Plot Summary

The children of Ballydowse and Carrickdowse engage in battles in which they cut off the buttons, shoelaces, and underwear of their captured opponents, in order to get the boys in trouble with their parents. They go to battle in mass groups of dozens, throwing stones and cutting off their opponents' buttons, etc.; sometimes they go to battle completely naked and exposed. In one such scene, about 30 boys return from a battle to celebrate victory at a barn-house only to find some girls waiting for them, and they get very embarrassed at losing their privacy.