The Forbidden Trail | Page 2

was not curly it was full of a vitality that gave it the look
of finely spun wire as it stood out over her head in a bushy mass. She
was red of cheek and blue of eye, a jolly, plucky little girl, much more
enterprising and pugnacious than Ernie, who followed her shortly over
the fence.
Ernest was Roger's age and he looked so much like Elsa that a stranger
might have thought them to be twins.

He landed with a thud. "Where'd you get the teeter-tauter, Roger?" he
cried.
"Don't you see, you old ninny? I heaved up the plank Papa put down
for the walk to the clothes-reel, and the barrel, I sort-of--now I kind of
borrowed that out of the Sauters' barn. I guess they wouldn't care. I left
a penny on the barn floor to pay for it. It's the strongest barrel I most
ever saw. You go on the other end and Charley and I'll stay here.
Elschen, you can be candlestick."
"I ain't going to be candlestick very long, I ain't. Not for you old boys,"
said Elsa, climbing, however, to the place assigned her, where the
board balanced on the barrel.
The children see-sawed amicably for perhaps five minutes when Roger
roared--
"Hey! All of you get off! I got to fix this better."
"I'm not agoing to move," replied Elsa.
"I ain't agoing to move," agreed Charley.
"Come on, you girls, get off," cried Ernie. "What you going to do,
Roger?"
"I'll show you! If you girls don't get off, I'll dump you," suiting action
to words, as he tilted the plank sidewise. Elsa got a real bump, from the
barrel to the ground. Charley's end of the see-saw was on the ground so
she scrambled up laughing. Not so Elschen. She was red with anger.
She flew at Roger and slapped him in the face.
Roger turned white, and struck back, the blow catching Elsa in the
stomach. She doubled up and roared. Roger's voice rose above hers.
"I'll kill you next time! I'll kill you, you low down old German pig,
you."
Slow moving little Ernie ran to put his arm round Elsa.

"Don't you hit my sister again, Rog Moore!"
Roger jumped up and down and kicked the barrel. "You get out of my
yard! I hate you all!"
"Not me, Roger?" cried Charley, anxiously, running up to take his
hand.
Curiously enough even in his blind passion, the boy clung to the
childish fingers, the while he continued to kick the barrel and to roar,
"I'll kill you, Elsa!"
The screen door clicked and Mrs. Moore hurried down the back steps.
She was very tall and slender, with Roger's blue eyes and a mass of red
hair piled high on her head. She carried one of Roger's stockings with a
darning ball in the toe in her left hand and the thimble gleamed on the
middle finger of her right hand as she put it on Roger's shoulder.
"Roger! Roger! You're rousing the whole neighborhood!"
Roger struck the slender hand from his shoulder. "I hate you too. Let
me alone!"
Mrs. Moore turned to the others. "Children, take Charley over in your
yard for a little while. Roger is being a very bad boy and I must punish
him."
Roger hung back, still roaring, but his mother dragged him into the
kitchen. Here she sat down in a rocker and attempted to pull him into
her lap, but he would have none of her. He threw himself sobbing on
the floor and Mrs. Moore sat looking at him sadly.
"I don't know what we're going to do about your temper, Roger. This is
the third spell you've had this week. I don't see why the children play
with you. Some day you will murder some one, I'm afraid. I used to
have a temper when I was a child but I'm certain it was nothing like
yours. One thing I'm sure of, I never struck my dear mother. Thank

heaven, I haven't that regret."
Roger wept on.
"I've tried whipping and I've tried scolding. Perhaps I'm the wrong
mother for you--" A long pause, during which Roger's slender body did
not cease to writhe in sobs. Then his mother continued: "Poor little
Elschen, that was an awful knock you gave her! I shall have to
apologize to Mrs. Wolf again. She's always sweet about your badness."
She began work on the stocking once more. Roger's sobs lessened and
his mother rose to wet a towel-end and bathe his face. But when she
returned from the sink, the child was asleep, his head pillowed on his
arm. It was thus that his temper storms always ended. Mrs. Moore had
observed that when she had whipped him for one of his explosions,