Percy was by this time hopping mad, and I knew I had spoiled his supper and probably his whole evening. I darted up our street, putting on speed, for I had looked ostentatiously at my new Christmas dollar watch (Percy had a watch but was not let wear it because it was too good) and saw that it was 5:57 just time to get indoors, wash my hands in the noisy, splashy way my parents seemed to like, and be in my place at six, my head bent for grace. Our village was so small that you came on it at once it lacked the dignity of outskirts. I said nothing, because I knew that this spited him more than any retort, and that every time he shouted at me he lost face. When I walked, he taunted, I staggered like an old cow my woollen cap was absurd beyond all belief my backside was immense and wobbled when I walked and more of the same sort, for his invention was not lively. So I was keeping the home rule, while at the same time leaving Percy to himself.Īs I walked back to the village he followed me, shouting fresh insults. This was crafty of me, for I knew it was getting on for suppertime, and one of our home rules was that nobody, under any circumstances, was to be late for a meal. Instead of hitting him, which might have started a fight that could have ended in a draw or even a defeat for me, I said, all right, then, I would go home and he could have the field to himself. He slighted my sled, scoffed at my mittens, and at last came right out and said that his father was better than my father. His parents were rich, his clothes were fine, and his mittens were of skin and came from a store in the city, whereas mine were knitted by my mother it was manifestly wrong, therefore, that his splendid sled should not go faster than mine, and when such injustice showed itself Percy became cranky. The afternoon had been humiliating to him, and when Percy was humiliated he was vindictive.

Snow was never heavy in our part of the world, but this Christmas it had been plentiful enough almost to cover the tallest spears of dried grass in the fields in such snow his sled with its tall runners and foolish steering apparatus was clumsy and apt to stick, whereas my low-slung old affair would almost have slid on grass without snow. I am able to date the occasion with complete certainty because that afternoon I had been sledding with my lifelong friend and enemy Percy Boyd Staunton, and we had quarrelled, because his fine new Christmas sled would not go as fast as my old one. on the 27 th of December, 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old.

The deptford trilogy