Free The Web and The Root by Thomas Wolfe

forward slowly, his thick, short hand extended, the heavy volutes of his proud, swart nostrils swelling with scorn. And his voice, low-toned and sneering, cajoling with a hateful mockery, came closer to him coaxingly, and said:
    “Come, Monkus! Come little Monkus! Lie down and take your medicine, little Monk!…Here Jocko! Come Jocko! Here Jocko! Come Jocko!—Come and get your peanuts—Jock, Jock, Jock!”
    Then while they joined in hateful laughter, Victor Munson moved forward again, the swart, stub fingers, warted on the back, closed down upon the boy’s left arm; and suddenly he drew in his breath in blind, blank horror and in bitter agony, he knew that he must die and never draw his shameful breath in quietude and peace, or have a moment’s hope of heartful ease again; something blurred and darkened in blind eyes—he wrenched free from the swart, stub fingers, and he struck.
    The blind blow landed in the thick, swart neck and sent it gurgling backwards. Sharp hatred crossed his vision now, and so enlightened it; he licked his lips and tasted bitterness, and, sobbing in his throat, he started towards the hated face. He arms were pinioned from behind. Sid Purtle had him, the hateful voice was saying with a menacing and now really baleful quietude:
    “Now, wait a minute! Wait a minute, boys!…We were just playin’ with him, weren’t we, and he started to get hard with us!…Ain’t that right?”
    “That’s right, Sid. That’s the way it was, all right!”
    “We thought he was a man, but he turns out to be just a little sorehead, don’t he? We were just kiddin’ him along, and he has to goand get sore about it. You couldn’t take it like a man, could you?” said Sidney Purtle, quietly and ominously into the ear of his prisoner; at the same time he shook the boy a little—“You’re just a little cry-baby, ain’t you? You’re just a coward, who has to hit a fellow when he ain’t lookin’?”
    “You turn loose of me,” the captive panted, “I’ll show you who’s the cry-baby! I’ll show you if I have to hit him when he isn’t looking!”
    “Is that so, son?” said Victor Munson, breathing hard.
    “Yes, that’s so, son!” the other answered bitterly.
    “Who says it’s so, son?”
    “I say it’s so, son!”
    “Well, you don’t need to go gettin’ on your head about it!”
    “I’m not the one who’s gettin’ on his head about it; you are!”
    “Is that so?”
    “Yes, that’s so!”
    There was a pause of labored breathing and contorted lips; the acrid taste of loathing and the poisonous constrictions of brute fear, a sense of dizziness about the head, a kind of hollow numbness in the stomach pit, knee sockets gone a trifle watery; all of the gold of just a while ago gone now, all of the singing and the green; no color now, a poisonous whiteness in the very quality of light, a kind of poisonous intensity of focus everywhere; the two antagonists’ faces suddenly keen, eyes sharp with eager cruelty, pack-appetites awakened, murder-sharp now, lusts aware.
    “You’d better not be gettin’ big about it,” said Victor Munson slowly, breathing heavily, “or somebody’ll smack you down!”
    “You know anyone who’s going to do it?”
    “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, I’m not sayin’. It’s none of your business.”
    “It’s none of your business either!”
    “Maybe,” said Victor Munson, breathing swarthily, and edging forward an inch or so—“Maybe I’ll make it some of my business!”
    “You’re not the only one who can make it your business!”
    “You know of anyone who wants to make it anything?”
    “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.”
    “Do you say that you do?”
    “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. I don’t back down from saying it.”
    “Boys, boys,” said Sidney Purtle, quietly, mockingly. “You’re gettin’ hard with each other. You’re usin’ harsh language to each other. The first thing you know you’ll be gettin’ into trouble with each