“What will Kathleen do without Jerry?” asked Nora in a choked voice.

Jerry looked up and saw that she was quietly weeping, too.  They believed it!  Believed that Mother ’Larkey would let them take him away!  He had been somewhat comforted by their stout assertions that Darn’s words were false, but now—!

He was stunned.  Then his lips twisted and twitched and the tears that had been forming in his eyes spilled silently over.

“Don’t get scared, Jerry,” Danny tried to comfort him.  Then he turned to the tormentor. “Darn you, Darn, why can’t you let him be!”

There it was!  Just what Jerry wanted to show Darn he couldn’t scare him.  His oozing courage flamed up in a final flare of desperation.  Through his tears and the choke in his throat he cried: 

“Darn Darn Darner!  Darn!  Darn!  Darn! Darn Darn Darner!”

“That’s about enough from you, Jerry Elbow!” shouted Darn.  He gave Jerry a resounding slap in the face.  “No kid like you can call me that without takin’ the biggest lickin’ he ever got.”

“No, you don’t!” cried Danny and quick as a flash he rushed at Darn and began pounding him over the head and shoulders with his fists.  Chris and Nora went to Danny’s aid and the three pairs of fists caused Darn to duck and run a short distance.

Jerry slumped down into the dust of the road, weeping bitterly, and Celia Jane flopped down by him, hugging him tight and mingling her tears with his.

Danny and Chris and even the usually gentle Nora, but for once with all her gentleness vanished, gave vent to their feelings against Darn by making a chant out of his name.

“Darn Darn Darner!  Darn!  Darn!  Darn! Darn Darn Darner!  Darn!  Darn!  Darn!”

Into that chant boiled over all their pent-up dislike for him which had been simmering under cover for so long.  Darn started back towards them, angry through and through, but stopped as they rushed to meet him, fists doubled up ready for battle.  He had fought many boys bigger than himself, but he fled before the numerical strength of the present enemy, flinging back over his shoulder from a safe distance, “Blue-eyed beauty!  Ole Danny dumb-head!  Blue-eyed beauty!  Ole Danny dumb-head!  Yah!  You’ll hafta go to the poor farm if you want to see Jerry Elbow after Wednesday.”

Upon hearing Darn’s words Jerry stretched out at full length in the road and his voice rose in a quavering wail of anguish.  Celia Jane emitted a thinner, shriller wail.  Nora came back to comfort them and was caught by the contagion so that she too plumped down in the road and wept.

Danny and Chris, being boys, were ashamed to give vent to their emotions in a similar way and stood looking down at the huddled forms in the road.  Chris, after a time, found himself weeping in sympathy and openly rubbed away the tears with his shirt sleeve.  Even Danny swallowed hard and dabbed at his eyes.