Johnny Blossom

OH! Everything was so horrid! That stupid Tellef Olsen! Always boasting and bragging about his muscle as if he were the only one in the town who had muscle. Well, anyway, he wouldn’t be coming around here any more to brag about it.

Johnny Blossom thrust his arm out fiercely and drew it slowly in again with his teeth set and his face getting very red. Ha! That was awfully good muscle there, just what muscle ought to be—rounding up in your arm and as hard as iron to feel of. How tired he had been of the other boys’ bragging about Tellef, too. It seemed as if they never talked of anything else. That was why he had been out of patience yesterday. Well, he had shown them, once for all, who was the strongest.

My, oh, my! How he had pounded Tellef! But he would really like to know whether any one wouldn’t be a little angry if, when he was sitting on a fence not thinking of a thing, some one should come and poke him in the back with a long stick?

For that was just the way the trouble began. He had been walking on his tallest stilts the whole afternoon—the stilts that were exactly, to the dot, one yard fifteen inches and a half tall—and then had sat himself on the fence along the back alley. He was facing the yard, with his back toward the alley, and that disgusting Olsen boy came past and gave him a dig in the back with that sharp stick. Just think of it! Wouldn’t anybody say it was unbearable?

Like a flash, John had slid down from the fence and rushed after Tellef; and then came the fight.

Gracious! how that boy had yelled! Well, a good pommeling was just what he deserved. It was rather a pity, though, that there had come a great split in his jacket and that his fishpole had got broken to bits in the fight. Even if it hadn’t ever been a good pole, it was wonderful how much he caught with it. He had to catch fish for his mother every single day. People said that at Tellef’s house they ate fish for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and that they had scarcely anything else to eat. Ugh! That must be tiresome! There was nothing so horrid when one came home from school very hungry, and shouted at the kitchen door “What are we going to have for dinner?” as to have Olea the cook say “Codfish.” And think! That was about all they had to eat down in Tellef’s shanty.

Well, anyway, Tellef had given him an ugly scratch on the cheek. It hurt awfully, for it was a long, deep scratch. Ugh! But the fight had been a great one, and Tellef and everybody knew now who was the strongest, and all that bragging about Tellef’s muscle was done with.

It must be grand to be so strong that one could, well, beat everybody—that is, of course, all the boys,—if one had a mind to do it. Not that he, Johnny Blossom, really wanted to fight everybody; only to have strength enough to do it, if it were necessary. And to be able to hold the heaviest things with your arm stretched out straight!

Every day at home he had a great gymnastic performance, holding a dining-room chair at arm’s length. He could do it splendidly now, so lately he had thought he would practise holding his sisters up that way. If he began with the littlest sister he might by degrees work up to the biggest. Perhaps even so he might not be able to manage Asta—she was so fat. But they were all tiresome. They screamed if he merely touched them. Just think what happened in the dining room only yesterday?

Without meaning the least harm, and as nicely as possible, he had taken Dagny up to see whether he could hold her two minutes with his arm out straight and stiff. And that big child, who was a whole year old, had roared so that they had come rushing in from every corner of the house, even Father, from his midday nap, with rumpled hair and angry looks. Oh, dear! It was horrid. That stupid child! People might have understood that he was just trying his strength.

Everything had been disagreeable all the afternoon, until by and by he happened to think of trying to dance a mazurka on his highest stilts. Doing that he had fortunately forgotten his troubles.