Kit: an American Boy
I
His sponsors had called him Christopher Bainbridge Bryce. The boy would have preferred something shorter and simpler, perhaps even "a rusty name unwashed by baptism" so that it had been just a good, comfortable mouthful for the other boys to designate him by.
It is not surprising therefore, that at an early age various curtailments were adopted; Kit, and Chris, and Crit; and some boys had fallen into the way, at one time, of calling him Stub. But his mother, resenting this on the ground that perhaps it had been suggested by the fact of his being such a little lad, and having such short, sturdy, round little legs, remonstrated with him on the subject to such effect that Stub enjoyed but a short-lived popularity.
"I don't want any one to call me Stub again. My name is Kit." Being the respected leader of the majority of his fellows in spite of short legs, small bones, and few years he was only twelve that settled it. Kit he was to every one from that day.
With one exception.
Brawn and muscle yield unwillingly to diminutive superiority.
