They were going home from school, some with their bags on their shoulders, others with leather satchels slung across them, some in short jackets, others in little overcoats. Some even had those high boots with creases round the ankles, such as little boys spoilt by rich fathers love to wear.
The whole group was talking eagerly about something, apparently holding a council.
Alyosha had never from his Moscow days been able to pass children without taking notice of them, and although he was particularly fond of children of three or thereabout, he liked schoolboys of ten and eleven too.
And so, anxious as he was to-day, he wanted at once to turn aside to talk to them.
He looked into their excited rosy faces, and noticed at once that all the boys had stones in their hands.
Behind the ditch some thirty paces away, there was another schoolboy standing by a fence. He too had a satchel at his side. He was about ten years old, pale, delicate-looking and with sparkling black eyes.
He kept an attentive and anxious watch on the other six, obviously his schoolfellows with whom he had just come out of school, but with whom he had evidently had a feud.
Alyosha went up and, addressing a fair, curly-headed, rosy boy in a black jacket, observed:
"When I used to wear a satchel like yours, I always used to carry it on my left side, so as to have my right hand free, but you've got yours on your right side.
So it will be awkward for you to get at it." Alyosha had no art or premeditation in beginning with this practical remark. But it is the only way for a grown-up person to get at once into confidential relations with a child, or still more with a group of children.
One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be on a perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct.
"But he is left-handed," another, a fine healthy-looking boy of eleven, answered promptly.
All the others stared at Alyosha.
"He even throws stones with his left hand," observed a third.
At that instant a stone flew into the group, but only just grazed the left-handed boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the boy standing on the other side of the ditch.
"Give it him, hit him back, Smurov," they all shouted.
But Smurov, the left-handed boy, needed no telling, and at once revenged himself; he threw a stone, but it missed the boy and hit the ground.
The boy on the other side of the ditch, the pocket of whose coat was visibly bulging with stones, flung another stone at the group; this time it flew straight at Alyosha and hit him painfully on the shoulder.
"He aimed it at you, he meant it for you.
You are Karamazov, Karamazov!" the boys shouted laughing, "Come, all throw at him at once!" and six stones flew at the boy.
One struck the boy on the head and he fell down, but at once leapt up and began ferociously returning their fire.
Both sides threw stones incessantly. Many of the group had their pockets full too.
"What are you about!
Aren't you ashamed?
Six against one! Why, you'll kill him," cried Alyosha.
He ran forward and met the flying stones to screen the solitary boy.
Three or four ceased throwing for a minute.
"He began first!" cried a boy in a red shirt in an angry childish voice. "He is a beast, he stabbed Krassotkin in class the other day with a penknife. It bled.
Krassotkin wouldn't tell tales, but he must be thrashed."
"But what for?
I suppose you tease him."
"There, he sent a stone in your back again, he knows you," cried the children. "It's you he is throwing at now, not us.
Come, all of you, at him again, don't miss, Smurov!" and again a fire of stones, and a very vicious one, began.
The boy on the other side of the ditch was hit in the chest; he screamed, began to cry and ran away uphill towards Mihailovsky Street.
They all shouted:
"Aha, he is funking, he is running away. Wisp of tow!"
"You don't know what a beast he is, Karamazov, killing is too good for him," said the boy in the jacket, with flashing eyes. He seemed to be the eldest.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Alyosha, "Is he a tell-tale or what?"
The boys looked at one another as though derisively.
"Are you going that way, to Mihailovsky?" the same boy went on. "Catch him up.... You see he's stopped again, he is waiting and looking at you."
"He is looking at you," the other boys chimed in.
"You ask him, does he like a dishevelled wisp of tow.
Do you hear, ask him that!"
There was a general burst of laughter.
Alyosha looked at them, and they at him.
"Don't go near him, he'll hurt you," cried Smurov in a warning voice.
"I shan't ask him about the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease him with that question somehow. But I'll find out from him why you hate him so."
"Find out then, find out," cried the boys laughing.
Alyosha crossed the bridge and walked uphill by the fence, straight towards the boy.
"You'd better look out," the boys called after him; "he won't be afraid of you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he did Krassotkin."