Then while he sat on a beer keg until he should be in breath again the unwinded Spike would skip the rope--a girl's skipping rope--or shadow-box about the room with intricate dance steps, raining quick blows upon a ghostly boxer who was invariably beaten; or with smaller gloves he would cause the inflated bag to play lively tunes upon the ceiling of its support.

After an hour of this, when both were sweating, they would go to a sheltered spot beyond the shed to play cold water upon each other's soaped forms.
There had been six weeks of this before the boy's dreadful secret was revealed to Winona; six weeks before he appeared to startle her with one eye radiating the rich hues of a ripened eggplant.

It had been simple enough.

He had seen his chance to step in and punish Spike, and he had stepped--and Spike's straight left had been there.
"You handed yourself that one, kid," Spike had said, applying raw beef to it after their rubdown.
Wilbur had removed the beef after leaving the store.

He didn't want the thing to go down too soon.