Free The Fires of Spring by James A. Michener Page A

playing Hold-the-Fort on the school cinder pile, and he gave Harry a tremendous shove, so that the boy spread-eagled across the cinders and cut himself. “You pushed me!” Harry cried.
    “What are you gonna do about it?” David demanded.
    Like a doctor about to perform an operation, Harry took off his jacket and rubbed his hands. David wasn’t quite sure what happened next. There was a flailing of arms, a smashing of fists, and he went down. He sucked in his breath and thought: “He can hit harder than Aunt Reba.” Then he struggled to his feet and tried to land a blow on his swift adversary. But again the windmill arms mowed him down.
    He would have been badly beaten had not those students who enjoy a brawl started screaming, “Fight, fight!” The provocative words reached the principal’s office and he rushed onto the playground and stopped the struggle in time to save David.
    It was the custom in Doylestown for the principal to administer frequent thrashings when his young charges got out of hand. This seemed an appropriate occasion, and he took the two boys into Grade Five and made them bend publicly over the waiting chair. Before he started he asked Harry, “What was this fight about?” Harry, not knowing, remained silent. When David’s turn came the principal said, “You look bad enough already. What was the fight about?” If Harry could keep his mouth shut, so could David. He mustered up enough strength for a schoolboy snarl, and the principal hammered him twenty times.
    When David got back to his seat, he had had enough. He sat very quietly, and when school was over he was glad to hurry home. But Harry Moomaugh stopped him. “What was the fight about, Dave?” Harry asked.
    “You said things about me,” David replied.
    “Like what?”
    “Like you told Marcia Paxson I had to wear your old clothes.”
    Harry looked away and bit his lip. That isn’t what he had said, not at all, but he knew there was no use to argue. “Dave,” he said, “on Saturday I’m giving a party. I want you to come.” Proudly, David shook his head no. Then Harry cut all the ground away from his stubbornness. He said, “We’re going over to the canal.”
    David swallowed and thought: “The canal!” In surrenderhe said, “Sure,” but then he added defiantly. “I’m gonna wear my old clothes!”
    Harry grinned at his friend. “I don’t care what you wear, Dave. If you want to, you can come naked.”
    When Harry’s party was over, David lay in bed and thought: “I’ll bet that’s the best day I ever lived.” It had started inauspiciously when he dressed in his very best clothes and tried to sneak out to the highway. Aunt Reba caught him.
    “
Where
are you going
to
?” she demanded.
    “To a party.”
    “
Over
to Solebury
again
?” she whined.
    “To Harry Moomaugh’s.”
    His aunt paused a moment in sullen despair at seeing her nephew slipping out of her grasp. If he went on this way he would be no use to her when he did reach fourteen. “
Where
did you get the money for the
suit
?” she whined.
    There was a very tense moment. David had learned that if he started things, he must bear the consequences, and yet he felt a surge of power within himself. He said with great precision, “Daniel gave me the money. He said you had lots of money but wouldn’t give me any.”
    “
Day
wid!” his aunt bellowed in hurt rage. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into her barren room. Standing high above him, she slapped him across the face. David gasped. He had been beaten too much that week. He pulled away and would have left the room, but his aunt was determined to have a final understanding. She struck the boy again and he cried, “Aunt Reba! Don’t you hit me!”
    “
Talk
ing back it
is
!” she stormed.
    Now David was committed to a showdown. He stuck his small face up at her and taunted: “Not only that, but Daniel said you were a dried-up old witch. And you are!”
    His aunt, with rage long