"Well, he's got to stop praying against me, anyhow," said Felix resolutely. "I won't put up with it, and I'll go and tell him so right off."
Felix marched over to Uncle Roger's, and we trailed after, scenting a scene. We found Peter shelling beans in the granary, and whistling cheerily, as with a conscience void of offence towards all men.
"Look here, Peter," said Felix ominously, "they tell me that you've been praying right along that I couldn't eat a bitter apple. Now, I tell you—"
"I never did!" exclaimed Peter indignantly. "I never mentioned your name. I never prayed that you couldn't eat a bitter apple. I just prayed that I'd be the only one that could."
"Well, that's the same thing," cried Felix. "You've just been praying for the opposite to me out of spite. And you've got to stop it, Peter Craig."
"Well, I just guess I won't," said Peter angrily. "I've just as good a right to pray for what I want as you, Felix King, even if you was brought up in Toronto. I s'pose you think a hired boy hasn't any business to pray for particular things, but I'll show you. I'll just pray for what I please, and I'd like to see you try and stop me."
"You'll have to fight me, if you keep on praying against me," said Felix.
The girls gasped; but Dan and I were jubilant, snuffing battle afar off.
"All right. I can fight as well as pray."
"Oh, don't fight," implored Cecily. "I think it would be dreadful. Surely you can arrange it some other way. Let's all give up the Ordeal, anyway. There isn't much fun in it. And then neither of you need pray about it."
"I don't want to give up the Ordeal," said Felix, "and I won't."
"Oh, well, surely you can settle it some way without fighting," persisted Cecily.
"I'm not wanting to fight," said Peter. "It's Felix. If he don't interfere with my prayers there's no need of fighting. But if he does there's no other way to settle it."
"But how will that settle it?" asked Cecily.
"Oh, whoever's licked will have to give in about the praying," said Peter. "That's fair enough. If I'm licked I won't pray for that particular thing any more."
"It's dreadful to fight about anything so religious as praying," sighed poor Cecily.
"Why, they were always fighting about religion in old times," said Felix. "The more religious anything was the more fighting there was about it."
"A fellow's got a right to pray as he pleases," said Peter, "and if anybody tries to stop him he's bound to fight. That's my way of looking at it."
"What would Miss Marwood say if she knew you were going to fight?" asked Felicity.
Miss Marwood was Felix' Sunday School teacher and he was very fond of her. But by this time Felix was quite reckless.
"I don't care what she would say," he retorted.
Felicity tried another tack.
"You'll be sure to get whipped if you fight with Peter," she said.
"You're too fat to fight."
After that, no moral force on earth could have prevented Felix from fighting. He would have faced an army with banners.
"You might settle it by drawing lots," said Cecily desperately.
"Drawing lots is wickeder that fighting," said Dan. "It's a kind of gambling."
"What would Aunt Jane say if she knew you were going to fight?" Cecily demanded of Peter.
"Don't you drag my Aunt Jane into this affair," said Peter darkly.
"You said you were going to be a Presbyterian," persisted Cecily. "Good Presbyterians don't fight."
"Oh, don't they! I heard your Uncle Roger say that Presbyterians were the best for fighting in the world—or the worst, I forget which he said, but it means the same thing."
Cecily had but one more shot in her locker.
"I thought you said in your sermon, Master Peter, that people shouldn't fight."
"I said they oughtn't to fight for fun, or for bad temper," retorted Peter. "This is different. I know what I'm fighting for but I can't think of the word."
"I guess you mean principle," I suggested.
"Yes, that's it," agreed Peter. "It's all right to fight for principle. It's kind of praying with your fists."
"Oh, can't you do something to prevent them from fighting, Sara?" pleaded Cecily, turning to the Story Girl, who was sitting on a bin, swinging her shapely bare feet to and fro.
"It doesn't do to meddle in an affair of this kind between boys," said the Story Girl sagely.
I may be mistaken, but I do not believe the Story Girl wanted that fight stopped. And I am far from being sure that Felicity did either.
It was ultimately arranged that the combat should take place in the fir wood behind Uncle Roger's granary. It was a nice, remote, bosky place where no prowling grown-up would be likely to intrude. And thither we all resorted at sunset.
"I hope Felix will beat," said the Story Girl to me, "not only for the family honour, but because that was a mean, mean prayer of Peter's. Do you think he will?"
"I don't know," I confessed dubiously. "Felix is too fat. He'll get out of breath in no time. And Peter is such a cool customer, and he's a year older than Felix. But then Felix has had some practice. He has fought boys in Toronto. And this is Peter's first fight."
"Did you ever fight?" asked the Story Girl.
"Once," I said briefly, dreading the next question, which promptly came.
"Who beat?"
It is sometimes a bitter thing to tell the truth, especially to a young lady for whom you have a great admiration. I had a struggle with temptation in which I frankly confess I might have been worsted had it not been for a saving and timely remembrance of a certain resolution made on the day preceding Judgment Sunday.
"The other fellow," I said with reluctant honesty.
"Well," said the Story Girl, "I think it doesn't matter whether you get whipped or not so long as you fight a good, square fight."
Her potent voice made me feel that I was quite a hero after all, and the sting went out of my recollection of that old fight.
When we arrived behind the granary the others were all there. Cecily was very pale, and Felix and Peter were taking off their coats. There was a pure yellow sunset that evening, and the aisles of the fir wood were flooded with its radiance. A cool, autumnal wind was whistling among the dark boughs and scattering blood red leaves from the maple at the end of the granary.
"Now," said Dan, "I'll count, and when I say three you pitch in, and hammer each other until one of you has had enough. Cecily, keep quiet. Now, one—two—three!"
Peter and Felix "pitched in," with more zeal than discretion on both sides. As a result, Peter got what later developed into a black eye, and Felix's nose began to bleed. Cecily gave a shriek and ran out of the wood. We thought she had fled because she could not endure the sight of blood, and we were not sorry, for her manifest disapproval and anxiety were damping the excitement of the occasion.
Felix and Peter drew apart after that first onset, and circled about one another warily. Then, just as they had come to grips again, Uncle Alec walked around the corner of the granary, with Cecily behind him.
He was not angry. There was a quizzical look in his eyes. But he took the combatants by their shirt collars and dragged them apart.
"This stops right here, boys," he said. "You know I don't allow fighting."
"Oh, but Uncle Alec, it was this way," began Felix eagerly. "Peter—"
"No, I don't want to hear about it," said Uncle Alec sternly. "I don't care what you were fighting about, but you must settle your quarrels in a different fashion. Remember my commands, Felix. Peter, Roger is looking for you to wash his buggy. Be off."
Peter went off rather sullenly, and Felix, also sullenly, sat down and began to nurse his nose. He turned his back on Cecily.
Cecily "caught it" after Uncle Alec had gone. Dan called her a tell-tale and a baby, and sneered at her until Cecily began to cry.