, and the trio trotted off along a flat, dusty road, Teddy beguiling the way by some of his wonderful stories until they came in sight of the low thatched cottage, covered with roses, that guarded the turnpike.
They soon saw the young damsel, for she was swinging on the gate, her dark hair flying in the wind, and her eyes and cheeks bright with the exercise. She looked at the boys, then laughed.
"Poor little button-boy!" she said. "You have to be taken care of by two bigger ones."
"We have come to see you," said Sam valiantly, "because we are not going to stand any cheek from you; so you had better look out."
Nancy stopped swinging, and resting her fat little elbows on the topmost bar, asked saucily, "Did the button-boy tell you to come and help him fight me? Are you all three going to try?"
"We don't fight girls," said Teddy.
"You push them into the water."
"I didn't."
"I told Mother about it. She thought you were a very rude boy not to wait until I crossed over."
There was silence, then Carrots started forward.
"Look here, you'll have to learn your manners. We won't have a strange girl like you stick yourself up so. We have come to tell you to look out for yourself if you don't stop it."
Nancy laughed again, and swung herself violently backward and forward. "Ye he, my lads! Ye he!" she sang. "I'm on my ship, and I don't care for boys a bit. They are all as silly as can be. Ye he! We go! Ye he, lads, heave he!"
Her elevated position certainly seemed to give her an advantage.
"We will soon shake you off there!" shouted Sam, his wrath rising at her calm indifference to the lords of creation.
"Come on and try. I'm up the rigging, and a storm is beginning. Hurray—come on!"
Sam and Carrots made a furious onslaught, and the gate was roughly handled, but the more it shook and swung, the more derisive was Nancy's laughter, as she clutched a firm hold with her small hands, and swayed to and fro, calling out excitedly, "Furl the main-sail! Stand by, lads—steady—starboard hard! Port your helm! Rocks to leeward! Reef the top-sail! Breakers ahead! Ye he!"
Teddy looked on, awed by these nautical terms, which seemed to slip so easily from her lips. To him they seemed wonderfully clever, but he was not one to stand aside long in a scene of excitement, and with one of his wild war whoops he rushed forward.
"On, boys! Charge! Hurray!"
The gate rocked violently, and Nancy began to feel her position was a perilous one. All the little people were screaming at the top of their voices, when suddenly, in the midst of the din, appeared old Sol.
"What now! Who are these trying to break one of Her Majesty's gates down? Be off, you young ruffians! Teddy Platt, you are at the bottom of all the mischief brewing in the parish. I'll get my big stick out and give you a thrashing before I've done with you."
Old Sol's words were fierce, but the boys knew he had the softest heart in the village, and they stood their ground.
"It's all the button-boy," said Nancy eagerly, as she descended from her perch, and laid her little hand confidingly on the old man's arm. "He brought these boys up to fight me, but I was up the mast, and they couldn't shake me off!"
"We told you we would not fight a girl!" protested Teddy indignantly. "You don't speak the truth."
"Well, what did you bring the boys for?" demanded the small maiden severely.
"We came," put in Sam boldly, "to tell you that if you were so cheeky you would soon get into trouble. We aren't going to stand sauce from you."
"What has the little lass been doing, you young scoundrels?"
"They are only boys, Grandfather. Let us go in to Mother, and leave them. They are the rudest boys I've ever seen, and the button-boy is the worst, and his button isn't worth a farthing!"
There was a yell from all three boys at this.
"That's it!" cried Carrots excitedly. "It's the button she's so cheeky about. We aren't going to have Teddy's button laughed at. We won't stand it, Sol-we won't!"
"It shows she doesn't know anything, or she would not talk so. She's just a baby, that's what she is."
"Why, she doesn't believe Father's story is true, Sol! You know it is, don't you?"
"She isn't as old as the button itself."
"Ha! Ha! She wasn't born when it was in battle. Much she knows about it!"
Sol had difficulty in quieting the indignant voices.
"Look here, you boys, go home and leave my little lass to me. She knows nothing about the button. I'll tell her the story, and then she won't laugh at it any more. Ay, I remember seeing your father, youngster. He was a brave man, he was, but he would never have made war against little maids like this. Shame on you. Go home! Go away, I say, or I'll bring my stick out."
"She's been told the story. She listened, and she laughed. She ought to say she is sorry." Teddy stood with his legs wide apart, and his hands in his pockets. His tone was severe.
"I'll never, never, never say I'm sorry. I'm glad of what I said. I don't believe a word of it!"
And with this parting shot Nancy ran into the cottage, and the boys returned to the village more slowly than they came.
"Mother," said Teddy that night, as his mother bent down for a good-night kiss, "I haven't been good today, and I don't feel good now. I feel, when I think it over, so angry inside."
"What is it about, Sonny?"
"Father's button." The tone was drowsy, and seeing his eyelids droop heavily Mrs. John said no more, only breathed a prayer that her little son might fight as bravely for Christ's honor as he did for that of his father's button.