On the hot August day upon which she began to make history, she stood in
the gutter amid a crowd of yelling boys, her feet far apart, her hands
full of mud, waiting tensely to chastise the next sleek head that dared
show itself above the cathedral fence. She wore a boy's shirt and a
ragged brown skirt that flapped about her sturdy bare legs. Her matted
hair was bound in two disheveled braids around her head and secured with
a piece of shoe-string. Her dirty round face was lighted up by a pair of
dancing blue eyes, in which just now blazed the unholy light of conflict.
The feud between the Calvary Micks and the choir boys was an ancient
one, carried on from one generation to another and gaining prestige with
age. It was apt to break out on Saturday afternoons, after rehearsal,
when the choirmaster had taken his departure. Frequently the disturbance
amounted to no more than taunts and jeers on one side and threats and
recriminations on the other, but the atmosphere that it created was of
that electrical nature that might at any moment develop a storm.
Nance Molloy, at the beginning of the present controversy, had been
actively engaged in civil warfare in which the feminine element of the
alley was pursuing a defensive policy against the marauding masculine.
But at the first indication of an outside enemy, the herd instinct
manifested itself, and she allied herself with prompt and passionate
loyalty to the cause of the Calvary Micks.
The present argument was raging over the possession of a spade that had
been left in the alley by the workmen who were laying a concrete pavement
into the cathedral yard.
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