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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Son of the City, by Herman Gastrell Seely,
+Illustrated by Fred J. Arting
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Son of the City
+       A Story of Boy Life
+
+
+Author: Herman Gastrell Seely
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 28, 2007  [eBook #20708]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE CITY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Julia Miller, Mary Meehan, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net/c/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 20708-h.htm or 20708-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/0/20708/20708-h/20708-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/0/20708/20708-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+A SON OF THE CITY
+
+A Story of Boy Life
+
+by
+
+HERMAN GASTRELL SEELY
+
+Illustrations by Fred J. Arting
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chicago
+A. C. McClurg & Co.
+Copyright 1917
+Published October, 1917
+W. F. Hall Printing Company, Chicago
+
+
+
+
+To My Father
+
+THE COMPANION OF MANY A YOUTHFUL STROLL THROUGH CITY PARK AND SUBURBAN
+FIELD
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _"H'ist away," he ordered finally. "I'll shove under when
+he gets high enough."_]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. In Which Our Hero Goes Fishing
+
+      II. In Which He Goes to School
+
+     III. He Plays a Trick on the Doctor
+
+      IV. In Which a Terrific Battle Is Waged
+
+       V. He Composes a Love Missive
+
+      VI. In Which We Learn the Secret Code of the "Tigers"
+
+     VII. He Goes to a Halloween Party
+
+    VIII. Wherein He Resolves to Get Married
+
+      IX. He Saves for "Four Rooms Furnished Complete"
+
+       X. Concerns Santa Claus Mostly
+
+      XI. He Has a Very Happy Christmas
+
+     XII. In Which the Path of True Love Does Not Run Smoothly
+
+    XIII. He Crushes and Humiliates a Rival
+
+     XIV. He Buys Valentines
+
+      XV. The Spring Brings Baseball
+
+     XVI. More About "The Greatest Game in the World"
+
+    XVII. He's "Through With Girls"
+
+
+
+
+A SON OF THE CITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN WHICH OUR HERO GOES FISHING
+
+
+Startled from a sound sleep, he fumbled blindly beneath the bed that he
+might throttle the insistent alarm clock before the clamor awakened the
+other members of the household. Then he lay back and listened
+breathlessly for parental voices of inquiry as to what he might be doing
+at the unearthly hour of half-past three on a late September morning.
+
+Far down the railroad embankment which passed the rear of the house, an
+engine puffed lazily cityward with a load of empty freight cars. Over
+the elevated tracks a mile to the south, a train rumbled somnolently
+towards the park terminal, and under the eaves of the house, just above
+his room, two sparrows squabbled sleepily. Inside, the only audible
+sounds were the chirpings of a cricket somewhere down the hall, and the
+furious, muffled pounding of his own little heart.
+
+He glanced from the window near the head of his bed. The air was
+oppressive with a strange, almost rural quietude. In the east, a faint
+streak of light brought the tree tops of the park into indistinct
+relief, and to the north a thin line of smoke floated apathetically from
+a hotel chimney to show that a light breeze from the west augured
+favorably for the morning's sport.
+
+Stockings, knickerbockers, and blouse were drawn on with unwonted
+rapidity. His coat and necktie he left hanging over the back of the
+chair, disdained as unnecessary impediments on a fishing trip. Then with
+a final glance from the window at the fast-graying sky, he reached
+behind the bookcase for his carefully concealed pole and tackle,
+gathered his shoes in one hand, and tiptoed down the pitchy hall with
+the stealth of a cat.
+
+Down the stairway he went, step at a time, scarcely daring to breathe as
+he shifted his weight again and again from one foot to the other. On the
+first landing, a board creaked with alarming distinctness. Came a
+maternal voice:
+
+"John."
+
+Her son hugged the stairway in a very agony of fear lest his carefully
+made plans had been spoiled. Why hadn't he walked along the end of the
+steps as bitter experience had taught? He knew that board was loose.
+Again the well-known tones:
+
+"John, what _are_ you doing?"
+
+A subdued babel of conversation in the big south room followed, in which
+his father's deep bass took a prominent part.
+
+"Nonsense, Jane, you're imagining things!"
+
+"But you know I forbade fishing during school mornings. And he was
+looking at the DuPree's weather vane when he watered the lawn last
+night. Get up and see what he's doing."
+
+John drew a sigh of relief as the deep voice sounded a sleepy protest.
+Minutes passed. His legs became cramped from inaction, yet he dared not
+stir. Were his parents asleep? Or was Mrs. Fletcher waiting merely until
+some tell-tale noise enabled her to order John senior forth on an
+expedition which would result in certain detection? If he had only
+avoided that misstep!
+
+Then the kindly fast-mail thundered over the railroad tracks and enabled
+the seeker after forbidden pleasures to scurry to the first floor under
+cover of the disturbance.
+
+In the hallway, the boy deposited his shoes and tackle very cautiously
+on the carpet, and tiptoed over to the unused grate. There he extracted
+from behind the gas log a package of sandwiches, surreptitiously
+assembled after supper the night before. Then with both hands grasping
+the doorknob firmly, he strained upwards, that weight be thrown off the
+squeaking hinges as much as possible, and swung the door back, inch by
+inch, until the opening permitted a successful exit.
+
+The old cat bounded from her bed on the window ledge with a thud and
+mewed plaintively for admittance as he stood with one hand on the screen
+door, and fumbled in his pockets. Sinkers, spare hooks, a line with a
+nail at one end on which to string possible victims of his skill,
+"eats," his dollar watch that he might know when breakfast time came
+around--all present and accounted for.
+
+The family pet protested volubly as he blocked her ingress with one foot
+and closed the door as slowly and noiselessly as it had swung open. A
+moment spent in lacing his shoes, a consoling pat for puss, and he was
+off on the dogtrot for Silvey's house, with tackle swinging easily to
+and fro in one hand and a noiseless whistle of exultation coming from
+half-parted lips which became more and more audible as his rapidly
+echoing footsteps increased the distance from home. For he had made good
+his escape, the strange fragrance of the cool, early air with its
+absence of city smoke went to his head like wine and set his pulses
+a-throb with a very joy of living, and five hours, three hundred
+glorious minutes, if the excursion were stretched a bit past breakfast
+time, of enchanting, tantalizing sport lay before him.
+
+A short distance from the corner, he turned in abruptly at a frame house
+which was distinguished from its neighbors by unusually ornate fretwork
+about the porch and gables, and tiptoed gently over the struggling grass
+on the narrow sidelawn. For it was here that the Silvey family lived,
+and if Bill were his boon companion with tastes akin to his, strange to
+relate, the Silvey elders were light sleepers with the same propensities
+as his own parents for curbing unlawful fishing expeditions, and there
+was need of caution.
+
+He fumbled momentarily along the dark sidewall, yanked at a cord which
+swayed idly to and fro with each light air current, and gazed
+expectantly upward. Nothing happened. Again a jerk, given this time with
+a certain vindictive delight. A muffled "Ouch!" came from the open
+window as a splotch of animated white appeared indistinctly behind the
+dark screen.
+
+"Trying to pull my big toe off?" angrily.
+
+John snickered. "Got the worms?" he asked.
+
+Silvey swallowed his wrath and nodded. "Sh-sh, not so loud. You'll wake
+the folks. The can's on the back steps. Ain't many worms though. I
+hunted under the porch and down the tracks and all over. But the
+ground's too dry."
+
+John shook the nearly empty can disparagingly as Silvey joined him on
+the back lawn a moment later.
+
+"Jiminy," he whispered, "that all you could find?"
+
+His chum nodded. "Maybe there's old worms or minnies from yesterday left
+on the pier. Or we can cut up the first fish for perch bait. Come on!
+Beat you over the tracks."
+
+They scaled the wire fence which barricaded the embankment, and cut
+across the long parallel lines of rails like frisky colts. Past the few
+unkempt buildings of the neighborhood dairy, over the small bit of
+pasturage where the master thereof kept a dozen cows that his customers
+might think their milk was fresh, daily, and across the cement road,
+they scampered at top speed, to pull up panting just inside the park.
+
+"Bet you I get to the lagoon bridge first," said Silvey when their
+breathing grew less labored.
+
+Off they raced again, now on the trim gravel walks, now on the springy
+dew-laden turf, frightening a myriad of insects from their shelters as
+the pair brushed aside protruding shrubbery and brought a chorus of
+reproof from rusty-plumed grackles who were gathering in the open spaces
+for the long migration south.
+
+As their footsteps echoed and re-echoed between the stone buttresses of
+the wooden planked bridge, John halted to dig frantically at his shoe
+top.
+
+"Wait a minute, Sil. My heel's full of cinders."
+
+He shook the offending boot free of the irritants, relaced it and leaned
+over the bridge rail for a moment. From beneath, northward, stretched
+the park lagoon calm and dark in the uncertain morning light. Fronting
+him rose the stately columns and porticoes of the park museum, once a
+member of an exposition whose glories are almost forgotten, which now
+veiled its need of repair in the kindly dawn and formed a symphony in
+gray with the willow-studded, low-lying lagoon banks. The air throbbed
+with the subdued noises of awakening animal life. In a shrub near them,
+a catbird cleared his throat in a few harsh notes as a prelude to a
+morning of tuneful parody, and on the slope below, a fat autumn-plumaged
+robin dug frantically in the sod for fugitive worms.
+
+"My! Isn't it just peachy?" breathed John ecstatically.
+
+"Yes," assented his companion, intent upon the lesser spectacle of the
+robin. "Don't you wish you could find worms like he does, Fletch?"
+
+Once more they resumed their journey lakewards, breaking into the
+inevitable dogtrot as the long, dark pier came in sight. At the land
+end, John stooped to pick up a few sun-dried minnows which lay on a
+plank, and a little farther on Silvey grabbed eagerly at an earth-filled
+tomato can.
+
+"Nary a worm," he exclaimed in disgust, as he threw the tin into the
+lake.
+
+But shortly, their diligent search was rewarded by finding a tobacco-tin
+which contained at least a dozen samples of the squirming bait, and the
+anxiety regarding that problem was permanently allayed.
+
+But one disciple of Izaak Walton had arrived before the boys, and he sat
+crouched in a huddled, lonely heap at the end of the pier, in a manner
+which seemed scarcely human. As they drew nearer, John broke into a
+sudden exclamation:
+
+"Old hunchback! Been out here all night again. Wonder if he's caught
+anything!"
+
+As they passed the first of his multitude of throwlines and poles, John
+leaned forward and peered down on the water.
+
+"Look, Sil," he pointed at the long string of perch which floated to and
+fro with the sluggish water. "Aren't they peaches?"
+
+He made a motion as if to joint his rod. The cripple drew a sharp,
+hissing breath from between thick, distorted lips and waved him away.
+Silvey caught his chum's arm warningly.
+
+"No use of fishing beside _him_," he asserted. "Don't you know that,
+John? Brings bad luck to everyone 'cept himself, he does. I tried it one
+morning. He kept hauling them in, all the time, and I couldn't catch a
+thing."
+
+John shook his head skeptically as they moved over to the other side of
+the pier.
+
+"He does!" reiterated Silvey. "Never's the day I've been out here that
+he hasn't a lot. And look at that," as a shining, squirming object rose
+unwillingly from the water. "I'll bet I couldn't catch one if I was
+there. It's because he's hunchbacked, I'm telling you."
+
+As John jointed his bamboo pole, he cast a furtive glance at the poor,
+misshapen being, and caught a touch of Silvey's superstitious fear.
+
+"Maybe," he admitted, as he reached for the worm can.
+
+Hooks baited, the boys dropped their lines in the water and sat down to
+dangle their legs to and fro over the pier's edge as they waited for the
+first hint as to the morning's luck. Possibly a quarter of an hour
+elapsed before Silvey's light steel rod gave a twitch, to be followed by
+another and still another. Its owner jerked a denuded hook high in the
+air.
+
+"First bite, first bite!" he shouted, for that honor was ever a point of
+spirited contest on the pair's many expeditions.
+
+"Hard?" asked John breathlessly.
+
+"Hard!" repeated Silvey, boastfully exultant. "Hard? Goll-e-e-e, yes.
+Didn't you see him? Bent the tip most a foot. Took the worm, too."
+
+Then the jointed bamboo began to shake ever so slightly and John leaned
+intently forward.
+
+"Bite?" queried Silvey in turn.
+
+"He's nibbling," said John cautiously without taking his glance from the
+flexible tip.
+
+"Wait until he takes the hook," advised Bill. John braced himself and
+yanked a luckless perch high in the air. As it came down on the pier
+with a thud, his friend sprang to his feet.
+
+"That-a-boy!" he yelled exultantly as his fingers extracted the hook.
+John brought out the fish stringer, and the unfortunate minnow, firmly
+tied by the gills, was lowered slowly into the water. The pair watched
+its spasmodic efforts at escape with a great deal of gusto.
+
+"Ain't so small, is he, John?" asked Silvey optimistically, as he leaned
+over and looked down from an angle which only a small boy could maintain
+without losing his balance. "Bet you it's going to be a peach of a day."
+
+The pier was now rapidly filling. A plethoric, sandy-haired German
+squatted beside the hunchback, watching an unproductive pole with a
+patience worthy of a better cause. At John's corner, a party of voluble
+loafers joked noisily as they unwound long, many-hooked throwlines and
+jointed nondescript rods. Beside Bill, a phlegmatic Scandinavian puffed
+morosely at an empty pipe. Just beyond, a fat negress shifted her bulk
+from time to time as she baited the hooks on one of her husband's
+numerous fishing outfits. Farther landward, a mixed throng--nattily clad
+business men who were snatching a few minutes of sport before business
+called, down at the heel out-of-works with nothing to do and all day to
+do it in, here a woman with a colorful shirtwaist, there a couple of
+noisy school-boys--made the sides of the pier bristle like the branches
+of a thicket hedge.
+
+The faint tinge of orange in the eastern sky deepened to a radiant
+crimson glow. A glistening, fast-widening, crescent sliver of the sun
+appeared on the horizon and painted a long golden path on the rippled
+lake, and still the lonely perch waited in vain for a companion in
+misery.
+
+Silvey jerked his line from the water and examined the untouched bait in
+disgust.
+
+"Just like it was last time," he ejaculated. "I'm going down the pier
+and see what the other fellows are catching."
+
+He jammed his pole between two bent nails in a plank and was off,
+stopping now and then to peer downward at some trophy as he sauntered
+along. John did likewise with his rod and stretched out on the rough
+boards to look lazily up at the clear sky. It wasn't half bad after all,
+even if the fish weren't biting. There was something in this getting up
+and over to the park before the smoke got into the air, to listen to the
+songs of the birds and watch the throng of people, that more than atoned
+for the lack of luck.
+
+He pulled out his watch dreamily--a quarter of six and still but one
+captive--and let his glance follow the wake of a graceful, white-hulled
+gasoline cruiser which chugged its way up from the south. Presently
+Silvey returned to break in upon his revery with the exciting news that
+a man near the life-preserver post had caught five fish. John sat up.
+
+"What did he catch 'em on?" he asked as he stretched his arms.
+
+"Minnows."
+
+"Let's try a couple of ours."
+
+They scraped the hooks free of the whitened worms with their finger
+nails and rebaited, only to find that the sun-parched flesh softened and
+floated away soon after it was lowered into the water.
+
+"Have to buy some fresh ones! Got any money?"
+
+A thorough search resurrected a worn copper that had lain in Silvey's
+back pocket until he had forgotten it--else the coin had gone the way of
+many another that had purchased peppermints at the school store. John
+surrendered a penny that had been given him the night before for a
+perfect spelling paper. They viewed the scanty hoard on the sun-bleached
+plank reflectively.
+
+"Ask him." John indicated the Scandinavian, who was well supplied with
+the desired bait. Silvey stood up and jingled the two pennies in his
+grimy hand with the air of a young millionaire.
+
+Yes, the fisherman would sell some. How many were desired?
+
+"Aw, give me," the boy paused, as if considering the amount sufficient
+for their needs, "give me two cents' worth."
+
+The merchant shook his head. "Two cents?" he sneered. "Naw! Won't sell
+any for less 'n a nickel."
+
+A gaunt, anaemic southerner, who was with the party of idlers, spoke up.
+
+"Yeah, boy. What's the matter?"
+
+Silvey turned ruefully. "Ain't got money enough to buy some minnies," he
+explained.
+
+The tall figure stooped abruptly, fumbled in a battered basket which
+held a miscellaneous assemblage of bait, throwlines, newspapers, and
+food, and drew forth a handful of the diminutive fish.
+
+"Yeah, boy," he smiled.
+
+Silvey offered the two coppers in payment.
+
+"Keep 'em, boy, keep 'em," with an indignant glance at the imperturbable
+fish monopolist. "I ain't like some folks."
+
+The boys rebaited their hooks joyfully. The cruiser which John had
+sighted earlier in the morning drew up within easy distance of the pier
+and dropped anchor. Two of her crew appeared presently in swimming suits
+and dove overboard for a morning plunge. From her diminutive, weathered
+cabin came the rattle of cooking utensils and the hiss of frying bacon
+as the cook of the day prepared breakfast. Bill stirred restlessly.
+
+"Let's have a look at the sandwiches," he suggested.
+
+They stretched themselves full length on the pier end and, with an
+occasional eye to the fishing poles, munched the uncouth slabs of bread
+and jam contentedly. Silvey read the name on the boat's stern with
+interest.
+
+"Detroit," he gasped. "Gee, Fletch, don't you wish you had a boat like
+that with all the gasoline to run her?"
+
+John's brown eyes grew dreamy. "Just don't you, though! We could ride
+down the canal out in the Illinois River and down the Mississippi to St.
+Louis. No staying after school, no 'rithmetic lessons, no lawns to cut
+or front porches to wash on Saturdays. We'd get up when we liked and
+fish when we liked, and loaf around all day. If money ran out, we'd find
+a place where there wasn't any bridge, and ferry people across the river
+for a nickel or a dime, or whatever they charge down there. Maybe, too,
+we could get a lot of red neckties and shirts with brown and yellow
+stripes and sell 'em to the darkies for a dollar apiece. Sid DuPree says
+they buy those things and he ought to know. He spent summer before last
+down South with his ma!"
+
+"Where'd we get the money to buy 'em in the first place?" asked the
+practical Silvey.
+
+His chum's face clouded. "Shucks, Sil, you're always spoiling things.
+But," more hopefully, "we needn't really worry about money anyway. All
+the books I've read about the South tell how kind folks are down there,
+and how they won't allow a stranger to go hungry, not even if they have
+to give him their last hunk of cornbread. So if ferrying didn't pay, all
+we'd have to do would be to land, walk up to the nearest house, and
+knock at the door. When the big mammy cook--they always have 'em in the
+books--came to the door, we'd just look at her and say, 'We're hungry.'"
+
+Silvey nodded, content to revel in the glories of the daydream which
+John's more vivid imagination was spinning.
+
+"We'd go all the way down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Maybe we'd
+catch some alligators to make things exciting, and maybe some big yellow
+river catfish. I read about one once that was six feet long. And when we
+arrived, they'd put our pictures in the newspapers, with a big lot of
+print after them, just the way they do when someone comes to town here
+who's done something. We'd win a lot of race cups, and folks would say
+to their friends, 'See those two kids there? They took a launch all the
+way down the river from Lake Michigan by themselves.' We'd be _it_ all
+the time we were there."
+
+Silvey, under the spell of the alluring picture, let his gaze roam
+dreamily around until it lighted upon an excited group down the pier. He
+sprang to his feet energetically.
+
+"Fletch! Look! A man drowned, maybe. Come on quick!" Such alluring
+possibilities may come true in a city.
+
+They sprinted up to the rapidly increasing crowd, and wriggled, boylike,
+past obstructing arms and between tense bodies until they found
+themselves in the inner line of the circle. A carp of a size sufficient
+to excite the envy of the neighboring fishermen lay with laboring gills
+upon the water-spattered planking. The lads gazed in open-mouthed
+admiration at the large, glistening scales, the staring eyes, and the
+twitching, murky red fins.
+
+"Weighs five pounds if he's an ounce," orated the proud captor. "Says I
+to myself when he bit, 'I've got a bird there,' and I was right."
+
+John turned to his chum with the inevitable question:
+
+"Gee, don't you wish we could catch a fish like that?"
+
+And Silvey made the inevitable reply:
+
+"Just don't you, though!"
+
+They watched breathlessly as the fisherman forced his stringer between
+the large gills and out through the gaping mouth, and tied it in a
+secure double knot that there might be no danger of an escape. As the
+rebellious captive was lowered into the water, and the throng about the
+spot began to thin, the successful angler seated himself again.
+
+"What'd you catch him on?" John broke out.
+
+"Taters."
+
+"Do big fellows like that bite on potatoes?"
+
+They were assured that such was the case.
+
+"Say," John scratched nervously at a knot in a pier plank as he summoned
+courage for his request. "Give me a hunk, will you? I never caught a
+fish that big in my life and I sure want to!"
+
+"Catch." The man's eyes flashed in amusement as he opened a deep cigar
+box and tossed out a half-boiled tuber.
+
+For a second time that morning, the boys tested a new type of bait.
+Hoping to change his luck, John cast far out to the very limit of the
+ten cents' worth of fishing line on his reel and sat, tensely hopeful,
+for five dragging minutes. Then he jammed the pole into its old resting
+place between the bent nails.
+
+"No use," he exclaimed in disgust to Silvey.
+
+Hardly were the words out of his mouth before the reel gave a sharp
+click of alarm. The sagging line grew taut and rose more and more from
+the water as an unseen something made a frightened break for liberty.
+John seized the handle as the rod threatened to drop into the water and
+jumped to his feet.
+
+"Gee!" he cried, half frightened by the weight and resistance of the
+fish, "Gee!"
+
+Silvey strained his eyes far out in an effort to descry the captive. The
+southerner who had given the minnows sprang forward with a shout of
+"Play him, boy, play him. Give him line until he turns or he'll break
+away."
+
+"Can't," John gasped, his heart in his mouth. "It's all out, now."
+
+As the cheap line stretched almost to the breaking point, the fish
+circled rapidly landward, then, alarmed by the shoaling water, sped
+back, close by the pier, for the open lake. The minnow monopolist jerked
+his lines clear of impending entanglement and scowled.
+
+"Take in slack, boy, take in slack," shouted the southerner.
+
+John's fingers spun around like a paper pinwheel. Again the line
+tightened and again the carp turned to the shore. The news that a big
+one was hooked spread far down the pier, and the boys, for the first
+time in their lives, tasted the delight of being the cynosure of the
+eyes of a rapidly increasing crowd. The man with the potatoes had forced
+his way to the pier's edge and gave advice with an almost proprietary
+manner. The fat negress' husband, roused from his inaction, gibbered
+delightedly as the line circled more and more slowly through the water,
+while John panted and reeled, slacked and rereeled line until the
+exhausted fish rose to the surface directly beneath him.
+
+"Gee," gasped Silvey, awe-struck.
+
+"No wonder he fought like an alligator fish," vouchsafed the southerner.
+
+"Who says 'taters don't catch anything?" asked the man of that bait
+proudly. "Twenty pounds or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Cautiously, very cautiously, lest the fish make a sudden frightened dash
+for liberty, John drew in line to raise the captive from the water.
+
+"Y'all wait a minute," said the southerner. "Land him in my minny net.
+That's safer."
+
+But the minnow net, thanks to its abbreviated handle, lacked an easy two
+feet of the water, reach as the gaunt, outstretched figure might.
+
+"H'ist away," he ordered finally. "I'll shove under when he gets high
+enough."
+
+Inch by inch, the quivering body rose from the water. Appeared above the
+wire rim of the net, first the staring, goggle eyes, then the slowly
+laboring gills, the twitching side fins, and six inches of glistening
+scales.
+
+"Now!" shouted the southerner.
+
+Then, as if sensing the imminent danger, the great body gave a
+convulsive wrench, the light hook tore through the soft-fleshed mouth,
+and the carp, rebounding from the bark-covered piling, dove into the
+lake with a splash and disappeared from sight.
+
+"Shucks!" ejaculated Silvey.
+
+John sat down on the pier suddenly and very quietly. His tackle had
+snarled, and as the throng returned to their own poles, he picked at the
+tangle of line in the reel while his lower lip trembled piteously.
+
+To have landed that Goliath among fishes! What a triumphal procession it
+would have been--a march down the home street with such a captive. How
+Sid DuPree and the Harrison boys would have stared! He rebaited and
+dropped his line forlornly into the water.
+
+"Maybe he'll bite again," he suggested, hoping against fate.
+
+The minutes dragged. The gaunt, gray-faced southerner stretched out on
+the pier for a nap. The sandy-haired German rose from his seat beside
+the hunchback, stretched the stiffness from his arms, and unjointed his
+pole. The last neatly dressed business man was walking briskly from the
+pier. Silvey yawned listlessly.
+
+"Breakfast time, ain't it?" he asked.
+
+John's watch showed a quarter after eight. Slowly they reeled in the
+dripping lines, freed the hooks from all traces of water-soaked bait,
+and dismounted their rods. As they left the lake shore, the sun's rays
+became oppressive with heat. The air had lost the cool, fresh fragrance
+of early morning, and hinted of soot-producing factories and unsavory
+slaughter houses. Suburban trains thundered incessantly cityward,
+blending the snorts of their locomotives with the rumble of innumerable
+elevated trains and the clamoring bells of the surface cars.
+
+When they came to the tall poplars which marked the entrance to the
+park, Silvey looked down and viewed the fruit of their morning's labors
+with disgust.
+
+"He's awful small," he said shamefacedly. "Throw him into the bushes."
+
+John raised the diminutive perch into the air and regarded it glumly.
+"Cat'll eat him, I guess."
+
+"Have to sneak home the back way, then," said Silvey.
+
+The return home by way of the railroad tracks was ever their route when
+a fishing trip had been unsuccessful, for it avoided conveniently all
+notice by jeering playmates.
+
+"Don't you wish we'd landed that big fellow?" breathed John, half to
+himself, as he reviewed mentally that thrilling struggle on the pier.
+
+"Just don't you, though!" echoed Bill, regretfully.
+
+They walked on for some minutes in silence. As they left the cement walk
+for the little footpath which led across the corner vacant lot to a
+break in the railroad fence, Silvey roused himself.
+
+"What you going to say to your mother?"
+
+John shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. What you going to say to
+yours?"
+
+So they fell to planning their excuses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN WHICH HE GOES TO SCHOOL
+
+
+But an hour had passed since his protesting assertion that "Once doesn't
+matter, Mother, and anyway, it's school time," had been followed by
+flight to the many-windowed, red-brick building, and already the
+surroundings of dreary blackboard, dingy-green calsomine, and
+oft-revarnished yellow pine woodwork were becoming irksome. The spelling
+lesson had not been so unpleasant, for he could sense the tricky "ei-s"
+and "ie-s" with uncanny cleverness, but 'rithmetic--the very name
+oppressed him. What use could be found in such prosy problems as "A and
+B together own three-hundred acres of land. A's share is twice as much
+as B's. How much does each own?" Or "A field contains four hundred
+square yards. One side is four times as long as the other. What are its
+dimensions?"
+
+Miss Brown closed the hated, brown-covered book and turned to write the
+arithmetic homework on the blackboard. Instantly John's attention
+wandered to objects and sounds far more interesting than the barren,
+sultry school room.
+
+A couple of sparrows flew from the roof of the school to the window
+ledge nearest him, intent on their noisy quarrel, and he gave a scarcely
+perceptible sigh. Birds could enjoy the sunshine unmolested--why not he?
+A horse sounded a rapid tattoo of hoof beats over the heated street
+macadam below and he longed--as he had longed for the launch that
+morning--for a vehicle which would take him along untraveled roads to a
+country where schools were not, and small boys fished and played games
+the long days through. Next, a three-year-old stubbed her toe against
+the street curbing opposite the school and voiced her grief with
+unrestrained and therefore enviable freedom. John stirred uneasily and
+meditated upon the interminable stretch of four days which must elapse
+before Saturday. Then a majestic thunderhead in the blazing September
+sky caught his attention and the miracle happened.
+
+He was on his back in the big field of his uncle's Michigan farm, gazing
+upward at the white, rapidly shifting clouds. The unimpeded western
+breeze made little harmonies of sound as it swept through the tall,
+waving grass; strange birds carolled joyously from the orchard by the
+road, and near at hand the old, brown Jersey lowed lovingly to her
+ungainly calf. From the more distant chicken coop came the cackle of
+hens and the boastful crowing of a rooster.
+
+A shift of the thought current, and the fat, easy-going team dragged the
+lumbering, slowly moving wagon over the four-mile stretch of sand road
+to town, while he sat on the driver's seat to listen to the hired man's
+tales of army service in the Philippines, or to watch the ever-shifting
+panorama of flower and bird and animal life which he loved so well. Past
+the ramshackle farm of the first neighbor to the north, past the little
+deserted country school house, past the pressed-steel home of a would-be
+agriculturist, which had rusted to an artistic red, and down to the
+winding river which flanked the hamlet through banks lined with white
+birches and graceful poplars--"popples" the hired man called them. There
+was good fishing in the river, too. Once a twenty pound muskellunge had
+been caught, and bass were plentiful.
+
+But better still than that was his uncle's well-stocked trout stream.
+Again he stumbled over the root-obstructed footpath which ran along the
+east bank, stopping now and then to untangle his hook and line as he
+forced his way past thick, second-growth underbrush, or to let his hook
+float with the current past some particularly promising bit of
+watercress. There was the fallen, half-rotted log under which the swift
+current had dug a deep hole in the sandbed for the big fellows to haunt
+and pounce out upon bits of food which floated by. How his heart had
+gone pitapat when he had discovered it and had quietly, oh, so quietly,
+dropped his baited hook into the clear, spring water. Then had come a
+swift-darting something up stream, a jerk at his line to set his pulses
+throbbing, a wild scurry for freedom and--
+
+"John!" Miss Brown's voice brought him rudely back to present day
+surroundings. He rose uncertainly, dimly conscious that his name had
+been called.
+
+"Yes, 'm," he stammered.
+
+"What was I telling the class just now?"
+
+He strove to collect his scattered faculties. Then his glance, roaming
+the room, caught at the newly written problems on the blackboard. He
+ventured an uncertain smile.
+
+"You--w-was telling--" he began.
+
+"'Were,' John."
+
+"Yes, 'm," nervously. "Were telling the class to be sure and write
+plain, and not to use pen and ink if we couldn't get along without blots
+and--and--" What else did Miss Brown usually say to the class on such an
+occasion?
+
+Over in the far corner of the room, Sid DuPree snickered maliciously.
+The boy two seats ahead of him turned with an exultant grin on his
+freckled face. Several little girls seemed on the verge of foolish,
+discipline-dispelling giggles, and he felt that something had gone
+wrong. Teacher, herself, ended the suspense.
+
+"Very good, John. Your inventive faculties do you credit. But it happens
+that as yet, I haven't said anything."
+
+The class broke into uproarious laughter while he stood in the aisle, to
+all appearances, a submissive, conscience-stricken little mortal.
+Inwardly he seethed with anger. What right had Miss Brown to trick a
+fellow that way? It was mean, it was cowardly, worse than stealing.
+
+"Now, John," she continued, looking sternly down from the raised
+platform, "I spoke just six times to you last week. Finally you promised
+me that you would pay strict attention. What have you to say for
+yourself?"
+
+He shot her a half-frightened glance and found her face seemingly stern
+and remorseless. He had been tempted to explain how the great
+out-of-doors called to him with an insistence which was irresistible,
+but shucks, she wouldn't understand. How was he to know that under the
+surface of it all, she sympathized with the culprit daydreamer
+exceedingly? So he hung his head in silence.
+
+There was a knock at the door. Miss Brown dismissed him with a curt nod.
+He sank thankfully into his desk as Sid DuPree sprang forward to admit
+the newcomer--a new girl and her mother. From the shelter of his big
+geography, John surveyed the couple with that calmly critical stare
+which only a ten-year-old is master of.
+
+The mother was nice, he decided. Fat ones always were. It was your long,
+thin woman who made trouble. Look at old lady Meeker, who lived next the
+vacant lot on Southern Avenue, where the boys gathered occasionally on
+their way from school for a game of marbles or to play split-top on one
+of the loose, decayed fence planks. Never did a glassy go spinning from
+the big dirt ring through a dexterous shot, or a soft, evenly grained
+top split cleanly to the spear head amid the proper shouts of approval
+than her fretful, piercing voice put an end to further fun. Such
+goings-on made her head ache, she averred time and again. If they didn't
+leave immediately, she'd telephone the police station. Once she had said
+it was a "wonder some parents wouldn't keep their children in their own
+back yards." She forgot that half the gang lived in apartment buildings
+with back yards only designed for clothes-drying apparatus, and that the
+other half lived in houses built upon so cramped an acreage that the
+yards were no fun to play in. But grown-ups were in the habit of
+committing such oversights--especially the skinny, cranky ones.
+
+As for the little girl--ah! she was good to look upon.
+
+Her chestnut hair hung in curly ringlets below her shoulders, almost to
+the waist of her little white frock. Her face held a slight pallor which
+was strangely fascinating to the sun-tanned urchin, and her eyes were a
+deep, rich brown. As the conversation ended between teacher and parent,
+she left the platform and walked to the front seat assigned her in a
+timid, shrinking way which stamped her as just the sort of a girl the
+fellows would make miserable on the slightest provocation. John's face
+set in an expression of heroic determination until he looked as if he'd
+swallowed a dose of castor oil!
+
+[Illustration: _He imagines himself a hero._]
+
+He'd like to catch Sid DuPree dancing around her in maddening circles,
+some afternoon, while she shrank piteously from each cry of "'Fraid cat!
+'Fraid cat!" Or that bully might throw pieces of chalk at her or pelt
+her with snowballs in the winter time until she broke into incoherent
+sobs. Then he, John Fletcher, would show that Sid where he got off at.
+He'd punch his face in, he would!
+
+The school room door closed upon the mother's broad back, and the hum of
+excitement at the departure subsided into the normal undercurrent of
+whispering between the pupils. Pencils scratched laboriously over rough
+manila pads as their owners copied the questions from the board. The boy
+two seats ahead of John took a wad of chewing gum from his mouth and
+stuck it on the underside of his desk. Someone over on Sid DuPree's side
+of the room dropped a book to the floor with a bang.
+
+Then Miss Brown shoved back the test papers she had been correcting and
+glanced at the clock.
+
+"Clear the desks," she ordered sharply. "Class prepare for physical
+culture."
+
+They obeyed with alacrity, for the drills were ever a relief from the
+enforced inactivity of restless little bodies. Moreover, they were
+vastly more enjoyable than mathematical perplexities or troublesome
+state and river boundaries.
+
+"Rise on toes, inhale deeply, and exhale ver-y slowly!" came the crisp
+command after the children had stumbled to their feet in the aisle.
+"One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four."
+
+Heated little faces grew even more flushed as the minute hand of the big
+wall clock showed the passing of five flying minutes. Next came, "Thrust
+forward, upwards, and from your sides," "bend trunks," to all points of
+the compass, "lunge to the right and left, and thrust forward," and a
+baker's dozen of other exercises designed to offset the weakening
+influences of cramped city environments and impure air.
+
+In conclusion, the class made a quarter-turn to the right and as they
+thus stood in parallel rows, took hold of each other's hands. At
+teacher's command, they swung their arms back and forth vigorously to an
+accompaniment of the inevitable "one-two, one-two."
+
+John's was a back seat, thanks to skillful maneuvering on the opening
+day of school, and flaxen-haired Olga occupied the desk ahead. A day
+earlier he had counted himself fortunate in having her for a neighbor,
+for she was clever at studies which required plodding perseverance, and
+not at all bashful about helping a fellow when teacher pounced on him
+with a catch question.
+
+Now he loathed her slow, insipid smile as his left hand released her
+plump right fingers at the end of the exercise. If she were only the new
+little girl!
+
+Then he noticed, as a prosaic business man will notice suddenly, that a
+skyscraper which he has passed daily for months is out of line with its
+neighbor, that the seat behind the new little girl was unoccupied and
+that she stood alone in the aisle during exercises. Would that he had
+possession of it!
+
+To sit next her, to be able to exchange the trivial, yet important,
+little confidences in which fourth-graders indulge when teacher's back
+is turned, or to win her quick, flashing smile as a reward for
+sharpening her pencil or for judicious prompting during a spelling
+lesson!
+
+To achieve these things, he would be willing even to relinquish the
+powers which he held by virtue of his aisle end seat. And to allow
+voluntarily some other pupil to fill the inkwells, distribute pencils,
+scratch pads, and drawing paper at their appointed intervals, and to
+indulge in a hundred and one other little acts of monitorship is no
+slight sacrifice for a boy to make.
+
+The geography lesson began. With the disregarded map of Africa in front
+of him as a blind, he fell to comparing the new girl with the other
+maidens of his acquaintance.
+
+Take poor, inoffensive Olga for example. Her placid being seemed clumsy
+and her movements bovine as he pictured again the dainty grace of that
+new arrival as she stepped down from the teacher's platform; or
+Irish-eyed, boisterous, fun-loving Margaret! John had regarded her with
+a great deal of favor during the past two weeks, for she was a jolly
+little sprite with a mother who, thanks to the neighborhood's laundry
+patronage, contrived to clothe her daughter in a constantly varying and
+seldom-fitting assortment of dresses. Now echoes of her noisy laughter
+returned to grate upon his memory. The new little girl wouldn't laugh
+like that. Not she! No one with so sweet a smile had need of impudent
+grins. And what a contrast between Margaret's untidy mop and those long,
+silken curls which so fascinated him.
+
+Yes, the boy decided that here was the being who was to be his girl for
+the ensuing year--to be worshipped from afar in all probability, but to
+be, nevertheless, his girl. So he drove ruthlessly from his heart all
+memories of a certain gray-eyed Harriette, his third-grade charmer, and
+erected a purely tentative shrine to the new divinity. As yet he was not
+quite certain of his feelings--and there might be a later addition to
+the room!
+
+In the meantime, there was the vacant seat. Temporary idol or not, he
+longed for possession of it, but he knew that although he moved heaven
+and earth to support a direct request for transfer, Miss Brown would
+never assign it to him. Many a past bitter experience had shown the most
+harmless desires to mask deep-laid juvenile plots, and she was
+singularly wary and distrustful. A way must be found to trick her into
+giving him the occupancy.
+
+He ate his meat and potatoes very quietly and thoughtfully that noon, a
+procedure so contrary to his usual actions that his mother asked him if
+he felt well. He nodded abstractedly, went upstairs to the big, sunny
+sewing room, searched the family needlecase for a long stiff darning
+needle and extracted several rubber bands from the red cardboard box on
+the library table. Then he sauntered off to wait in the school yard for
+assembly bell, with the air of a military strategist who has planned a
+well-laid campaign and is sanguine of success.
+
+The tramp of juvenile feet up the broad, school stairways grew steadily
+less until silence reigned in the big, empty corridors. Miss Brown sat
+down at her desk, drew out the black-covered record book from the
+right-hand drawer, and gave a few reassuring pats to her dark, orderly
+hair. Scurrying footsteps pounded up to the cloak room entrance. A
+moment later, Thomas Jackson, still panting and breathless, stumbled
+into his seat and mopped the beads of perspiration from his dark-skinned
+forehead with his coatsleeve. Then the tardy bell rang and Miss Brown
+began roll call.
+
+"Anna Boguslawsky," came her clear, even tones as the "B" names were
+reached. Hardly had Anna's timid "Here" reached her ears than a series
+of subdued cluckings came from some small boy's throat. She rapped for
+order and went on.
+
+"Edna Bowman."
+
+"Clu-wawk, clu-wawk," repeated the offender. Miss Brown laid her book
+down with a snap and glared at the class, which hesitated between
+ill-suppressed amusement and fear of teacher's wrath. She waited for one
+long, dragging moment and spoke crisply:
+
+"Children, you are no longer third-graders. Try to act as really
+grown-up boys and girls ought to."
+
+"Clu-wawk, clu-wawk," came the maddening repetition. She sprang to her
+feet.
+
+"That will be quite enough," she snapped. "If that boy makes that noise
+again he will be sent to the office and suspended for two weeks." During
+the awed silence which followed, she seated herself and took up the
+black-covered book with impressive deliberation. All went well until the
+"H's" were reached.
+
+"Albert Harrison," she called, "Albert!"
+
+[Illustration: _"Who shot that rubber band?"_]
+
+"School doctor sent him home this morning," volunteered the boy nearest
+Albert's empty desk.
+
+As Miss Brown's eyes sought the record book again, an unseen something
+whizzed through the air. Thomas Jackson jumped to his feet and rubbed a
+chocolate ear belligerently.
+
+"Who shot that rubber band? I'll fix him. Who done it? He's afraid to
+let me know."
+
+Miss Brown stepped down from the teacher's platform with an angry swish
+of her skirts, and took up a position half-way down the aisle where she
+had a better view of the class. John studied her carefully. The usually
+smiling lips were set in a thin, nervous line, and the hand which held
+the record book trembled ever so slightly. In an opposite corner of the
+room, two little girls giggled hysterically. The ring of pupils around
+him, true to the child's creed of no talebearing, glanced at school
+books or lesson papers with preternaturally grave faces. Discipline had
+been so badly broken that the class was at the stage where a dropped
+piece of chalk or a sneeze will provoke an outburst of laughter.
+
+John drew the needle from his coat lapel and wedged it carefully in the
+joint between his desk and the back of Olga's seat. A glance at Miss
+Brown found her watching Billy Silvey closely in the belief that he was
+the miscreant. The time for his crowning bit of persecution had arrived.
+
+Suddenly a nerve-wracking, ear-piercing vibration filled the room. Miss
+Brown's face went white with rage. John caught the tip of the needle
+with his fingernail and bent it back again.
+
+"T-a-a-ang." The class gasped at the sheer audacity of the deed. A ray
+of reflected light caught the teacher's eye, and she pounced upon the
+boy before he could remove the incriminating bit of steel.
+
+"John Fletcher," she screamed, as she stood beside him. "So it's you who
+have been causing all this trouble!"
+
+He admitted as much. Sober second thought would have counseled Miss
+Brown to make good her threat of a visit to the principal's office and
+consequent suspension, but an outraged sense of personal grievance
+clamored for redress. She gained control of herself with perceptible
+effort.
+
+"Take out your books," she ordered.
+
+He assembled his belongings on the top of his desk--geography, reader,
+arithmetic, composition book and speller--all too new to be as yet
+ink-scarred--a manila scratch pad, a ruled block of ink paper with a
+cover crudely illustrated during his many bored moments, and a sundry
+assortment of teeth-marked pencils and pens, and stood, a smiling,
+incorrigible offender, in the aisle, awaiting further orders.
+
+Miss Brown found that smile peculiarly irritating. "The first thing to
+happen to you," she told him sternly, "is that you'll have to stay after
+school an hour for the rest of the week. As for your back seat, I let
+you keep it only on promise of good behavior, and this is the way you've
+acted."
+
+The maddening grin reappeared. That seat behind the new little girl was
+the only vacant one in the room located at all near Miss Brown's desk.
+The prize was all but in his possession. She was going to--she had to--
+
+"And," went on the cold, inexorable voice, "as Louise is such a
+well-behaved little girl, I'm going to let her exchange with you.
+Louise, will you take out your books?"
+
+He drew one piteous, gasping breath. Every vestige of sunlight seemed to
+leave the room. Slowly he fumbled among his belongings as he gathered
+them into his arms and, half-way up the aisle, stood aside to let his
+divinity pass. Longingly his glance took in every detail of the silken
+curls, the curving lashes which half hid the brown eyes the rosy,
+petulant lips, and the unmistakably snub hose. Then he walked
+uncertainly to the seat which she had just vacated.
+
+A little later, Miss Brown looked up from a stack of composition papers
+which had been collected by the monitors, and found John's lower lip
+a-quiver. She was greatly puzzled, for boys did not usually take
+detentions after school so much to heart. But fifteen minutes before
+school ended for the day, she knew that his troubles had vanished, for
+he was gazing out of the window with such vacant earnestness that she
+felt called upon to reprove him again for daydreaming.
+
+He eluded the watchful eye of authority as the exit bell rang, and filed
+down stairs with the long line of pupils. Sid DuPree dashed past him as
+he stood in the school yard, with a cry of "Just wait until teacher
+fixes you for ducking." A friend called an enthusiastic invitation to
+play tops on the smooth street macadam. Silvey stopped to convey the
+important information that the "Tigers" were to hold their first fall
+football practice in the big lot that afternoon. John promised his
+appearance--later. Other and more important matters would claim his
+attention for the next half-hour.
+
+At last the new little girl came down the long walk leading from the
+school yard to the street and hippity-hopped over the cement sidewalk
+towards home, with school books swinging carelessly to and fro in her
+strap.
+
+He started after her with the unnecessary and therefore fascinating
+stealth of an Indian, for he meant to find out where she lived. As she
+left the cross street where the telephone exchange stood, her gait
+slackened to a walk--still eastward. Past the little block of stores
+which housed a struggling delicatessen, an ambitious, gilt-signed
+"elite" tailoring establishment, and a dingy, dirty-windowed little
+jewelry shop, across Southern Avenue where gray-eyed Harriette, that
+divinity of the preceding year, lived, and still no sign of a change in
+direction.
+
+Once she turned and looked backward. John fled, panic-stricken, to the
+shelter of the nearest store entrance; for you might be in love with a
+girl, you might be obsessed with a desire to find her residence that you
+might pass it occasionally and wonder in a dreamy sort of a way what she
+might be doing, but the girl herself must never know it. That would be
+contrary to every precept of the schoolboy code of ethics.
+
+At last she turned a corner--his home corner--where the drug store
+stood, and broke again into a hippity-hop down the shady, linden-lined
+street. With heart gloriously a-thump, he watched the door of the big
+apartment building at the end of the street close upon the little
+white-clad form, and he knew that the van load of furniture which had
+been carried in on the Friday preceding belonged to her parents. So he
+retraced his steps across the street with a dolorously cheerful whistle
+on his lips.
+
+Over the railroad tracks he went as usual to the big, weed-grown,
+rubbish-littered field north of the dairy farm, which served as baseball
+grounds, athletic field, and football gridiron, according to the season.
+There he found a baker's dozen of boys of his own age, who greeted him
+joyously.
+
+"Sid DuPree's gone to get his football," Silvey explained. "We'll be
+practicing in a minute."
+
+They were a ragged lot. Silvey boasted of a grimy, oft-patched pair of
+football pants, which were a relic of his brother's high-school career;
+Albert, the older Harrison boy, who did not seem very ill in spite of
+the physician's dismissal, owned half of an old football casing, which
+had been padded to make a head guard, and there was a scattering of
+sweaters among them. Sid DuPree, thanks to parental affluence, was the
+only boy who laid claim to a complete uniform, and presently he
+sauntered over the tracks in shining headgear, heavy jersey, padded knee
+trousers, and legs encased in shin-guards far too large for him. A new
+collegiate ball was tucked securely under one arm.
+
+"Here she is, fellows," he called, as he clambered into the field and
+sent the pigskin spinning erratically through the air. "Isn't she a
+peach?"
+
+Last year, their combats had been fought with a light, cheap, dollar
+toy, but here was one in their midst of the same weight, brand, and size
+as that which the big university team used, and which cost as much as,
+or more, than a new suit of clothes, according to the individual. They
+gathered around it, poking at the staunchly sewn seams and thumping the
+stony sides with a feeling akin to reverence.
+
+Presently Silvey produced a frayed, dog-eared treatise _How to Play
+Football_, which had survived two years of thumbing and tugging and
+lying on the attic floor between seasons, and proceeded to lay down the
+fundamental laws to the neophytes in the great American sport. Positions
+were tentatively assigned, and the squad raced over weeds and stones in
+an effort to master the rudimentary plays, while Silvey strutted and
+blustered and administered corrective lectures in a manner that was a
+ludicrous imitation of a certain high-school coach. Let John excel at
+baseball if he would; he was the master of the hour now, and he marched
+the boys back and forth until they panted and sweated and finally broke
+into vociferous protest. Thus the "Tigers," whose name that season was
+to spell certain defeat to similar ten-year-old teams, concluded their
+first football practice.
+
+[Illustration: _The "Tigers."_]
+
+John dropped behind to talk to the elder Harrison boy as the team
+sauntered noisily homeward. He wanted to learn the details of the
+accommodating illness. Albert chuckled.
+
+"Nothing the matter. Only the school doctor thought there was."
+
+That official was a recent acquisition to the school personnel whose
+duties, according to the school board's orders, were to "Make daily
+visits, morning and afternoon, to examine all cases of suspected
+illness, and prescribe, if poverty makes it necessary, that epidemics be
+safeguarded against."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked John.
+
+"Well, my throat felt funny and I told Miss Brown. She sent me up to the
+office to see him. 'Stay home a day, my boy, until we see if it gets
+worse,'" Albert quoted. "Was I glad?"
+
+So that was what the new school doctor did. Thumped you around and
+looked down your throat and prescribed a day's holiday as a cure. He
+wished he'd been Albert. He'd a' stayed on the pier all morning and
+hooked the big carp again. Some folks seemed to be born lucky, anyway.
+Couldn't he fall sick too, not badly enough to go to bed, but just
+nicely sick as Al was?
+
+He startled his parents at supper that evening by a sudden and seemingly
+morbid thirst for information about diseases.
+
+"Mother," he queried, between mouthfuls of bread and homemade marmalade,
+"what's measles and scarlet fever and diphtheria start out like?"
+
+His father chortled with amusement. Mother, after the manner of women,
+remembered his actions that noon and grew anxious.
+
+"You're not feeling sick, are you, dear?"
+
+He didn't feel exactly well. Could she tell him about any of the
+foregoing? Perhaps he had one of them.
+
+"Put that marmalade right down, then. It'll upset your stomach. Here,
+let me look at your tongue!"
+
+He demurred. Jam wouldn't hurt him. There was nothing really wrong,
+anyway. Only one of the boys at school had gone home with the measles
+and he was wondering what it was like. Then he subsided into silence.
+
+Late that evening, Mr. Fletcher found the library gas burning and
+discovered his son sitting beside the desk, his eyes glued to the
+portly, green-bound _Family Doctor_. Beside him on a pad were scribbled
+copious notes. Nor would he even hint, as his father ordered him to bed,
+what he wanted them for.
+
+[Illustration: Johnny and Louise]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HE PLAYS A TRICK ON THE DOCTOR
+
+
+In the morning, John sneaked from the table as soon as the last forkfull
+of fried potatoes had been devoured. When Mrs. Fletcher brought the
+breakfast plates out to the kitchen sink, she found him on tiptoe, with
+one hand fumbling among the spice tins and bottles in the top bureau
+drawer. He turned guiltily, and yawned to hide his embarrassment.
+
+"I was looking for a piece of cinnamon to chew," he explained. "Guess
+I'll be going to school now."
+
+His mother glanced at the alarm clock which ticked noisily in its place
+on the wall over the sink.
+
+"Only twenty-five minutes to nine, son. Isn't it a bit early?"
+
+He explained that he had to be up at school at first bell. A geography
+notebook had been left in his desk, and entries must be made in it
+before the class began. He was gathering his scattered belongings
+together in the hall when the maternal voice called him back to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Yes, Mother?" with his head in the doorway.
+
+"Will you ever learn to shut a drawer when you're through with it?"
+
+He shoved it back with a sulky bang. "Where's my hat?"
+
+"Did you look in the front hall?"
+
+"'Tain't on the floor by the big chair. That's where I most always leave
+it."
+
+"How about the closet hat rack?"
+
+A moment later, a surprised shout told that the lost had been found. The
+front door slammed noisily and he was off to school.
+
+The dishes were washed and dried, the plates and saucers stacked on the
+pantry shelves, the cups hung neatly on the appointed hooks in the
+cupboard, and the silver put away in the sideboard drawer. Then Mrs.
+Fletcher turned her attention to the tidying of the house. She made
+innumerable circles and criss-crosses with the carpet sweeper over the
+parlor rug, and was dusting the big rocker by the bay window when a
+chance glance up the street revealed two small figures playing far at
+one end of the strip of macadam. Her son, without doubt, was one of
+them. No one else wore a cap tilted back at quite so ridiculous an
+angle. The other stocky figure looked and acted like Bill Silvey.
+
+Why weren't they at school? Hookey? No, for truants never allowed
+themselves within sight of home and easy detection. And there was a
+certain brazen righteousness about their actions. At the big, green
+house, Silvey challenged John to a game of tag. A lamppost nearer, they
+ceased the mad, dodging chase and engaged in earnest conversation. A
+hundred yards from the Fletcher house, footsteps lagged to an
+astonishing degree and an air of lassitude overcame them that was
+inexplicable in view of recent activities. The boys mounted the front
+steps wearily. John pressed the bell as if the act consumed the last
+atom of strength in his arm.
+
+His mother swung back the door anxiously. "What on earth's the matter?"
+
+"School doctor sent me home," her son explained. "Think's I've got the
+measles."
+
+"Nonsense! Let me take a look at you." His eyes were reddened to an
+alarming degree, but there seemed little else the matter.
+
+"He did," John insisted. "Told me to stay home today to see if they got
+worse. Silvey and I are going fishing."
+
+"Fishing! And coming down with the measles?"
+
+He protested volubly. His head felt heavy and kind of funny, but he
+didn't think that lazying around on the pier would be harmful. The
+sunshine might do him good.
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher a second time and with increased
+emphasis. She turned to Silvey. "You can go home, Bill. John can't come
+out. He's going to stay in bed until he gets better."
+
+John trudged wearily up the interminable stairs to his little tan-walled
+room.
+
+Shucks, it was just his luck! Look at Al Harrison. He came home with a
+sore throat and was allowed to play football and fool around as he
+pleased, while he, John Fletcher, was ordered to bed because the school
+doctor feared measles.
+
+A fellow had returned from the pier with a string of perch a yard long
+dangling from his pole. "Fishing good? Say, kid, this ain't nothing to
+what some of 'em have caught!" And he was condemned to a day's
+imprisonment while they were biting that way. It was a shame, tyranny,
+oppression worse than the old slaves labored under in _Uncle Tom's
+Cabin_. He'd run away from home, he would. Perhaps his uncle would give
+him a job on the Michigan farm if he worked his way up there. Or else he
+could commit suicide. There was the long, shiny, carving knife in the
+kitchen table drawer. He'd just bet his mother would be sorry if he used
+it.
+
+Instead, he threw his clothes sulkily over the back of the wicker chair
+and, after some deliberation, drew a well-thumbed, red-covered book from
+his library shelves. Sherlock Holmes was a far better panacea for his
+troubles than the big carving knife.
+
+He had read and reread the tale until the episodes were known almost by
+heart, but still _The Sign of the Four_ held powerful sway over his
+imagination. Thaddeus Sholto lived again to tell his nervous, halting
+tale to the astute Baker Street detective. Tobey took the two eager
+sleuths through the episode of the trail which led to the creosote
+barrels. Holmes appeared and reappeared on his fruitless expeditions as
+the boy's eyes narrowed with excitement, and his figure straightened and
+his breathing quickened as he followed the police boat in the thrilling
+pursuit of Tonga and Jonathan Small on the tortuous, traffic-blocked
+Thames.
+
+He found himself reading the love passages with a sudden and sympathetic
+insight. No longer did he feel tempted to skim those pages hastily that
+he might resume the thread of the main and more engrossing plot. Didn't
+Louise live almost across the street from him? Wasn't his interest in
+her explained by that paragraph, "A wondrous and subtle thing is love,
+for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day--"
+
+"John!" His mother stood in the doorway, stern disapproval in her gaze.
+He looked at her blankly.
+
+"Put up that book this minute. Don't you know that reading is the worst
+thing possible for inflamed eyes?"
+
+The treasure was surrendered regretfully. His mother replaced it on the
+shelf.
+
+"Where's the key to your bookcase?" He shrugged his shoulders. "It
+doesn't matter. Mine fits your door, anyway."
+
+The squeak of the lock sounded the death knell to the one course of
+amusement that had lain open to him. His mother pulled down the window
+shades and stooped over in the darkened room to kiss him.
+
+"Sleep a little, son," she counseled. "Mother wants you to feel better
+in the morning."
+
+He undressed and threw himself into bed angrily. Even books were denied
+him. What was the fun in being sick, anyway, if a fellow's mother
+insisted on taking that sickness seriously. Why wasn't she as easy going
+as Mrs. DuPree who allowed that privileged youngster to stay up as late
+as he wanted and to indulge in other liberties not usually granted to a
+boy of ten?
+
+Sid and the class must be finishing arithmetic now. He wished he were
+there. Anything--even school--was better than staying in bed in a
+darkened room. Did Louise enjoy his back seat? Had she found the big wad
+of chewing gum he'd left on the bottom of the desk? Was Silvey having
+the same unfortunate time as he?
+
+The room was warm and close in spite of the open east exposure. He
+yawned dismally. A fly lighted on his nose. He brushed it away in drowsy
+irritation. In a moment his eyes closed.
+
+He was awakened by the buzz of the egg beater in a china bowl in the
+kitchen below him. Must be 'most dinner time. He felt hungry enough.
+What was his mother cooking? A fragrant hissing from the hot pan hinted
+of an omelet. Just let him sink his teeth into one. Wouldn't be long
+before he was ready for another.
+
+He roused himself and went into the hall.
+
+"Moth-a-ar," he called down the stairway.
+
+"Yes, John?"
+
+"I'm hu-u-ngry."
+
+"Lie still. I'll be up with your dinner in a few moments."
+
+He hoped it would be something good. Beefsteak and mashed potatoes and
+peas would be about right. Omelet would do, if there were enough. He
+could devour the house, he felt so ravenous.
+
+Shortly his mother appeared with the big brown tray, drew up a
+straight-backed chair to the bed, and lowered the feast to it before his
+expectant eyes.
+
+"Milk toast!" disgustedly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+[Illustration: _"Milk toast!"_]
+
+"That isn't enough for a fellow. Aren't there any potatoes or meat?"
+
+"They'd make your temperature rise," Mrs. Fletcher explained gently.
+"Perhaps, though, you can have some tomorrow, if you're better."
+
+He waited until she left the room and attacked the mushy stuff hungrily.
+Everything is grist which comes to a small boy's digestive mill, anyway,
+and the food wasn't really distasteful. Then he lay back and, for the
+first time in his active life, realized what a refined torture complete
+and enforced idleness can be.
+
+The shadows played incessantly on the brown wallpaper as the window
+curtains swung back and forth with the air currents and lightened and
+plunged his prison into oppressive twilight alternately. A fly made a
+complete toilette on the bed cover before his interested eyes, now
+brushing the gauzy wings, now twisting its head this way and that way,
+as if indulging in a form of calisthenics. He stretched forth a cautious
+hand to capture the insect, only to watch it buzz merrily away before
+his arm was in striking distance.
+
+A suburban train puffed noisily past and slowed down at the adjacent
+station. Only twenty minutes elapsed! And an afternoon of this awful
+monotony faced him.
+
+He blinked idly at the ceiling. This was Thursday. Played properly, his
+malady should be sufficient to keep him out of school on the morrow; but
+was the game worth the candle?
+
+John dressed himself hurriedly and bounced down the stairs. Mrs.
+Fletcher was in the parlor, glancing for a brief moment at a newly
+arrived magazine. He presented himself sheepishly.
+
+No, he didn't want to stay in bed. He felt all right--honest!
+
+She examined the invalid carefully. The inflammation had left his eyes
+and they were now as clear as her own. His skin felt cool to the touch,
+without a trace of fever, and his tongue was an even, healthy pink.
+
+"There doesn't seem much the matter with you now," she admitted. "It
+won't hurt you to stay up if you don't play too hard. There are lots and
+lots of things to do to help me."
+
+First, the potatoes were to be washed for tomorrow's dinner. He filled
+the dishpan full of water, dumped the sand-laden tubers in, and attacked
+them with a brush in vigorous relief at the change from deadening
+inactivity. Next, there were a hundred and one little errands to do
+about the house, for his mother began sewing on his negligee blouses,
+and the button-hole scissors, the missing "60" thread, and other mislaid
+implements must be found for her. Lastly, he announced that it might be
+well to go up to school and get the lessons for tomorrow.
+
+"Then I won't miss anything," he explained.
+
+Mrs. Fletcher nodded assent. "But come right back. I don't want you to
+be sick again."
+
+The afternoon passed without sign of John. At supper time, he approached
+the house warily. His face was flushed, his school clothes begrimed and
+rumpled, and a bruise on his right shin forced a perceptible limp as he
+walked. He had been practicing with the "Tigers," and the scrimmage had
+been most exciting. Silvey--who had not been put to bed--had bumped into
+Red Brown in a manner which the latter regarded as unnecessarily rough.
+There had been a fight between the two, while the other aspirants for
+positions on the team stood around and yelled "Fi-i-i-ight" at the top
+of their lungs.
+
+Yes, everyone seemed to be inside the Fletcher house. The outlook was
+reasonably safe. He tiptoed up on the porch and stretched out on the
+swinging lounge. There his mother found him feigning a deep and
+overwhelming sleep.
+
+"John!"
+
+Sleeping boys never wakened at the first summons. That wasn't natural.
+So he waited until a maternal hand shook him vigorously.
+
+"Yes, Mother?" With a doleful yawn.
+
+"Is this the way you come straight home from school?"
+
+He protested. There were some lessons to get from Miss Brown after,
+dismissal and that had delayed him. "And I've been here ever so long."
+
+"Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "Just look at the state of your clothing.
+You've been playing football. Come into the house this instant!"
+
+He obeyed meekly. The period of invalidism was over.
+
+But to the harassed school doctor, it seemed on the following morning
+that John Fletcher's case was but the beginning of a long and startling
+outbreak of illness in the school.
+
+Hardly had Miss Brown finished roll call before dark-haired Perry
+Alford, her brightest and most guileless scholar, waved his hand
+excitedly to attract attention. His eyes hurt terribly as teacher could
+see. Wouldn't it be well for him to go to the school physician? Miss
+Brown thought that it would.
+
+Room Ten's door closed upon the prospective invalid. But a few moments
+passed before towheaded, lethargic Olaf Johnson voiced his complaint.
+
+"Please, ma'm, my throat, it feels funny here." He placed a pudgy hand
+on each side of his jaw. "And this morning when I get up, my head feels
+hot."
+
+He, too, was sent to see the school physician.
+
+"Does your nose run?" asked the man of medicines when Perry finished the
+catalog of his ailments.
+
+Perry sneezed and admitted that it did.
+
+"Anything else wrong with you?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir;" then with a sudden glibness, "but I don't feel like
+doing much. Only loafing around--and my head feels queer."
+
+"Home," ordered the doctor, emphatically. "At least four days. Tell your
+mother you've a first-class case of measles developing."
+
+As Perry made his exit, Olaf appeared.
+
+"Another?" exclaimed the physician, as he exchanged a glance with the
+gray-haired principal. "Well, what's the matter with you?"
+
+Olaf elaborated upon the symptoms which he had described to Miss Brown.
+The young medic was puzzled.
+
+"There are aspects which are not quite consistent," he said to the
+principal, "but the soreness suggests mumps. Shall we send him home?"
+
+"As you think best," nodded Mr. Downer. Olaf went the way of the
+measles-smitten Perry.
+
+The doctor was picking up his hat and medicine case to leave when the
+office door opened again. Two more boys appeared.
+
+"Good heavens!" said he, as he sat down heavily. "Is it an epidemic?"
+
+The principal shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.
+
+"More mumps." He beckoned to the larger of the two boys. "Now it's your
+turn."
+
+The older urchin was sturdily built, with a deep coat of tan on his face
+that no city sun had ever bred.
+
+"What's wrong with you?"
+
+The situation was beginning to pall. The position of school doctor,
+newly created by the Board of Education at the close of the spring term,
+carried no munificent salary. The young practitioner had grasped at the
+opening because the routine work offered golden opportunities for
+acquiring a clientele among the parents of the various pupils. Now,
+almost at the outset, a whole morning had been consumed, and there was
+promise of a great deal more work in the future.
+
+There didn't seem to be anything seriously the matter with the boy. He
+felt bruised all over, that was all.
+
+"Where does it hurt the most?"
+
+"Around my back."
+
+"Here?" The doctor placed his hands firmly on either side of the
+patient's spine.
+
+"O-o-oh, don't!" he waited.
+
+The physician straightened up and regarded the pupil gravely.
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"My stomach feels queer and it hurts like the dickens every once in a
+while. I lost my breakfast, this morning, too!"
+
+A tense note crept into the inquisitor's voice. "Have you ever been
+vaccinated?"
+
+"No sir. We just moved to the city this summer."
+
+"Smallpox!" The principal turned a little pale.
+
+"Are you sure?" he asked.
+
+"The pain in the back and the vomiting are almost certain indications."
+He turned to the boy. "Tell your mother to notify the health department
+the very minute you get home. Your house must be quarantined
+immediately."
+
+Much more was said regarding precautions, and measures, and medicines,
+to which the patient listened stolidly. A disinterested observer might
+have said that he was waiting solely for the order to leave school.
+
+As the door closed, the authorities exchanged worried glances.
+
+"The health record of the school has always been remarkably good," began
+the principal.
+
+"But it's an epidemic," cut in the worried physician. "And what an
+epidemic. Four cases this morning, and two yesterday, ranging all the
+way from mumps to smallpox. Downer, the school ought to be closed and
+thoroughly disinfected."
+
+"Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that the cases are confined to one
+room, Ten, and that boys are the only victims?"
+
+"Did you ever hear of a germ carrier. A person who, through some source
+of exposure, carries germs here and there on his or her clothes, and is
+perfectly immune to them. That's what you must have in that room. As for
+your last question, merely a coincidence. The boys happened to be the
+most susceptible to exposure, that's all."
+
+A bell clanged noisily. Mr. Downer stood up and looked thoughtfully from
+his window upon the orderly lines of pupils that no sooner passed from
+the school threshold than they became a howling, shouting mass of
+seeming infant maniacs.
+
+"Seems to me," he said, "Miss Brown was telling about a girl named
+Margaret, Margaret Moran, whose mother took in washing for a living.
+Spoke of it as a great joke. Said the girl wore a new dress every day,
+sometimes too long, sometimes too short, but never a fit. An ingenious
+way to reduce one item of the present high cost of living. She might be
+the one," he admitted.
+
+"Always the way," his companion said sharply. "There are more epidemics
+and near epidemics started by these itinerant washerwomen than the
+medical journals can keep track of. They ought to be regulated."
+
+"At any rate," said the principal, "I think it would be wise to question
+her a little before steps are taken to close the school. She may be able
+to shed some light on matters."
+
+"As you wish." The physician shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be back, this
+afternoon, to help with the inquisition."
+
+Next to children, the gray-haired man loved flowers, and he had planted
+the barren strip of land adjoining the fence separating the school yard
+from the alley with cannas and elephant's ears. He was puttering among
+them, now seeking voracious parasites, now examining a leaf which hinted
+in its faded coloring of fast approaching frosts, when boys' voices
+coming from the alley, held his attention.
+
+"So you want a holiday?" John Fletcher was the speaker beyond doubt; and
+his case had been the forerunner of the epidemic.
+
+"Uhu."
+
+"Got your nickel?"
+
+"Show me how, first."
+
+A moment's silence. John was examining the seeker after advice.
+
+"Just want this afternoon?"
+
+The boy assented.
+
+"Better have the measles, then. That's only good for one day, 'cause you
+can't fake it much longer. The disease comes on too fast. Doctor's book
+says so. Now pay attention."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Just before you go to school, shake some red pepper into your hand and
+go into a small closet. Shut the door so's none of the stuff can get
+out, and blow on it. Stay there until your eyes begin to smart. You'll
+find they're all red. That's the first symptom. Now repeat what I told
+you."
+
+His pupil obeyed.
+
+"Let Miss Brown take a good look and she'll send you to the doctor right
+away. When you come into the office, give a little cough as if your
+throat hurt. Let's hear you."
+
+The urchin hacked vigorously.
+
+"No, no, not so loud! You couldn't do that if your throat hurt as much
+as you must pretend it does. Try again."
+
+This time, the effort satisfied even the teacher's critical ear.
+
+"Then, when the doctor asks what's the matter, tell him you don't
+exactly know; that your head feels sort of queer, and you were all hot
+when you woke up this morning. He'll say 'Measles' and order you 'home
+until the case develops,'" quoting the physician's words at his own
+dismissal. "Now give me the nickel."
+
+"Shucks, is that all?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That ain't worth no nickel."
+
+"Aren't you going to give me that nickel?" threateningly.
+
+"That ain't worth more'n a penny. How do I know whether it'll work?"
+
+"Perry Alford's worked, and so did mine, and Bill Silvey's, Olaf's,
+Carl's, and the country kid's."
+
+"The other kids aren't paying you no nickel."
+
+"They are, too. Ask Mickey and his brother, and the Shepherd kids.
+They're going to be sick this afternoon, and they've paid me."
+
+"I can go to Olaf," asserted the would-be dead-beat. "He'll tell me what
+you told him, and it'll only cost a penny."
+
+"He'd better not! I'll smash his face in if he does. _Are you going to
+give me that nickel?_"
+
+"Naw, I ain't."
+
+John clenched his fists belligerently. His debtor raised both arms in a
+posture of defense. The principal tiptoed noiselessly around the end of
+the fence. John sparred for an opening and his opponent spied the
+approaching figure.
+
+"Jiggers! Old man Downer!" he yelled. "Beat it quick!"
+
+John turned, only to meet the principal's firm grasp on his shoulder.
+
+"Come up to the office," said the quiet voice. "I want to have a talk
+with you."
+
+He led the way to the center doors, an entrance reserved for the use of
+such awe-inspiring mortals as the faculty, visiting school
+superintendents, and parents. Up the dingy wooden stairs, worn at either
+end by the innumerable shuffling feet which had passed over them, they
+went, and into the bleak little office.
+
+"Sit down," said Mr. Downer.
+
+John collapsed into an uncomfortable wooden chair and gazed about him.
+There were the same desk, the same window box, filled with geraniums and
+pansies, and the same dun wall that he had seen on previous visits,
+prompted by his various sins. There was only one change. Opposite him, a
+newly framed head of Washington looked down from the wall in cold
+disapproval of the culprit who, for once in his brief life, felt
+strangely small and subdued.
+
+There were no questions; the principal had heard too much from his
+vantage point beside the fence. So he talked on and on and on in even,
+severe tones, of notes mailed to parents, of suspension notices, of
+school board action, and of interviews with Mr. Fletcher, until John,
+staring, motionless, at a panel in the big oak desk, felt his lower lip
+quiver. Then the gray-haired man desisted.
+
+"But I hope none of these measures will be necessary, John," he
+concluded.
+
+"N-no, sir," came the scarcely audible response.
+
+Had the boy looked at the kindly face, he would have seen that the deep
+set eyes were a-twinkle with suppressed merriment, but he was too
+conscience-stricken to do anything but slink from the office to the
+school yard.
+
+There he found that the news of his downfall had been spread among the
+fast increasing throng of boys who scampered over the pavement in
+breakneck games of tag or made tops perform miraculous tricks as they
+waited for the school bell to ring. Not a few jeered at him. One or two
+little girls who were passing stuck out their tongues. Even Sid DuPree
+and Silvey and the rest of the "Tigers" had only derisive laughter.
+
+It was the first time in his life that he had been made to feel
+ridiculous and he liked it not at all. He felt strangely out of place
+and stood to one side of the yard, a scowl on his face, glaring at the
+throng of merrymakers. Anyway, the proceeds of his escapade were in his
+pockets; that was more money than any of the scoffers owned. He shook
+the coins consolingly.
+
+A boy darted past. "Y-a-a, Johnny will try to fool the doctor!"
+
+The scowl deepened, then vanished suddenly. "Hey!" he bellowed to an
+astonished group near him. "Come on, all of you, over to the school
+store."
+
+They filed, a perplexed, noisy throng, into the cramped room. The
+proprietress gasped. John swaggered forward.
+
+"Here," said he, with the air of a young millionaire throwing away
+twenty-dollar tips, "I want forty-five cents' worth of six-for-a-cent
+lemon drops. Give each of these kids two and save the rest for me, if
+there is any rest!"
+
+Then he strutted out, a veritable lord of creation. His pockets were
+empty, but little he cared. The clamor in the school store was as sweet
+music to his ears, for it meant that his status among his play-fellows
+was restored. His bump of conceit no longer ached. So he knew that the
+victory was worth the price and again he felt at peace with the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+IN WHICH A TERRIFIC BATTLE IS WAGED
+
+
+The following morning was clear and sun-shiny. Silvey, his trousers'
+pockets strangely distorted, sprinted down the street and halted on the
+cement walk in front of the Fletcher house.
+
+"Oh, John-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e!"
+
+John appeared at an upper window in answer to the ear-piercing call. He
+carried a dustrag in one hand, and an expression of extreme discontent
+was on his freckled face.
+
+"What you want?"
+
+"Come on out."
+
+"Can't." Disgruntled pessimism rang in his tones.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Got to tidy my room and dust the bookcase and hang up my clothes in the
+closet and cut the front grass. Mother says so."
+
+"Aw-w-w, shucks! Can't you get out of it?" His friend fumbled in one of
+his bulging pockets. "Look!"
+
+The laborer at household tasks stared with sudden interest. "Ji-miny,
+cukes! Where'd you get 'em?"
+
+"'Long the railroad tracks. Vines are loaded. Nice and ripe, too.
+Watch."
+
+He hurled the greeny, spiny oval against the window ledge where it burst
+with the peculiar "plop," which only a wild cucumber of a certain stage
+of juicy plumpness can make.
+
+"The fellows are going to have a big fight," Silvey continued--"Perry
+Alford and Sid and the Harrison kids and all the rest of the gang. Ask
+your mother can you leave the work until afternoon. Tease her _hard_."
+
+Cucumbers ripe so early? That was fine! But could he evade the Saturday
+tasks. He would try.
+
+As he descended the stairs, the elation left his face and his step grew
+heavy and lifeless. He was framing a plea for freedom and his manner
+must fit the occasion. Had you seen him, you might have thought that his
+best bamboo fishing pole had been broken, or that the key to his
+bookcase was in maternal possession as punishment for some misdeed. All
+boys are splendid professional mourners anyway, and John was by no means
+an exception to the rule.
+
+He halted in the dingy coat closet to listen. Through the closed kitchen
+door came his mother's voice uplifted in song.
+
+    Nita, Oh, Ju-a-a-nita,
+    Ala-a-s that we must part!
+
+He sighed deeply. Bitter experience had taught that never was moment so
+unpropitious for errands like the present as when that cheerful dirge
+filled the air. But the thought of the waiting Silvey nerved him. He
+turned the doorknob and coughed hesitantly. His mother looked up from
+the pan of apples on her lap and smiled. She knew that lagging step and
+drooping mouth of old.
+
+"Well, John?"
+
+Her son fidgeted from one foot to the other. Beginnings were always so
+difficult. At last he blurted out:
+
+"Mother! Bill's outside with a lot of cucumbers. Says the fellows are
+going to have a sham battle and wants me to come along."
+
+"Did you put your shoes away in the bag on the door and hang up your
+good knickerbockers and coat?"
+
+His eyes began to fill. "N-no," he admitted.
+
+"Well, you've been upstairs nearly an hour," Mrs. Fletcher went on
+inexorably. "I suppose your room is tidied and dusted anyway."
+
+"Not quite," reluctantly. If the truth were told, a new book from the
+public library had caught his eye as he was about to start, and time had
+flown as a consequence.
+
+His mother shook her head. "That's your regular Saturday work, John. It
+has to be finished before you can go out. You know that. And there's the
+lawn to be cut, and the porch to be hosed. You skipped them last week."
+
+"I'll do them this afternoon. Honest, I will." His lower lip began to
+tremble. Mrs. Fletcher struggled to hide a smile.
+
+"Tell Bill you'll be out later." She disregarded his offer of
+compromise. "Now run along, son. Teasing only wastes time. You could be
+half finished if you'd only worked."
+
+There was no mistaking the tone. It meant business in spite of the
+aggressive cheerfulness. He turned moodily and stamped out of the room.
+As the door closed, he found an outlet for the disappointment in half
+mumbled ejaculations.
+
+"Mean old thing. Never lets a fellow do what he wants. Just as well have
+let 'em go until afternoon. What's the use of tidying a room, anyway?
+Always gets dirty again."
+
+Half-way up the carpeted stairs, he tripped in his blind anger and
+bruised his knee. The pain was sufficient to make the tears--the easy
+flowing tears which had longed for an outlet from the start of the
+interview--stream from his eyes.
+
+In a trice, he turned, threw back the door, and fled to the haven of his
+mother's lap. His arms sought clumsily to encircle her neck. She dropped
+the pan of apples on the floor, and gathered him, a sobbing little
+bundle, into her comforting arms.
+
+"What is it, son?"
+
+"My knee." One uncertain hand indicated the injured spot.
+
+"Ah, son, son," she laughed softly with just a hint of a catch in her
+voice as she rubbed the injury gently, "is it only when you want
+something that you love me like this?"
+
+He shook his head and snuggled closer in vehement protest. They rocked
+to and fro for some moments. Gradually the sobbing ceased and he lay
+blissfully motionless until she looked down at him. Then he said
+sheepishly,
+
+"If I do the lawn now, can I leave the porch and my room until
+afternoon?"
+
+Mrs. Fletcher gave her son an amused shake. He sensed hope for his cause
+and began to weep anew.
+
+"Please!"
+
+His mother's smile broadened. "You little humbug," she said softly.
+
+John wanted to smile, too. She always said that when she was relenting.
+
+"Can I?" eagerly.
+
+"Well, make a good job of the front lawn and I'll see."
+
+He struggled to his feet and was on the front porch before the kitchen
+door had slammed behind him. Half-dried tears still streaked his face,
+but a smile shone through them like the sun after a summer shower.
+
+"Got to cut the front lawn," he said exuberantly, "but that won't take
+long. She says I can leave the rest of it."
+
+Silvey's face clouded. "They're waiting for us in the big lot."
+
+"Won't take long if you help me," John hinted gently. "You run the mower
+and I'll follow with the rake."
+
+He darted back into the house and down into the dark, badly ventilated
+basement. Silvey sauntered around to the side, just in time to hear him
+struggling with the rusty door bolt.
+
+They dragged the implements up the area steps and set to work grimly. No
+time to be spent in making erratic circles or decorative designs in the
+long grass now. Up and down, up and down, the mower whirred with
+methodical thoroughness until the little plot had been cut after a
+fashion.
+
+"Guess that'll do," said John as they bumped the tools down the rickety
+wooden steps and left them lying in the doorway.
+
+"Going to tell her you're finished?"
+
+Mrs. Fletcher's son shook his head vigorously. "S'pose I want to trim
+the edges with the shears? Come on. Beat you over the tracks!"
+
+The lot where the boys had held their first football practice was large
+and occupied more than half of the double city block on which the dairy
+farm was located. The far end was flanked by a row of red, ramshackle
+frame stores, occupied by photographers, art dealers, and a Greek ice
+cream soda shop. A little further in and along the railroad fence, dense
+weeds flourished, topping at times even the tallest of the boys. Nearer
+to the dairy, short, sparse grass struggled for existence under a
+profusion of tin cans, charred wood, and broken milk bottles. A
+considerable area had been cleared of these impediments, and formed the
+boys' athletic grounds. Near one corner stood a monster pile of barrels
+and boxes, collected some months past, for a bonfire; but the policeman
+on the beat had interfered with a threat of arrest for the whole tribe,
+and the giant conflagration had not taken place.
+
+The pair were greeted with shouts as they jumped down from the railroad
+fence.
+
+"What took you so long?" Sid DuPree asked.
+
+John explained. The members of the gang offered congratulations at the
+escape, or sympathized with him over the work yet to be done, according
+to their several viewpoints. The elder Harrison boy led the two to one
+side and pointed out a scant bushel basket of the green ammunition.
+Others explained the plans for the morning's fun.
+
+"Silvey 'n I'll be generals of the armies," said John, when the babel
+had diminished. Sid raised his voice in protest.
+
+"Give somebody else a chance. Let Red and me be it this time."
+
+Silvey shouted derisively. "'Member the time you got hit in the eye with
+a snowball? Went home, bawling 'Ma-m-a-a, Ma-m-a-a.' Fine general you'll
+make!"
+
+Sid brandished his fists with a show of braggadocio. "Want to fight
+about it?"
+
+"Na-a-w," came the sneering reply. "Don't fight with cowards."
+
+John turned upon the pair imperiously. "Silvey'n I'll be generals, just
+as I said. Cut out the quarreling. If you don't like it, you don't have
+to. Want to quit?"
+
+Sid mumbled a sulky denial and retreated to the outer edge of the little
+group. There he poured out his troubles to the elder Harrison boy. John
+and Bill were always bossing things; ought to let him lead once in a
+while; thought they were the earth, anyway.
+
+John shot him a keen glance and whirled upon Silvey.
+
+"First choose!" he shouted.
+
+"'Tain't fair," objected his rival. "I wasn't ready. Draw lots."
+
+Perry Alford plucked a half-dozen blades of grass of varying lengths and
+folded them carefully. Then he held one, tightly closed, chubby hand
+first to Bill and then to John. The leaders compared their prizes.
+Silvey gave an exultant yell and beckoned to a gawky, loosely jointed
+lad who stood a little apart from the rest of the gang.
+
+"Come on, Skinny! You're on my side."
+
+Skinny's long arms made him a welcome addition to any force and a
+warrior to be feared at all times. Occasionally he performed feats of
+marksmanship which not even the two redoubtable leaders could equal.
+
+The group of boys drew closer. Perry Alford lagged with seeming
+nonchalance, a step in the rear of his more eager play-fellows. Sid
+DuPree picked up a pebble and threw it unerringly toward a railroad
+fence post as John eyed him regretfully.
+
+If only that youngster had not such a reputation for quitting under
+fire, time and again during their many mimic battles! Then his glance
+fell upon Red Brown's impudent, freckled face and he smiled. Here was a
+warrior with a temperament to delight the leader of a forlorn hope.
+
+"Come on, Red!"
+
+Sid was promptly seized upon by the rival commander.
+
+"Perry Alford," said John.
+
+The remaining half-dozen mediocrities were divided without further ado.
+Then the two leaders stepped gravely to one side and discussed the rules
+for the approaching conflict, while the rank and file of the two armies,
+twelve strong, amused themselves by wrestling, throwing bits of stone
+and glass up on the railroad tracks, and engaging in impromptu games of
+tag.
+
+"Each fellow gets twenty cucumbers," concluded John. "That'll leave some
+for fun, later. If a man gets hit three times, he's a deader and has to
+quit. Side wins when the other fellows are killed, same as it was last
+year."
+
+Silvey nodded and beckoned to his clan. The Fletcherites were about to
+withdraw to the opposite side of the field when an unforeseen
+interruption occurred.
+
+"Wanta fight!" announced a tousled-headed, wash-suited five-year-old
+with determination.
+
+"Go on!" retorted Silvey incautiously as he looked down upon the
+petitioner from the lofty height of ten long years of life. "This game
+ain't for babies. It's for _men_. You'd get hit in the eye and go home
+to ma-ma in a minute. You can't play."
+
+The infant eyed him for a moment and threw himself on the ground in a
+fit of rage. "Wanta fight! Wanta fight! Wanta fight!" he wailed again
+and again.
+
+Bill turned to Skinny Mosher angrily. "What do you always bring that kid
+brother along for? He spoils all our fun. Ain't you got any sense?"
+
+"Sense?" replied that star marksman in injured tones. "You bet I've got
+sense. But what's a fellow to do when his ma says, 'Now, Leonard, take
+little brother along and see that those big, rough boys don't hurt
+him.'" Tone and mannerisms were in perfect imitation of Mrs. Mosher.
+
+"Give him some cucumbers and let him fool around. That'll keep him
+quiet," Red suggested.
+
+"Yes," retorted Silvey scornfully. "Then he'll mix in the fight and get
+hit and go home bawling, same as he did when we had the snow fort. Then
+his ma'll go around to our mas and tell 'em what rough games we play and
+how it's a wonder somebody hasn't lost an eye. We'll all get penny
+lectures and the fun'll be spoiled for a week. Oh, yes, let him fight!"
+
+John broke the gloomy silence which followed. "Here, kid, you can join
+both armies at once."
+
+The incubus ceased wailing and looked up eagerly. Silvey's and Skinny's
+faces bespoke perturbed amazement.
+
+"How----," interrupted Red Brown.
+
+"You can be a Red Crosser and look after the ones who get killed," John
+continued serenely. "Only you mustn't fight. Red Crossers never do. They
+just stay around the hospitals." He fumbled in a hip pocket for the bit
+of red school chalk which he used for marking hop-scotch squares on the
+sidewalks. "Come here and I'll put the cross on your arm. And," he
+offered as alluring alternative, "if you don't like that, I'll punch
+your face and send you home!"
+
+Like the one non-office holder of a certain short-lived boys' club who
+was given the specially created position of "Honorable Vice-President,"
+the Mosher infant was more than placated. As he galloped off astride an
+imaginary horse for a circuit of the field, the factions breathed a
+unanimous sigh of relief.
+
+"No fair firing until we say 'Ready,'" shouted the exultant diplomat, as
+he gathered his forces and led them toward their own territory.
+
+"Now," said he, when they reached the tall, straggling weeds, "how're we
+going to beat 'em?"
+
+Immediately a babel of suggestions ensued. Bill waited a few impatient
+minutes and executed a taunting, barbaric war dance to the center of the
+field. Carefully planned campaigns were not for him; his force boasted
+too many good marksmen.
+
+"'Fraid cats! 'Fraid cats!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs.
+"C'ardy, c'ardy custard, eatin' bread an' must-a-ard. Come on an' get
+beat. Come on an' get beat."
+
+John nodded at a suggestion of Red's and turned to the dancing figure.
+
+"Ready, ch-a-arge!" he shouted. Silvey retreated promptly to the shelter
+of his own army. Presently his four weakest marksmen advanced.
+
+"Wants to get us fighting," explained General Fletcher, as he restrained
+his impatient subordinates. "Then he and Skinny and Sid will pick us
+off. Come on--and remember."
+
+They advanced silently without wasting a cucumber. The elder Harrison
+boy who led the four skirmishers, ventured a shot to open the
+engagement. Silvey, Skinny, and Sid DuPree sauntered carelessly up.
+
+"Now!" shouted John.
+
+His little force split into two groups. Red, with Perry and two others,
+charged to the right of the advancing quartette, while the general's
+detachment dodged quickly past their left. Then at a signal, seven arms
+loosed a shower of missiles at the startled trio of leaders.
+
+A cucumber caught Skinny Mosher squarely below his ear. Another left a
+moist spot on one of Silvey's oft darned stockings. A third missile
+found another mark on the now bewildered Mosher. Red Brown advanced upon
+him.
+
+"Surrender!" he yelled.
+
+Mosher fished another cucumber from his trousers and fired squarely at
+his advancing enemy. That gentleman dodged, tripped upon a bit of
+debris, and fell over backwards with a "plop." As Skinny advanced
+incautiously to make sure of his victim, Red retired him with a glancing
+shot on his upraised hand.
+
+"You're a deader, you're a deader," he yelled as Mosher lifted his arm a
+second time. "John hit you and the little Harrison kid hit you, and now
+I did. That makes three times, and you're killed entirely."
+
+"Shucks," grunted the disgusted corpse. "Just as I was beginning to have
+some fun, too."
+
+The victor busied himself in removing bits of flattened cucumbers from
+his juice-soaked hip pockets. "Just wait until ma sees these pants," he
+said ruefully. "Hey, John, I'm going after more ammunition."
+
+The main conflict slackened. To lose a first lieutenant at the outset,
+and to have two more members of your army near death, is no slight
+matter. Silvey grew more and more disconcerted as the failure of his
+offensive became apparent.
+
+"Beat it," he yelled at last as a stray shot missed his shoulder by a
+scant inch. The survivors retreated to the shelter of the boxes and
+barrels, where they maintained a desultory fire.
+
+The advantage of the impromptu fort began to make itself felt. Missile
+after missile shot accurately out at the attackers and retaliation was
+well nigh impossible. John withdrew his forces just out of range.
+
+"We've got to do something," he said desperately. "Who's hit on our
+side?"
+
+Red pointed to a discolored nose and admitted "Twice." Perry Alford
+indicated a moist, dark circle on his wash blouse and a sticky lock of
+hair. Their leader looked grave.
+
+"Silvey's hit twice, and Skinny's dead, so that leaves them only five.
+But, Jiminy, Red, if you and Perry get hit, it's all up. And look where
+they are. Maybe I can get 'em to come out."
+
+He advanced a few paces toward the weathered heap of debris and broke
+into a time-honored taunt:
+
+    Silvey, th' bilvey,
+    Th' rik-stick-stilvey!
+
+To which the intrenched commander of the enemy replied,
+
+    Fletcher, oh, Fletcher,
+    Th' old fly catcher,
+
+and exposed just enough of his person to wriggle ten brazen fingers from
+the tip of his nose. John made a last, despairing attempt.
+
+"'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid of getting hi-i-t! Ya-a-h!"
+
+"Come on and hit me, then," came back the answer, which admitted of no
+retort save action.
+
+"We've got to chase 'em out someway." He turned desperately to Red. "You
+and Perry Alford sneak up behind that thick lot of weeds when we start
+yelling and dancing like everything. Then we'll charge and drive 'em
+around to your end. But don't let 'em hit you."
+
+In the meantime, the youngest member of the Mosher family had discovered
+that his position as "Red-Crosser" carried only a decoration on his
+sleeve, which admitted of no honor or excitement whatever. He crept up,
+unobserved by the excited Fletcherites, raided the cucumber basket of as
+many of the missiles as his little pockets would hold, and halted within
+easy distance to watch the attack on the fortress.
+
+Red and Perry sneaked stealthily to the weed-clump ambush while their
+comrades showered cucumbers on the sheltered foe recklessly.
+Occasionally the defenders replied with a shot whenever a good mark was
+presented, but for the most part, they seemed content to keep the box
+heap between them and their enemies and bide their time. Farther and
+farther away they edged in response to the flanking movement of the main
+division of John's army, until Red, deeming the moment opportune, fired.
+Perry Alford followed. Silvey, surprised by the sudden attack from the
+rear, turned and received a cucumber full upon his half-open lips.
+
+"Who did that?" he sputtered, as he dislodged the acrid fragments from
+his mouth.
+
+Red threw caution to the winds and danced exultantly out in the open.
+
+"You're a deader. You're a deader. I killed the general. I killed the
+general."
+
+Silvey advanced on him furiously. "I'll punch your face in, hitting me
+in the mouth that way."
+
+Brown was ever in ecstasy at the prospect of a fight. "Come on and do
+it," he retorted. "Didn't last football practice, did you?"
+
+Silvey doubled his fists. His opponent held his ground. The rank and
+file of the two armies dropped their cucumbers and gathered in a little
+semi-circle to watch the fight. The youngest Mosher boy crept up and
+balanced himself unsteadily on one foot. In his right hand he held a
+cucumber, and on his face shone set determination.
+
+"Wanta fight," he cried, as the combatants began the inevitable
+preliminary sparring. "_Goin'ta_ fight!"
+
+The next moment, a cucumber caught Silvey squarely in the eye. The
+latter turned, dug viciously in his pocket for ammunition, and fired a
+handful of cucumbers at his assailant without perceiving, in his blind
+rage, who it was. Yell after yell filled the air.
+
+"Now look what you've done," exclaimed Mosher miserably. "Just watch me
+catch it when he gets home."
+
+"Well," Silvey snapped, still angry as the others gathered around the
+infant, "I told him to keep out of the cucumber basket. What did he
+throw at me for?"
+
+The wails continued. Skinny bent anxiously over his brother. "Come,
+buddy," he coaxed. "You're not hurt badly."
+
+"W-a-a-a-h!" The boys began to feel alarmed.
+
+"Where did he hit you?"
+
+"W-a-a-a-h!"
+
+Silvey looked down remorsefully. "Here, kid, here's some cucumbers. You
+can hit me as hard as you want and get even."
+
+"W-a-a-a-h!"
+
+Once more, Mosher tried to assuage his brother's grief. "Look at the
+funny man who's coming over to see you. Don't let him find you crying."
+
+The "funny man" proved to be the school physician who was returning from
+a professional call. He dropped his medical case on the turf and stooped
+over the prostrate urchin, who promptly kicked him in the shins.
+
+The doctor drew back hastily. "What's the matter?" he queried.
+
+"Th-th bad boy hit me."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+A grimy, tear streaked hand pointed to Silvey. The medic turned to him.
+
+"Come here, boy," he said majestically.
+
+Instead, Silvey beat a hasty retreat to the railroad tracks. There, from
+the summit of the embankment, he heaped abuse on the inoffensive figure
+with the little black case.
+
+"Smarty, smarty, smart-e-e-e!" he shrilled. "Johnny made a monkey of
+you. Johnny made a monkey of you!"
+
+The ex-members of the armies snickered. Still the shouts continued. The
+doctor flushed a deep scarlet. To retreat in the face of the taunts
+seemed cowardly--to remain was rapidly becoming insufferable.
+
+"Tell your friend he'd better keep quiet," he said in futile anger.
+Silvey interpreted the gesture which accompanied the ultimatum.
+
+"Come on and make me quit," he chanted. "Johnny made a monkey of you and
+I can, to-o-o!"
+
+The physician grinned sheepishly and took a few swift strides after the
+dancing figure. Silvey waited until he was almost at the wire railroad
+fence, and retreated to one of the back yards on the opposite side of
+the embankment. As the doctor retraced his steps to the sidewalk, the
+boys gazed thoughtfully at the depleted supply of ammunition. John
+turned to Skinny Mosher.
+
+"Take that kid away before he gets us into more trouble. He's always
+spoiling our fun, anyway. What'll we do now."
+
+"Let's go over to the street and get chased," Perry Alford suggested, as
+Skinny started towards home with his sniffling, reluctant brother.
+
+They apportioned the last of the cucumbers and crossed the tracks in
+single file, pausing now to balance fantastically on the shining steel
+rails, and now to skip flat, smooth pebbles against the black, weathered
+girders which supported the block signals. As they reached the home
+precincts, a still-panting figure joined them.
+
+"Has he gone?"
+
+John nodded. "He was only bluffing. Might have known that. We're going
+over to the flats."
+
+"The flats" was the largest building on their home street. Built on the
+corner, in the shape of a huge, four-storied, red brick "C," it was
+really composed of a number of apartments with separate entrances with a
+common, cement-paved inside court on which the back porches fronted. The
+basements were given over to boiler rooms, laundry tubs, and storerooms,
+linked by long, twisting, badly lighted corridors which formed excellent
+hiding places for the boys in time of pursuit.
+
+The gang gathered noisily just off the corner and waited for victims. A
+gray-haired, poorly clad woman shuffled past. Sid raised his arm. Silvey
+whispered a protest. "That's old lady Allen. Has the rheumatism. Leave
+her alone."
+
+John broke into a gleeful chortle. "Look what's coming, fellows."
+
+The cause of his exultation was a callow youth of sixteen, whose father
+had met with a sudden wave of prosperity and was now trying to sell his
+rather modest home that he might move to a more exclusive neighborhood.
+The son was inclined to patronize old acquaintances and affected a
+multitude of expensive tailored clothes and a light cane. John eyed the
+gray, immaculately pressed suit appreciatively and let fly.
+
+The boy wheeled in surprise, then stooped to pick up his hat.
+
+"You fellows had better cut that out," he blustered, as he straightened
+the soft, felt brim.
+
+"Who's going to make us?" Silvey jeered, as his cucumber hit the neat
+lapel.
+
+"Just do that again. I'll show you."
+
+A volley of the juicy missiles greeted his words. He charged upon the
+boys, who fled to the haven of the darkest of the corridors and took
+refuge in an empty outer storeroom. There they barricaded themselves and
+awaited his coming.
+
+"Ya-a-ah," John taunted, as he heard heavy breathing through the door.
+"What'll you do now?"
+
+"Just wait until dinner time."
+
+"Not going to make us stay that long, are you? Please don't be mean."
+
+The elder boy deigned no reply. John raised the little window which
+fronted the street and grinned. One by one the gang climbed through the
+narrow opening to the sidewalk and left their vindictive enemy guarding
+the empty storeroom.
+
+Across the street from the flats stood the building which housed the
+corner drug store and "Neighborhood Hall," used according to season for
+high-school dances, minstrel shows, and fraternal meetings. They
+assembled at the entrance, which commanded an excellent view of all
+approaches leading from the flats, and awaited developments.
+
+A little girl rounded the corner with sundry grocer's packages in her
+arms. She noticed that the boys were gathered in the excited group,
+which always spelled danger to unescorted maidens, but held bravely on.
+As she passed, Silvey yelled exultantly. Perry Alford threw wildly and
+hit the ground by her feet. Red's missile caught one nervous, white
+little hand and made her drop a bag of eggs to the sidewalk. John raised
+his arm, then lowered it as if paralyzed.
+
+It was Louise!
+
+"Quit that fellows," he cried, seizing on the first excuse which came
+into his mind. "She's a little girl."
+
+Silvey looked at him in blank amazement. "What of it?" he ejaculated.
+"Ain't the first time you've made one cry."
+
+John's lips tightened. "Don't care if it isn't," he snapped. "Stop that,
+Sid, or I'll punch your face in."
+
+He threw his own cucumber into the gutter to show that his was a
+peaceful errand and walked hastily over to the sobbing figure.
+
+"They'll leave you alone," he assured her. "Let me pick up your eggs."
+
+They were smashed beyond all hope of salvage, but he gathered the
+fragments of shell, with as much of the dust-laden yolks as he could
+scrape up, and placed them gravely in the torn, soggy bag. Then he took
+the bread and the butter from her very gently and turned his back on the
+gang.
+
+"I'll carry them all for you," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let's go
+home now."
+
+She acquiesced silently. They strolled down the leafy walk. John's back
+tingled unpleasantly, for he expected a shower of missiles. Louise's
+weeping ceased, save for an occasional sniffle. At last Silvey roused
+himself from the amazed silence into which his chum's actions had thrown
+him, and seized upon the solution of the mystery.
+
+"Johnny an' Lou-i-ise! Johnny an' Lou-i-ise!"
+
+Louise flushed scarlet and bit her lip. John turned and stuck out his
+tongue defiantly. An awkward silence followed.
+
+"I'll punch that kid's head off when I catch him," he growled as the
+shouts continued. Louise looked up at him shyly.
+
+"I don't mind," she said.
+
+They halted in front of the three-story apartment where her parents
+lived. John shifted clumsily from one foot to the other, not knowing how
+to make a graceful adieu. The maiden came to his rescue with a
+parrot-like imitation of Mrs. Martin's formula for such occasions.
+
+"Thank you very much--and--I'm so glad to make your acquaintance."
+
+Though the words were ridiculously stilted, John turned with a song on
+his lips and skipped across to the home porch swing, where his mother
+found him a moment later, and made him come in and get washed for
+dinner.
+
+That afternoon he walked north to the branch library to turn in his book
+on which a six-cent fine impended. With the yellow card in his hand, he
+went over to the fiction section of the open shelves. No more Hentys, no
+more Optics. He was in love, and love stories he must have.
+
+Silvey, Perry Alford, and Red sauntered up just before supper to find
+out how the land lay. They found him stretched out on the porch swing
+with the latest acquisition from the library beside him.
+
+"Say, John," Silvey began nervously. He was afraid he had gone a little
+too far that morning.
+
+John raised dreamy eyes. What did he care about commonplace declarations
+of friendship such as Silvey was making? His head was a-riot with the
+thrilling words of the latest love passage between the hero and a
+heroine so perfect that her like never existed beyond the covers of a
+novel, and the interruption bored him.
+
+"So you see," Perry chimed in as Bill finished, "we didn't want you to
+be mad about it."
+
+John waved a magnanimous dismissal. "But don't do it again," he
+cautioned apathetically, "'cause--well--she's my girl. That's all."
+
+And again his eyes sought the alluring pages of the book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HE COMPOSES A LOVE MISSIVE
+
+
+Sunday afternoon, Mr. Fletcher took his son for a long stroll in the
+park. They joined the throng of people who promenaded up and down the
+broad cement walk along the beach, and watched the antics of the
+children with their transitory castles until this pleasure began to
+pall. Then they retraced their steps westward to the big island and
+explored the fascinating, winding paths along the shrubbery-covered
+shores. Everywhere were signs of autumn. A light carpet of half-dried
+leaves had already covered the ground. The song birds in the fast
+yellowing, graceful willows were supplanted by silent, migratory groups
+of somber juncos, who fled at their approach. Here and there, they
+surprised a squirrel adding another peanut to his well-buried winter
+cache. But a little later, a pair of lovers on a narrow peninsula bank
+separated awkwardly as the two sauntered up, and John laughed joyously.
+The spirit of summer was as yet far from dead.
+
+Still they wandered on as their fancy pleased them. Far to the south of
+the park, John collected an armful of cat-tails from a bit of marshland,
+and Mr. Fletcher pointed out to him a strange, spotted lizard, which
+scurried for shelter from the intruders. As they returned, they loitered
+by the green, verandaed club house to count the fast diminishing fleet
+of yachts, and joined an ironic audience who watched the struggles of
+two motorboat owners with their craft, and a pair of rickety wagon
+trucks. Sunset found them climbing the home steps to sink into the easy
+porch chairs and wait blissfully until Mrs. Fletcher announced that
+supper was ready.
+
+Now by all the laws of small boy nature, John's eyes should have closed
+that night five minutes after his head had touched the pillow. But then
+it was that the inexplicable happened. Louise forced a disturbing
+entrance into his thoughts with a strange insistency. Was she sleeping
+peacefully or was she thinking of her rescue from the mercies of the
+gang? Perhaps she had already forgotten him. Still, the boys hadn't.
+They would probably spread the details of the love affair all over the
+juvenile neighborhood. Would she walk with him if they did?
+
+The big clock in the hall of the house next door struck ten. He
+discovered that a wrinkle in the sheet chafed his back and smoothed it
+out half angrily.
+
+Why couldn't he go to sleep? Had Louise's mother been vexed at the
+broken eggs? How pretty the girl's long ringlets had looked as she stood
+on the sunlit corner that morning. Did she like to fish? An expedition
+for two could be arranged in spite of the late season. He'd bait her
+hook and take the fish off if she wished. Lunch could be prepared
+beforehand and they wouldn't have to worry about meal time.
+
+Again the timepiece next door chimed its message. He counted the
+strokes--seven--eight--nine--ten--_eleven_! Only twice before had he
+remained awake so late--once on a railroad trip, and once when Uncle
+Frank had come to visit them. He rubbed his clenched fists in his eyes
+and wondered if he dared light the gas to read. He could keep his
+geography near as an excuse if anyone discovered him. Then, hastened
+possibly by the soporific influence of that school book, sleep came at
+last.
+
+In the morning, John tried to analyze the causes for his mental rampage
+as he drew on one toe-frayed stocking. Now that his mother had roused
+him for the third and final time, he felt tired enough to sleep another
+three hours. What had been the matter?
+
+A love scene from that latest public library book flashed into his
+perplexed brain and he sighed contentedly. Had not Leander sacrificed
+long hours of precious slumber at the shrine of his beloved Philura? The
+inference in his own case was both obvious and satisfactory.
+
+To tell Louise of his infatuation seemed the next and most logical step.
+He lacked the courage for a verbal declaration; therefore the message
+must be in writing. But in what form? Letter writing to a girl was a
+novel experience, and he had a horror of parental laughter if he asked
+for advice.
+
+"John!" his mother called from the stairway. "Aren't you ever going to
+get dressed?"
+
+He pulled on his second stocking hastily, with a call of "Down in a
+minute, Mother."
+
+His grandmother's old _Complete Letter Writer_ was in the library
+bookcase. That ought to help him out of his predicament. Wasn't it the
+_Complete_----"
+
+"John!" came a second and more peremptory interruption of his thoughts.
+"Get down here this minute."
+
+He started, drew on his shoes, half-buttoned them, slipped into his
+blouse, with boyish disregard for such matters as bathing, and scampered
+down the stairs to the dining-room. After a hasty meal of oatmeal and
+potatoes, he fled to the seclusion of the library. A moment of nervous
+fumbling with the lock, a rapid turning of pages, and--
+
+"From a son at an educational institution, to his father, engaged in
+business at Boston, requesting--"
+
+But he didn't want to borrow money from Louise. "Honored Parent!" Why,
+"Honored Louise" would sound too ridiculous for anything.
+
+"From a merchant engaged in the hay and grain business in Baltimore, to
+a wholesale dealer in New York, complaining that--"
+
+Such prosaic details as hay and grain shortages were not for him. He
+wanted a love letter, an epistle that would breathe the fire of
+adoration in every line. Didn't the old book have any? The title said
+_Complete_--What was this?
+
+"From a young man--" He skipped the rest of the heading--such things
+didn't have much to do with the real contents anyway.
+
+"Beloved--"
+
+That sounded better.
+
+"When first I--"
+
+The door opened suddenly. Mrs. Fletcher gazed down at him in
+astonishment.
+
+"Haven't you gone to school yet? It's five minutes of nine, now. What on
+earth have you been doing?"
+
+The book dropped to the floor. A scant five minutes later, he stumbled
+breathlessly into the school room, only to find that roll call had been
+finished and that "B" class was holding its English recitation. Miss
+Brown frowned and made a mark in the record book on her desk, and went
+on with the class work. Out came his theme pad and pencil. The fifteen
+minute study period was his for the composition of that letter and he
+set to work.
+
+What did a fellow usually say to a girl, anyway? He'd never written one
+before. He twisted in his seat and caught a glimpse of the adored one's
+graceful curls, but even with this inspiration, ideas refused to come.
+
+"B" division closed its composition books and began to recite under Miss
+Brown's guidance,
+
+    And she, kissing back, could not know
+    That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,
+    Folded close under deepening snow.
+
+For two long weeks they had been memorizing "The First Snow-Fall," but
+were not as yet, letter-perfect in the verses. The teacher encouraged
+them. Twenty odd juvenile voices resumed the choppy, monotonous chant.
+John gripped his pencil with new life.
+
+Poetry! That was the only way to express your sentiments! Why hadn't he
+thought of it before? Once, in third grade, he had composed a
+masterpiece:
+
+    Think, think, what do you think?
+    A mouse ran under the kitchen sink.
+    The old maid chased it
+    With dustpan and broom
+    And kicked it and knocked it
+    Right out of the room.
+
+The slip of paper had been passed to a chum for appreciation, only to
+have Miss O'Rourke pounce upon the effort and read it to an uproarious
+class. His ears burned, even now, at that memory.
+
+But there would be no second disaster. He began on the ruled sheet
+boldly,
+
+"Beloved Louise!"
+
+Then came a pause. Oh for a first line! You couldn't start out with "I
+love you." That would make further words unnecessary. What did people
+usually put in poems? All about stars, and the warm south wind and
+roses. A fugitive bit of verse echoed in his brain. "The rose--" He had
+it now!
+
+    The rose is red,
+    The violet's blue,
+    This will tell you
+    I love you.
+
+To be sure, the bit of doggerel had been inscribed on a card sent him by
+Harriette in the third-grade valentine box, but Louise need never know
+the secret of its authorship. And it expressed his feelings with such a
+degree of nicety!
+
+He scrawled a huge, concluding "John," folded the paper complacently,
+and waved one hand to attract Miss Brown's attention.
+
+"Please, may I go over to the school store and buy a copy book?"
+
+"Are your lessons prepared for this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+Consent was given. John rose, with the compact paper hidden in his right
+hand, and sauntered carelessly down the aisle. At his old desk, he
+paused with a fleeting glace at Louise as he dropped the note, and
+walked on into the hall. There he stopped to peer into the room through
+the half-closed door.
+
+Louise covered the note with one hand and drew it toward her slowly and
+with infinite caution. He watched her face breathlessly. Curiosity was
+succeeded by surprise and then by anger. A little toss of her curls, a
+glance at teacher, and she half turned toward the door. He could see
+that her face was scarlet. What was she going to do?
+
+Horror of horrors, she stuck out her tongue at him!
+
+The ways of girls were beyond his comprehension. There was no cause for
+offense in that note. He loved her. Why should she object to being told
+about it?
+
+He made his way moodily down the broad flight of stairs leading to the
+basement. There, in the big, dimly lighted, cement-floored playroom,
+where the children held forth on rainy days, he met a boy from another
+room, who was likewise in no hurry to return. They hailed each other in
+subdued tones.
+
+"Been down long?"
+
+"Oh, our teacher doesn't get mad unless you're gone half an hour. Want
+to play marbles?"
+
+John assented joyously. His friend chalked an irregular circle on the
+floor, and presently the room resounded with shouts of "H'ist," and "No
+fair dribblin'" until the grizzled school janitor sent them flying to
+their rooms under threat of a visit to the principal's office.
+
+At the doorway, he paused to summon his courage, for time had flown all
+too rapidly in the basement. Louise showed not a sign of recognition as
+he passed. Miss Brown broke the oppressive silence.
+
+"Where's the copy book, John?"
+
+His lower lip dropped in consternation. His excuse for leaving had been
+completely forgotten. "A quarter of an hour after school" was the
+sentence for the offense, and he opened his geography with a feeling of
+thankfulness that it had not been more.
+
+All about the brick-paved school yard, on the walk, and in the street
+gutters, were scattered oblongs of blue paper as he scampered from the
+deserted building at noon. The boy picked one of the handbills up and
+read with an odd thrill:
+
+     Professor T. J. O'Reilley's
+
+     PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW
+
+     _in_
+
+     Three Stupendous, Sidesplitting Parts
+
+     _at_
+
+     NEIGHBORHOOD HALL,
+
+     _Monday, October 4, at 4:15 p.m._
+
+
+     I
+
+     Punch and Judy. The old favorite as played before the Crowned Heads
+     of Europe. All the well-known characters, with added mirth
+     provoking innovations. Alone worth the price of admission.
+
+
+     II
+
+     Peck's Bad Boy and His Pal. Startling, amusing, and instructive
+     exhibition of ventriloquism by that amazing expert, Professor T. J.
+     O'Reilley. Hear the Bad Boy and his friend talk and joke as if they
+     were really alive. During this act Professor O'Reilley uses one of
+     his marvelous ventriloquial whistles and will explain its operation
+     to the audience.
+
+
+     III
+
+     Motion Pictures. Actual figures thrown on the screen that do
+     everything but talk. Thrilling display of the heroism of American
+     Soldiers during the Spanish-American War! See the landing of the
+     Regulars under fire! See men fall in actual battle before your very
+     eyes! Watch the charge up San Juan Hill--the thrilling infantry
+     skirmish!
+
+
+     _Followed by_
+
+     A Grand Distribution of Valuable Prizes! Glistening Ice Skates.
+     Rings, Dolls, Doll Carriages, and other Toys. In addition, every
+     man, woman, and child in the audience who does not win a gift, will
+     receive _absolutely free_, one of Professor O'Reilley's marvelous
+     ventriloquial whistles.
+
+
+     TWO HOURS OF AMUSING
+     AND INSTRUCTIVE ENTERTAINMENT!
+
+     _Admission only ten cents!_
+
+Could he go? Of course, for the necessary dime was always forthcoming
+from his mother when an itinerant showman rented the corner dance hall
+for a one day performance.
+
+On the corner of Southern Avenue, he overtook Bill, who had stopped to
+play tops with an acquaintance.
+
+"Going?" he asked, as his chum glanced at the blue slip in his hand.
+
+"Bet your life," said Silvey decidedly. "Did you see the rings the man
+showed in the school yard?"
+
+John reminded him of the fifteen minute detention. "Were they pretty?"
+
+"Pretty? They were just peaches--all gold and stones, and sparkled like
+everything."
+
+They parted at his front steps. John plodded thoughtfully homeward, for
+his brain buzzed with a new and daring possibility. Would Louise
+overlook the morning's fiasco and allow him to take her? He broached the
+matter of finances to Mrs. Fletcher.
+
+"But what do you want two dimes for? Tell Mother."
+
+No, he wouldn't. But he had to have the two coins. Mrs. Fletcher studied
+him curiously.
+
+"Is there some little girl you want to take?"
+
+An evasive silence followed her question. Nevertheless his brown eyes
+pleaded his cause so eloquently that one o'clock found him sitting on
+the front porch, jingling the money merrily in one hand.
+
+The day was crisp and sunny, with an invigorating breeze from the lake,
+which set the blood pulsing in his veins. Ordinarily, he would have
+scampered off to play with Bill and Perry Alford or Sid on the way to
+school, but not this time. He was waiting for some one.
+
+Shortly a dainty, pink pinafored figure with the familiar curly ringlets
+skipped past on the opposite side of the street. When she had gone
+perhaps fifty yards, John walked down the steps and followed not too
+rapidly. He must catch up quite as if by accident, for it would never do
+to have the meeting occur seemingly of his own volition.
+
+She saw him coming and halted at the corner drug store to gaze demurely
+at a window display of gaily tinned talcum powder. As the boy came up to
+her, a queer, choking sensation filled his throat.
+
+"'Lo," he gulped nervously. Not a sign of recognition. Evidently "Rose
+is red" still rankled.
+
+"'Lo," he persevered. She raised her chin ever so slightly. "Those kids
+won't throw any more cucumbers. I fixed 'em." Perhaps the memory of his
+protection that Saturday would pave the way to peace.
+
+"'Lo," she responded at last. They forsook the enticements of the drug
+window and walked on in embarrassed silence.
+
+"Had to stay after school this morning," he volunteered desperately.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Back to his folly again. What a dunce he was!
+
+"Why?" she asked again.
+
+"Oh, 'cause." Conversation dragged once more.
+
+What could he talk to her about? He knew nothing of dolls and keeping
+house and making clothes. And he didn't suppose she could tell "Run,
+sheep, run" from "Follow the leader," either. He fumbled in his pocket
+and brought out the folded blue circular with a show of nonchalance. She
+eyed it curiously.
+
+"Going?" he asked.
+
+She didn't know.
+
+"I've got two tickets," eagerly. "Want to come with me?" The school yard
+lay but a half-block ahead, so he went on hurriedly, "There's Silvey and
+the bunch. I've got to see 'em. Meet you on this corner after school."
+
+The truth of the matter was that not even his infatuation was equal to
+passing that mob of shouting, yelling urchins with a girl by his side.
+
+You might have guessed that something unusual was to occur, had you
+passed Neighborhood Hall that afternoon. By the green mail box on the
+corner, an envied seventh-grade boy, subsidized by an offer of free
+admission, passed out more blue cards like the one John had found, and
+advised that they be retained, for "Them's got programs on, and you'll
+need 'em." On the broad pavement, excited little groups of boys read and
+reread the announcements amid running choruses of approving comment. Now
+and then, a fussy, important matron bustled past with a four-or
+five-year-old following in her wake. Around the door, a baker's dozen of
+boys with shaggy hair and sadly worn clothes besought the more
+prosperous of the grown-ups, "Take us in, Mister [or "Missis" as the
+case might be], we ain't got no dime."
+
+Inside the great, raftered, brilliantly lighted hall were rows upon rows
+of collapsible chairs, which slid and scraped on the slippery dance
+floor as their owners took possession of them. John and Louise secured
+seats in the third row, center, where they commanded an excellent view
+of the tall, black cabinet where Punch and his family were soon to
+appear. Around them, a babel of noise and confusion held sway. The place
+was filling rapidly. Boys called to each other from opposite corners of
+the room. A not infrequent shout of surprised anger arose as a seated
+juvenile clattered to the floor through the agency of some
+mischief-maker in his rear. Eighth-grade patriarchs, retained by the
+same pay as the corner advance agent, darted here and there in the
+aisles, striving to preserve order amid a great show of authority. Up on
+the little balconies at each side groups of trouble-makers performed
+gymnastics on the railings and banisters at seeming peril of their lives
+until the colored janitor ordered them down. Every now and then, the
+wailing of a heated, irritable infant rose above the din, to be quieted
+more or less angrily by its mother.
+
+John looked at his watch. "Most time to start," he whispered.
+
+Indeed, the audience was beginning to grow restless. In the rear rows, a
+claque started a steady handclapping, and cat-calls and hisses from
+unmannerly boys became more and more frequent.
+
+Then entered upon the stage Professor T. J. O'Reilley amid a storm of
+relieved applause. The bosom of his stiff white shirt might have been a
+trifle soiled, the diamond glistening therein, palpably false, and the
+lapels of his full-dress coat, distressingly shiny, but to John and
+Louise, he seemed a very prince of successful entertainers. He bowed
+perfunctorily, issued a few words of admonition to the boisterous
+element in the audience, and disappeared in the long, black cabinet.
+
+Ensued a series of raps from somewhere in the folds of the cloth, and
+subdued cries of "Oh, dear, dear, dear! Judy, Judy, Judy! Where is she?"
+The familiar, hooked-nosed figure appeared on the little stage and John
+sighed in ecstasy. What mattered if Punch's complexion were sadly in
+need of renewal through his many quarrels--he was the same old Punch,
+and his audience greeted him as such. Judy followed.
+
+"He'll send her after the baby, now. You just see!" John whispered as
+the marionettes danced excitedly back and forth.
+
+"How do you know?" Louise's eyes were a-glisten.
+
+"Haven't you ever ever been to a Punch and Judy show before?" asked John
+in surprise.
+
+In one corner of the hall, a row of badly nourished colored children
+from the district just north of the "Jefferson Toughs," forgot the
+family struggle for three meals a day and rent money in their present
+bliss, grins appeared on the faces of the adults in the hall, and the
+rest of the audience swayed and shouted and giggled as Punch made away
+with first the baby, then friend wife, the policeman, the clown, and the
+judge, and hung their bodies over the edge of the stage in time-honored
+fashion.
+
+A prolonged groan came from the depths of the cabinet.
+
+"It's the devil," said John, squirming ecstatically on his hard chair.
+"There he is, in one corner where Punch can't see him."
+
+Punch lifted a victim from one side of the stage to the other.
+
+"That's one," he counted.
+
+The red-faced, lively little imp returned the corpse to its original
+resting place. Some minutes of this comedy followed.
+
+"Twenty-six," squawked the unsuspecting Punch in surprise, while the
+audience roared appreciatively. "Did I kill so many? Hello, who are
+you?"
+
+"I," came the preternaturally deep voice as Louise quaked at the
+make-belief reality of the scene, "am the devil!"
+
+"Now they'll fight," breathed John, watching intently. "It'll be the
+bulliest fight of all, and they'll throw each other down and hit each
+other over the head forty-'leven times. Then the devil'll win."
+
+But a puritanical mother had, on the tour preceding, written Professor
+O'Reilley, objecting to the devil's conquest of the unrepentant old
+reprobate, so that master of ventriloquism introduced a new character
+into the ancient tale, and the devil went the way of Punch's other
+victims.
+
+"H-m-m," puzzled John with wrinkled brow. "This isn't the same--What's
+that?"
+
+"Open," ordered Punch of the long, flat object which appeared beside the
+body of the devil.
+
+"It's an aggilator," shrilled Louise as the mystery disclosed two
+terrific rows of teeth and a long, red throat.
+
+"Shut," ordered Punch. The jaws closed with a snap.
+
+"Isn't it peachy?" whispered John.
+
+"Open," ordered Punch once more. Again the jaws swung slowly and
+impressively apart.
+
+"Close," repeated Punch, as he stooped dangerously near the yawning
+cavern.
+
+The jaws snapped within a thirty-second of an inch of the arch-villain's
+nose. Angered, Punch hit the beast with his little club, while the
+audience screamed in delight. Ensued a fight which changed rapidly to a
+pursuit back and forth over the bodies of Judy, the policeman, and the
+rest of the company. At last Punch tripped and the animal seized upon
+him and bore him, shrieking, below.
+
+"Is that all?" asked Louise, as the little curtain descended.
+
+"All?" John answered, as he glanced over the other delights promised by
+the blue advertisement. "All? Why it isn't but a third over!"
+
+Two assistants turned impromptu stage hands and shifted the Punch and
+Judy cabinet to the rear of the stage. The professor stooped over a
+battered trunk at the side, and brought out two life-sized dolls with
+huge, staring eyes, and swinging arms and legs. He sat down on a chair
+at the center of the platform.
+
+"These," he said as he balanced the manikins on his knees, "are my two
+little boys. They're usually very nice little fellows, but I'm afraid
+they've been shut up so long in that dark trunk that they're feeling a
+little angry. I'll have to see. Now [to the sandy-haired caricature on
+his right], tell the people what your name is. No? Then we'll have to
+ask your friend here. What's your name?"
+
+"Sambo," mouthed the black-faced marionette.
+
+"Gee!" whispered John, as he watched the professor's lips closely.
+"How's he do it?"
+
+"Now, tell all these nice little girls and boys how old you are."
+
+"T-ten."
+
+"Did you ever go to school?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Now tell that little girl with the pink hair ribbon who's sitting in
+the third row, what you learned yesterday."
+
+"Ya-ya-ya," interrupted the younger member of the Peck family.
+"Ya-ya-ya!"
+
+"Why, George," admonished the ventriloquist. "Aren't you ashamed of
+yourself, behaving in this way?"
+
+"No, I ain't," protested George incorrigibly. "Ya-ya-ya, blackface!"
+
+So it went for the space of a good half-hour. Pretty poor stuff, it may
+seem now, oh, you grown-ups who have lost the magic eyes of childhood,
+but snickers and shouts and giggles filled the hall while the dialogue
+lasted. Finally the lay figures waxed so disputatious that Professor
+O'Reilley consigned them to the darkness of the trunk from which they
+came.
+
+"Stay there until you behave yourselves," he scolded, as the groans grew
+more and more subdued in protest against the captivity.
+
+"Wish I could do that," said John. "Couldn't I get teacher mad, talking
+at her from the blackboard?"
+
+"Sh-sh," whispered Louise. "He's going to speak."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We have with us today for the
+first exhibition in this part of the city, the most wonderful invention
+of the glorious age in which you are living. After the hall is darkened,
+I shall go down to the table where that lantern stands and throw upon
+the screen actual moving pictures taken from real life. You will see the
+landing of our brave troops upon the rock-bound shores of Cuba. You will
+witness a thrilling battle with Spanish insurrectos [the professor was
+getting his history a little mixed, but that mattered not a whit to his
+audience], and brave men will fall before your eyes in the charge up San
+Joon hill. I need not state that these pictures have been secured at an
+almost fabulous cost, for Professor T. J. O'Reilley always makes it a
+point to give his patrons the best of everything, regardless of expense.
+The best of order must be kept while the hall is in darkness. Anyone
+creating a disturbance at that time will be instantly expelled."
+
+Thus did the professor conclude his introduction of the feature which,
+later, was to drive him and his kind out of business.
+
+A click, a sudden buzzing as if a giant swarm of bees were flying about
+in the center of the hall where the long, cylindrical gas tanks stood,
+and a six foot square of light flashed on the white curtain which had
+been lowered to the stage.
+
+The pictures flickered and jumped a great deal, and at times streaks on
+the old film gave the idea that the boat loads of infantry were
+approaching the shore in a torrent of rain, but the figures moved,
+nevertheless, and unslung rifles, and formed into companies.
+
+"The charge up the hill under fire," supplemented the operator. They had
+no titles for the motion pictures in those days.
+
+Amid a steady whirring, flashes of smoke appeared from the thickets
+overhanging the shore. A soldier threw up his arms, another pitched
+headlong into the sand, and the Americans swept up the slope in a charge
+which brooked no obstacles. Little girls handclapped vigorously, while
+the boys pounded on the floor with their feet and gave vent to weird
+whistles of enthusiasm.
+
+"And so San Joon was taken!"
+
+"The hill wasn't on the water that way," John interrupted excitedly.
+"I've got a book at home with maps and everything. Wasn't that way at
+all."
+
+"Let's pretend it was," Louise replied philosophically.
+
+The lights flashed on in the hall to dazzle the eyes of the audience. A
+chair squeaked. There was a sound of footsteps near the doorway.
+
+"Keep your seats," cautioned Professor O'Reilley as he jumped up on the
+stage. "The drawing for prizes will now take place. Ryan," to his
+assistant, "bring them out on the stage as I call for them."
+
+A babel arose. "Don't you wish you could win the skates, Jim?" "What'll
+you do if you get a ring?" "And there's dolls and doll carriages, too."
+
+The showman raised an arm as a signal for silence. "Will some boy step
+up to draw the tickets from the hat?"
+
+Four or five eager volunteers scrambled over the footlights. The
+professor selected the largest of them.
+
+"Number six-seventy-six!" John looked eagerly at the coupon which had
+been handed him at the door. "Number six-seventy-six! Who has it?"
+
+Harriette, the cast-off Harriette of last year, bobbed forward.
+
+"Ah," boomed the deep voice. "A little girl, and a nice one, too."
+Harriette stuck one finger in her mouth as she shifted sheepishly from
+foot to foot. "But the skates are boy's. Isn't that too bad? Now, little
+girl, do you think you will be satisfied with a nice, new dollar bill
+instead? Will that buy a good enough pair of skates?"
+
+"Jimmy!" John ejaculated enviously.
+
+"Number three-forty-four!" he continued, as his volunteer assistant drew
+out another slip. "And another little girl. Well, she gets this
+beautiful Brazilian pearl ring, set with wonderful, glistening
+rhinestones!"
+
+The fortunate maiden scurried back to her mother as fast as her stocky
+little legs could carry her.
+
+"Number seven-hundred-fifteen! Number seven-hundred-fifteen!"
+
+"Here!" shrieked John, as he nearly knocked the boy ahead of him over in
+an excited effort to get to the front. "That's me!" Was it another pair
+of skates, or a baseball bat, or the big, shining jack-knife which the
+boys had told about?
+
+"Number seven-fifteen is a boy, is it?" The professor's eyes twinkled.
+
+"Ye--s--sir," stammered John, nervously.
+
+"William," ordered the distributor of prizes as he half turned to the
+exit in the wings. "Bring out that doll carriage!"
+
+The house broke into vociferous mirth. Silvey, hailing him at the top of
+his lungs, counseled him to "Give it to her! Give it to her!" Sid
+DuPree's face grinned maliciously at him from the first row. Slowly he
+stumbled down the aisle with the despised toy bumping after him, and
+rejoined Louise.
+
+He scarcely heard the numbers of the other prize winners as they were
+called out. Nor did he pay attention to the professor's lecture on the
+operation of the famous whistle which had so amused the audience that
+afternoon.
+
+Someway or other, he found himself out on the street with Louise. About
+him, boys scampered home in the fast gathering dusk. One or two yelled
+taunts about the doll carriage, and John was tempted to throw the
+wicker-bodied pest into the street.
+
+Louise was silent. She wanted to offer consolation, for she felt that
+her escort was dangerously near tears over his humiliation, but she knew
+not how to begin. They sauntered along. John eyed the little piece of
+tape bound tin in the girl's hand with reawakening interest.
+
+"Would you like it?" she asked graciously.
+
+He murmured a husky "yes," and put the whistle in his mouth. After a few
+uncertain "J-u-u-dys," he trudged on again in silence.
+
+As they stopped in front of her apartment, John had an inspiration.
+
+"Say, Louise," he began awkwardly, "I don't want this doll carriage.
+Want it?"
+
+And though his words were ungracious, she caught the spirit which lay
+back of them and thanked him sweetly.
+
+Thereupon, John skipped happily homeward to make his parents miserable
+with divers attempts to imitate the noted T. J.'s Punch and Judy show.
+Two days later, he left the noise-maker lying on the floor by his bed,
+where Mrs. Fletcher confiscated it, and quiet reigned in the family
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN WHICH WE LEARN THE SECRET CODE OF THE "TIGERS"
+
+
+For over two weeks after Professor O'Reilley had gathered up his
+properties and gone in quest of juvenile dimes in other neighborhoods,
+John waited at the corner of the school yard for Louise, gravely added
+her books to his own under his arm, and walked slowly home with her. His
+roommates were at first loud in their jeers, but gradually the primitive
+jests grew less and less frequent until the daily meeting became a part
+of the unnoticed routine of the school.
+
+As for his friends, Silvey, after a few caustic remarks, forbore
+comment. Sid DuPree made the condescending admission that she wasn't
+half-bad after all. And the "Tigers" found it a distinct addition to
+their prestige to have a feminine rooter who danced around on the
+sidelines and exhorted them to even greater deeds of valor as they
+ground chance opponents into the cinders of the big lot.
+
+Then it was, one Friday afternoon, that Miss Brown stacked her record
+books neatly in a little pile at one corner of the desk, placed the
+unmarked homework papers in one of the drawers, and made an innocent
+announcement which roused thoughts lying dormant in each boy's brain to
+instant life.
+
+"Halloween is only a week from Saturday. I want each member of the class
+taking part in the exercises to have the lines learned perfectly. We'll
+rehearse Monday afternoon."
+
+The rest of the speech fell on deaf ears with John. Halloween but a
+short seven days away? Why, it seemed scarcely three mornings ago that
+he had started on the fishing trip which nearly landed the big carp. The
+gang should be a big one, this time. Silvey and Sid, the Harrison kids,
+Mosher, Perry, and Red Brown were certainties, to say nothing of smaller
+groups which might join on that final night. He drew three solitary
+pennies from his pocket, arranged them, heads up, in a row on the top of
+his desk, and stared at them until the bell rang for dismissal.
+
+With the coins in his hand, he swung back the door of the little school
+store, and hastened eagerly up to the proprietress. She greeted him with
+a smile, for the episode of the lemon drops was still fresh in her
+memory.
+
+"Pea shooters in yet?" he queried anxiously.
+
+They had arrived that very noon.
+
+"Is there wood on the ends to keep the tin from cutting your mouth?"
+
+She nodded. The door swung back again as Sid DuPree and Silvey stamped
+noisily in. It developed that they were on a similar errand, and
+presently Miss Thomas cut the cord around the big, blue bundle and gave
+them their weapons. The trio left in high spirits, puffing through the
+empty tubes, making imaginary shots at open windows, and blustering
+loudly about past performances, as they sauntered along. Silvey halted
+when the first of the grocery shops near the home corner was reached.
+
+"Got any peas at your house, Sid?"
+
+Sid shook his head. His family dined at a near-by hotel most of the
+time, and a reserve stock of any kind of food was a rarity. John
+mentioned a big jar of beans on his mother's pantry shelf.
+
+"They're no good," said Silvey scornfully. "Get stuck in the pea shooter
+and jam it all up. Got any money, Sid?"
+
+Sid had a penny. It was the day before the generous allowance from Mr.
+DuPree was due, and his finances verged upon bankruptcy. Silvey had
+another, and John contributed the remainder of his little hoard. That
+brought the total to four cents.
+
+"S'pose he'll sell us that little?" asked John, as they gazed at the
+tempting array of vegetables in the store window. They opened the door
+timidly. The rotund proprietor stepped forward as he stammered his
+request.
+
+"Of course!" He beamed on the trio good-naturedly. "What kind do you
+want, boys?"
+
+"Split's the cheapest," said Silvey thoughtfully.
+
+"But they don't go as far, and it's harder to hit anything with them."
+
+They ordered the more expensive projectiles and divided them equally
+before they left the store. At the corner, the pharmacy was bombarded
+persistently until the drug apprentice sprang through the doorway and
+sent the boys flying down the street.
+
+The pursuit slackened at last and the white coated youth turned to go
+back. Silvey halted to pant a defiant "Ya-a-a, ya-a-a. Can't catch us.
+Can't catch us."
+
+John pulled his chum's arm impatiently and pointed to the vacant house
+just three lots south of Silvey's home.
+
+"Look," he whispered, suddenly cautious. "Some one's forgotten to close
+the front door tight. We can lock it from the inside and go up to the
+attic. Nobody can get in to chase us, and we won't do a thing with our
+pea shooters, oh, no!"
+
+"Maybe the folks haven't left. You can't tell."
+
+"We can run, then. 'Sides, they won't do anything."
+
+They crossed the street and tiptoed up the dusty, rain-spotted veranda
+steps. John peered into the bleak, dirty parlor and reported the coast
+clear. Nevertheless, they hesitated on the very threshold.
+
+"You go first," said Sid to Silvey.
+
+"All right," Silvey nodded apathetically. He peered in at the window.
+"You don't think there's anyone inside, do you, fellows?"
+
+The trio listened intently. "Might be someone upstairs," suggested Sid.
+"Tramps or something."
+
+"Shucks," broke in John impatiently. "You're all 'fraid cats, that's
+what you are."
+
+"Go on in, yourself," Bill retorted quickly.
+
+He drew a nervous breath, and swung the door swiftly back, as if afraid
+that his courage would ooze away before he reached the stairway. Sid and
+Silvey followed very cautiously over the scratched hardwood floor.
+
+"Shall I shut the door?" asked Bill as he took hold of the knob.
+
+"N-no, we may have to run, yet."
+
+They explored the main floor. No one was in the library, no one in the
+narrow, badly lighted dining-room, and no one in the dingy kitchen. All
+seemed quiet upstairs. Silvey bolted the basement door that they might
+not be pursued from that quarter, and Sid, as they returned to the
+hallway, cut off the avenue of escape to the street. John led the way up
+the winding, uncarpeted stairs. Silvey followed close at his heels and
+DuPree lagged in the rear.
+
+"Boo-oo!" Sid shouted when they had ascended half the distance.
+
+John's pea shooter clattered to the landing. Silvey turned angrily on
+the miscreant, his face still pale from the fright.
+
+"I've a' mind to punch your nose for that! 'S'pose there was really
+somebody!"
+
+At last they reached their goal. Tales of wandering vagrants with lairs
+in the attics of vacant houses proved untrue in this instance, and John
+swung back the hinged window in the gable with a sigh of relief.
+
+"Jiminy!" he exclaimed as he looked down upon the bright, reassuring
+play of light and shadow on the lawn and macadam below. "Isn't this
+great?"
+
+The boys stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was
+impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber
+wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They
+concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of
+the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by
+the hair brush or corset steel method.
+
+The teamster, bewildered by the steady rain of missiles, could see no
+one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery
+boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected
+pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, was
+exempt from assault.
+
+The shadows of the house tops and the lindens spread across the street
+and shut off gradually the flood of sunlight through the attic window.
+The Mosher four-year-old trotted past, just out of range, on his way
+towards home and an early supper. John wasted a few ineffectual peas on
+a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof
+gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk
+of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side,
+whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his pea
+shooter.
+
+"Better leave him alone," Sid cautioned.
+
+"Can't do anything to us," John scoffed. "Doors are all locked. And
+how's he going to tell our mothers when he doesn't know who we are?"
+
+He filled his mouth anew, took aim with the long tin tube, and let fly.
+Bill seconded him nobly. The quarry halted, looked upwards, and received
+Sid's volley full in his face.
+
+"He's coming up the steps," yelled John, who was watching the effect of
+the attack. "Jiggers, fellows, he's coming up the steps."
+
+They turned to fly to safety. But where was a haven of refuge to be
+found? They could hear his angry footsteps tramping up and down on the
+porch.
+
+"Were those front windows locked?" Sid asked.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders miserably. An angry pounding echoed through
+the deserted hall and bare, cheerless rooms. They stole silently down to
+the second floor.
+
+"There's more closets to hide in, here," said John hopefully. He glanced
+from a rear window to the little pantry gable which stood but a story's
+height from the back yard. "If he gets in, we can climb out and drop. It
+won't hurt much."
+
+Their enemy tried the door again. Once a window rattled ominously. Sid's
+face regained a little of its color. "They were locked after all.
+Jiggers, there he is around the back!"
+
+They drew hastily away from the opening as a purple, distorted face
+glared up into theirs. A moment later, he was kicking at the back door.
+
+"That's bolted, too," said Silvey thankfully. "I guess we're safe."
+
+At last he left and went around to the front. They listened for a second
+attack from that quarter. Not a sound in the house, save the dripping of
+a leaky faucet in the bathroom.
+
+"Come on, fellows." John led the way to the stairs. "We'll open the back
+door and run like everything!"
+
+The rapidly deepening dusk cast weird shadows through the empty rooms as
+they tiptoed tensely to the first floor. Once Sid imagined that he saw
+the fat man hiding in a nook in the hall where the evening gloom lay
+deepest, and they raised eery echoes through the house in their
+panic-stricken flight back to the top of the stairway. Past the fearsome
+corner again, through the stuffy kitchen where a ray of gas-light from
+the next house fell upon the tall, cylindrical water boiler and gave
+them a second fright, and out into the blessed freedom of the back yard.
+There they broke for the railroad tracks and home.
+
+Mr. Fletcher had already arrived from the office, and was in the
+kitchen, talking, as Mrs. Fletcher prepared supper. That meant that it
+was long after six, and John was under strict orders to report upon his
+immediate arrival from school! But as he came in, still panting, the
+shining rod caught her eye, and his sin of omission was forgotten.
+
+"Pea shooter! Give it here, John. One night of Halloween pranks is
+enough, let alone a whole week of it."
+
+He surrendered the weapon reluctantly. "Now mind," she added as the bit
+of tin was dropped into the top drawer of the kitchen bureau, "you're
+not to buy another one, either."
+
+Mothers were peculiarly unsympathetic about premature pranks; take
+Fourth of July, no matter how many firecrackers a fellow owned, he had
+to sneak off to the big lot to light them if he wanted to celebrate on
+even the day before.
+
+So there was little left to do but look longingly forward to the great
+night. On Monday, as he dressed, John found himself repeating, "Only
+four more days." His last thought on Tuesday was, "That makes just
+three." Thursday afternoon at school, as he chanted a silent refrain,
+"Day after tomorrow's Halloween, day after tomorrow's Halloween," the
+boy in the seat just behind tapped him stealthily on the shoulder and
+passed over a bit of folded paper.
+
+He glanced up at Miss Brown. She was filling out the monthly report
+cards and was not likely to detect him, but he held the note underneath
+his desk as he opened it, nevertheless. It was from Silvey and ran in
+nearly illegible figures:
+
+    17-12-19-13. 14-22-22-7 26-7 7-19-22 8-19-26-24-16
+    26-21-7-22-9 8-24-19-12-12-15 7-12-23-26-2 26-15-15
+    7-19-22 7-18-20-22-9-8 7-19-22-9-22. 25-18-15-15.
+
+He ran his hand back of the untidy jumble of school books and pads and
+drew out an oft creased, finger marked sheet, the secret code of the
+"Tigers":
+
+     A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q R S
+    26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8
+
+    T U V W X Y Z
+    7 6 5 4 3 2 1
+
+He began deciphering the message with a concentration never meted out to
+his school work. Five minutes of effort resulted in:
+
+     John. Meet at the shack after school today all the Tigers there.
+     Bill.
+
+He caught Silvey's gaze upon him and nodded to show that he had received
+the note. The pair would have met on the way home from school, anyway,
+but what was the use of a secret code unless it was used at every
+possible opportunity?
+
+The shack was a rickety, frame affair, built during the long summer
+vacation when time hung heavy on the boys' hands, and the tribal desire
+for a stronghold waxed too strong to be denied. Three of the walls were
+formed of odd planks scavenged from neighboring woodpiles and fences,
+eked out, here and there, with a few pantry shelves taken from vacant
+houses. The fourth was nothing but the picket fence, but as Silvey
+expressed it when viewing their handiwork, "It doesn't rain much from
+the north, anyway." Door for the low entrance there was not, and the
+roof, whose shingles were purchased by an arduously earned half-dollar,
+became a veritable sieve when the raindrops were pounded through by a
+driving gale from the lake.
+
+The furnishings consisted of a chair, which had long since parted with
+its back, and a small, shaky desk which had in some way survived the
+interval between its Christmas presentation and the fall school term. In
+the one drawer were kept the original of the "Tigers'" secret code, a
+twenty-five cent rubber stamp outfit which had been used to print the
+set of membership rules, beginning, "I. No swearing," and two sadly
+battered, springless, and rusty revolvers. Where they had originated, no
+one could remember, but there they lay, unsuspected by parental
+authorities, to be used as a possible defense against the incursions of
+the "Jefferson Toughs," who ruled the district to the immediate north,
+or to be dragged forth, as in the present case, to lend an air of
+solemnity to the many plots hatched between the four cramped walls.
+
+Red Brown descended the side steps into the yard, in answer to the
+summons of the clan, and found John in his rôle of master-at-arms,
+strutting back and forth before the doorway. Silvey, as befitted the
+holder of the exalted office of president, was sitting inside on the
+crippled chair. John whipped the more formidable of the two weapons from
+his back pocket and pointed it at the breast of the intruder.
+
+"Halt!" Brown obeyed.
+
+"Who goes there?" The formula had been borrowed from a thrilling Civil
+War story.
+
+"Friend," came the prompt reply.
+
+"Advance, friend, and give the countersign."
+
+Red opened his mouth doubtfully, then hesitated.
+
+"Hurry up."
+
+"I've forgotten it."
+
+"Aw, think--_hard_."
+
+John jabbed the muzzle of the revolver into his ribs with a steadily
+increasing pressure. Brown thought--hard. Finally he broke out,
+
+"It's easy enough for you to remember. You made it up."
+
+Which was true, for the master-at-arms, who was also the secretary, had
+drafted the rules and was responsible for the initiation ceremonies and
+passwords of the organization.
+
+"Go on. I'll help you."
+
+"Can't," hopelessly. "It's clean out of my head."
+
+"Have to stay away from the meeting, then."
+
+"Aw, John, quit your fooling. It doesn't matter."
+
+"Here's the start. 'Oppy.'"
+
+"Oppy--"
+
+"What's the rest of it?"
+
+"'Nother 'Oppy,' wasn't there?"
+
+"No, it was 'Oppy-poppy--'"
+
+"'Oppy-poppy--'"
+
+"'Oppy-poppy-oppy-nox.' Let's hear you say it all."
+
+Red repeated it triumphantly.
+
+"Right. Pass friend to the meeting of the 'Tigers.'"
+
+All the other members had trouble with the tongue twister. Either they
+left out the distinguishing "p" in the third syllable, or forgot the
+final "oppy" and had to have their memories refreshed in much the same
+manner as that of the first arrival. This was precisely what John had
+intended. What was the use of being both secretary and master-at-arms of
+a club if you couldn't have some fun at the expense of your fellow
+members?
+
+Inside, Silvey's glance took in the prostrate figures of Sid, Red Brown,
+and Perry Alford, who were packed so closely together in the enclosure
+that they could scarcely move, then roamed listlessly past John with his
+insignia of office, out to the sunlit fence and railroad tracks. Red
+yawned wearily.
+
+"Hurry up and do something, Sil."
+
+"Where's Skinny?" asked the president.
+
+"Down town with Mrs. Mosher," Sid volunteered. "She wanted him to help
+her carry packages home."
+
+"Gee," commented Perry, sympathetically. "If I had her for a mother, I'd
+run away. Honest, I would!"
+
+"And the Harrison kids?"
+
+"Both sick in bed. Too many pork chops again."
+
+"Master-at-arms and secretary," Silvey raised his voice. "Come on in."
+
+John squatted in the doorway and gazed meaningly at his superior. They
+had walked home from school together that afternoon, and instructions
+upon the proper way of opening a meeting had been profuse. Silvey grew
+palpably nervous.
+
+"This here meeting," he blurted at last.
+
+"That isn't the way I told you." John shook the revolver in disapproval.
+"Meeting will now come to order."
+
+"Meeting will now come to order," Silvey repeated mechanically.
+"Secretary call the roll."
+
+John snapped his fingers in disgust. He had been so busy looking after
+Silvey's duties that he'd forgotten his own. There was an interchange of
+glances between the two before the president spoke up scornfully,
+
+"We'll have to let that go. Who'll be in the gang this year?"
+
+Each member present raised a hand. The two leaders in the affair beamed.
+Everything augured for a successful night of sport.
+
+"What'll we do?"
+
+"Let's go outside where there's room," Sid suggested. "My leg's gone to
+sleep."
+
+"Now," said John a few minutes later, as the five boys stretched
+themselves out on the soft grass beside the shack, "there's the garbage
+cans on the flats' back porches. They're never, taken in on Halloween."
+
+Silvey nodded. "'Member the chase the janitor gave us last year before
+we had half of 'em spilled?"
+
+"That was because we started at the bottom and worked up," explained the
+master strategist. "This time we'll begin at the top and spill 'em out
+as we go down. We'll be off before the janitor learns about it."
+
+Red chewed on a blade of grass thoughtfully. "Leave milk bottles alone
+this time. 'Specially old lady Boyer's."
+
+The members nodded approval. On the Halloween preceding, Sid had
+discovered a solitary container on a window near the flat entrance and
+dashed it to the cement walk amid exultant yells. Hardly had the noise
+subsided when a wrinkled, gray-haired head made a distracted appearance
+at the opening, with a cry of, "I want my milk! I want my milk!"
+Returning a moment later from panic-stricken flight, the full meaning of
+the act dawned upon the boys and remorse overcame them. A hasty search
+for coin of the realm, a moment of consultation, and Silvey, boosted
+high on his comrades' shoulders, had rapped on the window ledge. "It
+ain't much, ma'am, but it's all we got, and we didn't know the bottle
+was yours," he had murmured; and, all unwitting of the sardonic humor of
+the act, had passed in a check good for a drink at a near-by saloon.
+
+There were moments of reflective silence. "Isn't there something new we
+can do this year?" Silvey appealed to his fellow members. "Garbage cans
+and doormats and ringing electric bells are fun, but isn't there a trick
+we've never worked before?"
+
+"Get some grease and spread it over a porch before you ring the bell,"
+suggested Sid. "My big brother, who's away at college, used to do it.
+Told me so, himself."
+
+"I tried that once," Red broke in scornfully. "Nearly broke my back
+getting away. Besides the fellow never steps where he ought to."
+
+John spat with sudden deliberation at a chip of wood on the turf. "Who
+can get a lot of tomato cans without any holes in them?"
+
+Silvey mentioned a city dump just north of the park, where cans of all
+sizes and conditions were to be found. His chum nodded approvingly.
+
+"Sid, you and Perry go over there Saturday morning and bring back as
+many middling-sized ones as you can carry. You other fellows cut up
+pieces of string about as long as you are."
+
+"S'posing the trick don't work after all that trouble?" asked Sid
+irritably. John was always giving him jobs to do.
+
+"I'll bring a hose key Halloween night," went on John, ignoring the
+interruption. "We'll tie a string to a tin, fill it up with water from
+the hose pipe on the front lawn, and tie it to the doorknob. Door jerks
+open when the bell rings--you know how mad a fellow is then--and the
+water goes flying into the hall, ker-splash! Bet you that'll make some
+fun!"
+
+The others regarded the inventor in silent admiration. "How about the
+cop?" asked one of them finally.
+
+"Never got mad last year, did he? He's all right. Besides, he's too fat
+to run very fast."
+
+The back door in the Silvey home squeaked disturbingly as Mrs. Silvey
+appeared. A dusting cap was jammed determinedly over one eye, and in one
+hand was a broom.
+
+"Bill, you come in here right away. I want you to help me move the hall
+rug."
+
+Silvey drawled a response. "Jes' wait until we get through talking. It
+won't be a minute." He turned to the rest of the "Tigers." "Everybody
+got pea shooters?" They had, or would have before the eventful day
+arrived.
+
+"I bought a peachy false-face," Perry boasted in the lull of the
+conversation which followed. "You ought to see it; looks just like a
+circus clown."
+
+"Leave it at home," said John brusquely. "You can't see out of 'em when
+you're running away, and they get all sticky, anyway. They're for kids,
+not for fellows like us."
+
+"Bill!" scolded the maternal voice again. "Come in the house this
+minute, before I tell your pa on you when he gets home."
+
+There was that final note of exhausted patience in Mrs. Silvey's voice
+which commanded instant obedience. He rose with alacrity. As he mounted
+the steps, the boys still at liberty scampered away in the fast
+gathering dusk for a game of "Run, sheep, run," down the tracks and over
+the grass plots and back yards on the street.
+
+It was nearly six when John came panting into the kitchen.
+
+"What have you been doing, son?" asked his mother as she half turned
+from the gas stove to smile down at him.
+
+"Oh, talking about Halloween, and what we're going to do, and lots of
+things. It's going to be peachy."
+
+"Mind, you're not to destroy property or anything like that. Otherwise,
+you'll have to stay in the house Saturday night."
+
+He yawned with elaborate carelessness. "Just going to blow beans and
+ring doorbells, same as we did last year. Isn't it supper time? I'm
+hungry."
+
+"We'll eat as soon as your father gets home, son." She turned to give
+the creamed potatoes a stir lest they stick to the pan. "Oh, I nearly
+forgot! There's a letter at your place on the dining-room table. It came
+in the afternoon mail."
+
+"For me?" Surprise made his voice rise to a funny squeak. "Who from?"
+
+"A young lady, I think."
+
+He dashed into the dining-room and opened the envelope with clumsy
+fingers. On a diminutive sheet of note paper, decorated at the top with
+two laughing gnomes, ran an invitation copied from some older person's
+formula:
+
+"Miss Louise Martin requests the pleasure of Mr. John Fletcher's company
+at a Halloween party to be given at her home on Saturday, October 31st,
+from eight to ten o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HE GOES TO A HALLOWEEN PARTY
+
+
+Of course, he accepted. The temptation of a whole evening in the lady's
+company was too great. But no sooner had he dropped his reply in the
+corner mail box than he began to consider the cost.
+
+The doormats and porch furniture of the neighborhood would go unharmed
+for aught that he might do. No raids on the flats' garbage cans, no
+ringing of doorbells, or raining peas through open windows. And only
+through the vainglorious boasting of the gang on Sunday morning would he
+know of the success of his string-and-can trick. Shucks! He was out of
+it all.
+
+After breakfast, Mrs. Fletcher glanced at the clear sunlight on the
+house across the road and announced that John's Saturday tasks would be
+suspended in honor of the day. He raced up to the Silveys, and found the
+expedition for cans starting out under the leadership of his chum. Once
+in the park, the quartette broke into impromptu games of tag, dashing
+over the moist grass, or halting to puff lustily that they might watch
+their breaths in the clear, frosty air. Tiring of this as they came to
+the site of an old exposition bicycle race-track, they ran up and down
+the grass-covered sides until Perry reminded them that the morning would
+be over before they knew it, and started on a dogtrot for the goal.
+
+Cans there were in profusion, also a fascinating array of wreckage of
+other nature in this dump, which lay just north of the park. John picked
+up a suitable container.
+
+"Get 'em like this," he ordered Perry and Sid. "And be sure they don't
+leak."
+
+As the two walked obediently off, he prowled among the debris of his own
+accord. Silvey raised a shout from the water's edge.
+
+"Look-e-e." He held up a chair minus one leg and a back for John's
+admiring approval. "Won't this be great for the shack?"
+
+Sid and Perry turned and took a few steps toward Bill.
+
+"Say," ordered the president and his secretary in unison, "get busy with
+those cans. What do you suppose you came over here for?"
+
+A little later, John discovered a pair of warped, rusty bicycle wheels,
+and hastened over to Silvey with them.
+
+"Can't we make a peachy wagon with these if we find two more?" he said
+excitedly. "Bet you anything she'll go faster'n the fastest one on the
+street."
+
+Sid came up, his arms filled with tins. "That's enough," he blurted. "If
+you want any more, you can get 'em yourselves." He looked down sullenly
+at his rust-spotted waist. "Always the way. We do the work and you come
+along and boss."
+
+"Well," retorted John magnificently as Perry dropped his collection
+beside Sid's, "we didn't _have_ to come at all, did we?"
+
+They apportioned the rusty objects and the broken chair and wheels
+between them and sauntered slowly homewards. It was easily dinner time
+before the street was reached, and the party broke up as soon as the
+booty was deposited in the Silvey back yard. John lingered a moment to
+help Silvey carry the junk into the "Tigers'" club house.
+
+"Gee," Bill exclaimed as he gazed at the nondescript jumble, "I'll bet
+you it'll be a peachy time tonight."
+
+John nodded ecstatically. Then a lump caught in his throat and held him
+speechless for a moment. After all, he was out of the fun, and he hadn't
+the heart to tell his chum, either. He turned to leave.
+
+That afternoon the clan gathered again on the turf beside the shack and
+went over the evening's campaign. The new family in the large green
+house across the road still had a big swing suspended from the veranda
+ceiling. If they didn't remove it, the boys intended to. Sid DuPree
+reported that the gate on Otton's back fence could be lifted from its
+hinges very easily. It would be great fun to replace the bit of porch
+furniture with it. As for doormats, the preoccupied neighborhood doctor
+had left his out last Halloween, and could be depended on to do it
+again; also, there were the apartment entrances, each with a heavy
+rubber mat in front of the stone steps. As for the can-and-string trick,
+the frame dwelling where the fat little tailor lived was marked for the
+experiment, as were a half dozen others.
+
+"Gee," chuckled Silvey, "don't you wish it was dark now?"
+
+John fingered his pea shooter wistfully.
+
+At last the welcome dusk blotted out the long shadows on the railroad
+tracks and the "Tigers" filed stealthily out of the yard to commence the
+skirmishing before supper, which always came as a prelude to the more
+important evening campaign. They darted up and down steps, rang
+doorbells, and raised eery cat-calls which echoed between the houses,
+and pelted pedestrians to their hearts' content.
+
+Presently the door of the big green house swung open and threw a shaft
+of golden light across the leaf-strewn macadam, over against the Alford
+dwelling, which stood opposite. Four white-sheeted figures danced down
+the steps and paraded on the walk in front of the home lot, tooting
+horns and performing antics in a manner which no set of self-respecting
+ghosts ever dreamed of.
+
+"Her kids," John snapped scornfully. "'Member how she chased us out of
+the street last Saturday because we were making too much noise with our
+tops? Come on!"
+
+They divided silently into two parties. The one slipped across the road
+on tiptoe and hugged the shadows of the houses as they advanced, halting
+finally under the shelter of an adjacent porch. The other walked boldly
+some distance down the walk on the far side of the street, crossed over,
+also, and executed a similar maneuver.
+
+Suddenly a pea caught the biggest of the four apparitions on the nose
+and caused him to drop his horn to the sidewalk. As he stooped to pick
+it up, a volley sent his younger brothers and sister scurrying
+porchward, amid cries of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!" The "Tigers" yelled
+gleefully. John forgot himself so far as to dance incautiously into the
+path of light. Then from the shadows of the porch swing--that same swing
+which was to transport itself mysteriously far down the street in the
+evening--emerged the tall, angular figure which had driven them away
+that other Saturday.
+
+"Jiggers!" came the shout of warning.
+
+"John Fletcher!" That doughty leader retreated to the shelter of the
+shadows. "I'll telephone your mother this minute. Such a lot of bullies
+I've never seen before in my life!"
+
+The boys were in for it. Nevertheless, they listened to the prolonged
+tirade with suppressed amusement. Its conclusion was an order to the
+quartette to go down on the walk again.
+
+"They won't touch a hair of your heads now," she boasted unwisely.
+
+Again came the stinging volleys on the sheeted figures. A few of the
+peas flew by chance, or otherwise, in the direction of the protectress,
+herself.
+
+"Come into the house this minute," she called to her brood. "I'll fix
+'em."
+
+The door slammed angrily. Through a front window, the boys could see her
+at the telephone in the lighted hallway. They redoubled the bombardment
+of the house in defiance.
+
+Across the street a door creaked. Mrs. Alford's voice carried to where
+the excited little group stood.
+
+"Per-e-e-e, it's nearly seven. Supper is ready. Come in and get washed
+right away!"
+
+The "Tigers" gasped and dispersed quickly. Half-past six was the
+deadline for the evening meal with most of them, and parental scoldings
+were in order.
+
+"See you at eight," Silvey called as he turned north.
+
+John stopped short. Hang that party!
+
+"I w-won't be with the gang," he quavered.
+
+"What?" Bill could scarcely believe his ears. John explained haltingly.
+
+"That kid! I knew she'd make trouble."
+
+The murder was out; the worst was over with. But it would never do to
+let his chum think that he regretted the choice.
+
+"Oh, I don't know." John gathered courage and glibness as he went on.
+"Saw two ice cream freezers going in the back way this afternoon, and
+Jiminy, Silvey, her mother's some cook. Louise says [he hadn't laid eyes
+on that lady since Friday] she's just baked four chocolate layer cakes
+with nuts and candies in the frosting. And there's lots of other things.
+Now, don't you wish you were me?"
+
+Silvey shrugged his shoulders and admitted that the entertainment had
+its alluring side.
+
+"Chocolate cake," he repeated. "Just think, all you can eat."
+
+There was an envious silence.
+
+"Strawberry ice cream. Three helpings to a fellow; and I'll have more,
+'cause I wouldn't let you throw cucumbers at Louise."
+
+His chum's face grew wistful.
+
+"S'long," said John exuberantly. He had not only converted the scoffer,
+but he now found that the gang's plans for the evening no longer held a
+charm for him. What a peach of a time he would have at the Martins'!
+
+Mrs. Fletcher greeted him with a suppressed smile as he came in.
+
+"Mrs. Riley telephoned," she began reprovingly.
+
+"Old sorehead!" he exclaimed. "Didn't hurt 'em any."
+
+The maternal smile broadened. There was little sympathy between that
+quarrelsome lady and the other mothers of the street, anyway. "But you
+shouldn't torment little children like that, son. It isn't manly."
+
+John murmured a few sheepish words under his breath, and asked tactfully
+if supper were ready.
+
+"Not quite. Why?"
+
+"Have you forgotten the party?"
+
+She shook her head. "You'll find your blue serge suit all cleaned and
+waiting for you on your bed. But John, dear, do be a little more careful
+next time you eat candy. I had a terrible time with those spots."
+
+After supper, he ran up to his room. There lay the suit, true evidence
+of his mother's thoughtful kindness. As he drew off his school
+knickerbockers, he noticed that his stockings had sagged, small-boy
+fashion, and formed a little roll of cloth just above his shoe tops. He
+pulled them up. How on earth had all that mud gotten there? In a moment
+he was at the head of the stairs, shouting, "Mother, Mother,
+Moth-a-a-a-r! Where are some clean stockings?" and went off to her room
+in search of them. His boots, too, were dusty and scratched; how long
+was it since he had blackened them?
+
+A five-minute session with the shoe-shining outfit, heretofore despised
+as a useless nuisance, made them glisten as did the kitchen stove after
+that Saturday polishing task had been completed. Before him stood the
+washstand with its cold marble basin, the soap trays, washrags,
+toothbrushes, and other instruments of torture. He turned on the water
+and considered a moment as to just how far he should extend the
+waterline. Still, he was going to a party, her party, and his appearance
+must be beyond reproach. So he soaped his face vigorously and ran his
+wet hands around to the back of his neck. Then he surveyed as much of
+the result of his labors as he could see with a new satisfaction.
+
+He slipped into his little wash blouse hastily. The alarm clock
+indicated fifteen minutes of the hour and no time was to be lost. But
+which of his four ties should he wear? His blue one was wrinkled because
+it had lain beneath the bed for over a week before he had resurrected
+it. The tan-and-black striped one given him by his uncle was in equally
+bad condition. And Louise had said she hated green. After all, his
+brilliant crimson four-in-hand was the nicest. It contrasted with his
+dark suit the best, anyway.
+
+He presented himself a sheepishly smiling little figure with neatly
+parted hair, for his mother's inspection. She looked up with a smile.
+
+"If it isn't our little John! And so clean that I scarcely know him.
+Come here and let me look at your ears."
+
+They were immaculate! Mrs. Fletcher exchanged a glance of mock surprise
+with her husband. "It's the first time that's happened since he was old
+enough to wash himself."
+
+John, junior, seized his hat and slammed the door as he sprang down the
+front steps. Why did grown-ups always carry on so? There was nothing
+unusual in washing one's ears, was there?
+
+He stopped across the street from the building to watch for a moment.
+The Martin parlor on the second floor was ablaze with light.
+Occasionally an adult moved now and then within range of the windows as
+she shifted chairs to and fro. A boy from Southern Avenue, with whom he
+had a speaking acquaintance, walked up and into the entrance with an air
+of unnatural gravity. John could see him give his tie a twitch as he
+rang the front bell. A brougham drove up and a little girl encased in
+innumerable fluffy wraps was escorted up the steps by her mother. More
+girls followed from time to time. Some skipped merrily up to the door;
+others sauntered more slowly, tittering excitedly as they went along.
+John decided that it was time to go in.
+
+Up the heavily carpeted stairway, with its ornately panelled wainscoting
+and brown wallpaper, a half turn to the right, and the goal of the
+evening lay before him. The stout woman whom he had seen silhouetted in
+the window greeted him with a gracious smile.
+
+"So this is the John Fletcher of whom Louise is always talking!"
+
+A maid, subsidized for the evening, took his hat and coat away to some
+mysterious recess. Mrs. Martin led him into the parlor, lighted to a
+soft glow by deftly shaded electric bulbs.
+
+"Now let me introduce you," she said. "This is Martha Gill." He bowed
+awkwardly to the lady of the carriage. "And this, Ella Black." So it
+went, all down the smiling, giggling circle, as he promptly forgot each
+name in the presence of a new beauty.
+
+He joined the boys with a sigh of relief. They stood in an awkward group
+near the piano, and grinned and poked each other furtively in the ribs,
+and made mocking allusions to half-known juvenile love affairs until
+Mrs. Martin reentered with Louise.
+
+The little girl had never appeared so daintily bewitching to John; no,
+not even on that memorable first day at school. Her long, graceful curls
+were caught in a big, blue silk bow which matched her dress, and her
+eyes were a-dance with the excitement of her first party. She greeted
+the company with a shy, quick smile and sat down in the chair nearest
+her exultant worshiper. A constrained silence took possession of the
+little gathering again.
+
+If the children were to enjoy themselves at all, something must be done
+to put them at their ease. Mrs. Martin clapped her hands loudly.
+
+"Who likes 'Musical chairs'?" she asked.
+
+The little girls applauded vociferously. The boys, as became members of
+the more reserved sex, nodded condescendingly. While not as exciting as
+wrestling, or "Run, sheep, run," the game would pass the time away. In a
+moment they were sent flying to the different rooms in the flat after
+straight chairs of all sizes and descriptions, while Mrs. Martin
+supervised the formation of the long line which extended into the hall.
+
+"Now," said she, as she stepped over to the piano, "is there anyone who
+doesn't know how to play this game?"
+
+No fear of kill-joy amateurs with "Musical chairs." The children had
+become experts at the pastime through other parties innumerable. She
+seated herself at the instrument and ran her fingers over the keys.
+
+Slowly the procession started. Little girls lingered as long as possible
+by each inviting seat. Boys scurried past the chairs facing in the
+opposite direction, or slid around the treacherous ends lest they be
+caught. Still the waltz strains swung onward until they seemed eternal
+to the anxious players. Then a false note, another, a pause, and a wild
+scramble for safety. Bashful maidens sat on trousered knees and
+scrambled up after still vacant places. Other players squabbled for the
+possession of contested chairs. At last the babel died away, and another
+cry arose:
+
+"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Fletcher's out of it."
+
+It was always the way; he was ever too reluctant to dispossess a girl of
+a nearly won prize to be a success at the game. But he took up a
+position beside the pianist and watched with amused interest. It was
+really just as good fun as being a participant.
+
+Gradually all were eliminated save the Southern Avenue boy and Louise.
+The music began again under Mrs. Martin's nimble fingers, and swelled in
+volume like the notes of a church organ. Then it dragged and paused just
+long enough to send Louise flying to the seat before it picked up the
+fateful melody. Suddenly, without hint of a finish in the throbbing,
+rapidly beating march, there came the end. Louise found herself standing
+with the high-wooden back toward her, while the Southern Avenue
+contestant yelled triumphantly from his throne.
+
+"Shucks!" said John in disgust. "Why didn't he let her have it? I
+would."
+
+Next came "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket." The fun grew
+fast and furious. No standing aloof in a corner of the room for the boys
+now. They enjoyed themselves too well, as each, in turn, chased, or was
+chased by some nimble-footed maiden around the circle. There followed
+"Thimble, thimble, who's got the thimble," and then Mrs. Martin's even
+voice:
+
+"Perhaps some boy will suggest a game."
+
+The winner of "Musical chairs," emboldened by his triumph, called out,
+"Kiss the pillow!"
+
+Little shrieks and cries of "Won't play!" arose from some of the girls.
+Others maintained a coy silence. Eventually the whole company joined;
+that is, all save John. He saw no fun in such pastime. What was the use
+of kneeling on a pillow and kissing, for example, homely Ella Black?
+Other boys might, if they wished. There was but one divinity worthy of
+his homage, and he would pay none of it to other maidens.
+
+So he followed Mrs. Martin into the dining-room, to that lady's great,
+though secret, merriment, and helped her arrange the plates and the
+spoons and napkins for the refreshments which were to follow later. The
+shouts from the parlor rose louder and louder.
+
+Then came a sudden silence. Mrs. Martin turned towards the hall. Surely
+they didn't need her assistance again! As she passed the doorway, cries
+of "Post-office," "let's play 'Post-office,'" broke forth, and she
+returned to the table with a satisfied smile. Evidently the members of
+the party were furnishing their own amusement with great success.
+
+Louise, her curls bobbing excitedly, darted into the room and seized
+John by the arm.
+
+"Come on," she begged, for she was afraid he wasn't enjoying himself in
+the lonely dining-room. "Come on, Johnny. Please!"
+
+It was his lady who commanded, so he obeyed. They had drawn a green
+portière across the curtain pole in the doorway until the little alcove
+with the bookcase was shut off from the larger room for all practical
+intents and purposes. Jimmy, the Southern Avenue boy, waxing more and
+more masterful, had appointed himself postmaster, and strutted beside
+the narrow opening which remained. And to hold that position in a game
+of "Post-office" is no slight thing. Not only is the postmaster the sole
+witness of all that transpires behind the secretive curtain, but he is
+privileged to turn over the exalted office to a temporary substitute and
+hale the lady of his heart forward, if he so desires.
+
+There was no lack of mail. Hardly had the window been declared open than
+the postmaster's chum stepped up and, after a moment of whispered
+conversation, disappeared behind the portière. Called the master of
+ceremonies in stentorian tones:
+
+"Two packages and three letters for Martha Gill!"
+
+Martha Gill shook her head. Cries of "Go ahead" arose from the boys,
+while the girls tittered at her embarrassment. At last she gathered up
+courage and darted past the sentinel. John stared in amazement. Two
+packages and three letters--two hugs and three kisses--what was there in
+that overdressed little doll to merit such favor?
+
+Correspondence became fast and furious. Eventually the postmaster called
+John forward and whispered a name in his ear before he went into the
+alcove. His appointee, concealing his astonishment as best he could,
+called out, "Ella Black, Ella Black; four letters for Ella Black!" at
+the top of his lungs. But for that much-despised young lady to be so
+honored by the social lion of the evening was more than he could
+comprehend.
+
+As the postmaster resumed his duties, a voice cried, "Johnny, it's your
+turn. You haven't sent any mail yet."
+
+John flushed and shook his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat!
+'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of mischief began
+that scornful chant:
+
+    C'ardy, c'ardy, custard,
+    Eatin' bread an' mustard!
+
+He clenched his fists. If it must be, he'd show them he was no coward! A
+moment later, as he stood tensely in the alcove, came the postmaster's
+cry of "One letter for Louise Martin," and the green curtain swung aside
+to admit her.
+
+[Illustration: A second helping of ice cream.]
+
+She returned from the sanctum composedly. He waited a moment that they
+might not reappear together, and came out with eyes shining and heart
+a-beat.
+
+    He had kissed her!
+    He had kissed her!
+
+The entrance of Mrs. Martin and the maid, the one bearing heaping dishes
+of ice cream, and the other, as he had unwittingly prophesied, a
+luscious, heavily-frosted chocolate cake, brought him down to more
+mundane thoughts with alacrity. Indeed, he devoted himself to his
+portion with such earnestness that he was able to finish and place his
+empty plate innocently under his chair, and wait until his plight caught
+the servant's eye.
+
+"Why, haven't you had any, little boy?"
+
+He shook his head mournfully.
+
+"How did Mrs. Martin ever come to skip you? I'll bring you some right
+away!"
+
+When she reappeared, he winked heartily at his amazed companions and
+settled to the second helping of ice cream.
+
+At last the party came to an end, as all such joyous occasions must, and
+he found himself on the sidewalk, looking up once more at the now
+darkened parlor. Far up the street came the hooting and jeering of a
+gang--possibly his own--although the voices seemed older and strange,
+and the gate of the house next the apartment building had disappeared,
+leaving empty hinges as mute testimony that some band of witches had
+done their work thoroughly and well.
+
+In response to his prolonged ring and joyous kicks on the home door,
+Mrs. Fletcher let him in. "Don't pound so hard, son," she cautioned.
+"We're not deaf."
+
+"Might a' thought it was some Halloween gang if I didn't," he defended
+himself as he threw his hat on the nearest chair.
+
+"Have a good time?" she queried.
+
+"Did I?" The earnestness of his voice left little doubt as to his
+sentiments. "Did I? You just bet I did!"
+
+The family always slept late on Sunday morning, but at that, John, worn
+out by the excitement of the preceding evening, stirred drowsily when
+his father appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Come on, John; time to get up."
+
+"Yes, dad," gazing at him with lackluster eyes. As Mr. Fletcher left, he
+turned his face promptly toward the wall and dropped off to sleep again.
+
+"John!" It was his mother's voice this time.
+
+"Uhu."
+
+"Why didn't you get up when your father called you?"
+
+"Aw, let me alone. I don't want any breakfast. Honest, I don't."
+
+"Nonsense! You can take a nap in the afternoon if you want. Come on. I
+won't go down stairs until I see you up."
+
+He might as well, then. Mrs. Fletcher was pretty well versed in his
+tricks, thanks to long years of experience, and there was little chance
+of further delay. So John sat up and dangled his legs over the side of
+the bed, while he rubbed his sleep-laden eyes with his fists.
+
+"Need a wet washrag?"
+
+No. He was wide awake now. He listened to her steps on the stairs, and
+to the opening of the front door as his father brought in the morning
+paper. Then he fingered one stocking abstractedly.
+
+Half an hour later, prompted by Mrs. Fletcher's remonstrances, her
+husband came up and found the boy staring with unseeing eyes far over
+the railroad tracks into the park. In his hand was the same stocking
+which he had picked up so many minutes before.
+
+At last he appeared in the dining-room, to find that his father and
+mother had eaten their meal. His hair was half brushed, and his face and
+neck untouched by cleansing water (hadn't they been soaped the night
+before?), but he set to work on the nearly cold breakfast with a will.
+He removed his empty grain saucer from the bread and butter plate and
+looked up suddenly.
+
+"Mother," he said irresolutely.
+
+"Yes, son?"
+
+"Say, Mother--how old does a fellow have to be to get married, anyway?"
+
+His father chortled with merriment. John flushed an embarrassed red. His
+mother restrained a smile as she answered:
+
+"About twenty-one, dear, and lots of people wait until they're older.
+Why?"
+
+"Nothing. Does it cost very much?"
+
+"Cost much?" Mr. Fletcher dropped the Sunday paper to the floor and
+looked at his son and heir attentively. "Why, I should say it does. You
+ought to have at least a thousand dollars saved before you even _think_
+of marrying."
+
+"John," cautioned Mrs. Fletcher reprovingly. "Don't torment the child."
+
+"Let's see," went on her husband, unheeding. "You're ten now. If you
+want to marry by the time you're twenty-one, that means you'll have to
+earn about a hundred dollars a year from now on. Better begin right
+away."
+
+"Raise my allowance, will you, dad?" came the unexpected retort. "I'm
+only getting a quarter a week now, and Sid DuPree's father gives him a
+whole dollar."
+
+"Young man," was the grave reply. "If you want to support a family,
+you'll have to do it of your own accord. You and your mother keep me
+busy as it is."
+
+"Give me a quarter, then," the boy persisted. "That's all I want.
+Please!"
+
+His father dug into his pockets and brought out the desired coin. "The
+nest-egg for the second generation of Fletchers," he grinned. "Catch,
+son."
+
+A few minutes later John disappeared in the direction of a little
+stationery and toy shop which lay some blocks to the north. But not a
+word could Mr. Fletcher draw from him as to the aim of the expedition.
+He returned with a mysterious package which he took up to his room and
+then sauntered out to Silvey's house.
+
+A little later his mother, who had gone upstairs to dress herself for
+dinner, came down to the dining-room where John, senior, still sat
+reading.
+
+"John," she said.
+
+"Yes, dear?" with a hasty glance away from the news sheet.
+
+"Do you know," her smile was tender, "there's a big, china pig bank up
+on that boy's bureau? I believe he's taken your words in earnest!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEREIN HE RESOLVES TO GET MARRIED
+
+
+The Thursday date for the game with the "Jeffersons" had been selected
+in early September, and there had been a tacit truce between the two
+factions as a result. For three afternoons of that first week in
+November, the "Tigers" sacrificed their games of tops and "Run, sheep,
+run" on the altar of the football god, and trooped over to the big lot
+as soon as school was dismissed. There, Silvey, self-appointed coach of
+the team, expounded the rudiments and the higher attributes of the sport
+as culled from a series of ten-cent hand books, and ran the team through
+signals and trick formations in a way that would have amused a
+university football coach.
+
+Louise went down town with her mother, so the team was deprived of the
+support of its feminine rooter on the eventful afternoon. They met in
+front of Silvey's. John boasted the one addition made to the equipment
+of that first practice when he appeared with a second-hand pair of
+shin-guards which he had acquired from a boy at school in exchange for a
+dime and an agate shooter. Presently Sid appeared with the football, and
+they trooped towards the lot in a compact, determined little group.
+
+As they climbed over the railroad fence on the opposite side of the
+tracks, the "Jeffersons," who were as badly equipped as their rivals,
+greeted them defiantly. There was a moment or so of conference between
+Silvey and the Shultz boy before they tossed for sides on the field.
+Then the teams lined up, kicked off, and sweated and toiled and wrangled
+through one half of the game without result. Towards the end of the
+second period, the heavier invaders began a slow march over the
+cinder-strewn ground toward their opponents' goal and victory.
+
+Onward, onward, inch by inch, first down, five (this was the day of
+unreformed football), second, three, third, one yard to gain, while the
+"Tigers" shouted "Ho-o-old 'em! Ho-o-old 'em!" in desperation. On the
+ten-yard line, indicated by stakes driven in the ground at each side of
+the field, the lighter eleven braced for a last stand. As the
+"Jeffersons'" youthful quarter attempted to pass the ball, Silvey broke
+through and knocked the pigskin from his hands towards John, who grabbed
+it and ran to the other end of the field for the one and decisive
+touchdown of the game.
+
+"Time," called Silvey, striving vainly to make himself heard above the
+exultant shouts. "Time, I tell you!" Captain Shultz of the "Jeffersons"
+drew out a watch, borrowed from a friend for the occasion, and compared
+it with the one in Bill's possession.
+
+The game was over and the "Jeffersons" had lost.
+
+The victors swaggered woodenly around by the ice cream soda shop and art
+stores to the home street. No cutting across the tracks for them now;
+this was a march of triumph! The vanquished trailed sulkily along, some
+twenty feet behind, giving vent now and then to cat-calls of defiance
+and disgruntled suggestions that the game would have ended differently
+if this or that member had played better. At the corner, Silvey turned.
+
+"We licked you!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We licked you! We
+licked you!"
+
+Shultz raised his voice above the clamor of his team. "Just wait until
+we catch you alone. You'll be sorry!"
+
+John shrugged his shoulders. "We'll all stick together coming home from
+school. And if they catch just one of us, why, we can maul them, too."
+For Shultz's declaration meant that the guerrilla warfare was in full
+swing again.
+
+Sid's muscles stiffened and his back began to ache. Silvey owned a
+discolored spot over one eye where an opponent had tried to disable him
+during a tense moment of the game. John's shin was badly bruised, and
+Perry Alford had wrenched his ankle. The other members had minor hurts.
+Only Red Brown had, by some miracle, come through the battle unscathed.
+
+"We won," said Silvey happily, as they stopped in front of his house.
+"Come on, now, all together!"
+
+They broke into the "Tigers'" exultant war cry, which is very much the
+same as that of the football team to which you belonged as a boy:
+
+    Sis-boom-bah!
+    Sis-boom-bah!
+    "Tigers," "Tigers,"
+    Rah, rah, rah!
+
+Then they left for their several homes, too worn out to do anything but
+rest.
+
+Up in his room John threw himself on the bed with a sigh. His injured
+leg hurt terribly--but they'd won. Pity Louise had missed the defeat of
+the "Jeffersons." Why did women folks always have to go shopping,
+anyway? Only spent a lot of money on hats and other foolishness.
+
+He turned over wearily and found the yellow pig bank leering at him from
+the bureau with hungry, malignant eyes. Where was that apportioned two
+dollars which he was to earn by the end of the week? Four days had
+already elapsed, and the beast's interior was as empty as it had been on
+the toy-shop shelf. Why had he bought those lemon drops on Monday? And
+the marbles and his rubber spear top? Was there anything left after the
+shin-guard purchase? He sat up on the edge of the bed and rummaged in
+his pockets. One lonely penny remained from his weekly allowance of a
+quarter.
+
+He dropped the coin into the long slot and shook the pig disgustedly.
+Two dollars could never be earned by Saturday night. Not even if three
+lawns were to be cut, and a half-dozen errands run for the neighbors. He
+slammed the big china animal back on the bureau and went down to supper.
+The lonely copper had seemed to make the beast sound more hollow than
+ever as it rattled against the unglazed interior.
+
+That night the wind veered to the south, and Friday proved to be mild
+and sunny, save for a touch of autumnal haze in the air. But not even
+this freakish return of summer could rouse him from the grumpy mood
+which held over from the night before.
+
+He scanned the front yards on the street as he sulked along to school.
+How slowly grass grew in the fall! Not a lawn needed trimming, and as
+for freeing them from leaves, the nearly denuded boughs made such
+operations unnecessary. Coin of the realm seemed further away than ever.
+
+In the afternoon, the haze thickened and hinted of rain. As he and
+Louise sauntered homeward, a drop of water spattered on her cheek.
+Another hit him on the nose, and it was but a short time before the
+cement sidewalks were covered with rapidly merging mosaics of a darker
+hue.
+
+What luck! Dimes and even quarters, quickly and easily earned, were
+within his grasp. He left Louise at the apartment entrance and dashed
+into his own front hall in great excitement.
+
+"I've got the umbrellas," he shouted, as he struggled into his raincoat.
+"I'm going out with them."
+
+"Don't take my good one," Mrs. Fletcher cautioned. But he was beyond
+earshot, best umbrella and all, before the words were out of her mouth.
+
+Down the water-glazed street he ran, its dust now laid by the
+refreshing, pounding torrent, past the barrier of the railroad ticket
+office, thanks to the friendly agent, and up the worn steps to the
+station platform. Other boys were there, each with two or three
+umbrellas, who viewed the newcomer with disfavor. Ere long, each
+suburban train from town would discharge its quota of daintily dressed
+shoppers, pallid office clerks and stenographers and prosperous business
+men. Not one of them would carry protection from the soaking rain, and
+competition between the juvenile vendors threatened to become acute.
+
+A lean, light suburban engine pulled in amid a cloud of escaping steam
+and a hissing of airbrakes. John spied a tall slender woman in a car
+doorway arranging a paper over her hat, and raced along beside the
+platform until it came to a halt.
+
+"Umbrella home, lady?"
+
+She nodded. "To the hotel."
+
+Behind her loomed a tall, slightly bowed, black-haired lawyer whom John
+had seen on the long, wooden veranda of that substitute for home more
+times than he could count on his ten fingers. He, too, took advantage of
+a rented shelter. Together the couple made their way down the dripping
+steps while John followed exultantly. Two at once--and the hotel but a
+scant block and a half away! At the broad entrance, they paused.
+
+"How much do I owe you, little boy?" asked the lady, with a smile.
+
+"Dime," was the laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and
+there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the
+lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at
+once. That _was_ luck. A moment later John was sprinting back at top
+speed.
+
+No double fare the next time, but the helpless stenographer lived a
+street farther west, and each additional block meant another nickel
+according to the unwritten umbrella tariff.
+
+"Fifteen cents, madam," he demanded.
+
+She retreated discreetly to the shadow of the apartment hallway to dive
+into her stocking bank, while he watched two bedraggled sparrows on the
+sidewalk until she reappeared.
+
+On his return, he found the trains running on the five-minute, rush-hour
+schedule. Each carried its revenue of small change for the eager,
+clamoring boys. Once, a gray-haired, kindly-eyed man gave John a quarter
+and would receive no change, and another time a friend of his mother's
+did likewise. But for the most part, ten- and fifteen-cent fees were his
+lot.
+
+Rifts in the misty clouds to the west appeared, which hinted of an end
+to the rain. Nevertheless, he jingled the change in his pocket
+light-heartedly. He had made more in the brief eighty minutes than he
+could cutting the Langley's lawn, or by other juvenile chores which
+would consume a like time. And, if he were fortunate, there was still
+time for another customer before the storm ceased.
+
+He found her. She was dressed in some rustling brown taffeta stuff and
+carried her hat in a carefully pinned page of newspaper. Her face was
+sunken and lined and rouged to lessen the ravages of age, and her hair
+was palpably mismatched. Moreover, instinct warned that his offer would
+be refused, for she was one of the tall, skinny folks. Nevertheless, he
+approached her.
+
+"Umbrella home, lady? Can I take you home under an umbrella?"
+
+He could. Instantly all criticism of her personal appearance vanished.
+True, she might be trying to keep up appearances like the old-maid
+teacher who scolded knowledge into the eighth-grade class, but she was
+willing to spend money for his benefit, and that made all the difference
+in the world.
+
+Past the hotel they went, and down the five long, successive blocks of
+gray stone university buildings which flanked that side of the
+boulevard. John's spirits rose. His last was to be a quarter customer,
+at the least. Then they turned southward and dodged pools of water in
+the muddy street crossings and on the walks for another two squares. She
+halted at a grimy, run-down apartment building and closed the umbrella.
+Thirty-five cents! He opened his mouth to name the fee, but she
+interrupted him.
+
+"Here's the umbrella, little boy." She stepped into the stuffy,
+badly-lighted hallway. "Thank you very much for taking me home."
+
+Before he could say a word of protest, the weather-beaten oak door swung
+to in his face and the lady fled up the stairs.
+
+When he had recovered from his surprise, he stamped angrily in after
+her. What should he do? He wanted that money. He didn't care if she had
+disappeared. He'd ring the bell and keep on ringing it until she
+answered or the batteries gave out. But which bell? The building was
+four-storied, with flats front and rear, and which of the cramped
+apartments did she occupy? And there were dozens of roomers' cards over
+the dusty speaking tubes. To find her was impossible. He had been
+tricked, and tricked nicely, and he might as well go back.
+
+When he was a block from the station the rain changed to a sudden fine
+drizzle and halted. The umbrella business was ended for the afternoon.
+Nevertheless, he had been fairly successful. If that old maid had paid
+what was due him, the small change in his pocket would have totaled a
+dollar and thirty cents. But ninety-five cents wasn't bad, as it was.
+
+He sauntered in from the dark street a few minutes later and stacked the
+dripping umbrellas in the rack in the hallway. Then he burst into the
+kitchen to tell his mother the news.
+
+"What will you do with all that money, son?"
+
+He blinked a moment at the brilliancy of the gas-light, and guessed he'd
+save most of it. At that Mrs. Fletcher smiled, and he grinned sheepishly
+back. She had probably guessed the secret. Mothers had uncanny ways of
+seeing right into fellows, and he might as well tell her now.
+
+"Louise and I are going to be married when I'm twenty-one," he blurted.
+"I'm starting to save now, and she's going to get her mother to teach
+her how to cook beefsteaks and keep house."
+
+Then he ducked from her amused kisses and ran up to his room. Down came
+the pig bank from the resting place on the bureau, and out on the white
+coverlet came the result of his work. Piece by piece the money
+disappeared in the narrow slot, until not even a nickel was left for
+lemon drops at the school store. Then he shook the porker with
+satisfaction. It didn't sound so empty now, and the hungry look seemed
+to have disappeared from the yellow china face. The eyes held an
+expression of sleepy content, if an insensate bit of china could do such
+a thing.
+
+Ninety-six cents was a good start. But he'd have to hustle every minute
+of Saturday morning. The advent of autumn had so discouraged the growth
+of grass on the home street that he would have to invade Southern
+Avenue. Surely he could find some sort of a job on that long,
+well-groomed street.
+
+After breakfast he sneaked off to drag the lawn-mower from its storage
+place in the basement. The rattle and bang of the iron frame against the
+area steps caught Mrs. Fletcher's alert ear. She raised the little
+side-pantry window and looked out as he lifted the implement up on the
+walk.
+
+"John!"
+
+"Yes, Mother?" A sheepish note crept into his voice. "Taking the mower
+out of the basement; that's all."
+
+"Where are you going with it?"
+
+Oh, nowhere in particular. He hoped to earn a little money; that was
+all.
+
+"Is your room picked up?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And the front porch has to be hosed off for Sunday; never mind the
+neighbors until my work's finished, son."
+
+Mothers must have forty-'leven pairs of ears to catch fellows the way
+they did. He stopped to argue with her, but she shook her head
+impatiently.
+
+"That won't do a bit of good, John. You're just wasting time when you're
+talking this way."
+
+She was right. And wasting time meant just so many minutes less in which
+to earn a dollar and four cents. He scampered upstairs and pitched the
+book which had lain under the bed since a certain clandestine
+night-reading session into the case. Next, his odds and ends of clothing
+and ties were thrown on the closet floor with a prayer that they might
+not be discovered before he made his escape. With his bureau top set
+hastily in order, he reported for duty below. Out with the hose-reel and
+up with the nozzle on the porch. A twist of the key, and the water
+spurted forth while his mother watched the procedure in amazement. He
+was taking five minutes for work which consumed twenty-five, ordinarily!
+
+But when the water splashed against the sun-blistered clapboards of the
+veranda wall, his spurt of energy diminished. He adjusted the nozzle
+until the fine spray came from the hose and watched the miniature
+rainbow in the bright sunlight. An earnest spider was repairing a web up
+under the eaves in anticipation of coming storms, and John shifted back
+to the hard stream to dislodge the industrious spinner. The old cat
+trotted around from the back porch and made faces at a squirrel which
+had strayed from the park to enjoy the more munificent bounty which the
+kind-hearted housewives and children on the street offered. He shot the
+quarrel-quelling stream in their direction, and the pair scampered away
+to safety. As yet a good half of the porch was untouched by water, and
+he dropped the hose to the floor with the nozzle pointed toward the
+baseboard, while little rivulets trickled over the dust-strewn boards
+until they joined larger streams, just as the little black river lines
+in his school maps did.
+
+There was a sudden, sharp tapping at the window which fronted the porch.
+Mrs. Fletcher's voice jerked him from the clouds of miniature
+geographical research to the realities of his task.
+
+"John! Half an hour's gone already. Do get the hose reeled up!"
+
+A few hasty strokes of the broom--his mother's best, taken unknown to
+her--obliterated all traces of the water systems, and the hard spray was
+splashed against the windows just long enough to splatter the sashes
+well. The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or
+two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one
+shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to
+find Silvey.
+
+A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An
+ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on
+out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.
+
+"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be
+back until dinner time."
+
+Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have
+to pitch in alone.
+
+Around the corner he went, the mower still beating a noisy tattoo over
+the pavement, past the big new apartment building with flats which
+actually rented for a hundred dollars a month, and down to the long row
+of older houses, erected when land was cheap, and set far back from the
+walk; still on past foot after foot of trim grass plots, through a
+mud-puddle in the street which held more water than was good for the
+already rusty blades, and across to the opposite sidewalk before he
+found a prospect of employment.
+
+He swung back the gate and tiptoed up the weathered steps. The window
+shades were down and the cobwebs hung thick on the porch railings and
+under the eaves. Yet the place was occupied, for he had noticed a
+homeless cat dragging an unsavory meal from a well-filled garbage pail
+at the side. He rang the bell once, twice, thrice, before the door
+opened.
+
+"Want the lawn cut?" he asked of the wrinkled, tremulous dame who faced
+him.
+
+She shook her head, angry at being disturbed. He walked down the walk
+mournfully.
+
+It was clear that there was no revenue to be gained this day. So he
+turned toward the home street and dropped the mower into the area way
+just loudly enough to bring Mrs. Fletcher to the side window.
+
+"That you, son? Run up to the corner and get some lamb chops, that's a
+good boy." She tossed him a half-dollar. "And get ready for dinner when
+you come back."
+
+He set off thoughtfully, for the problem of earning still annoyed him.
+He hated to fall down on the newly made resolution the very first week.
+If it were only winter and a heavy snow falling! Then he'd make money
+quickly enough, but in late autumn--why folks wanted to walk to the
+corner for groceries themselves because the tang in the clear, snappy
+weather made the errand enjoyable!
+
+As the door of the butcher shop closed behind him, he saw Shultz, leader
+of the "Jeffersons" and sworn enemy, tugging at a heavy suitcase as he
+struggled to keep pace with the athletic young lady to whom it belonged.
+
+Why couldn't he do likewise? Three ten-cent suitcase jobs would bring
+his capital to a dollar and twenty-four cents, and that was better than
+nothing.
+
+As soon as he had eaten, he left the house on the trot for the suburban
+station, where he had seen his football rival. He waited in front of the
+three iron turnstiles, now dancing up and down, now watching the ants in
+a hill which was forming between two paving blocks, and now scanning the
+thrice reread headlines of the papers on the unpainted news stand by the
+station entrance. A gentleman came with golf sticks bound for the park
+links; there came ladies innumerable who had been delayed on their
+shopping expedition--and still no sign of employment. Locals came and
+went, and expresses followed on twenty-minute runs until his memory
+failed in counting them, before a puffy, white-moustached gentleman in
+tweeds grunted a noisy passage down the platform steps.
+
+"Satchel carried, sir?"
+
+"How far is it to the hotel."
+
+John explained. The traveler should have left the train at the station
+three blocks to the south. But it wasn't so very far, even at that.
+"Shall I carry it for you?" he concluded.
+
+The man nodded jerkily and paused to light a cigarette. As they left,
+Shultz sauntered up and stood aghast at this invasion of his territory.
+
+"Hey!" he ejaculated finally.
+
+John held his course, grip in either hand. He was a little nervous, but
+his business rival dared not take revenge while his patron was with him.
+After that--well, he guessed he could take care of himself if that
+"tough"--a term of endearment used by the "Tigers"--bothered him.
+
+A lapse of ten minutes found him fingering a quarter as he stood on the
+broad hotel steps. Would he go back, when such fees were in prospect?
+You bet. That dirty-faced kid had no mortgage on the place. He'd like to
+see any trouble between them. He would call out the "Tigers," he would!
+
+Shultz was pacing up and down in front of the station when John came up.
+The expression on his face was far from pleasant, and the boy began to
+regret his fit of bravado. But shucks, that tough wouldn't dare do
+anything. He stopped at the turnstiles once more, and Shultz glared at
+him angrily.
+
+"What you trying to do?"
+
+John explained. He wanted to make a little pocket money.
+
+"Well you can't here. G'wan home before I smash your face!"
+
+"Won't," stubbornly. "Got just as much right as you here."
+
+There was a pause. "Well are you going?" asked the "Jefferson's"
+captain.
+
+"No!"
+
+"I'll make you." He advanced, fists doubled. They circled around and
+around on the pavement, each looking for an opening through the other's
+guard. Suddenly the bigger boy lunged forward and his fist went true to
+the mark--John's nose. They sparred again, now feinting forward, now
+stepping backward, like two young turkey cocks. A tall, blue-clad,
+brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz raised the alarm.
+
+"Cheese it, the cop!"
+
+They broke for cover, each in the direction of home and parental
+protection, while the guardian of the peace stood and laughed at the
+fleeing figures.
+
+Once well down the street, John pulled up, panting, and rubbed his nose.
+That kid had certainly hit it. The organ hurt like the mischief, and
+felt as if it were three sizes too big. He hoped it wouldn't be like
+that at school, Monday.
+
+He heard a familiar voice, "Hello!"
+
+He turned quickly. Louise, and at this, of all times!
+
+"What you been doing?" She looked at his face curiously.
+
+He forced a smile. "Fight, that's all."
+
+"Did he hurt you much?"
+
+"Only here." John pointed to the injured appendage and added, "Gee, you
+ought to see him. Black eye, and his lip's bleeding something fierce!"
+His lady must never know that he came out second best in the battle.
+
+Suddenly he turned a-tremble from the reaction of his feelings. He
+wished his feminine playmate down town, over in the park, any place
+where she couldn't talk to him. He wanted to get home, to have mother's
+gentle hands lay cooling bandages on his nose, and his eyes began to
+fill with tears. For in spite of his air of defiance, he had been beaten
+and the knowledge stung him into a poignant longing for sympathy.
+
+Louise, with the intuition of her sex, changed the subject.
+
+"Look what I've got," she held a brown package at arm's length. "Sugar
+from the grocer's. Mother's going to teach me how to bake, this
+afternoon. Want to watch?"
+
+He nodded gratefully and went with her to the flat where that memorable
+party had been held. In the airy kitchen, Mrs. Martin instructed Louise
+in the mysteries of mixing flour, spices, and molasses into that sticky
+mass which composes the dough for delicious, old-fashioned gingerbread.
+John stood at the young lady's side and watched dreamily. Just wait
+until he had that thousand dollars saved and could rent a kitchen of his
+own!
+
+After the mixture was poured into the pan, the two children, spoons in
+hand, scraped the mixing dish of its residue of uncooked delicacy, and
+decided that the effort would prove a huge success.
+
+"Wait until it's baked," said Louise, "and you can have a piece."
+
+John was transported into a seventh heaven of ecstasy, and followed her
+into the parlor. They sat on the floor and played dominoes while the
+minutes flew past.
+
+"That's five games for me," Louise broke out exultantly. John nodded and
+gazed listlessly around the room. On the bottom shelf of the magazine
+table was a red and black checkerboard.
+
+"Let's play that," he pointed with one grimy finger.
+
+Louise demurred. "I don't know how."
+
+"I'll teach you," her victim said eagerly. So she did penance for her
+victories until Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway and smiled down at
+them.
+
+"Come, kiddies. It's ready now."
+
+They broke for the kitchen in a wild dash, leaving boards and men on the
+carpet as they had finished with them.
+
+Half an hour later, John sauntered into the house, his hat cocked
+exultantly over one ear, and his mouth redolent of savory spices. He
+heard voices in the dining-room and stuck his head in between the
+portières.
+
+"That you, John?" asked his mother. "Where on earth have you been?"
+
+"Up at Louise's." His spirits were too high to notice the admonitory
+note in her voice. "She baked a cake all by herself, and when it was
+done, I had a great big piece. And Mother," his voice rose proudly at
+the memory of that effort, "it was better'n any ginger cake you ever
+made in all your life!"
+
+When he had placed his napkin in his ring and gone out on the front
+porch, Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband and her husband smiled back
+at her.
+
+"The little imp," she murmured finally.
+
+But it was the first foretaste of the time when another woman should
+dispossess her of her son's love, and she liked this touch in the
+childish comedy not at all.
+
+[Illustration: "16-31-4-7-82-6-21----"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HE SAVES FOR "FOUR ROOMS FURNISHED COMPLETE"
+
+
+The early Sunday church bells roused him to consciousness that the clear
+autumn sunlight was streaming in through the east window. The other
+members of the family were as yet not awake, so he stretched lazily and
+recalled, incident by incident, that blissful afternoon with Louise. How
+pretty she had looked when she had opened the oven door, and how
+delighted she had been when he had sampled and approved her first
+gingerbread! It almost atoned for the defeats at dominoes.
+
+He rolled over. There stood the pig bank on the bureau, staring down at
+him with an air which said, plainly as if spoken, "John Fletcher, you're
+a failure. Two dollars was your goal for the week. There's but a dollar
+and twenty-nine cents in me. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+Nor would it allow his conscience to rest during the hours which
+followed. Louise had accepted an invitation to feed the squirrels in the
+park that afternoon, so he begged a nickel from his father for peanuts
+and rushed in to his mirror to see if his face needed washing. There was
+the four-footed caricature to insinuate that he might better be thinking
+of means to increase his weekly income, instead of squandering money on
+fat, saucy park squirrels.
+
+He was beginning to hate the bit of china. Why hadn't he purchased
+instead a mail-box bank that owned no such accusing eyes?
+
+Not until after supper, when he threw himself on the bed to face, for
+the first time, the problem of earning a steady weekly income, did the
+yellow, glazed features cease to trouble him.
+
+He stared thoughtfully at the flicker of the gas rays against the wavy
+markings in the ceiling paper for some minutes. How was a boy to earn
+money? What were the channels of revenue by which the "Jefferson
+Toughs," Shultz and his ilk, made pitiful contributions to the family
+war fund against the enemies of fuel, food, and clothing bills?
+
+Shultz sold papers. Very well, John Fletcher would do likewise. If
+twenty papers were sold daily, a weekly revenue of forty-eight cents
+would come from that source. The allowance from his father would bring
+the amount up to, say, seventy-five cents. Could he hope for five
+errands a week from the neighbors? That would make a dollar and a
+quarter. But where, oh, where, was the other money to come from?
+
+In any case, hard, persistent work, man's work, lay before him and it
+must be done in a man's way. No more tops, marbles, "Run, sheep, run,"
+or even snow fights! The thousand dollars which meant a home was to be
+earned by his twenty-first birthday, and such trivialities might delay
+the achievement of that heart's desire.
+
+The first test of the resolution came within the next twenty-four hours.
+As the pupils formed in line for the afternoon, he fingered a dime in
+his pocket repeatedly, for the coin represented the investment for his
+first newspaper venture. In the school yard Silvey darted up to him.
+
+"Oh, John-e-e-e!"
+
+"Yes," said John, not greatly enthusiastic over the hail.
+
+"It's open practice at the university today. Red and me are going. It'll
+be the biggest game, next Saturday, and, Jiminy, you ought to watch the
+quarter-back kick! Come along?"
+
+John shook his head regretfully. Too well he knew the joys which awaited
+them within the big enclosure with its towering bleachers. Hadn't he
+haunted the gate for just such opportunities, last year? Hadn't Bill and
+he discovered a hole in the fence and laid plans to see one of the early
+games by its aid? And hadn't an unfeeling freshman emptied a bucket of
+water as he had crawled half through the opening? But the dime in his
+pocket was a reminder of last week's procrastinating failure.
+
+"Can't," said he finally.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Got to work--sell papers."
+
+Silvey stared, scarcely believing his ears. John scuffed the school walk
+with one sadly abused shoe.
+
+"You see," he went on reflectively, "I've got to have a thousand dollars
+by the time I'm twenty-one."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Get married."
+
+"That girl again!" Bill ejaculated scornfully. "Aw, come on, Johnny.
+Just once won't hurt."
+
+"No," retorted John firmly. "I've got to act like a man now. I haven't
+any more time for kid foolishness!"
+
+"Kid foolishness!" repeated Silvey in awe-struck tones, as his chum
+turned and walked rapidly away, "kid foolishness! Gee!"
+
+As for John, he was finding hidden sweets in the new vocation. Never had
+Silvey's eyes held such astounded respect as they had at that moment.
+
+Shultz lived in a brown brick, ramshackle tenement diagonally opposite
+the apartments in which the gang had found shelter that day of the
+cucumber fight. Once, the flats had been advertised as being the utmost
+in modern conveniences, but that had been in the days when the park
+museum was glorified as an exposition building. Since then, a long
+succession of tenants had scented the dark, badly lighted corridors with
+a variety of garlicky odors, and the rentals had been lowered until only
+the most necessary repairs could be afforded to keep the building in
+order. So there the block stood, making a tawdry front with small, and
+often-remodeled stores, as it waited for one of the numerous small fires
+which were always starting to consume it.
+
+Shultz was playing on the walk in front of the grimy main entrance. It
+was John's purpose to learn the hour of arrival for the newspaper wagon,
+and whatever other information on news vending the boy might be willing
+to give. His erstwhile enemy doubled both fists as he crossed the road.
+
+"Want another bloody nose?"
+
+John raised an open palm as a token of peace. "When's the wagon drive
+up?"
+
+The ex-captain of the "Jefferson's" looked at him suspiciously. "What do
+you want to know for?"
+
+"Sell papers. What do you s'pose?"
+
+"Old man lost his job?" There could be but one motive for engaging in
+the paper business according to his simple mind.
+
+John thought a moment. It was all very well to tell his chum of the
+cause for the sudden desire for money, but not this boy. The love affair
+would be all over school by morning recess. He nodded, taking the
+easiest way out of the dilemma.
+
+"Had a fight with his boss," the would-be merchant invented boldly,
+throwing plausibility to the winds. "Came home last night, crying like
+everything. There isn't enough to eat, and we have to pay the gas bill,
+so I'm going to work."
+
+All enmity vanished instantly. The pair were comrades in misfortune, and
+as such John was to be aided in every possible way.
+
+"Joe'll be around in half an hour," Shultz explained generously. "Stay
+here with me and I'll tell him you're a new kid, and fix things up. How
+many are you going to buy?"
+
+"Dime's worth."
+
+"Think you can sell 'em all?"
+
+"Easy."
+
+Shultz studied him for a moment and decided that the novice had better
+learn the vicissitudes of the business through bitter experience. John
+wasn't the kind to take advice, anyway.
+
+At last the green, one-horse cart pulled up by the delicatessen at the
+side of the old apartments. The boys crowded up to the wagon step.
+Shultz surrendered a nickel for his nightly quota of eight papers and
+pointed to his pupil.
+
+"New kid, Joe."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"John."
+
+"All right, John, how many?"
+
+He reached up the dime and received a neat bundle of papers in return.
+The other boy left to make deliveries to established customers, while
+John dashed exultantly over to the railroad station. He was a real paper
+boy now. The news sheets under his arm proved that.
+
+An incoming suburban train pulled in at the platform overhead. Steam
+hissed from the pistons, and the first few puffs of locomotive smoke
+arose as the engine got under way again. Then came the pound, pound,
+pound of a multitude of feet as the weary, scurrying passengers made the
+turnstiles click continuously. John opened his mouth to call his wares.
+
+"Pa--a--"
+
+A man with a red necktie glanced down at him. The rest of the word
+became inaudible. What was the matter with his voice, anyway? There was
+nothing to be ashamed of in selling papers. The policeman wouldn't
+arrest him. Again he forced a shout, and practiced until he could yell
+at the top of his lungs like an old hand at the game.
+
+The last saffron tint of the autumn sun faded from the western sky.
+Lights appeared one by one in the windows of the flat buildings and
+glistened like jewels in the fast gathering dusk. The store windows on
+either side of the street cast brilliant reflections far across the
+macadam. The lamplighter, speeding from post to post on a bicycle,
+paused long enough to leave a flickering beacon on the corner, then sped
+away with his long torch over one shoulder. Trains came and went.
+Business men in well-tailored, immaculate suits walked briskly past.
+Weak arched clerks with home pressed trousers slouched wearily along.
+Chattering women innumerable scurried by on the walk. His dollar watch
+showed a quarter past six in the light from the ticket office window and
+John counted his papers.
+
+Eleven on hand and five paltry coppers in his right trousers' pocket.
+Caught with an overstock! Not only had the prospective profits vanished,
+but a deficiency impended as well. He began to understand the cause of
+Shultz's question--and supper impended.
+
+He snatched a moment under the light from the street lamp to glance at
+the funny sheet, for the excitement of the new occupation had prevented
+such amusement earlier in the afternoon. As he unfolded a copy, a
+glaring headline on the first page held his attention.
+
+Again the turnstiles clicked, and again came the shifting crowd. But
+John Fletcher was not on the station corner to vend his wares. Instead,
+that small boy was legging it westward as fast as he could go. Past the
+school, past the row of dilapidated houses which lay beyond, past the
+plank-walled football grounds and the last of the gray stone,
+many-windowed university buildings, into the residence district which he
+had marked as his goal.
+
+This section of the city was so far removed from the railroad station
+that the inhabitants made use of the slower street car lines to take
+them to and fro from work. Frank Smith, bookkeeper in a wholesale house,
+would be still on his way home, and this difference between the
+expensive fifteen-minute train service, and the fifty-five minutes of
+the more plebeian surface system was all that made his plan feasible.
+What would Mrs. Smith know of the day's news occurrences?
+
+He waited until his panting grew less violent before he sauntered down
+the gas lit, unpretentious street, with a cry of,
+
+"Extry paper! All about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-per
+here. Extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e!"
+
+Heads became silhouetted in numerous windows as their owners tried to
+catch his words.
+
+"A-a-all about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-a-per!"
+
+A door swung back, releasing a flood of light against the unkempt front
+lawn of a two-story cottage. John dashed up the shaky steps.
+
+"Extry, lady? All about the big murder?"
+
+She nodded and handed him a penny. The boy looked at it scornfully.
+
+"Extras are a nickel!"
+
+"But the paper's marked 'one cent.'"
+
+"S'pose it would pay," his voice was as grave as a financier's,
+discussing a huge stock transfer, "to chase all over and miss supper,
+just to make three cents on eight papers? No, lady, price is a nickel.
+Always is."
+
+He held out his hand. The woman capitulated and went back into the house
+for the stipulated coin.
+
+The sale wiped out the deficit and made an even break on the venture,
+the worst to be feared. Selling extras which were not extras to people
+who thought they were was proving a most profitable undertaking. He
+resumed his stroll down the street.
+
+"Extra-e-e-e paper here! South Side family murdered! Extry paper! Extry,
+extry, extre-e-e-e!"
+
+Every fourth or fifth residence yielded its toll to the grewsome lure.
+At last but one newspaper remained. He redoubled his vocal efforts.
+
+A woman, her arms full of grocery packages, stopped him and fumbled in
+her purse. Across the street, a whistle sounded. He dropped the nickel
+into his pocket, gave over the last of the troublesome sheets, and
+started for home. Again came the whistle. He made a trumpet of his hands
+and bellowed "Sold out" as he turned the corner. If he had only more
+copies! At least sixty could have been sold.
+
+Nevertheless, fifty cents for the pig bank--a dime was to be reserved
+for the morrow's capital--wasn't bad. Surely the other dollar and a half
+could be saved by the end of the week. Earning a thousand dollars was as
+easy as rolling off a log.
+
+John kissed his mother good-bye in high good humor, as he left for
+school in the morning. She watched him for a moment as he danced along
+the gusty, wind-swept street, and went in to sit by the parlor grate for
+a few moments. Hardly had she opened her magazine when the front
+door-bell rang, and the neighbor from across the way stood on the
+threshold, panting and very much excited.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Fletcher," she shrilled in her acrid tones. "Do tell me
+all about it!"
+
+Her hostess led her into the parlor and drew up a companion chair before
+the fire. "About what?" she asked.
+
+"About Mr. Fletcher." The neighbor warmed her hands a moment before the
+dancing flames, while Mrs. Fletcher looked a mute inquiry.
+
+"Mrs. Shultz, she's my washerwoman," went on the thin, nasal voice,
+"said this morning that John had told her little boy he had to sell
+papers because your husband had had trouble with his employer and had
+lost his position." She would have added further details as to the
+straits the Fletchers were supposed to be in, if something in that
+lady's manner had not prevented her.
+
+"So I said to Mrs. Leland, next door," concluded the neighbor from
+across the way, "that I hoped things were not as bad as they seemed, and
+that I'd run right over to ask you."
+
+"John told _what_?" asked that youngster's mother, now that the verbal
+torrent had halted.
+
+The story was repeated. Mrs. Fletcher broke into relieved laughter.
+"I'll have to interview that son of mine when he gets home," she said as
+she leaned forward to explain matters.
+
+But when John did appear, his mother was far more lenient with him than
+he had any right to expect. She was still too amused at the turn of
+affairs to be anything else.
+
+Two weeks sped past. In spite of the success of that first paper
+venture, the lesson was not lost upon John, who recruited a dozen or so
+regular customers from among his mother's friends the next afternoon.
+Since then, thanks to persistent effort, the list had steadily grown
+until he was able to double his first day's order without danger of
+financial loss. The errands for the neighbors had not materialized to
+swell his income, nor had other umbrella days followed the first one.
+But indeed, the paper route occupied too much of his time to permit such
+side issues.
+
+His minimum income was now at the respectable mark of a dollar and
+seventeen cents a week and still growing. At first, the thought that he
+was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he
+remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year
+from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!
+
+"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when
+that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak,
+overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't
+accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner
+was singularly convincing.
+
+Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her
+from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the
+park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the
+science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch,
+tomorrow."
+
+He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers
+spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?
+
+Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang
+it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which
+was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his
+afternoons?
+
+Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
+Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy
+streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small
+boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were
+returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store
+window caught his eye.
+
+Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the
+walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a
+dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped
+around it.
+
+He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently,
+as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.
+
+"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to _three hundred and sixty-five
+dollars_."
+
+He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser
+and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on
+them! Then came the appalling thought: _"How far would a thousand
+dollars last with such prices?"_
+
+All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on
+the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected
+problem. If bedroom furniture _alone_ cost that much and the pictures
+and carpet were still to be paid for, the total would at least be four
+hundred and fifty dollars. The parlor should cost even more, for chairs,
+a sofa, and a reading table were to be placed in it. As for the
+dining-room, he shrank from a consideration of that expense! And there
+were dishes and books and silverware! Two thousand dollars was the least
+he could expect his five furnished rooms to cost, and he had considered
+half that amount sufficient for all expenses. Newly married folks
+usually took honeymoon trips, too. He groaned. Would he ever earn enough
+to marry Louise?
+
+Thanksgiving drew nearer. At school, on the Wednesday immediately
+preceding, the chosen few who were Miss Brown's personal aides, stayed
+after school at noon to decorate the room for the entertainment to be
+given at a quarter of two. Her desk was backed against the wall, and the
+cornstalks used by the drawing class as models for their efforts, were
+grouped against it to form a background for the impassioned actors. A
+supply of pumpkins, gourds, and other autumnal fruits of the earth,
+borrowed by the teacher from the grocer with whom her mother traded,
+gave still greater festivity to the room.
+
+There was no need of roll call. Every child was there, for they were too
+much interested to absent themselves.
+
+Miss Brown gave a brief history of the origin of the day. A little girl
+whose pink dress clashed violently with her red hair and freckled
+complexion, followed with a rendition of a doleful poem beginning:
+
+    Only a grain of corn, Moth_ur_,
+    Only a grain of corn.
+
+Then the class sang one of the songs in the fourth-grade music book and
+settled back expectantly, for the feature piece of the afternoon.
+
+Silvey and Red Brown dragged a long, green curtain along a wire which
+ran from one side of the room to the other, until the platform was
+hidden from the room's eager gaze. A scurry of gray calico came from the
+coat closet which served as the green room for the amateur actors. A
+boy, muffled mysteriously in a long cloak, followed. Miss Brown gave a
+last look to see that the stage was properly arranged, and the curtain
+was pulled back against the wall again.
+
+[Illustration: _It was Sid and Louise!_]
+
+It was Sid and Louise! He'd thrown aside the long cloak (insisted upon
+because he'd feel like a fool if the class saw him in costume while
+waiting for the play to begin), and stood forth in high, paper cuffs
+hiding his coat sleeves well up to his elbows, and a queerly shaped,
+high-buckled hat which threatened to slide down over his ears at any
+moment. Louise, in a Priscilla gray gown, waited for the pilgrim father
+to begin his lines. The class applauded wildly, for the spirit of make
+believe threw them back into those tempestuous early days along the
+Atlantic Coast.
+
+John heard not a word of the scenes which followed. He was sorely
+disturbed. There was Sid on the platform with his beloved, waving his
+arms back and forth in fervid, pump-handle motions which Louise seemed
+to mind not a bit. Hang it all, that kid must be trying to cut him out!
+But he'd show him. Just wait until his thousand dollars was earned.
+
+Then his calculations of that Saturday evening came back to throw an icy
+feeling into the pit of his stomach. What right had he to hope when
+housefurnishings were at such a figure?
+
+Mrs. Fletcher set him to picking the pinfeathers from the turkey when he
+came in from his paper route that night. He turned to with a gusto,
+mindful of the culinary treats which were to come, and blissfully
+conscious of four long holidays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
+in which he could sleep as late as he wanted--besides, he could see a
+little more of Louise. He didn't like the way she had acted on the
+platform. Perhaps he had been a little neglectful, but just wait a few
+years. Then he'd--but the thought of that costly furniture put an end to
+his dreams.
+
+Thanksgiving morning he haunted the kitchen incessantly, dancing now to
+the little pantry to swing back the doors and feast his eyes on the huge
+mince pie which waited on the bottom shelf, and then back to the kitchen
+where he pestered his mother with innumerable questions until she drove
+him out into the snappy, late November air. He scampered up to Bill's
+house, where the two boys retired to the chilly seclusion of the shack
+and compared notes.
+
+"We've got a fifteen-pound turkey," said John boastfully.
+
+"That's nothing," Silvey dug scornfully into the hard dirt floor with
+his heel. "You ought to see ours. Twenty pounds, and my, such a big
+fellow! Cranberry sauce an' roast potatoes, an' squash to go with him.
+Umm-m-m."
+
+"So've we," retorted John, undaunted by this itemized account. "Your
+turkey may be bigger'n ours, but it won't taste as good, for my ma (he'd
+forgotten his assertion regarding Louise) is the best cook in the whole
+world and there isn't anyone can beat her."
+
+Certain empty pangs in nature's alarm clock brought him home half an
+hour early to inquire about dinner. He was most starved to death.
+Wouldn't mother hurry it up? Mother couldn't--expert cookery was not to
+be hurried. He'd better go out again for a while.
+
+Instead, he carried the morning paper into the parlor and lounged in the
+big easy chair. The minutes slipped past as he devoured news items, the
+fiction supplement, and miraculous patent medicine announcements with
+amusing impartiality. He turned to an inner page and found a huge
+advertisement staring him in the face. At the top, floated a streamer
+with the legend, "You furnish the girl, we furnish the house!" Further
+down the page were furniture bargains innumerable, for sale on a plan of
+"One dollar down, seventy-five cents per week," and in the center,
+between heavy rules, was the announcement, "Four rooms, furnished
+complete, only ninety-five dollars!"
+
+"John," called his father from the dining-room. "Come to dinner!"
+
+He threw the paper from him in sudden exultation, and danced in to the
+dining-table. His eye took in each detail of the evenly browned national
+bird, the long, slender stalks of celery in the dainty china dish, the
+deep-red cranberry jelly, the appetizing roasted potatoes, and the
+golden squash, and he smiled happily.
+
+"Jiminy, that looks good, Mother!" He plumped into his seat. "Hurry up,
+dad, I'm most ready to eat the house!"
+
+But through his brain, as he attacked a third helping of turkey and its
+accessories, there still ran the exultant echo of "Four rooms, furnished
+complete, only ninety-five dollars!"
+
+Thus did the day become a real Thanksgiving to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CONCERNS SANTA CLAUS MOSTLY
+
+
+At early dusk of the Friday holiday, he scampered to a hiding place
+underneath a house porch while Sid DuPree, his face buried in his arms,
+stood against a tree trunk and counted "Five hundred by five" as rapidly
+as he could. But as the cry of "Coming" echoed between the closely built
+houses, John's conscience suddenly robbed him of all the pleasure in the
+game of "Hide and seek." An afternoon of suitcase jobs had been
+frittered away, and the paper wagon was due in another fifteen minutes.
+So he withdrew reluctantly to haunt the walk in front of the
+delicatessen store and wonder that the work upon which he had entered
+with such gusto was becoming so irksome.
+
+A sharp, long-delayed touch of winter had crept into the air the night
+before, and set his toes to tingling as he drew his blue, knitted
+stocking cap further over his ears. He scampered along the petrified
+lawns on the paper route until the last news sheet was delivered, then
+blew lustily on his black mittens to warm his numbed fingers as he
+started for home. There, under the cheerful influence of the glowing
+parlor grate, he waited lazily until the last trace of tingling had left
+his hands, and spread a copy of the evening paper out on the carpet
+before him.
+
+[Illustration: _Christmas dreams._]
+
+First he looked at the cartoon on the front page, and then at the
+grotesque drawings on the back sheet comic section. Those finished, he
+returned to the first page, where an account of a ghastly train wreck
+held him spellbound. Searching on an inner page for the rest of the
+narrative, he came across a department store's advertisement which
+banished all thoughts of mangled victims and splintered cars from his
+mind.
+
+"Beginning tomorrow, Santa Claus will be in his little house in our
+greatly enlarged fifth-floor Toyland to greet each and all of his
+friends. See the animated bunnies and the blacksmith shop in the Brownie
+Village, and the wonderful display of toys of every description which
+Santa has gathered for the delight of the children." There followed
+enticing cuts of toys with even more alluring descriptions and, alas!
+oftentimes prohibitive prices.
+
+Thanks to the paper business, the holiday season had crept up almost
+unnoticed. Santa was an exploded myth, these years, but the stereotyped
+cut of the jovial, fat-cheeked saint at the top of the page brought John
+a thrill of anticipation, nevertheless. Christmas was coming. What did
+he want?
+
+After supper, he rummaged in the library until he found his mother's box
+of best stationery. He drew a few sheets and several envelopes from the
+neat container, and sat down at his father's big writing desk to begin
+his series of Christmas letters to certain responsive relatives. These
+favored ones heard from him regularly four times a year--before his
+birthday, before Christmas, and as soon after each of these feast days
+as his mother could force letters of acknowledgment from him. John
+dipped the pen too deeply into the inkwell, and wiped his finger tips
+dry on his trousers. Then he began,
+
+"Dear Aunt Clara: I hope you are well. The weather is fine but getting
+cold. Christmas is coming so I thought I would write you. I want--"
+
+He paused for reflection. Bill Silvey had been given a toy electric
+motor, last year. It was now in the juvenile scrap heap, thanks to an
+attempt to harness the bit of machinery to the powerful lighting current
+in Sid's house, but it had been delight indescribable to swing the
+little switch and watch the armature gain momentum until it hummed like
+a bee. So the first of his desires ran, "Motor, electric. Batteries,
+too."
+
+Last year, Bill and he had built a shaky bob for use on the park
+toboggan, only to have a collision with a park water hydrant, used for
+flooding the field, and the remains of the sleds had gone to their
+respective family woodpiles. So down went, "Sled, coaster, with round
+runners."
+
+The descriptive bit was to eliminate any possibility of getting a high,
+useless girl's sled, which would go to pieces in less than no time.
+
+As he thought of each article he wrote, "Hockey skates. My old ones are
+rusted. A knife. Mine's lost." And last, but not least, "Books, lots of
+them."
+
+That exhausted his list of needs. There were a thousand other things
+which he knew he wanted if he could only think of them, but the
+innumerable boyish desires which had arisen since his birthday in June
+had fled, and, try as he would, he could recall none of them. As a last
+desperate resort, he scrawled a concluding "Anything else useful," and
+signed it, "Your loving nephew, John."
+
+Saturday, an errant breeze from the east veiled the clear starlight of
+the early evening as if by magic, and by morning had marshaled long,
+heavy rows of slate-hued clouds which drove over the city from the lake.
+The temperature, too, rose above the freezing point and gave the only
+boy in the Fletcher household a chance to bank the ever-hungry furnace,
+and shut off all draughts. He employed his respite in a blissful perusal
+of the double-page advertisements in the Sunday paper.
+
+Toys, hundreds of them! The department stores vied with each other in
+the profusion of their offerings. Illustrations of "William Tell
+Banks--drop penny in bank and Tell shoots apple from son's
+head"--mechanical engines which sped around three-foot circles of track
+until any human engineer would become dizzy; sleds of every description
+from humble ones at fifty cents to long, elaborately enameled speed
+kings with spring-steel runners, and games in innumerable variety, made
+him read and reread the alluring pages until his eyes ached.
+
+He sighed and looked up dreamily. The moisture-laden clouds from the
+east had borne out the newspaper forecast of "probably snow flurries,"
+and he jumped to the window.
+
+Heavy, feathery flakes were swirling earthward with the vagaries of the
+air currents. Here they eddied out from between the houses to disappear
+on the shining black macadam of the street and sidewalks, there they
+gave a momentary touch of white to the brown, frost-bitten lawns as a
+prophecy of that which was yet to come. In front of the Alfords',
+Silvey, Perry, and Sid, danced back and forth with shouts of laughter as
+they tried to catch the elusive bits of white. He would have joined
+them, but an ache in his stomach told that dinner was near, so he
+returned from his vantage point with a cry of "Mother! Mother! Mother!
+It's getting Christmasier every minute!"
+
+Nor did the Spirit of the Holidays allow his interest to lessen during
+the days when the advertisements lost their fascination through
+monotonous repetition. As he and Bill ran home at noon one day, a
+quartette of men with bulging, gray denim bags on their shoulders, left
+big yellow envelopes on each and every house porch of the street. They
+were rigidly impartial in their work, and John dashed up the steps of
+that same vacant house which the boys had held that day with the pea
+shooters.
+
+"Look!" he cried, drawing the gaudy pamphlet from the manila casing.
+"It's the _Toy Book_, Silvey!"
+
+The _Toy Book_ had been issued since time immemorial by one of the down
+town stores, and its yearly visit made it something of an institution
+among the juveniles of the street. On the cover, a red-coated,
+rosy-cheeked Saint Nick, with a toy-filled pack, was descending a
+snow-capped chimney while his reindeer cavorted in the background. On
+the back were rows of dainty pink, blue, and green clad dolls with
+flaxen ringlets and staring, china eyes--trash which interested John not
+at all. Why didn't they put engines and sleds and worth-while things
+there?
+
+"Come on, Bill," he said suddenly. "Let's collect 'em."
+
+They waited until the distributors were too far down the street to
+interfere, and sneaked up and down the house steps with careful
+thoroughness. As the bundles under the two boyish arms were becoming
+heavy, Mrs. Fletcher darted out by the lamppost in front of the house
+and beckoned to John vigorously. He left Bill with a show of regret, for
+the dozen odd copies under his arm were far less than he would have
+liked.
+
+Louise sauntered home with him after school that day. As they passed
+Southern Avenue, the lady's gaze rested on a muddy object in the street
+gutter, and John stooped to pick it up. Torn, disfigured with
+innumerable heel marks and wagon wheels, the battered bundle of paper
+was all that remained of a Christmas booklet.
+
+"Oh!" said Louise in surprise.
+
+"Didn't you get one?"
+
+She shook her head. Evidently other boys at her end of the street had
+emulated John and Bill.
+
+"Tells all about toys," he volunteered. "I'll bring you one with the
+paper, if you want."
+
+She thanked him and dropped the ruin regretfully. Those dolls on the
+back cover were so enticing.
+
+"Aren't you glad Christmas is coming?" John asked. "Gee, I wish it was
+day after tomorrow."
+
+Louise nodded.
+
+"What do you want for Christmas?" he pursued.
+
+She didn't know. "A doll--"
+
+"A doll!" he interrupted in disgust. What did she want with dolls? They
+would be of no use when she had grown up.
+
+"Yes, a doll," said Louise decidedly. John feigned placating approval.
+"And doll clothes," she went on, "and new hair ribbons and things for my
+dresses, and lots and lots of other presents. What do you want?"
+
+He told her briefly. "But that isn't half," he concluded, as they
+loitered on the apartment steps. "I'm trying to think of the others all
+the time. Jiminy!" with a glance at his watch, "I'd better be going.
+I've got work to do."
+
+But there were no interviews with prospective newspaper customers that
+afternoon. After John had started the parlor grate for his mother, he
+fell under the spell of one of the wonder-books and scanned page after
+page of the illustrations until Mrs. Fletcher interrupted him.
+
+"Aren't you going to deliver your papers, son? It's a quarter of five
+now."
+
+What a pest the paper route was getting to be, always demanding his
+attention just as he wanted to do something else. He rose to his feet
+and stretched both arms to take the cramps out of them, pitched the
+booklet into a corner of the hall, and dashed to the closet for his coat
+and mittens.
+
+After the evening meal, John brought out another of his store of gaudy
+toy books and went into the parlor. His father, following a few moments
+later, looked down at the little figure on the carpet before the fire,
+and smiled.
+
+"What is it, son?"
+
+The boy raised his head, brown eyes a-dream with visions of automobiles,
+steam engines, and hook and ladder outfits.
+
+"Looking at this," he explained.
+
+Mr. Fletcher drew up the big, easy armchair which he liked so well, and
+lifted him into his lap. A moment later, the two heads, the old and the
+young, bent over the picture-laden pages.
+
+"Look, daddy." John pointed to a locomotive with pedals and a seated cab
+for a youthful engineer. "I saw one, once. All red and shiny, with a
+black smokestack. And the bell really rings."
+
+"But don't you think that's too much money for a toy?"
+
+The boy nodded reluctantly. "Still, it's such lots of fun to just _wish_
+for things, even though you know you can't have them."
+
+The strong arms tightened about him tenderly for a moment. As they
+relaxed, John turned the leaves back rapidly.
+
+"Let's begin at the very beginning," he explained, then rapped the first
+page petulantly. "Nothing but dolls and dolls and more dolls," as a
+procession of things dear to the feminine heart passed by; "and doll
+bathtubs and dishes and other sissy things." He bent forward suddenly.
+
+"That's better. A 'lectric railroad. Let's take your pencil." He marked
+an irregular cross beside the illustration. "And here come the sleds.
+Lots of them aren't so very 'spensive. And banks," he smiled. "I guess
+mine's big enough, isn't it, daddy?"
+
+Mr. Fletcher joined in the smile. Indeed until he had seen that porker
+safe on his son's bureau, he had no idea that so large a china animal
+existed. The boy broke in on his thoughts excitedly.
+
+"Punch and Judys!" His memory swept back to the raftered hall and
+Professor O'Reilley's performance. "They're such fun, and they don't
+cost very much. If I had one, I wouldn't spend any money on those shows,
+either."
+
+His father chuckled at the bit of juvenile diplomacy. "You'd better make
+out your Christmas list for us before that pencil gets worn out making
+crosses, son."
+
+He slid from the paternal knee and was off to the library in a trice.
+Mrs. Fletcher had overheard the finish of the conversation and smiled in
+on him before she joined her husband in reading the evening paper.
+Minutes passed.
+
+"Most finished, son?" called Mr. Fletcher. "It's nearly bedtime, you
+know."
+
+A grunt was the only response.
+
+"Better add a few things you'll need around the flat when you and Louise
+are married!"
+
+"John!" Mrs. Fletcher rattled her newspaper disapprovingly. "Do stop
+teasing that boy."
+
+A few moments later, her son appeared in the doorway, yawning sleepily.
+
+"It isn't ready yet," he said. "I'm going to bed now."
+
+Late the following evening, Mrs. Fletcher opened her son's door to see
+if he slept soundly, and a scrap of paper fluttered from an anchoring
+pin to the floor. She picked it up. True to his peculiar custom, John
+had presented his Christmas needs in a manner which seemed more delicate
+than to ask in person for them. With a whimsical, sympathetic smile, she
+rejoined her husband in the big bedroom.
+
+"Look what your joking did last night!" She handed him the slip of
+paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for
+Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for
+dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as
+if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier writing that
+which told of a longing not to be denied, "Books, lots of them."
+
+Christmas drew nearer. The delivery wagons from the down-town stores
+made more and more frequent stops at the Fletchers, to leave odd-shaped
+bundles in the hallway, bundles at which John would gaze longingly as if
+to pierce the outer wrappings and excelsior. Watching the packages
+arrive was half the fun of Christmas, anyway.
+
+His own shopping list was small. He broached the subject of a gift for
+his father to Mrs. Fletcher. Would she buy it, the next time she went to
+town? "Then it'll be a surprise for dad." Likewise he approached Mr.
+Fletcher. "Then mother won't know I'm buying her a book," he explained.
+But he was uncertain what to order for Louise. He'd never made a present
+to a girl before.
+
+The Friday before the great holiday, the papers upset his plans. The
+store of the _Toy Book_ announced that "Santa Claus leaves tomorrow for
+his home at the North Pole. As a farewell inducement to the children of
+this city to visit him, he will give a splendid present to each and
+every girl or boy accompanied by an adult."
+
+The North Pole part was all bosh. John knew that well, thanks to his
+present sophistication. But the lure of the present set him to thinking.
+Couldn't he--providing of course that maternal permission was given--go
+down town and do his shopping Saturday afternoon and wander around the
+different toy displays to his heart's content? But there was the paper
+route. Blame the nuisance, anyway!
+
+He sprinted up to see Bill after supper. Would his chum make the
+deliveries if he gave him a list of the customers? John would be willing
+to pay a dime for the service.
+
+Silvey assented gladly, for ten-cent pieces were scarcities among the
+small boy population just before Christmas, when the display of penny
+and five-cent novelties in the school store window proved so tempting.
+Thus the difficulty was solved.
+
+Two o'clock the following day found John following the varied shopping
+crowd through the revolving doors of the biggest department store.
+Inside, the aisles were packed with a jostling, slowly moving throng.
+Fat, breathless hausfraus rubbed elbows with high-cheeked, almond-eyed
+Slav maidens, and tired office clerks took advantage of the half holiday
+to fill their shopping lists. Here, a well-dressed, clear-complexioned
+lady of leisure examined an expensive knickknack, there an Irish mother
+led her brood to the throng around the elevators that they might see
+Santa Claus. But they were all filled with a desire to buy, buy, buy, in
+the name of the Christmas Spirit, and buyers and department heads rubbed
+their hands gleefully as they watched the overworked clerks. John fought
+his way to the nearest floorman, a white-haired veteran of many such
+rush seasons.
+
+"Where's the neckties?" he asked. That employee looked down at him
+wearily. "Next to the last aisle--to your right."
+
+Past the silverware counter, past the women's gloves, past innumerable
+little booths with high-priced holiday trinkets, and past the
+fountain-pen display--at last the long, oval counter came in sight.
+Eager purchasers stood two and three deep around the spaces where goods
+were on display. Clerks hurried back and forth in response to the calls
+of the wrapping girls, and change carriers popped unceasingly from the
+pneumatic tubes. John plied his elbows vigorously and worked his way
+through the thickest of the crowd. Above him, hands grabbed feverishly
+at the tangled heap of ties on the counter top, while querulous voices
+requested instant attention from the sales force.
+
+One of the four-in-hands dropped over the edge. The boy seized upon it,
+fingered it, and threw the bit of goods back in the heap. Poor stuff
+that, even at a quarter. His mother's frequent dissertations upon silk
+samples which she had brought home had taught him that much. He waved a
+frantic hand to attract attention until a tall, spectacled clerk took
+pity on him.
+
+"Let's see a tie, a real one! Don't care if I have to pay a whole
+half-dollar for it!"
+
+"What color?"
+
+John's lower lip drooped. He hadn't noticed his father's taste in
+neckwear. "Red," he hazarded at last.
+
+A crimson horror was thrust in front of him. Yellow cross-stripes
+clamored against the fiery background. The clerk twisted it deftly
+around his forefinger and, behold, it was made up as if in the paternal
+collar.
+
+"Like it?"
+
+John nodded and brought out a fifty-cent piece which he had forced from
+the pig bank that morning. A moment later, the wrapped holly box was
+given him, and he was off in the direction of the book department.
+
+Still the crowds! They choked the aisles and carried him here and there
+at the mercy of their eddies. Now he was forced up against a wooden
+counter edge, now jammed against two fat women in rusty black who were
+buying devotional books for the edification of less pious friends. At
+last a sign, "Popular copyrights, fifty cents a volume," gave impetus to
+his hitherto haphazard course.
+
+The poorly dressed salesgirl behind the counter smiled down at him in a
+manner which successive ten o'clock sessions had failed to eradicate.
+"What kind?" she asked.
+
+His gaze wandered helplessly over the bewildering array of volumes.
+
+"Here's something everyone's reading," she suggested, holding up an
+inane, pretty-girl covered book. He eyed it dubiously and pointed to a
+title which hinted of the West and of Indian fights.
+
+"Give me that one," he said decisively. His own love affair had proven
+that heroes and heroines in every day life never have the easy sailing
+which a limited reading of popular novels had implied. Anyway, cowboy
+stories were the most exciting.
+
+With the two packages wedged securely under his arm, he battled a way to
+the elevators. The family shopping was over and the real business of the
+day, a tour of the toy section and a present for Louise, called him.
+
+"Fifth floor," droned the elevator man. "Toys, dolls, games,
+Christmas-tree ornaments."
+
+His words became drowned in a sudden babel which made ordinary
+conversation impossible. A murmur of a thousand voices blended with the
+rattle of mechanical trains and the tooting of toy horns. Impatient
+salesmen called "Cash, cash, cash!" at the top of their lungs. Wails
+arose from hot, disgruntled infants. Now and then a large steam engine
+in operation at one counter corner, whistled shrilly when mischievous
+juvenile hands swung back the throttle.
+
+At the far end of the floor, where the carpet and rug department had
+been shifted for the holiday season, a long line of people were waiting.
+Heavily clad, perspiring women shifted infants from one arm to the other
+as they walked patiently along. Poorly clad street loafers sought to
+idle away their time with a visit to Santa Claus. Tall, slim young women
+yanked their little brothers into place or besought small sisters to
+"Hush up, we're nearly there!" And up and down the whole line, a baker's
+dozen of streets gamins skirmished on the lookout for some adult to whom
+they might attach themselves for the time being.
+
+Clearly that pointed the way to the little house and the fulfillment of
+the gift promise.
+
+John worked himself cautiously along the line in spite of cries of,
+"Cheater, look at him!" from boys with maternal impediments to prevent
+like maneuvers. When the white, asbestos snow-covered house came in
+view, John halted discreetly, for, with the goal so near, he could not
+risk being thrown out of the line for cutting ahead of others.
+
+Slowly the people moved forward until the interior of the room was
+visible through the little side window. At the far end of a wooden
+counter, a fat, red-coated Santa Claus passed trinket after trinket into
+eager juvenile hands, pausing now and then, as childish lips lisped
+requests for dolls, sleds, or other toys.
+
+On the very threshold, a stocky store employee interposed a hand in
+front of John.
+
+"Where's your folks?" he demanded.
+
+The boy gasped. That condition of the distribution had been completely
+forgotten.
+
+"Well?" pressed the inquisitor, a smile about his lips.
+
+He gazed about desperately. Just leaving the room was a buxom German
+woman in black, with a hat covered with bobbing, blue-green plumes.
+
+"There she is," he pointed. "That's my mother. I got separated from
+her."
+
+The man removed his arm and chuckled. At least three other urchins had
+claimed relationship with that self-same lady.
+
+Up to the old saint at last. His ruddy-cheeked mask was softened by
+perspiration, and there was a droop about his red-clad shoulders which
+expressed a wish that this, the last day of his sojourn in the city,
+were already over. John grabbed the cheap pencil box which was handed
+him. The guardian at the exit was crying, "Keep moving, keep moving,"
+and the lethargic line in obedience carried John beyond the confines of
+the house to new wonders.
+
+If the Brownie Village forced staid adults to pause and smile
+appreciatively at the whimsicalities of gnome life, the juveniles halted
+and dragged and impeded the progress of the procession as each new
+wonder confronted them.
+
+White-furred little bunnies moved solemnly along at intervals over
+concealed runways, stopping now and then to bow to the amused audience.
+Winking, gray-bearded elves bobbed up from behind canvas rocks to wave
+diminutive hands before popping back to their shelters. One sun-bonneted
+fellow in patched overalls bent spasmodically over a little wooden wash
+tub on a hill. Further on, a perpetual clatter drew attention to the
+rustic forge where a brown-clad smith hammered lustily at a miniature
+horse shoe. At the end, stood a second brazen-lunged sentry, who like
+the other, implored the crowd to "Keep moving. Please keep moving."
+
+Out by the toy counters, John found a dirty-faced street gamin in
+patched knee trousers confronting him. They eyed each other for a
+moment.
+
+"Going 'round again?" asked John.
+
+The boy nodded. "What'd he give you?"
+
+John displayed his pencil box; the boy, a discordant reed whistle.
+
+"Want to trade?" No sooner offered than accepted. What was the use of a
+school pencil box anyway?
+
+Again they fell in with the Santa Claus line, hoping devoutly that the
+sentry would not recognize them. But on the third trip as they nodded
+toward an unkempt, brown-shawled Italian woman, the clerk bent over.
+
+"Three times and _out_," he whispered as the boys' hearts went pitapat.
+"See?"
+
+They saw, and went off in search of new pleasures. First they stopped at
+the mechanical train booth. When the operator of the miniature railroad
+was engaged, John's new found friend threw over a tiny switch and caused
+an unlooked for wreck on the line. A floorwalker pounced on them and
+ordered them away, so they sauntered down the aisle to a crowd which
+courted investigation.
+
+"Kid lost," explained the street gamin, who possessed an uncanny trick
+of working his way through a throng. "They're taking him away now."
+
+Along counter after counter, the boys wandered, past the dollar
+typewriter booth, through the doll carriage aisle, where a little girl
+tried to carry a vehicle away with her and made things momentarily
+exciting, and over by the electrical toys, the building blocks, and the
+sleds.
+
+"Gee," said the dirty-faced boy as they stooped to examine a price tag,
+"My legs are 'most off me."
+
+John examined his watch. Half past six! And he should have started for
+home an hour ago. Already his stomach clamored for something to eat. He
+invested a nickel in peanuts, and the pair devoured them ravenously.
+Then John wiped the last traces of salt from the corners of his mouth,
+said good-bye, and fled for the elevator. It would be nearly eight when
+he arrived and mother might be anxious over this trip--his first
+alone--to town.
+
+He passed through the revolving doors for the second time that day and
+stopped short in the brilliantly lighted street. He'd forgotten about
+Louise! But perhaps some one would make a purchase for him later.
+
+He passed a store with a red auction flag waving in the doorway. In the
+window was a tempting array of cheap jewelry, watches, and holiday
+goods. Surely there must be something that would be suitable for his
+lady.
+
+The room was filled with tobacco smoke and the odor of unwashed
+humanity, for chilled vagrants helped to swell the throng which gathered
+around the raucous-voiced auctioneer. As John entered, that worthy
+lifted a glistening object in a green plush case high in the air that
+all might see it.
+
+"This lady's watch has been asked for, gentlemen. Sixteen jewels in its
+movement and a solid gold-filled twenty-year case--and fit for any lady
+in the land to wear. Will somebody start bidding?"
+
+John fumbled in his pocket and took inventory of the remains of the two
+dollars which had been filched from the pig bank. Presents for his
+mother and father had depleted the sum by half, peanuts had cost a
+nickel, and carfare, including the return trip, would account for
+another dime.
+
+"How much am I offered, gentlemen," persisted the man behind the glass
+counter. "How much am I offered?"
+
+There was no response. He passed the timepiece to a man in the front row
+and requested that he examine it carefully.
+
+"Isn't it a beauty?" He raised the watch in the air again. "Now, will
+some one please bid?"
+
+"Eighty-five cents," called John. Subdued laughter arose as the
+auctioneer bowed elaborately. "I thank you. This gentleman knows a good
+thing when he sees it. Eighty-five, eighty-five, a dollar and a half, a
+dollar and a half, two dollars, two dollars, two dollars--"
+
+The boy lost interest in the proceedings. What was the use of wishing
+that you might give such a trinket to your lady love if you hadn't the
+money to pay for it?
+
+There were books, but Louise was not over fond of reading; ash trays,
+atrocious Japanese vases with wart-like protuberances on their sides,
+and cut-glass dishes--each in its turn went to some fortunate, or
+unfortunate, who outbid John's modest offer.
+
+At last the auctioneer rummaged among the conglomeration of articles on
+the counter below him and brought forth a little china dish.
+
+"I have here," he began, "a hand-painted china vanity box. Think of it,
+gentlemen, these dainty violets are hand painted, and the top is solid
+gold-filled. Inside is a soft, dainty, powder puff. How much am I
+offered for this beautiful trinket. An ideal gift for wife, sister, or
+sweetheart. How much am I offered?"
+
+A man in a far corner of the room bid a quarter. The auctioneer looked
+pained. "Only a quarter bid? Gentlemen, it's a shame. The time taken to
+decorate it was worth more than that. Only a quarter bid? That gentleman
+must be married. Is that all he thinks of his wife?"
+
+The gathering tittered derisively. Came a bid of forty cents as a reward
+for his efforts.
+
+"Forty cents," the droning voice went on. "Forty cents--forty--forty,
+fifty cents, I thank you--fifty cents, fifty cents, fifty-five,
+fifty-five, going at fifty-five, fifty-five, better than nothing,
+fifty-five--"
+
+"EIGHTY-FIVE!" shouted John.
+
+"Sold," concluded the auctioneer. "Sold to our friend here at
+eighty-five cents. Will the lucky purchaser step up to the cashier?"
+
+With the precious package safely in his pocket, the boy darted for the
+car line. Another hour had elapsed, and he dreaded the "penny lecture"
+which must be awaiting him on his arrival.
+
+But inside the street car, though the air was stifling, and large,
+heedless grown-ups crushed him with each jolt of the uneven roadbed, his
+spirits rose buoyantly.
+
+His holiday shopping was concluded. Christmas was less than a week away,
+and he had a vision of a beautifully hand-painted vanity box with a
+glistening solid gold-filled top greeting him from Louise's chiffonier
+when his thousand dollars had been achieved and the age of twenty-one
+reached which allowed him the independence of marriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HE HAS A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS
+
+
+Christmas Eve! Home to a six-o'clock supper after the daily paper
+distribution was finished, and then to bed, "'Cause going to bed early
+makes Christmas come sooner, Mother!"
+
+On the back porch, the tree, a big, bushy-branched fir, lay waiting to
+be carried into the front hall. The lower floor was filled with
+mysterious packages, so disguised by bulky wrappings that their contents
+could not even be surmised, and all over the house, from the attic where
+the tree decorations were stored, to the holly-trimmed parlor hovered an
+air of holiday expectancy.
+
+He loved that thrill, did John. Earlier, the possibilities which Santa's
+visit held furnished it to him, for who was to know which of the many
+needs that personage would see fit to satisfy? And the very Christmas
+after he had exposed the old fellow as a delightful, kindly fraud, he
+had sheepishly asked his parents to decorate the tree and arrange the
+gifts as before, "'Cause being surprised is the best part of Christmas."
+
+That night when he had caught Santa! The memory of it brought a
+retrospective smile to his lips, in spite of the shivers which the
+chilled bed sheets sent through his warm little body. Awakened by a
+noise below, he had drawn the old bathrobe about him as protection from
+the frosty air, and tiptoed into the dark hallway. Well around the stair
+landing, a scene met his eyes!
+
+There stood the tree, wedged firmly into the soapbox support with flat
+irons around the base for ballast. In one corner of the room, a Noah's
+ark, which later came to an untimely end on a mud-puddle cruise, had
+spilled its assortment of cardboard animals out on the carpet. Near the
+doorway lay a red fireman's suit, and in the dining-room, bending over
+the candy-filled cornucopias on the table were his father and mother.
+
+"W-where's Santa Claus?" he had stammered, not grasping the situation at
+first. A sharp, gasping breath of surprise came from his mother as his
+father broke into chagrined laughter.
+
+"I guess you've found him, son," had been the reply. And that was the
+end of Santa Claus.
+
+A few moments later, a long, empty freight train rattled cityward
+unnoticed, as John's regular breathing told off, faithfully as any
+timepiece, the fast lessening minutes which stood between him and
+Christmas Day.
+
+He wakened with a start. The late, gray dawn of winter was peering in
+between the window shades and the sashes, casting hesitant shadows about
+the room. He rubbed his eyes sleepily for a moment, then, remembering,
+sprang to his feet and opened the blinds.
+
+A dun railroad embankment lay before him, with lighter streaks which
+told where the shining rails lay. Over on the boulevards, the arc lights
+twinkled sleepily, their long night vigil nearly finished. The barren
+tree tops which skirted the park, made a lace work against the frosty,
+winter's sky, and here and there, chance rays of light threw piles of
+rubbish in the big lot into unlovely relief. The same kindly, grimy,
+disorderly neighborhood of the day before and the year before, and yet
+the spirit of Christmas cast a halo over the whole and beautified it in
+the boy's eyes.
+
+"It's Christmas, it's Christmas," he repeated over and over again as he
+drew on his clothes.
+
+Then for a tiptoed scamper down the stairs for a view of the surprises
+which were awaiting him in the hall below.
+
+A scent of pine, reminiscent of the sweet-scented Michigan forests, made
+him sniff eagerly. There towered the tree on the spot where its
+predecessors had stood in front of the fireplace, so tall that the tip
+barely missed the ceiling. Gleaming spheres caught the light from the
+stair window in brilliant contrast with the dark, needled depths.
+Cornucopias, candy laden, weighted the boughs. Sugar chains made
+symmetrical festoons of beads as they looped down from the upper
+branches, and innumerable candles stood stiffly in their holders,
+waiting for the taper in his father's hand to bring them to life.
+
+Underneath the tree lay his presents. Not so many, perhaps, oh, sons of
+richer parents, as you may have had, but John's eyes grew wider and
+wider with delight as each object greeted him.
+
+There lay the sled, long, low and scarlet, not as ornate as the
+expensive "Black Beauty," for which he had longed, but quite as
+serviceable. At the terminal of a railway system which encircled the
+tree base, stood a queer, foreign mechanical engine, with an abbreviated
+passenger car, and on a corner of the sheet which was to protect the
+carpet from candle drip, was a dry battery and diminutive electric
+motor. Then there were books--Optics, The Rover Boys, and others of
+their ilk--which would furnish recreation for months to come, regardless
+of his rapid reading.
+
+Of course he turned the switch and listened to the hum of the little
+motor until the battery threatened to be exhausted; of course the
+railway was put into immediate and repeated operation, regardless of the
+noise which might awaken his parents. And he stood up, at least three
+times, sled pressed tightly against his chest, and made imaginary dashes
+down the park toboggan, outspeeding even the long bobsleds as the ice
+flew beneath him. Then he glanced at the title pages of the books again
+and even read a page or two from each opening chapter that he might know
+which would have the honor of being chosen for first consumption by his
+hungry mind. Finally, he stretched out on his back beneath the tree and
+gazed upward, watching each glistening detail in utter content.
+
+Voices upstairs told John that his parents had wakened at last. Up the
+winding flight as fast as his little legs could carry him, and into the
+big south room with a cry of, "Oh, Mother! Mother! Daddy! it's just
+fine!"
+
+"Happy, son?" asked his mother as he snuggled down beside her on the
+bed.
+
+He nodded. Happy? Who wouldn't be with all those treasures in his
+possession? Mr. Fletcher chuckled.
+
+"There's a box on your mother's bureau which we forgot to put under the
+tree," he said. "You can open it here if you wish."
+
+The boy was up and back in a trice, this time to his father's bed, where
+he sat and tugged at the pink string fastenings until a set of doll's
+dishes came in sight.
+
+"That's in answer to that list of yours," he was told. "Think those will
+do for your flat, son?"
+
+"Louise'll like 'em," he smiled unabashed. "I'll give 'em to her with my
+other present."
+
+More chuckles, more smiles, and more laughter. What matter if all else
+in the world went wrong, if the Spirit of Christmas reigned supreme in
+that family for the day?
+
+"What did you see in the parlor, John?" asked his father.
+
+"Something in the parlor?" The boy was on his feet again. "Where?"
+
+"Wait a minute until I get my bathrobe and I'll go with you."
+
+A little later, the two descended the stairway, hand in hand. John's
+gaze followed his father's pointing finger as they stood on the parlor
+threshold. In front of the dead grate, was a three foot, denim-covered,
+cabinet. From the square opening at the top hung half a dozen or so of
+limp, dangling figures.
+
+"Punch and Judy!" John could scarcely believe his eyes. "Oh, Daddy!
+Daddy!"
+
+In a moment, Punch was on his right hand and Judy on his left as he
+wiggled his fingers back and forth to see if they worked as did the
+showman's at Neighborhood Hall. Judy bobbed up on the stage as his
+father beamed down at him.
+
+"Mr. Punch, Mr. Punch," she called. But her voice had neither the range
+nor the strength which Judy demanded to be successful, and he drew the
+marionettes off his fingers.
+
+"Here," he said to his father, "you work 'em. Mine don't act right."
+
+Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher stretched himself out on the floor behind
+the little cabinet. John shifted to the front and watched eagerly with
+his head resting on his hands.
+
+What a Punch and Judy show it was that ensued! Mr. Fletcher, drawing on
+his fertile imagination, invented a new set of domestic quarrels for the
+unhappy couple, brought in a doctor and a clown, (two lifelike dolls
+which supplemented the original, limited performers), and kept John
+shrieking with laughter until the ruddy-faced little devil brought the
+performance to a close in the time-honored way. Subdued laughter in the
+doorway made them both look up with a start. There stood Mrs. Fletcher,
+fully dressed, with a smile on her face.
+
+"John senior," she ordered with mock severity, "go upstairs and dress
+yourself for breakfast immediately. I do believe you're the biggest boy
+of the two in spite of your age."
+
+After the morning meal had been eaten, John devoured the contents of a
+candy-filled cornucopia from the tree, and drew on his stocking cap,
+coat, and mittens. Louise's presents were to be delivered, and that was
+a matter which brooked no unseemly delay.
+
+Mrs. Martin's sister answered his ring at the apartment.
+
+"Louise home?" he inquired eagerly.
+
+Her aunt explained that Louise had gone out of town with her mother for
+a three-day Christmas visit.
+
+"She'll be back, the day after tomorrow," she consoled him.
+
+So he left the presents in her charge with instructions to give them to
+his lady on the very moment of her arrival, and scampered down the
+carpeted stairway again.
+
+Sid DuPree met him in front of his house. John surveyed him warily.
+
+"'Lo!"
+
+"'Lo!"
+
+"What'd your folks give you?"
+
+"Oh, lots of things. What'd you get?"
+
+Sid stopped a moment to recount his various gifts, lest one of them be
+omitted in the effort to impress his neighbor.
+
+"'Nother football," he boasted. "Cost five dollars, it did."
+
+"I got a railway with forty-'leven pieces of track."
+
+"My uncle sent me a peachy pair of boxing gloves," Sid continued.
+
+"Just wait till you see what my uncle sends me. Always comes in the
+mail, it does, but it hasn't come yet. Besides, I got a new sled."
+
+"And I've got a punching bag."
+
+"But you ought to see my 'lectric motor," retorted John, still
+undaunted. "You just wait till you see the toys I make for it to run."
+
+Sid had saved his last and most cherished possession until the last. "My
+mother, she gave me a real gun, a Winchester. It'll shoot across the
+lake, it shoots so far. I'm going hunting with it on the ranch, next
+summer."
+
+"That's all right." John was not in the least nonplussed. "But the cops
+won't let you shoot it in the city, and you've got to wait until spring
+comes before you can use it. I can go home and have all sorts of fun
+with _all_ my things, _now_."
+
+Silvey and Perry sauntered up.
+
+"'Lo!" came the inevitable greeting.
+
+"'Lo!" came the inevitable reply.
+
+"What did you get for Christmas?" asked Perry.
+
+John allied himself instantly with Sid in the effort to outboast the new
+arrivals.
+
+"Sid's got a sure enough gun," he said impressively. "Bigger'n I am."
+
+"And John's got an electric motor," chimed in Sid as John finished.
+"He's going to hitch it on his his new sled with a pair of oars, and go
+rowing over the snow when snow comes. My, but it's strong!"
+
+"We've got a Christmas tree," spoke up Silvey.
+
+"So've we," said John.
+
+"So've we," Perry added.
+
+"But mine's bigger'n any of yours," Bill insisted. "It's so big, we most
+had to cut a hole in the ceiling to set it up. And wide? It's so wide I
+can hardly get in the room with it."
+
+"'Tain't," exclaimed John incredulously. "Nothing can be bigger'n ours."
+
+"Come and see," was Silvey's unanswerable retort. So the quartette
+trooped up the street to "come and see."
+
+On their way, they passed the postman, struggling under his load of
+Christmas packages. Not only was his leather sack packed to overflowing
+with mail, but a little cart which he dragged behind him on the walk
+also held its quota of letters and gifts.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" the boys called to him. He was a genial soul, not in
+the least like the evil-tempered crank who had held the route the year
+before.
+
+He smiled back at them, for he had just been given a seventh necktie
+which a family had decided was too hideous to be worn by the original
+recipient, and was in high spirits.
+
+"Any mail for us?" came the chorus of inquiry.
+
+He fingered the mail in his sack. "Here you are, young Fletcher! Catch!"
+
+"From my aunt," announced John proudly as he looked at the postmark.
+"She always sends me jim-dandy things for Christmas." He ripped the
+protecting envelope away and stared in amazement at the two
+white-crocheted squares in his hand.
+
+"Washrags, washrags!" jeered the boys. For once, Aunt Clara had followed
+the haphazard suggestion at the end of his letter and had sent something
+useful.
+
+[Illustration: _"Washrags, washrags."_]
+
+He jammed the offending gifts into his pocket, and sought to change the
+subject.
+
+"Come on, Silvey, let's see that big tree of yours." So they stamped up
+the Silvey front steps and into the house.
+
+"There," said Bill, pointing proudly at the family fir.
+
+John gave one disgusted glance. "That? Why that's set on a little table!
+Wouldn't come near the ceiling if it was on the floor. Come down to my
+house and I'll show you a _real_ tree."
+
+They left the Silvey house noisily.
+
+"Beat you down to John's," Perry shouted as they stood on the front
+walk. Away they went, puffing like little steam engines, in the cold
+air. A moment later, they stood admiringly in the Fletcher hall.
+
+"Now, isn't our tree bigger'n yours?"
+
+Silvey admitted that it was, thus adding the final restoring touches to
+John's complacency. Then they staged an impromptu Punch and Judy show
+and played with the other toys until Mrs. Fletcher, beaming in spite of
+perspiration, came into the room.
+
+"The turkey's most done, John, so the boys had better go home now. They
+can come back at five to see the tree lighted, if they wish."
+
+Would they care to? You just bet they would!
+
+The front door slammed behind them, and John went out to the kitchen to
+nibble at bits of celery, sample the cranberry sauce, and in other ways
+annoy his busy mother until she turned on him despairingly.
+
+"For heaven's sake, John, go into the parlor and read one of your new
+books until dinner's ready if you can't be quiet."
+
+By five in the afternoon, he was so thoroughly surfeited with the
+season's delights, that he had barely enough energy to stand in the
+window and peer into the lighted area around the street lamp as he
+watched for his guests; for to bountiful helpings of turkey, potatoes,
+cranberry sauce, dressing, and a quarter of one of his mother's
+delicious plum puddings had been added cornucopia after cornucopia of
+candy, until his stomach, for once in his life, caused misgivings as to
+its food capacity.
+
+Perry Alford came punctual to the minute, and shortly thereafter Red
+Brown, Sid DuPree, Silvey, and Skinny Mosher. Mrs. Fletcher had made use
+of her telephone to make the gathering a little more of a party for John
+than he had anticipated.
+
+Another display of the presents followed, while his father and mother
+stood in the parlor doorway and beamed down upon the youngsters. When
+the excitement had died away somewhat, Silvey spoke up.
+
+"Let's have a Punch and Judy show now, fellows."
+
+"Come on, dad," added John. "You can do it best."
+
+So for the second time that day, the room formed the theater for that
+ancient, comic tragedy. But as the devil popped up on the shaky little
+stage to make an end to Punch, there came a cry of protest from the
+audience who were squatting breathlessly on the floor.
+
+"Oh, not yet, not yet. Please, not yet."
+
+So Punch triumphed in his fight with the little red-faced imp, and the
+play went forward through a new and altogether delightful chapter of the
+Punch family's existence. Amid the laughter which followed its
+conclusion, John disappeared silently and came back into the room with a
+box of tapers.
+
+"Now, daddy, light the tree."
+
+Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher obeyed. Candle after candle on the tinselled
+branches sprang into life until the fir stood in a flickering blaze of
+glory while the boys stood back and watched with a feeling akin to awe
+at the beauty of it. At a propitious moment, he reached carefully
+between the waving lights and brought out snap crackers and little tin
+horns from the branches. There was one of a kind for each excited guest.
+
+"Wish there were girls," said Perry to Red, as they tugged at their
+respective ends of a snapper. "Then it's more fun. They always act
+'fraid cat, and scream when it goes off." He unrolled the little
+cylinder of paper which had been concealed in the foil wrapping. "My
+hat's pink. What's yours?"
+
+Cornucopias came next, four to a boy. They donned their hats, and
+munched candy after candy silently while the candles burned low. At last
+Mr. Fletcher clapped his hands.
+
+"Form in line and march into the dining-room and back by the tree, five
+times, and blow hard as you can on your horns!"
+
+The procession started. Passers-by on the sidewalk stopped and looked in
+through the lighted window to see the cause of the disturbance. A flame
+sputtered as it burned perilously near a resinous twig.
+
+"Halt!" called Mr. Fletcher. "Everybody blow!"
+
+The lower flames vanished two and three at a time. Those higher up
+followed more slowly. At last but one flickering beacon at the top of
+the tree remained to defy all the boys' efforts. John's father watched
+in amusement, then gathered him up in his arms.
+
+"Now, hard!" And the last candle went out.
+
+Mrs. Fletcher suggested "Hot potatoes," and the minutes sped joyously
+past until the telephone rang.
+
+"Tell Perry to come home for supper," was the message. That youngster
+slipped on his overcoat sulkily.
+
+"Wish'd there wasn't any old telephones," he snapped as he opened the
+door.
+
+His departure was a signal for a lull in the festivities. Mrs. DuPree
+sent a servant over for Sid, and the other boys followed shortly,
+leaving the family to watch in the darkness beside the parlor grate.
+Mrs. Fletcher broke the silence.
+
+"It's been a beautiful Christmas," she said softly. "A beautiful
+Christmas."
+
+John nodded contentedly from his father's knee. Again, the only sound to
+be heard in the room was the soft whick-whicker of the burning coal as
+the flames licked the chimney breast, or the occasional rustle of
+falling ash. Suddenly footsteps pounded up on the porch and the bell
+rang loudly. John opened the door, and Silvey came panting into the
+hallway with skates in one eager hand.
+
+"Come on over to the lagoon with me," he shouted breathlessly. John
+looked at his mother.
+
+"How about your supper?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Hadn't he eaten enough candy for
+a dozen suppers? "Please let me go, Mother," he concluded. "Please. It's
+Christmas!"
+
+There was no resisting such a plea. He flew upstairs to resurrect his
+last year's skates from the attic, and was back in a moment for his
+mittens and stocking cap. The door slammed as the two dogtrotted it down
+the street. At the corner, John slackened speed.
+
+"Are you sure there's skating, Bill?" he asked. Never, so far back as he
+could remember, had the ice been in condition for the sport by December.
+
+Silvey nodded emphatically. "Saw six fellows go by the house with skates
+on their shoulders. So I asked 'em."
+
+They left the park gravel path, now flanked on either side by leafless
+shrubbery, and struck out over the hard macadam of the road. As they
+reached the board walk leading to the warming house on the boat landing,
+John strained his eyes eagerly ahead.
+
+"There is, oh, there is," he cried as the long tile roof by the boat
+house came in sight. "I can see 'em."
+
+They spurted and pulled up at the skating house doors. A moment later
+they were in the crowded, brightly lighted interior. Directly beneath
+the apex of the roof, ran a lunch counter which divided the place into a
+section for men, and another for women, escorted or not, as the case
+might be. Long, wooden benches ran along each wall, all filled with a
+constantly shifting occupancy. John seized the first available seat and
+drew on his skates. A stamping on the hacked, wooden floor to make sure
+that the steel runners were locked firmly, a wobbly interval as he
+stepped out and sought control of his ankles, a momentary pause on the
+steps, and he was out on the ice, with Silvey following. They executed a
+few maneuvers and sat down on the boat landing.
+
+"Ice is great," said Bill, as he tightened a skate strap. "Doesn't it
+feel funny, though?"
+
+John nodded and stood up again. "Beat you around the island," he
+challenged.
+
+No sooner said than they were off. Silvey's new skates cut the ice
+cleanly at every stroke, while his chum's duller pair skidded and slid
+now and then as he gained headway. Along the narrowing, west pond, past
+helpless beginners whose efforts not to appear ridiculous made them
+doubly so, past staid business men, past arm-linked couples from the
+university dormitories, and out on the thirty-foot path of scraped ice
+which encircled the island. There Silvey slowed up.
+
+"Getting bumpy," he cautioned. "Watch out!"
+
+The warning came too late. John's skate sank to his shoe sole in a crack
+and sent him sprawling. He stood up shakily and rubbed a bruised knee.
+
+"First fall, first fall," yelled Bill as he turned back. "Hurt much?"
+
+John shook his head and started off again bravely. They got into the
+swing of it as they swept under the second island bridge and out on the
+last lap of the course. Faster and faster their legs flew over the ice
+as they dodged cracks with more certainty. Skater after skater was left
+behind, often by a hair's-breadth margin of safety which evoked
+half-heard protests as they skimmed on.
+
+"Almost there," shouted Bill as he increased his efforts to the utmost.
+
+"Tie," yelled John as he shot over and grabbed an arch of the northern
+bridge to stop his momentum. "Look at the crowd. What's happened?"
+
+They skated slowly over and around until they found a thin space in the
+human circle which allowed them a view of proceedings.
+
+"Fancy skaters," whispered Bill. "Look at him write his name on the
+ice."
+
+"And the medals on his sweater. Gee, don't you wish you were him?"
+
+A voice broke in on them.
+
+"Scatter there, scatter." The policeman forced his way to the center.
+"You're blocking the way to the skating house. Keep moving!"
+
+In obedience to the majesty of the law, the boys skated off and found a
+secluded, smooth bit of ice nearer shore. There, John tried to cut a
+shaky "J" on the ice and fell over backwards. Shortly afterward, Silvey
+met with a similar fate, and the boys looked at each other despondently.
+Both pairs of ankles were aching badly from the unaccustomed exercise,
+but neither wanted to admit it. Silvey loosened one of his skate straps.
+
+"Got your watch, John?"
+
+It showed a quarter past nine. "Our mothers'll be waiting for us," he
+said. Thus a way to honorable retreat was found.
+
+They stamped stiffly back to the warming house and took off their
+skates. John held his numbed fingers as near to the glowing coal stove
+in the center of the room as he dared, while Bill studied the
+age-stained menu over the lunch counter.
+
+"My treat," he said, as he drew a bright half-dollar from his pocket.
+"What'll you have?"
+
+John ordered his favorite, mince pie; his host, a cut of half-baked
+apple. They washed the food down with a glass of cider apiece, and
+stumbled out on the board walk toward home.
+
+"Feel's funny, walking after you've had skates on," John commented as
+they trudged along the dark path. Silvey spoke up, "Say, John."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You know Sid DuPree?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Well, he's trying to cut you out with Louise. Saw her in the corner
+drug store with him, drinking ice cream sodas."
+
+John's foot caught in a piece of loosened turf at the edge of the gravel
+walk. Otherwise, he gave no sign that he had heard.
+
+"Aren't mad because I told you, are you?"
+
+"No."
+
+His paper route had kept him too busy to give the attention due her, but
+if Louise were inclined to succumb to the blandishments of ten-cent
+sodas at a drug store, he was glad to know it. Such incidents might
+result in disaster for the great plan if allowed to run unhindered.
+
+"Feel's like a thaw," said Bill, trying to rouse his chum from the
+revery into which his announcement had plunged him.
+
+Again John nodded. Indeed there was a curious softness in the air.
+Perhaps the promise of a long skating season was to prove false after
+all. But he must see Louise, the very moment of her return. Then Sid had
+better watch out.
+
+He was at his front steps before he realized it.
+
+"Good night," called Silvey, as he turned for home.
+
+"Good night," replied John a trifle wearily. And with the same feeling
+of morose taciturnity, a strange mood on this of all nights, he
+undressed and crept into bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN WHICH THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE DOES NOT RUN SMOOTHLY
+
+
+But the softness in the Christmas air did not presage a thaw. When Mrs.
+Fletcher closed the windows in her son's room the following morning, and
+laid her hand on his motionless shoulder, she awakened him with a
+greeting of, "Come, son, look out and see what's happened."
+
+Snow! A veil of fine, driving flakes scurried groundward with each gust
+of wind from the lake and half hid the passenger-laden suburban trains,
+and the ramshackle dairy buildings across the tracks. Already the
+cinder-laden railroad embankment was covered with a white mantle, too
+new as yet to be anything but spotless, which in places had drifted
+across the rows of rails. Along the street, each smoke-tinged roof and
+window ledge had a share of the rapidly deepening coverlet which sped
+from the leaden clouds to mask the gray, unlovely earth.
+
+John drew on his knickerbockers hurriedly. No time for a peep at one of
+his new books now. Not only was the snow a thing of beauty, but it
+offered certain revenue if he and Bill appeared with their shovels
+before competition became too keen. So he appeared in the dining-room
+with surprising promptness.
+
+"Sick, John?" asked his mother with gentle sarcasm, as he sat down to
+breakfast.
+
+He shook his head as he gulped down spoonful after spoonful of the
+steaming oatmeal. Now and then he glanced out of the window at the walks
+and porches of the street. They were still untouched, but there was need
+of haste.
+
+"Never mind the potatoes, Mother," he said, as he hurried to the coat
+closet for his wraps. "I'm going shovelling."
+
+He ran down into the basement and was out and down the street with the
+wooden shovel over his shoulder before Mrs. Fletcher realized that he
+had escaped. She hailed him back.
+
+"How about our walk, son?" she asked, as she stood in the doorway.
+
+He shook his head in protest. "I don't get paid for that. Bill and I'll
+do it when we get through."
+
+"Not much!" There was decision in his mother's tones. "That means it
+won't be cleaned before noon."
+
+"Aw-w-w, Mother!"
+
+The door closed and put a stop to further parleying. He stood by the
+lamppost, undecided as to which course to pursue. Should he walk boldly
+off and take the consequences, or was discretion the better part of
+valor after all? Still, when a fellow's mother wanted something done, it
+was useless to try to evade the task, and he was just beginning to
+realize it.
+
+He set to work. Before long the cheerful scraping of the wooden shovel
+against the pavement restored his good humor. His face became flushed,
+and he stopped a moment to pull his stocking cap back from his hot
+forehead, for the exercise was making his blood circulate rapidly. The
+long walk which led to the back door could be skipped, and the porch
+railings left snow-capped as they were, for his aim was to fulfill the
+barest letter of his orders before Mrs. Fletcher looked out of the
+window.
+
+Five minutes later, he knocked the snow from his shovel, and sneaked up
+the street, slipping now and then as his feet struck concealed ice on
+the walk, and once he fell sideways into a soft drift. As he walked up
+the Silvey steps, a snowball hit him on the leg, and another sped past
+his nose. He turned to find Bill on the lawn with a snowball in one
+hand.
+
+"Surrender," came the call.
+
+John dropped his shovel to the floor and seized a handful of snow.
+
+"Going to fight or get snow jobs with me?" he asked, as he pounded the
+mass into an uneven sphere.
+
+For an answer, his chum dropped his missile and ran around to the back
+yard, to reappear with his own shovel. He pointed down the street. Two
+members of the unemployed were making the snow fly at the DuPree's with
+an earnestness which boded ill for their youthful competitors.
+
+"Let's try Southern Avenue," said John. "Perhaps there won't be anyone
+there."
+
+No sooner said than done. But as they rounded the corner, they found
+that three of the "Jeffersons" had organized an expedition of their own
+and were cleaning the walk and porch of the house nearest the corner.
+Their leader motioned to Bill.
+
+"Go on back home, or we'll smash your faces in."
+
+John promptly stuck out his tongue. "They can't fight," he said
+scornfully, "and two of 'em are 'fraid cats. Let's try the big yellow
+house, Bill."
+
+With a glance back at the foe, they ran up the steps and rang the bell
+persistently until a becapped, flustered servant opened the door.
+
+"Ask the missis if she wants the walk cleaned?" said Silvey, who usually
+handled the negotiations for work.
+
+Scraps of conversation floated down to the boys from the upper regions
+whence the girl had disappeared with the message. Presently she came to
+the head of the stairs and called down to them, "How much you want?"
+
+Bill made a mental inventory of the appearance of the grounds as the
+boys had approached the house. "Quarter," he said promptly.
+
+"Missis, she say 'all right,'" said the maid.
+
+The boys stamped out of the hallway and set to work with a will. Silvey
+began at one end of the broad veranda floor, while John made the snow
+fly from the railings and porch posts. Next came the steps, and the walk
+leading down the lawn.
+
+"This won't take long," said John optimistically.
+
+He stooped to fix a shoelace which had become untied. Silvey yielded to
+temptation and gave him a shove into the heaped snow, to have him rise
+angrily and dig the half-thawed slush from between his neck and collar.
+Then he sprang at his partner and they went sprawling again, but this
+time, Bill was the underdog. The two boys struggled for a while until
+John sat heavily on his foe's stomach, and pinioned the resistant arms
+with his knees. Then the fun began. "Going to be good?"
+
+Silvey looked desperately up at the handful of snow held high above his
+head.
+
+[Illustration: _"Going to be good?"_]
+
+"Look, here, Fletch--don't you wash my face, don't you--"
+
+"Going to be good?" asked John again.
+
+His answer was a wrench for freedom. Thud, came a soft mass down on
+Bill's nose and open mouth. He spluttered and rolled over desperately,
+trying to throw John from his vantage point. The front door creaked, and
+an alien voice called,
+
+"What's the matter, you boys? Ain't you ever going to get finished?"
+
+They rose sheepishly to find the servant smiling down at them from the
+doorway.
+
+"Missis says, 'hurry up,'" she cautioned them.
+
+Silvey picked up his shovel and began to make the snow fly
+industriously. Presently the fit of ardor wore off, and he stared
+thoughtfully at the long stretch of walk which still remained between
+the front porch and the back yard.
+
+"How much did I say we'd do this for?" he asked.
+
+"Quarter," said John, as he leaned on his shovel handle.
+
+"Wished I'd made it thirty-five cents!"
+
+Foot by foot, they cleared a path well around by the side of the house.
+The milkman, the butcher, and the gas inspector had each left heavy
+footmarks which were difficult to remove and made progress slow. At the
+rear steps, a huge drift met their gaze, and Silvey stretched his aching
+arms.
+
+"What'd we say we'd do this for?" he asked again.
+
+"Quarter."
+
+"Wished I'd said _half a dollar_. There's a walk on the other side,
+too."
+
+No skylarking now. Their muscles ached too much from the exercise to
+waste their energy in other channels. When the cut through the drift had
+been made, and the back porch and basement walk freed of the covering,
+Bill leaned his shovel against a clothes-line post, and surveyed the
+result of their labors malevolently.
+
+"Next time we do this, John," he snapped emphatically, "we'll charge a
+whole dollar!"
+
+But the mischief had been done. By the time they had been paid the
+well-earned quarter, not a house near them offered prospect of
+employment. And at the far end of the street, the "Jeffersons" were
+making a last reconnoissance before deserting the neighborhood for more
+fruitful fields of labor.
+
+"Now see what you did when you shoved me into the snow," said John
+ruefully.
+
+"Well, you didn't have to wash my face," retorted Bill. Secretly he was
+not sorry that the work was at an end. "Get your new sled and we'll go
+hitching. Beat you over to our street."
+
+They dashed up the nearest private walk into a residential back yard,
+and dropped their shovels over the back fence. John wedged one foot
+between a telegraph pole and a picket, and drew himself up.
+
+"Come on, Sil."
+
+Silvey braced himself for the spring. A rear window in the house creaked
+open and a woman's head appeared.
+
+"What are you boys doing?" called the shrill voice. They dropped over
+into the other yard, and John started to run.
+
+"She's in curl papers," said Bill. "She won't chase us. Let's fix her."
+
+"I'll call the police if you go through again," she persisted as the
+boys filled their hands with snow. John gave a few finishing pats to his
+missile.
+
+"How'd you like to have her for a mother?" he asked his chum, as he drew
+his arm back for the assault.
+
+A projectile broke against the window sash and showered snow fragments
+upon the untidy hair. A second went a serene way through the opening and
+dissolved in a blot of hissing water on the kitchen stove. The frame
+slammed to with a violence which threatened destruction to the window
+glass, and John grabbed his shovel with an exultant yell.
+
+"Now run like the dickens!"
+
+They parted at the Silveys'. John continued on a dogtrot towards home,
+and a moment later was pestering Mrs. Fletcher at her work in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Where's some rope, Mother?"
+
+She looked from the pile of napkins on the ironing board. "What do you
+want it for, son?"
+
+"My sled."
+
+She walked over to a box behind the kitchen gas range and drew out a
+three-foot length. "Will this do?"
+
+"No. Got to be lots longer than that."
+
+"You're not going hitching, are you?"
+
+He shook his head dubiously.
+
+"Now, John! There have been little boys killed because wagons ran over
+them when their ropes broke and they couldn't get out of the way!"
+
+He evaded his mother's eye and sneaked from the house. Silvey was
+waiting for him impatiently on the front walk.
+
+"Where's the line?" he asked.
+
+"Can't go," complained John. "She won't let me."
+
+"Aw, come on. We'll go over to Southern Avenue and she won't know a
+thing about it. I'll get you a rope from our house."
+
+His feeble scruples vanished. A five-minute stop at the Silveys sufficed
+to make the necessary alterations in John's equipment. Bill brought out
+his own sled, and they started for the corner. In front of the grocery
+store, they found Pete, the wagon boy, placing the last of the noon
+orders in his cart.
+
+"Give us a hitch," they begged.
+
+He nodded a cheery consent. "But hurry. These have got to be delivered
+in time for dinner."
+
+The boys ran the ropes rapidly around the rear axle and jumped on the
+sleds. A shout, a sudden jerk, and they were off, swinging around the
+corner on Southern Avenue with a momentum which shot them far to one
+side. John drew a breath of relief, for it was his first experience at
+the sport. Bill looked up from between the sled runners and grinned.
+
+Along they sped. The smooth steel slid easily now over the closely
+packed snow in the wagon ruts, now over bumps which forced involuntary
+grunts from between their lips. As the horse increased his pace they
+tightened their grasp on the sled hand-holes.
+
+"Whoa," shouted Pete. The wagon stopped abruptly as he reached back into
+the body for a package, and the sleds shot under the wagon almost up to
+the horse's hoofs, before the boys could find a holding place in the
+hard snow for their toes.
+
+John dragged his sled out, and lay back on it while he waited for Pete
+to reappear. The sun had pierced the heavy clouds, and dazzled the eyes
+of the neighborhood with glistening reflections on the white, unsullied
+lawns and doorsteps. On the more exposed portions of the closely packed
+house roofs, the melting snow formed long, dagger-like icicles which
+hung from the eaves, or clustered thickly around drain pipes and
+gutters. The heel-packed lumps which had defied the efforts of the
+wooden shovels to remove them from the cement walks showed dark,
+water-marked edges under the influence of the warming rays. Near him in
+the street, a flock of hungry sparrows fought boldly over a bit of
+vegetable which had fallen from a passing fruit vender's cart, and in
+the clear, dancing air was a touch of elixir which set his pulses to
+throbbing.
+
+"Yes," he said, although Silvey had asked no question, "it's just
+peachy."
+
+"Isn't it?" acquiesced Bill. "And your mother's afraid you'll get hurt,
+doing it."
+
+The smile vanished. What if Mrs. Fletcher should find out! The joys of
+the sport, sweeter through their illegality, were not sufficient to
+prevent a sinking sensation in his stomach at the thought of such a
+catastrophe.
+
+There came a scurry of footsteps on the walk close by him, another
+caution from Pete and his sled rope tightened again. They drove from one
+street to another, working ever westward until the gray-stone,
+red-roofed buildings of the university were behind them. When but a
+package of steak, bread, or a similar trifle was to be delivered, John
+or Bill dashed around to the back porch or through a basement flat
+areaway, while the driver sat and smoked in state on his seat. Thus the
+arrangement was of mutual benefit to the parties concerned.
+
+At last they halted before a dingy, eight-flat apartment building. Pete
+carried the last, and heaviest, consignment of edibles in to its owner
+and returned, a moment later, to stand on the curbing with a kindly
+smile on his heavy-featured face.
+
+"Now, boys," he said, as he drew his cap down over his ears and forehead
+until the peak nearly met his black, bushy brows, "hang on tight, and
+I'll give you a real ride back."
+
+A flick at the ribs of the fat, easy-going horse, and the two sleds were
+flying homeward. The depressions and hoof marks in the snow flew between
+the runners at a speed which dizzied their owners. Bits of ice,
+dislodged by the horse's hoofs, flew up and struck the boys' faces
+stinging blows. Past the university buildings, past the school which now
+stood empty and deserted because of the Christmas holidays, past
+impatient pedestrians on the street corners, and over to Southern Avenue
+where Pete turned in abruptly to the alley entrance of the grocery
+store. Silvey screamed a warning as his sled, running straight ahead,
+felt the tug of the tow rope, and skidded in a wide circle over the
+rough, uneven snow. John tried to save himself from a similar fate, but
+he had delayed too long. Straight for a huge snow bank, the two sleds
+headed, struck the curbing, and capsized with their owners underneath.
+
+John rose shakily with an uncertain smile on his lips. His chum dug some
+snow from his ears and ran forward to unhitch the sleds. The grocer's
+clock showed a quarter after twelve, so they started for the home
+street. As they parted, John held up a detaining hand.
+
+"That quarter," he explained. "Come on back to the drug store and get it
+changed. I want to put my share in the pig bank."
+
+Silvey drew off one moist mitten, and fumbled in his trouser's pockets
+with a perplexed frown. Neither was it in his coat, nor in his blouse.
+Where had it been left?
+
+"S'pose we lost it when we took that spill?"
+
+There was another fruitless search before the boys went back to the
+grocery corner. There, they raked the snow bank over and over, levelled
+and reheaped it, and levelled it again before their ardor cooled. At
+last they were convinced that the coin was hopelessly lost. John turned
+away moodily.
+
+"Come on," he said. "I'll be getting scolded if I don't get home for
+dinner." It was hard to lose the proceeds of a morning's work in such a
+manner.
+
+Mrs. Fletcher was waiting for him when he came into the hallway,
+stamping his feet lustily to free them from the last lingering traces of
+snow.
+
+"Where's the brush, Mother?" he asked, as he shook his coat. She brought
+him the implement and watched him keenly.
+
+"Didn't I forbid you to go hitching, this morning?"
+
+"Who told you?" he asked naïvely, taken aback at the sudden accusation.
+Mothers had the most mysterious ways of discovering things.
+
+She smiled in spite of herself. "I asked the little Mosher boy where you
+were and he said he'd seen you riding off behind Anderson's grocery
+wagon. What do you think I ought to do to such a disobedient little
+boy?"
+
+He didn't know. But he wished that he might lay hands on that kid
+brother of Skinny's. He'd teach him a thing or two about holding his
+tongue.
+
+"You're getting too big to spank," she commented as he stood silently
+before her. He nodded a cheerful assent to this.
+
+"So I think you'd better stay in the house this afternoon."
+
+"A-w-w-w, Mother!"
+
+She went into the dining-room where the table had been set for the
+noonday meal for two, and heaped his plate with potatoes and gravy,
+while he stood looking miserably out of the window.
+
+The sun's rays were melting the surface of the snow and turning it a
+dirty gray. Up the street, Perry Alford was winging snowballs at a
+black, leafless trunk opposite his house. That meant good packing, and
+snow fights, snow men, and a baker's dozen of other exciting amusements.
+
+To be gated on such an afternoon!
+
+"Come, son!" said Mrs. Fletcher, as he turned away with quivering lip,
+and drew his chair to the table. "Be a man. Mother's right about it,
+isn't she?"
+
+He admitted that her sentence was but justice, and attacked the dinner
+with an appetite which no sorrow could diminish. Then he tramped slowly
+up to his room and threw himself down on his bed with a book to while
+away the weary stretch of afternoon confronting him.
+
+Straightway the centuries rolled back, and the present day sorrows were
+forgotten. The times of the good king Alfred held sway as he followed
+the exploits of the hero against his Danish enemies with breathless
+interest. Again and again did the young earldorman's well-drilled band
+sally forth from its stronghold to attack larger bodies of the foe, and
+again and again did the boy on the bed wish that he was living in those
+soul-stirring times. Then came the building of the _Dragon_, for war
+must be waged on the sea as well as by land, and a call of, "Oh,
+John-e-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e-e!"
+
+He stood up regretfully. One of his legs was cramped from lying
+motionless so long, and he limped into the front room. Silvey was below
+on the water-streaked walk.
+
+"Come on out!"
+
+"Can't. She found out about my hitching this morning."
+
+"Aw-w-w, come on. The fellows are building a snow fort in the big lot,
+and pretty soon, we're going to have a big fight." He reached down,
+scooped up a handful of the moist snow, and patted it easily into a
+small, hard ball. "Look, packing's fine. Go down and tease her!"
+
+John shook his head. Mother was inexorable on such occasions, and never
+had there been a time on record, no matter what the weeping or wailing,
+when a gating had been lifted. So he would meet his punishment without
+further ado.
+
+Silvey went disconsolately back towards home, and the prisoner returned
+to his room and stared from the window which overlooked the railroad
+tracks. Presently he turned away and rummaged in the bureau in the big
+south room until he found his mother's opera glasses. A moment or so of
+adjustment, and he smiled contentedly. If he could not be a participant,
+he would at least witness the battle.
+
+The construction of the fort was well under way. Long, erratic paths in
+the snow showed where the three big balls had been rolled which formed
+the most exposed wall. They were almost as tall as the boys, themselves,
+and even now Sid and Red Brown and Perry Alford were digging their heels
+into the slippery footing as they moved a fourth to its proper place.
+Mosher, bent almost double, was rolling a new and rapidly increasing
+sphere over the soft snow. The walls completed, the gang devoted
+themselves to filling in the crevices, smoothing the surface, and to
+testing the weak places in the fortress. A few busy minutes were spent
+in making ammunition, then Sid, his longing for leadership gratified at
+last, led his army behind the "U" shaped protection. Bill beckoned his
+followers out of range, and missiles began to fly. John laid the glasses
+down wistfully.
+
+Shucks! watching only made him want to join worse than ever. The book
+was better than that!
+
+Dusk came at last, and liberation. As he was returning from the
+newspaper route, the sight of a familiar figure, in the lighted circle
+of a street lamp, made him cross over. It was Louise.
+
+"'Lo."
+
+"'Lo."
+
+John paused. It was a difficult thing to lead up to her faithlessness
+tactfully. She broke the silence.
+
+"Those dishes were dear. But, oh, John, I liked the powder puff jar the
+best of all!" Which was the truth, for the fact that he thought her old
+enough for such feminine weapons was a soul-satisfying compliment.
+
+He murmured a perfunctory acknowledgment. "Louise, what's this I've been
+hearing about you and Sid drinking sodas together at the drug store?"
+
+She stood speechless, thinking of a defense.
+
+"It's got to quit. Do you hear?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I have sodas with him?" his lady broke out vindictively.
+"You never take me anywhere."
+
+Didn't she understand that all of his playtime was taken up with earning
+money for her? "But we can go skating tonight," he concluded
+pacifically.
+
+"That isn't spending money on me. And Sid does, lots and lots of times."
+
+The words hurt. He'd show her that two could play at that game, even if
+the funds were to be drawn from the pig bank.
+
+"I'll tell you," he shot back recklessly. "We'll go to the theater a
+week from Saturday. Isn't that better than sodas?" He watched her
+anxiously for she was most dear to his suddenly constant heart.
+
+She assented eagerly. Nevertheless, it was plain that she still thirsted
+after the drug store flesh pots. He must interview Sid in the morning,
+for that catch in her voice was far from reassuring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HE CRUSHES AND HUMILIATES A RIVAL
+
+
+Sid, with new skates glistening at his side, was bound for the park
+lagoon when John ran across the street and stopped him.
+
+"Come along?" asked Sid amicably. John shook his head.
+
+"I want to talk to you," said he. "Bill says you're trying to cut me out
+with Louise. It's got to stop."
+
+"What's he know about it?" asked the culprit defiantly.
+
+"And Louise told me you'd taken her up to the drug store."
+
+Sid shrugged his shoulders. "Guess I've a right to. What have you got to
+say about it?"
+
+"Well," said John slowly, "She's my girl--"
+
+Sid sneered.
+
+"And we're going to get married on the money from the paper route when I
+grow up and--"
+
+"Pooh!" Sid laughed unpleasantly. "Go ahead and save your money. I don't
+care. I'm spending mine--on her--and you can't stop me either."
+
+Money, money, money! All he was hearing these days was about spending,
+not saving it, and Sid's words, as had his lady's, riled him not a
+little.
+
+"I'm going to take her out, too," he shot back. "Won't be a cheap thing
+like sodas, either. We're going to the theater, we are, and then she'll
+promise not to speak to you any more. If she won't, I'll punch your face
+in, first time I catch you."
+
+"Theater!" said Sid, so impressed that the concluding threat passed
+unheeded.
+
+"Going to buy the tickets, this afternoon," John boasted. "Main floor
+seats at the 'Home'--_seventy-five cents each!_ Don't you wish you were
+going?"
+
+Sid's skates slipped from his shoulder into the snow. He picked them up
+and looked at John uncertainly.
+
+"That'll cost a lot of money, won't it?" he asked.
+
+"Most two dollars," magnificently.
+
+"Let's take her together, then. I'll pay half the carfare and the
+seats."
+
+John thought a moment. The plan possessed certain advantages. He would
+be able to observe how Louise acted with Sid, for one; and if he didn't
+consent, that persistent rival would take her later, anyway, which would
+be a thousand times worse. Besides, the prospect of two hard-earned
+dollars being frittered away for an evening's entertainment had been far
+from pleasing.
+
+"The tickets are for a week from Saturday," he said slowly. "Want me to
+get you one?"
+
+Sid nodded and dug into his pocket for a handful of Christmas change. He
+passed over a dollar and twelve cents to John, and left for the lagoon.
+
+Half a dozen times as the street car bounced westward over the uneven
+track, John decided to tell Sid that, after all, the entertainment was
+for but two. He would probably spoil all the fun, anyway, and then the
+evening would be a total failure. He was still undecided when he stepped
+up to the tawdry box office with its photographs of local theatrical
+stars.
+
+"How many?" asked the man at the little window.
+
+John drew out a coin from his pocket. Heads, Sid joined them; tails, he
+should be Louise's sole escort. Heads it was. The fates had willed it;
+let the outcome be for good or ill.
+
+When he told of the arrangement at the family supper table, that
+evening, his parents choked.
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Fletcher, his voice still shaking with laughter,
+"that you'll sit, one on each side of the lady, and glare because she
+took the last piece of candy from the other fellow's box."
+
+Candy? Why, of course. The heroine of each of the novels he had read,
+was always receiving toothsome dainties and showers of roses from her
+many admirers. But he couldn't afford both methods of expressing his
+devotion, and candy alone would have to do. This taking your best girl
+to a show promised to be far more expensive than he had thought.
+
+Need it be said that his shoes were veritable ebony mirrors, that
+eventful evening? Or that his ears were clean, even to the very recesses
+under the lobes? And when such a thing occurs, you may be sure that
+Solomon in all his glory was arrayed no more immaculately than that
+small boy.
+
+He presented himself promptly at the door of the Martin flat at
+half-past seven. Louise was in her room while Mrs. Martin added the
+finishing touches to the party dress which she was wearing in honor of
+the occasion, so he shoved the two-pound box of dipped caramels, ordered
+in spite of paternal objections, into his overcoat pocket and sat down
+in the big parlor rocker to wait.
+
+Shortly thereafter, Sid appeared with a tissue-wrapped bouquet of roses
+in his hand. "For Louise," he told Mrs. Martin.
+
+John glared at him stolidly, and regretted his choice of candy. It would
+have taken a little of that confident smile away, if his rival had found
+himself antedated by a gift of a similar nature.
+
+A quarter of an hour later found them bouncing along over the same car
+line which John had used on the ticket quest. The conveyance was poorly
+heated, but the children were too excited to notice the cold. Louise was
+wearing two of the roses on her frock, and Sid was in high spirits
+accordingly.
+
+"Ever been out West, Louise?" he asked with a side glance at John. The
+lady shook her head.
+
+"I was, all last vacation--real ranch, real cowboys. Used to take pony
+rides every day."
+
+John sketched a caricature on the frosty window pane and sulked in
+silence. Why didn't his folks make enough money to take him on such
+summer jaunts? Then he wouldn't have to sit like a dummy and listen to
+his rival out-talk him with the one girl he cared anything about.
+
+"And walk?" continued Sid, secure in his romancing, now that he knew
+that neither of his auditors had been beyond the Mississippi. "Why, the
+air's so fine that you can walk ever so far without feeling tired.
+Breakfast at the ranch was at seven, and once, I walked twenty miles
+just to get up an appetite for it."
+
+"That's nothing," John snapped moodily. "I walked thirty miles before
+breakfast, once, too. It was right here in the city."
+
+"What?" gasped Sid, scarcely believing his ears.
+
+"Yes," assented John cheerfully. "It was in the afternoon before, but
+that didn't make any difference. It was before breakfast, wastn't it?"
+
+Louise giggled. Sid kicked against the wicker seat cushion in front of
+him and was silent. John rubbed a clear spot on the frost-etched car
+window and peered into the outer darkness.
+
+"Next block's ours," he grinned, still elated at the success of his
+thrust. "Come on, Louise."
+
+They scrambled wildly for the door. Sid was the first in the street and
+helped the lady down from the high car-step, while John drew the tickets
+from his coat pocket and led the way to the brilliantly lighted theater
+lobby. Louise's eyes glistened with excitement as the trio stopped to
+look at the posters beside the doorway.
+
+"Martha, the Milliner's Girl," Sid read slowly from the huge letters at
+the top of the bulletin board.
+
+"Peach of a show," John commented, as they walked past the line of
+people waiting their turn at the box office. "Six folks killed, and
+shooting and everything. I asked the man when I bought the seats."
+
+A uniformed usher led them impressively to their places and presented
+them with programs. John stooped over his fiancée and helped her off
+with her coat as he leered at Sid. That gentleman leaned easily back in
+the upholstered theater chair.
+
+"Nice seats," he remarked with a touch of condescension. "A little near
+the stage [the words had been Mrs. DuPree's, once upon a time], but
+they'll do."
+
+"I like 'em," John snapped angrily. Louise acquiesced. Sid scowled and
+fell back upon the wild and woolly West as a means of maintaining the
+conversational upper hand.
+
+"Once I went hunting, last summer"--he began. John glanced at his watch.
+Ten minutes before the performance would begin; ten long, dragging
+minutes of Sid's talk about a place of which he knew nothing. Why had he
+brought his voluble rival along?--"hunting for bear," continued the
+narrator. "Lots of fun, Louise. One of the cowboys took me with him 'way
+up a mountain. We went into a big, dark forest with palms--"
+
+"Palms don't grow out West," John interrupted savagely.
+
+"Yes, they do."
+
+"Geogerfy says they don't."
+
+"This was a part the geogerfies don't know anything about," serenely.
+"Ever been out there?"
+
+"No," reluctantly.
+
+"Then keep quiet. _I have._ Well, there were the palms and--"
+
+Was there to be no respite from the steady flow? John suddenly
+remembered the candy, and reached for his overcoat.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Louise, as the white, pink-stringed box was brought
+forth. Sid stopped, obviously disconcerted. John unwrapped the dainties
+and threw the paper on the floor.
+
+"Have some?" he asked as he lifted the cover.
+
+The lady's lips closed over a chocolate-covered caramel. Sid's did
+likewise. John helped himself to a third and leaned back happily. At
+last a way of silencing his adversary had been found.
+
+[Illustration: _Silencing his adversary._]
+
+Conversation was temporarily impossible, so the trio gazed eagerly
+around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a
+head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish
+mechanic, who shifted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed
+collar scraped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded
+Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully pressed black suit;
+the mother, watchful of her two mischievous, blue-eyed urchins. Young
+gallants of the neighborhood filled the boxes at either side of the
+auditorium, taking this, the most expensive, means of proving their
+devotion to their lady loves. In the rear of the theater were the first
+and second balconies, occupied by voluble men and women of all ages and
+nationalities. Ahead, hung the stage curtain, decorated with staring
+advertisements, "Lamson, the neighborhood undertaker," "Trade at the
+corner grocery. Vegetables always at the lowest market prices,"
+"Snider's drug store, prescriptions, choice candies, and camera
+supplies," and the like. From somewhere in the heights came a sharp
+"rap-rap-rap," which echoed even to the more forward rows on the main
+floor.
+
+"Gallery," explained John. "Fellow knocks on the back of one of the
+benches to make the boys behave." His jaws resumed the burden of
+reducing that persistent caramel to a swallowable state.
+
+The orchestra of five filed solemnly in through the little door beneath
+the stage and took their accustomed places. A dart, propelled by an
+urchin of the upper regions who evidently had no fear of the monitor's
+stick, sailed serenely downward and found a resting place in a blonde
+lock of the salesgirl's hair. The footlights flashed on, and the
+musicians struck up a lilting, popular air, as Sid cleared his throat.
+
+"Then the cowboy--" he began.
+
+"Have another?" interrupted John, extending the box of tenacious
+goodies.
+
+"Sh-h," whispered Louise. "There goes the curtain."
+
+Why Martha had selected the hapless vocation of milliner's apprentice,
+John could not understand. For it was in Madame's little millinery shop
+in New York that Mordaunt Merrilac, gentleman by appearance, and leader
+of a desperate band of counterfeiters, met and became infatuated with
+the heroine. This he revealed in a soliloquy punctuated by frequent
+tugging at his black mustache, and strode majestically to the rear of
+the long, gloomy basement in which the first act was laid. There he
+joined three overalled mechanics in shirtsleeves, who puttered gingerly
+about a table on which were mysterious vats and a brightly glowing
+electric crucible.
+
+"Is all in readiness?" growled Mordaunt.
+
+"Aye, master."
+
+"Into the acid vat with the plate, then." He drew out a jewelled watch
+and studied the dial with knitted brows. "Ten long minutes before we
+know of our success."
+
+A muffled scream, long-drawn and filled with terror, broke in upon the
+silence which followed. Louise, Sid, and John leaned anxiously forward
+on the very edges of their seats.
+
+"What's that?" gasped the tallest of the workmen.
+
+"'Tis nothing," sneered the villain. "Come, Ralph, draw out the die."
+
+The group gathered anxiously around the bit of metal. Mordaunt
+scrutinized it carefully, and strode swiftly over to an opposite corner
+of the stage where an ancient letterpress stood. Running an inked roller
+over the surface of the etching, he placed it on the bed of the press,
+revolved the wheel rapidly in one direction, reversed, and drew forth a
+slip of white paper.
+
+"The face of a twenty-dollar bill to perfection," he exclaimed as he
+examined the dark oblong at one end. "Men, you may go."
+
+Thus was the intricate process of counterfeiting depicted, and the
+audience, as audiences did in Shakespeare's time when a sign represented
+a forest or a tree or a mountain, allowed its imagination to make the
+thing seem plausible.
+
+Mordaunt raised his voice. "Dolores!" he called, once, twice, thrice.
+
+A tall, lithe creature in dark, clinging robes, with the black hair of
+all villains and villainesses, responded.
+
+"Yes, brother?" she whined from the head of the basement stairway.
+
+"Bring me Martha."
+
+The ogre had commanded, therefore the maiden was flung down the steps
+before him--slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful
+sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's throat, willy-nilly.
+
+"Let me go, oh, please let me go!" she wailed. Louise's lower lip
+trembled sympathetically. Such a tender slip of a heroine to be at the
+mercy of such an unscrupulous monster!
+
+"Still stubborn, Martha?" Mordaunt snarled.
+
+The girl drew herself up proudly. Only her heaving bosom told of the
+physical struggle which had forced her into the basement den. John could
+not help marvelling at her recuperative powers.
+
+"Still," she murmured with flashing eye.
+
+"Think it over well," the black mustachioed one persisted. "Am I so
+odious? Marriage with me means riches, girl, riches. And I would be kind
+to you."
+
+She shook her head vehemently. "Never, never, never would I marry a man
+who lives as you. Though you beat me, though you torture me [Louise's
+eyes welled in spite of herself], never can you force me into such
+wedlock."
+
+Hasty footsteps sounded at the head of the stairway. Ralph, the etcher,
+dashed down into the room.
+
+"The police!" he shrieked. "They are about to raid us!"
+
+Merrilac muttered a curse. "Take her away," he growled to his sister of
+the clinging robes. "Take her to your home by the secret passage." He
+pressed a button and a panel in the wall swung back. "Ralph and I must
+remain to destroy the die! Quick, on your life, be quick!"
+
+Would the police come in time? Nay, John and Sid and Louise, not yet.
+That would have ended the play in the first act. Dolores dragged the
+heroine away with her. Mordaunt swung the panel back into place and ran
+over to the table where the counterfeiting apparatus lay.
+
+"Look you to your automatics!" he shouted. "And up with the trapdoor,
+Ralph. The acid vats must be hidden."
+
+But the police were upon them as he spoke. Revolvers cracked. Jack
+Harkness, blonde, curly haired, and of magnificent physique, let his
+firearm drop as he clapped his hand to a suddenly nerveless right arm.
+
+"I'm wounded," he bellowed, "but after them! Let not that arch villain
+escape!"
+
+A bluecoat sprang forward, halted, and fell flat on his face. Ralph, a
+heroic sacrifice in spite of his guilt, intercepted a bullet meant for
+Mordaunt. Then the master counterfeiter, realizing that his cause was
+hopeless, raised a hand as a token of surrender, and advanced slowly to
+receive the waiting handcuffs. As the policeman raised his hands to slip
+them on, he dashed suddenly past to the stairway, and slammed the door
+behind him. A key squeaked in its little-used lock, and the
+representatives of the law stared at each other for one dazed, dragging
+moment.
+
+Suddenly Harkness flung his muscular form against the door again and
+again until it broke from its hinges. As his subordinates dashed up the
+stairway in futile pursuit, he dallied in the bullet-marked room that he
+might walk to the center of the stage and wave his unwounded arm
+melodramatically.
+
+"I will rescue her," he vowed solemnly. "I will rescue my little Martha
+though the chase leads to the burning, sand-strewn deserts of Africa!"
+
+There was tumultuous applause and the curtain. Louise leaned back in her
+seat with shining eyes. John drew a deep breath.
+
+"Isn't it just peachy?"
+
+Sid DuPree nodded. "Makes me think of the way the cowboys used to shoot
+off their revolvers on the ranch."
+
+"Have another candy," suggested John promptly. Again was the flow of
+reminiscences successfully checked.
+
+But the author of "Martha, the Milliner's Girl," was too considerate of
+the welfare of his hero to lead him on an expensive trip to Africa; for
+that worthy, as are all such stage beings, was poor and otherwise
+honest. So the second act revealed a richly furnished room in Dolores'
+apartment, not many miles away from the scene of act one. Martha threw
+herself on the luxuriously upholstered lounge in a paroxysm of sobs.
+Dolores entered, still clothed in dark, clinging robes. Entered also
+Mordaunt Merrilac, as beetling of brow as ever. Perfervid conversation
+ensued between the trio in which little Martha tearfully ordered the
+villain to release her.
+
+"My detention here will avail you naught, Mordaunt Merrilac," she
+quavered. "In spite of all you can do, some day, my hero, Jack Harkness,
+will find this den and rescue me!" Prolonged handclapping came from the
+more genteel portion of the audience, mingled with cheers and cat-calls
+from the gallery.
+
+The villain laughed sardonically. "Still you hope for rescue by him?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then wait." He pressed a convenient button. Through the heavily
+curtained doorway, closely guarded by the two remaining members of the
+gang, walked Jack Harkness.
+
+"Gee!" gasped John, consternation-struck by this new development. It was
+evident that the same stupidity which had allowed Merrilac to make his
+escape in the first act, had led this singularly wooden-headed hero into
+that villain's trap.
+
+"So, my proud beauty," hissed Mordaunt, "you expect this man to save
+you? 'Tis futile. At twelve, tonight, we shall plunge him into the
+Hudson River, and you, Martha, shall see him die!"
+
+Whereupon Martha gave a piercing shriek, swooned, and the curtain fell.
+
+"Crickets!" sighed John, as a prodigious bumping behind the lowered
+curtain told of scenery that was being shifted, "I wish they'd hurry
+up." Louise nodded silently, while the box of carmels lay neglected on
+her lap; and for once during the evening, Sid could find no parallel for
+such thrilling events in the scenes of his last vacation trip.
+
+Almost before they realized it, the curtain rose again and revealed the
+hut on the Hudson. In one corner of the dismal interior stood Jack
+Harkness, bound, but appropriately defiant. In the other, on the floor
+lay the weak, sobbing little heap that was Martha. In the center stalked
+a triumphant Mordaunt with his two confederates.
+
+"Jack Harkness," he hissed, "your time has come. Men, throw back the
+trapdoor." Ah, those ever-present trapdoors!
+
+He walked over to the opening. "The Hudson runs muddy tonight," he
+murmured, as a shudder ran through the audience, "and very cold. 'Tis
+well. Drag forth the prisoner and loose his bonds."
+
+He stooped to jerk Martha to her feet. The rude door at the rear sprang
+open, and the police burst in upon the scene. The two counterfeiters
+sought for an escape, and Jack, sudden strength returning to his
+immobile limbs, sprang upon the startled Mordaunt. A terrific struggle
+ensued, and a tender scene between the two lovers as the police dragged
+their three captives from the stage.
+
+"At last, little Martha," Harkness murmured as he looked down at her.
+
+"At last," she murmured, gazing shyly into his face. Then came a long,
+passionate kiss--and the curtain.
+
+Sid sprang to his feet and helped Louise on with her coat, but John,
+stumbling after them up the aisle and out on the crowded street, neither
+noticed nor cared. The play triangle of two men and a maid seemed
+strangely analogous to his own love affairs. Sid was Mordaunt Merrilac,
+Louise was little Martha, and he was the heroic Jack Harkness. Neither
+counterfeiters nor police would participate, but that did not diminish
+the tenseness of the situation, nevertheless. He was roused from his
+revery by Sid's voice as they came to the street car corner.
+
+"Here's a drug store, Louise. Let's go in and have a soda."
+
+Dreaming again, and Sid had stolen another march on him! He trailed
+sulkily in and the trio sat down in the little wire-backed chairs before
+a round, shiny table. The drug clerk came forward ceremoniously and
+stood beside them.
+
+"My treat," said Sid grandly. "What'll you have, Louise?"
+
+She wasn't certain. A feeling of dull resentment took possession of
+John. If Sid was going to act this way, he'd make it as costly an affair
+as possible.
+
+"Chop-suey sundae," he announced, after a hasty glance at the printed
+menu.
+
+"What?" stammered Sid. Such a delicacy cost a whole quarter, the most
+expensive treat that the soda fountain purveyed.
+
+"Yes," said John calmly. "Better take one, too, Louise," he added
+maliciously. "They taste just peachy."
+
+She accepted his suggestion gratefully.
+
+"Give me a glass of water," ordered Sid weakly. It is an awful thing to
+possess soda liabilities of fifty cents when you have but three dimes
+and two nickels in your pocket.
+
+John sensed his rival's predicament and smiled. Slowly, with manifest
+enjoyment in every mouthful, he devoured the tempting, frozen treat.
+Then he leaned back in his chair contentedly and waited for Louise to
+finish. The white-coated soda clerk approached the table for payment,
+and the terror which crept into Sid's face was strangely like that on
+Mordaunt's when the police had broken into the river hut. He drew out
+his inadequate supply of small change and looked at it blankly.
+
+"Come, boys," prompted the man of syrups and sodawater, "I can't wait
+all day."
+
+"I haven't enough money," whispered Sid at last.
+
+John turned, a hint of the stage hero's mannerisms in his dramatic
+gesture. "What? Invite us for a treat and then can't pay for it? You're
+a fine one, Sid." He drew a half-dollar from his own pocket and flung it
+down on the table. "Never mind him," he turned to Louise. "I'll pay your
+car fare home!"
+
+And with the crushed and humiliated Sid following them miserably, he led
+the way from the drug store to the waiting car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+HE BUYS VALENTINES
+
+
+Sid made one more effort to cope with Miss Martin's suddenly aggressive
+fiancé. John came upon the couple one late, crisp January afternoon, as
+he was leaving for the paper route. Louise did her best to appear
+nonchalant as he picked his way carefully across the slippery,
+wagon-rutted road, and Sid, after a longing glance toward the iron fence
+which surrounded the home lot, decided to brazen matters out.
+
+"'Nother chop-suey sundae?" John sneered as he eyed his rival
+scornfully.
+
+"'Tain't fair, always talking about that," blurted Sid. "How'd I know
+the money I'd need when I left home?"
+
+John deemed the excuse unworthy of notice, and turned to Louise.
+
+"What's he want this time?"
+
+"Go skating with him," she replied after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Then ask you to have a treat in the warming house, and let you pay for
+it 'cause he didn't bring enough money. I'll teach you to skate--tonight
+if your mother'll let you. Silvey said the ice was fine yesterday, and
+everything'll be peachy. Want to come?"
+
+What maiden wouldn't? John glanced at his watch. The paper wagon was due
+in five minutes.
+
+"I've got to run," he said hastily. "See you tonight!" He left on the
+dogtrot for the corner.
+
+His school books eyed him reproachfully as he hunted for his skate
+straps after supper. An arithmetic test impended, and he had a
+composition to write. Nevertheless, he disregarded both tasks serenely
+and called for his lady. With her skates swinging with his over one
+shoulder, they started for the park.
+
+"Ever been skating before?" he asked casually as he took hold of her arm
+that she might pass a slippery bit of walk in safety.
+
+Louise shook her head. "Once a mud puddle froze in front of the house
+where I used to live, and I got a broom and tried. That's all."
+
+Then, for an instant, John regretted the invitation. To teach an
+absolute novice, no matter what the age, to skate with a passable degree
+of security is no light task. But his hesitation vanished, ten minutes
+later, when he fastened her skates on and helped her through the doorway
+of the warming house. It is no unpleasant thing for a small boy's best
+girl to cling to his arm as did his when they walked, oh so cautiously,
+down the skate-chopped steps from the boat landing.
+
+As they stepped out on the slippery ice, Louise made a last, despairing
+grab for the step rail.
+
+"You go on and skate, Johnny," she pleaded. "I'll just stay here for a
+while."
+
+[Illustration: _"Shooting the duck."_]
+
+Nothing loath, he sped off in and out among the swiftly moving, ever
+changing throng of people. In a moment he shot back to a less crowded
+space near her, where he "shot the duck," balanced himself first on one
+foot and then on the other, and finally came to an abrupt halt, leaving
+a trail of ice shavings in his wake.
+
+"My!" said Louise as he stood beside her, panting a little. "I wish I
+could do those things."
+
+He beamed. "They're easy. Hang on to my arm and I'll show you. Now, step
+out with me. One-two, one-two, one-two."
+
+Her ankles bent over until they touched the ice, and her breath came in
+quick, nervous gasps. Nevertheless, she followed bravely over a scant
+ten feet of the rink.
+
+"Isn't that easy?"
+
+She nodded with an assurance which she was far from feeling. "My skate
+strap hurts. The right one. Loosen it, John."
+
+He knelt to make the necessary alteration. As he stood up, one of his
+lady's feet started off on an unauthorized expedition, and she grabbed
+him by the arm with a fervency which nearly proved disastrous.
+
+"Don't start again just yet," she begged. "I'm tired."
+
+As they stood there, a pounding, scurrying figure in black, Red Brown,
+sped past at top speed. Silvey followed closely, noted the situation,
+and slowed up.
+
+"Leave her in the skating house and come on," he called. "Red's got it
+and we're having heaps of fun."
+
+Skinny Mosher and Perry Alford came, both in pursuit of the fleet-footed
+Brown. Sid DuPree, puffing audibly, stopped just out of reach, glad of
+any pretext to halt long enough to catch his breath.
+
+"Let's see her skate," he sneered, knowing that Louise dared not release
+her escort for pursuit. "You're a fine teacher, you are. Don't you wish
+you were with us?"
+
+John's eyes followed him longingly as he skated off. The temptation of
+Silvey's invitation was great, and with any other maiden, would have
+proved fatal. But the lure of the rosy dream for the future was still
+strong. He freed himself gently from her grasp, and was two yards away
+before she realized what he had done.
+
+"There," he said with satisfaction. "I knew you could stand up. Now,
+skate to me."
+
+"Aw-w-w, Johnny, come on back. I'm going to fall!"
+
+"No you're not," said John decisively. "Try and you'll see."
+
+Louise essayed one ineffectual stroke and stood helpless. "I t-think
+you're just horrid," she whimpered.
+
+He grew a trifle impatient. "You'll never learn that way." Why were
+girls always so afraid to try things, anyway?
+
+She made another halting attempt, reached forward to catch him, and felt
+herself slipping, then straightened up, leaned too far backwards, and
+her feet shot suddenly out from under her. Pupil and teacher crashed to
+the ice. John was the first to recover himself, although the unexpected
+fall had been a severe one. He stooped over his lady in spite of
+strangely shaky knees, and found her sobbing, partly from nervous shock
+and partly from mortification.
+
+"Hurt, Louise?" She sat up angrily and dug her mittened hands into her
+eyes. He caught a murmur of "Horrid old thing!" and she began to sob.
+The boy knelt and removed her skates gently.
+
+"Come," he suggested wisely. "We'll go into the warming house and have
+something to eat. Then you'll feel better. Catch hold of my hand. One,
+two, three! Up you come."
+
+They sat down on one of the gray, wooden benches which lined the big
+room. Louise studied the dingy sign on the post by the counter.
+
+"Aren't mad, are you?" he asked anxiously. "I didn't do it on purpose."
+
+The easy tears had dried and she shook her head cheerfully.
+
+"Give me some apple pie," she began. Thus peace was concluded.
+
+When she had drained the last drop of cider from the glass and dropped
+the pasteboard pie plate on the floor, John kicked it under the seat
+with his heel and leaned over to her.
+
+"Take some more," he urged. "I'm not Sid DuPree."
+
+Since the disastrous one in late December, there had been two
+exceedingly prosperous snowfalls to supplement the newspaper revenue,
+and he had plundered the pig bank for funds for the evening with a clear
+conscience.
+
+Again Louise eyed the placard. Coffee was for grown-ups, and strictly
+forbidden at home; therefore she would sample a cup of it. "And a
+red-hot sandwich and some more apple pie, Johnny."
+
+When she had finished, they started for home. Their feet were still
+unaccustomed to the difference between walking and skating and they
+stumbled now and then along the path. As they came to the road, John
+looked down at her anxiously.
+
+"Have a good time?"
+
+"It was peachy."
+
+"Aren't you glad you didn't go with Sid?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Have enough to eat?"
+
+She assented heavily. Strange how the taste of that forbidden coffee
+lingered in her mouth.
+
+In the morning as Miss Brown called the roll, John gave a quick glance
+backward along the aisle. His lady was absent. The strangely assorted
+meal had been too much for her.
+
+But attacks of indigestion rarely last more than a day, and this one
+proved no hindrance to the series of tri-weekly skating parties, minus
+refreshments, in which the pair participated. After two weeks of
+laborious lessons, Louise found that she was able to take a few sure
+strokes without gulping and calling for masculine aid. The first trip
+around the rough ice about the island followed, sure test of a
+beginner's prowess, and, behold! the youthful mentor found the lessons
+no longer irksome.
+
+As they sauntered home, skates clashing merrily at every step over the
+arc-lit snow of the park driveway, one starlit February night, Louise
+broke into a sudden delighted giggle.
+
+"Day after tomorrow's Lincoln's birthday. Aren't you glad?"
+
+Glad? Was ever a schoolboy sorry for an added day of freedom?
+
+"Two days after that's St. Valentine's day. We'll have a box up at
+school then. What kind of valentines do you like best?" he quizzed in
+return. "Paper hearts and things with lots of lace on them, or celluloid
+ones in boxes?"
+
+Louise hesitated for a moment.
+
+"I like," she said finally, "any kind of valentines, but best I like
+lots and lots of them--more'n anyone else in the room gets. Last year I
+was third, and in second grade a girl got one more valentine than I did.
+It was only a comic, but that gave her nine, and I had eight. This year
+I want to be first!"
+
+It was no small honor which the girl craved. To lead in the valentine
+distribution is to be acknowledged the belle of the room until the June
+examinations break up the little, pupil cliques and send their members
+to the different higher-grade rooms. John resolved that her wish should
+be fulfilled, but that achievement lay at the end of a path beset with
+pitfalls. Let rumor make the rounds that he purposed stuffing the box,
+and others would play at the same game. Witness a girl in an early
+grade, the homeliest of the room, who begged a dollar from her father
+and filled the box to overflowing with a hundred penny valentines
+addressed to herself.
+
+He left for his paper route half an hour earlier, that Lincoln's
+birthday afternoon, and turned abruptly westward as he reached the
+corner where the wagon drove up with his nightly bundle. He halted a
+moment in front of the school store. In the window was the usual display
+of rubber balls, penny trinkets, and magazines, and beyond them, he
+could see the deserted interior. As he had foreseen, the holiday had
+brought the usual lack of juvenile trade, and investment in the
+valentine market could be made without fear.
+
+He swung the door back. The trip bell rang noisily, and tall, angular
+Miss Thomas came out from the suite of little rooms in the rear.
+
+"Valentines," said he briefly. She reached a shallow box containing a
+dozen or so of the little printed love missives to the glassy-topped
+counter, where he pawed them over with one half-washed hand.
+
+"I want more than these!"
+
+The look of boredom, bred by long months of finicky penny purchasers,
+vanished. She stooped for one of the packets of fresh stock on the lower
+shelf. As he broke it open, she readjusted her heavy-rimmed spectacles,
+and watched his actions with amusement.
+
+Hearts of cardboard with crudely pierced edges of blue forget-me-nots,
+little square folders bearing pictures of doves, a cottage, an old mill,
+or a bit of idealistic scenery--he sorted them all. Each appropriate
+sentiment on the inner leaf, "To one I love," "To my true love," and the
+like, was read and approved before he shoved the packet away from him.
+
+"Let's see your two-penny ones."
+
+Gorgeously laced, these, with cut-outs in the center to reveal
+butterflies, arrow-pierced hearts, or Dresden Shepherdesses. He selected
+three of the gaudy creations.
+
+"The nickel ones--in boxes."
+
+Thus did he aspire to brilliantly-colored celluloid for the crowning
+jewel of the St. Valentine's sacrifice. He handed the assortment to Miss
+Thomas with a sheepish grin.
+
+"Envelopes for them, too. How much?"
+
+She counted them with gaunt, practiced fingers.
+
+"Sixteen penny ones, three two-centers, and one at five. Do you want one
+or two-cent envelopes?"
+
+He gazed at the assortment of paper containers. Monstrosities of hearts,
+cupids, and entwining fretwork were embossed on each, but save for the
+intricacy of design, there was little difference between them. He
+indicated his choice.
+
+"Forty-three cents," said Miss Thomas.
+
+John paid the sum without a tremor and dashed for the door. The
+selection had taken longer than he had planned and he was afraid he
+would miss the paper wagon.
+
+That evening was passed in addressing the envelopes at his father's
+library desk. Five of them were scrawled in a heavy backhand, with the
+aid of his mother's broad, stub pen, and five more in his normal
+handwriting. He finished the others in a variety of huge pothooks with
+blackly crossed "T's" and dotted "I's," and viewed the result of his
+labors with great satisfaction. Louise would never guess that they had
+come from the same donor.
+
+Their despatch to the valentine box was the next thing to trouble him.
+If he deposited so large a number of love tokens in one, or even two
+installments, it would certainly attract attention. He took Silvey into
+his confidence.
+
+"Why don't you want Louise to know where they came from?" asked his chum
+thoughtfully.
+
+"'Cause getting the most valentines in the room won't be half the fun if
+she knows I sent 'em all."
+
+"Give 'em to me," said Silvey. "I'll put half in, myself, and Red can
+take the rest."
+
+Promptly at two-thirty, that Fourteenth of February, Miss Brown brought
+the recitations to a close and laid her little, black record book in the
+desk drawer, then drew the big, slotted cardboard box toward her and
+smiled down at the expectant pupils.
+
+"I'll ask you to keep as quiet as possible," she requested. "Otherwise,
+we may disturb some of the grown-up, eighth-grade classes who are too
+old for these things."
+
+No need of any such caution. The children were quiet as the proverbial
+mice as they waited for the first name to be called.
+
+"John Fletcher."
+
+He stumbled to his feet in amazement. Had Louise sent him a valentine?
+As he opened the envelope, a gaudy caricature of a gentleman with
+reddened nose, paste-diamond pin, and flowered vest met his eyes.
+Underneath was a bit of doggerel elaborating certain traits ascribed to
+"The Rounder." He twisted suddenly in his seat and surprised a smile of
+exultation on Sid's face.
+
+Just wait until school was over. He'd fix him for that.
+
+"Olga," called Miss Brown with a smile, some moments later.
+
+Flaxen-haired Olga simpered up to receive her missive. The excited buzz
+of conversation which arose claimed John's attention.
+
+"That makes eight for her."
+
+"But Louise has nine!"
+
+Names of several girls who were popular only in the eyes of their
+youthful swains followed. The teacher shuffled the remaining valentines
+hastily.
+
+"Four more for Olga, and three for Louise."
+
+John turned anxiously and encountered a look of placid satisfaction on
+Olaf's stolid face; that same Olaf who had offered to sell his symptom
+list for a fifth of the market price.
+
+"Louise Martin, two more."
+
+"_Six_ for Olga!"
+
+John leaned tensely forward. He had sent but an even twenty of the gaudy
+trinkets, and this sudden influx of rival valentines threatened
+dangerously to pass that number. More envelopes were passed out. From
+behind him, he caught the excited whisperings of two girls.
+
+"Louise has twenty!"
+
+"And Olga, twenty-one!"
+
+Miss Brown stooped to turn a broad box right side up on her desk.
+
+"The last valentine," she concluded. "Here you are, Louise."
+
+Had Sid sent that? He'd smash his face in if he had. The unexpected
+addition had saved the day for his sweetheart, but that kid had no
+business butting in, anyway! Miss Brown watched the buzzing groups of
+pupils.
+
+"There's just fifteen minutes left before dismissal," she said
+considerately. "You may spend it in looking at each other's valentines
+if you wish."
+
+The pupils crowded back to his lady's seat, while he stood on a chair
+near the wall and craned his neck to see the vision of celluloid and
+pink and blue ribbon which had come in that last box. She examined the
+wrappings again, but no identifying mark could be found. As John stepped
+down, Sid DuPree tried to edge past him, and found his way blocked
+immediately. Louise looked up at her youthful fiancé.
+
+"Oh, Johnny, Johnny," she smiled delightedly.
+
+"I sent--" began Sid from behind his shoulder. Then was John filled with
+sudden wrath. He would squelch this persistent rival once and for all.
+
+"You sent it?" he sneered.
+
+"I did," DuPree replied. Louise watched the two eagerly.
+
+"Why that cost all of a quarter. And kids who asks folks to have sundaes
+and then can't pay for them, don't spend that much for valentines.
+Cheapskates never do!"
+
+Sid scowled. Before he could make suitable reply, Miss Brown rapped for
+order and he had to go back to his seat. There, as he squirmed in his
+seat while waiting for the dismissal bell, he caught John looking at him
+and stuck out his tongue as a manifestation of his scorn. But that
+gentleman only grinned. Wrongfully or no, he knew that the credit for
+the twenty-five cent valentine had been given to him, and he was content
+to let matters rest as they were.
+
+Valentine's day past, Washington's birthday was the one festive oasis
+left for the children in the desert of school days. Though the cold
+weather held marvelously well, little by little the thermometer beside
+the drug store's door showed rising-temperature levels as John stopped
+to look at it on the way to school. The long, northern shadows which the
+houses and apartments cast against the soot-grayed snow were shortening
+rapidly, and his paper route, so long patrolled in entire or
+semi-darkness, was now completed just as dusk set in.
+
+Then Miss Brown reached back in her desk drawer for a certain packet of
+narrow manila envelopes, that last February afternoon, and brought to a
+certain small boy who occupied the seat just in front of her desk,
+sudden realization that March was upon the class.
+
+"Please have them signed and returned by Monday," she told the pupils as
+she distributed them.
+
+John drew the white, finger-marked card from the ragged envelope, and
+his face went first white and then scarlet as his eye followed the long
+column of marks. Accusing memories of lessons half done or postponed
+with a hope that teacher wouldn't call on him, of a skating party with
+Louise when a geography map should have been outlined, and of arithmetic
+papers hurriedly done in the half-hour "B" class recitation period, to
+be returned with a heavily penciled "20" or "30" across their surfaces,
+arose to annoy him. His teacher spoke again.
+
+"There are one or two boys and girls in the 'A' class who will have to
+do better next month," John fancied that she was looking squarely at
+him, "or they'll be sent down into the 'B' division."
+
+That wasn't the worst of the matter. He had to take that testimonial of
+disgrace _home_ to be signed, and duly commented upon, by his mother.
+
+The card reposed safely in his pocket over Saturday, while he pondered
+now and then upon the least painful method of breaking the news to her.
+Sunday passed. On Monday morning, as he stood up from the breakfast
+table, he broke out,
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"Yes, son?"
+
+His courage vanished, and he was unable to go any further.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"N-nothing. It was a peachy breakfast." He kissed her nervously and went
+into the hall for his coat.
+
+"I forgot to bring it," he told Miss Brown that morning school session.
+At noon, he had the same excuse.
+
+"Well, if it isn't here tomorrow morning, I'll send you home after it,"
+that sophisticated supervisor of juveniles replied. And with this
+uncomfortable fact ever in his mind, he set out on the afternoon journey
+with the newspapers.
+
+The weather seemed to have shaped itself for his mood. A curious, raw
+dampness had crept into the still air, and overhead was a level, sullen
+expanse of gray vapor. Locomotive smoke showed that the light breeze had
+shifted suddenly to the south, and there was an indefinable attitude of
+expectancy about, as if the big city with its varied expanse of
+buildings and vacant lots and snow-filled parks was waiting for
+something. As he stamped up the front porch steps and kicked the snow
+from his shoe soles, a fine, almost invisible drizzle began.
+
+Blame that report card, anyway. Perhaps if he presented it with the
+"hundred" spelling paper that very day, his mother wouldn't be too
+severe with him. He'd try that experiment in the morning, anyway.
+
+But upon waking, he stared from his window in delight at the spectacle
+which the capricious weather had formed for him. The rain had increased
+as the night passed, and had frozen upon the chilled trees and house
+roofs. The linden on the Fletcher lawn was coated with fairy lace work,
+and the denuded lilac bush across the way shone black through its glassy
+covering. The long expanse of dark, cement walk which flanked each side
+of the snowy road was coated with ice and made walking for pedestrians a
+matter of some danger. As he jerked his tie into position, Perry Alford
+shot past on his skates, and he hurried down to breakfast. He'd have a
+little of that sport before school, himself.
+
+But as he rose joyously from the table, he stopped short. There was that
+report card; and he knew that his plans were shattered. Mrs. Fletcher's
+remarks upon his many deficiencies would consume every minute of the
+time before school.
+
+"My report," he said briefly. She looked at it.
+
+"John!"
+
+He gazed out of the window in a forlorn effort to appear unconcerned.
+
+"Reading, 'F'," quoted Mrs. Fletcher, "and last month it was 'G'."
+
+He drew out his watch and set the big hand forward ten minutes. If he
+used a little strategy, he could at least shorten the lecture by that
+amount of time.
+
+"Arithmetic, 'P'," she went on. "And geography, 'P'. And you told me you
+had all your lessons done when I gave you permission to go skating those
+evenings. I'm very much displeased with you."
+
+He grew desperate. When Mrs. Fletcher began to talk about being
+displeased and grieved, there was trouble ahead. He drew a much-chewed
+pencil from his coat pocket and handed it to her.
+
+"Hurry and sign, Mother," he begged. "It's school time."
+
+She scribbled a reluctant signature at the bottom and looked at it
+thoughtfully. "I'll keep this to show to your father this evening."
+
+"I've had it three days already," he blurted. "It's got to go back
+today."
+
+He snatched the card from her hand, showed his watch as she protested,
+and fled for his coat. Once at the corner, he stopped running and
+smiled. The escape had been fairly easy and with a minimum of fuss, and
+he was immeasurably light-hearted, now that the report card bugaboo was
+off his mind.
+
+At Southern Avenue, he caught up with Sid, Silvey, and Perry Alford.
+Bits of ice dropped from the trees to the walk as they sauntered along,
+and water dripped from the icicles on the eaves of the apartments and
+stores as the morning rise in temperature began to take effect.
+
+"Feel's as if it's going to thaw," said Silvey as they came to a very
+slippery stretch of walk. So the quartette slid up and down on the ice
+as long after the second assembly bell as they dared, and with the fear
+of tardiness upon them, dashed for the school yard.
+
+His pocket was empty, and his conscience clear, and the morning session
+passed swiftly for John. At noon, as the long lines filed into the
+school yard to freedom, he looked about him with delight.
+
+The winter's deposit of snow was melting into little rivulets which
+trickled merrily along wagon ruts until they came to the street drains.
+First-graders stopped to splash soggy snowballs into a huge puddle which
+had collected in the street just beyond the alley, and the
+drip-drip-drip of the water, from the trees and buildings to the wet,
+glistening sidewalks was as music to his ears. He broke into a run
+toward home from pure exuberance of feelings, and halted now and then to
+fill his lungs with the sunlit, pregnant air which the south wind had
+brought.
+
+The thought of the continuation of the "penny lecture" which was waiting
+failed to dampen his spirits, even though it threatened curtailment of
+his evenings with Louise. For if the skating parties were over, spring
+with its marbles, tops, and kindred delights had arrived and all sorrow
+fled before it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SPRING BRINGS BASEBALL
+
+
+Little by little the snow disappeared. During the first days of the
+thaw, lethargic city employees chopped paths through the melting ice to
+the street drains. Bare edges of the cement walks appeared in places,
+and at night the puddles and pools in the street hollows bore a thin,
+frozen covering. As the month passed, the crystals became more and more
+rare, and green areas of grass appeared on the more exposed portions of
+the neighborhood lawns. The children turned from their sport of sailing
+sticks and improvised boats down the trickling, artificial brooklets to
+take part in games of "Run, sheep, run" and "Hide-and-seek" over the
+rapidly softening turf. A pelting, refreshing rain from the south drove
+away the last soot-stained vestiges of the snow lying in the protecting
+shadows between the houses, and presto, Miss Thomas' little store
+displayed a window stock of agates, catseyes, and common clay marbles to
+tempt pennies from boyish pockets.
+
+Then, after school, during recess, and for long minutes before the
+afternoon session, the alley which flanked the school yard was marked
+with rings of varying dimensions. The air resounded with cries of, "No
+hudgins," "H'ist," "Your shot," or "You dribbled," as the players
+contested for prizes of five- and six-for-a-cent clay marbles.
+Occasionally two of the big eighth-grade boys would draw a six-foot
+circle in the earth and play for "K'nicks, dime ones," and the game
+would bring a crowd, three deep, from the neighboring players to applaud
+or gasp at each shot.
+
+Even John, man of business that he was, could not resist the temptation.
+The last traces of that autumnal scorn toward "such foolishness"
+vanished as he became the owner of two shooters and a pocketful of the
+more common marbles.
+
+The clan spirit among the different boyish cliques at school revived
+again. Skinny Mosher, who had hugged the warm house during the coldest
+days of the winter, caught suddenly up with John and Silvey as they
+frolicked home for dinner, and brought the news that a "Jefferson Tough"
+had threatened to punch his face in, with no provocation whatsoever. The
+long-discussed secret code took a new lease on life, and cipher messages
+passed to the various corners of room ten with a frequency which drove
+Miss Brown nearly to distraction.
+
+That early April afternoon saw the reunion of the "Tigers" in the Silvey
+back yard. They viewed the dilapidated, weather-beaten club house with
+reawakened interest. Quoth John,
+
+"It's awful dirty where the snow worked in through the fence. Let's fix
+her up." Down into the basement went Bill at the words, and reappeared
+with an old broom, a hammer, and some nails.
+
+"A lot of the boards are loose," he said, as the boys grabbed the
+implements.
+
+Sid stood around and offered voluble suggestions, but the others fell to
+work with a will. At the end of a half-hour the dirt floor was brushed
+free of debris with a thoroughness never attained on maternal cleaning
+assignments, and the little desk was dragged from its winter shelter of
+the house to occupy the customary position of state.
+
+Red Brown stretched out on the springy, alluring sod near the building.
+John and Sid, Skinny and Silvey, followed his example.
+
+"Isn't this great?" the red-haired one asked blissfully. Sid reverted to
+the cause for the summons of the clan.
+
+"How about the 'Jeffersons'?" he asked.
+
+Babel reigned instantly. Silvey was for picking them off, one by one.
+Red counseled a sudden descent in force upon the home haunts of the
+enemy. A rear window in the Silvey house creaked upward, and a feminine
+voice pierced the sun-filled air.
+
+"Land's sakes, Bill Silvey, get off that wet ground this minute. You'll
+catch your death of cold lying there this early in April."
+
+The boy sprang to his feet, while his friends grinned sympathetically.
+
+"And you, John Fletcher," Mrs. Silvey went on, "you needn't laugh. Your
+mother won't like it a bit better, if I telephone her. She'll call you
+home in a minute!"
+
+They all rose at this. Truly, modern electrical inventions widen the
+maternal scope of authority.
+
+"Shucks!" said Skinny, as he brushed some dead grass from his coat. "Now
+she's spoiled it all. What'll we do?"
+
+John tossed his battered cap high in the air in a sudden access of
+spirits. "One for scrub," he shouted. "First raps for the first game of
+scrub. Go home and get your league ball and bat, Sid. I'll bring my
+first baseman's glove. Silvey'll find his catcher's mitt. Beat you home!
+Beat you home!"
+
+They were off. Down the cement sidewalk they darted, their quick breaths
+showing ever so slightly in the crisp air. John stamped up the steps and
+into the front hall.
+
+"Mother!" he called. "Mother!"
+
+"Yes, son?" came the voice from the big second floor sewing room.
+
+"Where's my baseball glove?" He kicked against the bottom step of the
+stairway impatiently.
+
+"Did you wipe your feet when you came in?" came the disconcerting
+inquiry. "I don't want the carpets all over mud."
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Go back and wipe them right away. Then come up and tell me what you
+want."
+
+He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the
+porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the
+basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.
+
+"Now, what is it?"
+
+"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know
+where it is?"
+
+"Where did you leave it?"
+
+"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother
+picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.
+
+"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the
+one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"
+
+He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's,
+and I've got to get it _quick_!"
+
+Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet
+shelf, the other day."
+
+A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The
+door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son
+dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.
+
+When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad
+property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.
+
+"Here's your bases," he called as he heaved the objects into the yard
+with a recklessness which threatened destruction to the turf. "Johnny
+was first at bat, wasn't he?"
+
+They took their positions in the order of the numbers which they had
+called earlier. Silvey stood behind the home plate, Sid DuPree was in
+the pitcher's box, Red played first base, and Skinny Mosher stood near
+the fence to cover the outfield, second, and third as best he could. Sid
+ground the ball into the heel of his heavily padded mitt, as he had seen
+professional pitchers do, bent forward, and threw the ball over Silvey's
+head against the back wall of the house. "Ya-ah," taunted John as the
+catcher scrambled for the ball. "'Fraid to put 'em near me. 'Fraid to
+put 'em near me."
+
+Again a window creaked, and again a maternal voice showed that attention
+had been drawn to the "Tigers" latest recreation.
+
+"What _are_ you boys trying to do?" fretfully. "Don't you know this
+house has windows in it?"
+
+"Go easy," cautioned Bill in an undertone. "Remember, Sid, you haven't
+thrown a ball since last summer. I don't want any 'penny lectures'
+'cause you smashed some glass."
+
+Sid drew his arm back for the second time. John leaned forward, caught
+the slowly moving ball with the full force of the bat, and tore for
+first base.
+
+"Over the fence is out, over the fence is out," came the chorus.
+"Silvey's turn next."
+
+The ex-batsman took up the position near the fence in disgust. Skinny
+moved forward to the pitcher's box, and Sid replaced Bill as catcher.
+The muscles of Skinny's long, thin arms tightened as he grasped the ball
+for his first pitch of the season.
+
+Suddenly the subdued afternoon babel of the city was dwarfed by a
+humming of factory whistles, some long drawn and of deep bass, others
+quicker and higher pitched, rising and dying away in succession as they
+were supplanted by the distance-mellowed notes of other establishments
+with lagging time clocks. Dismay robbed John's face of the grin of a
+moment before.
+
+"Five o'clock," he cried as he threw the baseball glove into the
+quickening grass. "Jiminy, kids, and the paper wagon comes at ten of!"
+
+Inquiry at the little dingy-windowed delicatessen and milk depot
+confirmed his fears. The cart had arrived on time, and his customers
+would expect their news sheets that evening.
+
+What a pest the business was growing to be. It wasn't half-bad in winter
+when the afternoons were short, but now that spring had arrived, there
+were so many delightful demands on a boy's time. He counted the coins in
+his pocket, and made a mental calculation of the number of papers
+actually needed.
+
+"Give me all you've got," he demanded of the astonished delicatessen
+proprietor. That thin-haired, shaky-fingered gentleman counted the
+papers on the black news stand.
+
+"There's one for ol' Miss Anderson, an' one for--"
+
+"Never mind them," John broke in excitedly. "Give me all your papers!
+You've got to!"
+
+At that, the number was pitifully inadequate for his demands. He
+retraced his steps to the corner and hurried over to the suburban
+railroad station. There, the leader of the "Jefferson Toughs" was trying
+to dispose of the last of his wares.
+
+"Let's have 'em all," said John. His rival gazed at him in amazement.
+
+"Quit your kiddin'," he ejaculated finally.
+
+"Honest 'n truth," John assured him. "Missed the paper wagon, and I've
+got to fix my customers, somehow."
+
+Next, he ran westward to the little school store to beg Miss Thomas to
+disappoint her steady patrons for just this once. The search led him far
+beyond the university buildings and the gray-stone flat which had marked
+the limits of their hitching trip in February, down to the business
+street with its rattling surface cars which lay a full mile west of
+John's home. He returned by a side street, four blocks to the north,
+stopping at the numerous little stationery and notion shops on the way.
+Even with that, certain staid and substantial customers were horrified
+to find that the yellowest of yellow newspapers had supplanted their
+conservative favorite, that evening.
+
+He came home tired and footsore, and went wearily to bed after a
+half-eaten supper. The business which he had built up so zestfully in
+the autumn had enfettered him, and was shaping his leisure moments like
+an inexorable machine, and the realization of it gave him moodily
+thoughtful moments during the remainder of the week.
+
+Sunday, blessedly work free, was warm and sun-shiny. As soon as he had
+eaten dinner, he grabbed his battered cap from the hall chair and
+started for the door.
+
+"Going for a walk," he explained to Mrs. Fletcher as she looked up from
+the Sunday paper.
+
+"Louise going with you?"
+
+"Not much! Silvey'n me are going on a real walk. We don't want to feed
+squirrels on an afternoon like this."
+
+It was as if the entire city's population had turned out to welcome the
+arrival of spring. The street leading from the car terminal was thronged
+with a constantly moving procession bound for the park. White-faced
+stenographers and anaemic clerks came from the dingy boarding-house
+districts to the north. Stockily built mechanics swaggered along with
+their simpering, gaudily dressed lady loves. Here and there were entire
+families of substantial Germans and Swedes, and occasionally, swarthy
+Italians and beady-eyed, voluble Jews. Sooner or later, they all lost
+themselves in the winding gravel paths of the park, or made their way to
+the broad walk along the lake front, where the air was filled with their
+polyglot babel.
+
+"Isn't it peachy?" asked John as the boys passed the long, parallel rows
+of poplars which marked the edge of the park. "Come on, Bill. Let's go
+to the island."
+
+The path led them by the boat landing. All traces of the warming house
+which had sheltered so many numbed skaters during the winter had been
+removed. In its stead, were piled rows upon rows of yellow,
+flat-bottomed boats, one on top of another, with boards separating them.
+
+"Look!" John pointed them out. "That means summer's coming soon, and
+fishing, and school vacation." On the island, they found two severely
+dressed, angular students from the university who stood beneath a small
+brown bird in the branch of a budding maple. As he sunned himself
+happily, the taller of the two consulted a book which she held in one
+hand in a manner vaguely suggestive of Miss Brown and school
+recitations.
+
+"It is a little smaller than Wilson's thrush, Maria," she admitted.
+"Still----"
+
+John chuckled; "Nothing but a sparrow." He brushed past a bench on which
+was squatted a be-shawled, unwashed, immigrant grandmother. "Come on
+down this little path, Bill. Perhaps we can find some birds if we look."
+
+But the season was still a little too early for the arrival of the
+robins, the yellowhammers, and the elusive kinglets and thrushes from
+the southland. Though the boys stalked in and out the winding,
+bush-beset trail, their search startled only nervous-tailed squirrels
+and dozens of the feathered gamins which had so sorely puzzled the two
+schoolmams. But the dandelions were poking their green shoots through
+the deposit of snow-packed autumn leaves, and the moss on the tree
+trunks lightened the somber gray of the bark. In one inlet of the
+lagoon, John caught a gleam in the water which was not a ripple
+reflection of the sun's rays.
+
+"Sunfish," he whispered to Bill.
+
+A bungling pair of grown-ups crashed down the path and drove the wary
+feeders to cover in deeper water. The boys waited a few futile minutes
+for their return, then dashed noisily over the wooden south bridge, past
+the golf links with its dense mass of patiently waiting enthusiasts, and
+down the gently sloping road to the stone bridge which marked the
+entrance to the yacht harbor.
+
+There, where the black, bobbing buoys marked the moorings of the summer
+fleet of skiffs and schooners, of noisy little open motorboats, and
+long, heavily powered gasoline cruisers, Silvey found an empty bottle on
+the graveled shore. John looked at it reflectively.
+
+"Got some paper?"
+
+Bill found an old spelling sheet in his pocket. John tore off the
+cleanest end and, with the curving side of the bottle for a writing
+board, scribbled a laborious note.
+
+"Lat 57, Long 64," he began, remembering the inevitable heading of the
+missives in sea-faring novels. "Nancy Lee sank this date, August 3,
+1872. All hands lost but me. Frank Smith."
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+He worked the note down the narrow glass neck and plugged it with a bit
+of driftwood. "Maybe somebody, 'way across the lake, will find this," he
+explained, as he threw the receptacle far out on the water. "Then
+they'll think a ship's sunk."
+
+"What's 'lat' and 'long'?" asked Silvey, as they watched it bobbing up
+and down with the ripples.
+
+"The checkerboard lines on the geography maps," his chum answered
+evasively, as they retraced their steps northward.
+
+At the macadam road they hesitated. On the other side lay the smaller
+golf course, which offered excellent amusement because of its many
+enthusiastic novices at the sport, and the lure of an occasional
+shrubbery-hidden ball which might be found by keen eyes. Ahead,
+stretched the lake and the broad walk, thronged with laughing, friendly
+humanity.
+
+"Let's go the beach way," said John suddenly. Indeed, no spring jaunt
+could be complete without a stroll over the clinging, weather-beaten
+sand.
+
+They halted first at the long pier, and walked out to the end to catch
+the invigorating freshness of the water-kissed south wind. There, a
+persistent fisherman, the first of that season's nimrod tribe, leaned
+against the life-preserver post.
+
+John leaned cautiously over to see if captive perch were floating back
+and forth. Only ruffled water met his gaze.
+
+"Biting any?" he asked.
+
+The fisherman shook his head. "A mite early, I guess."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," John encouraged. "Come on, Sil, let's sit down and
+watch. Maybe he'll catch something soon."
+
+So the boys dangled their feet over the edge of the pier until the
+lengthening shadows told that it was time to leave for home. They rose
+regretfully and resumed the saunter along the broad walk with its many,
+occupied benches. Down on the sand, children hazarded spring colds as
+they fashioned hills and castles by the lake. Further along, an ardent
+youth serenely disregarded photographic rules and pointed his kodak at a
+group of laughing girls who stood between him and the setting sun. As
+the boys left the park, they passed a group of gray-suited ball players,
+which had been using one of the park diamonds near the golf links. John
+watched them a minute.
+
+"Most time for our team to get together again," he said.
+
+Silvey nodded. "Sid was talking about it after the game of scrub the
+other day. Wants to be captain this year."
+
+John laughed scornfully. As Silvey well knew, he, himself, intended to
+be re-elected to that important office. "Let's go home by the big lot
+and see what it's like," he suggested.
+
+A few minutes later they clambered over the shaky fence which separated
+the field from the sidewalk and neighboring dairy pasturage. Silvey dug
+his foot into the yielding turf, which had formed the scene of that
+football scrimmage between the "Jeffersons" and the "Tigers."
+
+"'Most dry enough to play on," he observed.
+
+John nodded. The flat, white stone which had been used for a home plate
+during the summer had been removed as a hindrance to the gridiron sport,
+and the base lines which had been worn into the turf by frequent boyish
+footsteps, were almost obliterated by the winter's debris and the rank,
+quickening grass. Not an inspiring view by any means, yet John gazed
+upon it in dreamy satisfaction.
+
+"Let's make 'er a _real_ home grounds," he said suddenly. "Soon as it
+gets drier, we'll bring our rakes over and get this stuff out of the
+way;" he kicked a rusty tin can to one side. "Then we'll cut the grass
+and make cinder base lines, and everything'll be just peachy."
+
+Silvey beamed, enthralled as usual by John's fertile imagination.
+
+"Then," went on John, as he retraced his steps to the walk, "we'll get
+some lumber from new flat buildings and put up a grand stand and call it
+'The Tigers' Baseball Park.'"
+
+They halted some minutes later in front of the Silvey house. John's
+watch told of at least a quarter of an hour before supper time, and they
+perched themselves on the top step to talk of fishing, of the May
+vacation of a week which would soon be upon them, of the leaky roof in
+the shack, and lastly of the baseball team.
+
+"Joe Menard's folks had to move," said Silvey, as he thought over the
+roster of last year's organization.
+
+"We'll get a pitcher somewhere," said John, a trifle impatiently, as he
+changed the subject. "So Sid wants to be captain, does he?"
+
+Silvey smiled, as does an adult listening to the vagaries of a child.
+"You know him as well as I do."
+
+"But who'll vote for him? There's Red and Skinny and you and me and
+Perry and the Harrison kids, all don't like him. If it wasn't for that
+baseball and bat, and those gloves of his, he couldn't a' played with us
+last year."
+
+Silvey shrugged his shoulders. "He's going around school, saying that
+he's going to be captain of the 'Tigers' this year."
+
+"You're president of the club, aren't you?" said John, thoughtfully.
+
+His chum nodded.
+
+"I'll go around and see all the fellows. Any of 'em who won't vote for
+me, you tell 'em they'll be dropped from the club. We'll have a meeting
+when everything's fixed, and Mr. Sid DuPree won't think himself so
+smart."
+
+Never was precinct canvassed more thoroughly by a municipal candidate
+than was the membership of the "Tigers" by the two boys during the week
+which followed. John dropped the usual walk home with Louise, one day,
+that he might talk to Skinny Mosher, and hung around the school yard
+another noon, that he might reassure himself of Brown's loyalty. With a
+clear majority of six assured over Sid's lone vote, code notices were
+sent back and forth between the different members until Miss Brown
+threatened to send the responsible parties to the principal's office.
+
+With victory certain, John raced across the school yard and caught up
+with a certain maiden whom he had neglected sorely of late.
+
+"We're going to have a ball team election tomorrow," he explained, as he
+took possession of her school books. "I've been awfully busy."
+
+"I know," she replied absently. "Sid told me. Says he's going to be
+captain."
+
+"Guess not!" John was too pleased with the surprise prepared for his
+rival to realize the revelation in her words. "Smarty DuPree hasn't much
+show when six of the fellows are going to vote for me."
+
+Conversation lagged. Miss Martin was nervously alert lest she encounter
+a friendly greeting from Sid while her escort was with her, and John
+became absorbed in the affairs of the morrow. Strangely enough, he
+experienced a feeling of relief when he left her at the apartment
+building and was able to race back to the shack where Silvey was
+waiting.
+
+There the two planned and boasted of combats to take place under his
+leadership on the renovated baseball field, until a warning conscience
+reminded John that it was nearing paper time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MORE ABOUT "THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD"
+
+
+One by one, the boys filed in through the Silvey gateway, to squat
+outside the club-house entrance until their roster was complete. Bill
+glanced nervously at Sid and cleared his throat.
+
+"It's baseball time," he began abruptly. "And we've got to elect our
+captain and manager. Any--" he paused and looked at John.
+
+"Nom'nations?" said the latter promptly.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Sid tightened his grasp on a handful of
+the fresh, green turf. John looked meaningly at Red Brown, who spoke up
+as he had been instructed.
+
+"I nom'nate John Fletcher. He was captain last year 'n he ought to be
+this."
+
+"Any one else?" asked Silvey.
+
+"I want to be captain," said Sid, curtly.
+
+"Can't nom'nate yourself," ruled the president. "Somebody's got to do it
+for you."
+
+"Somebody's got to second it, too," supplemented John.
+
+Sid gazed helplessly about. Truly this newly made maze of parliamentary
+law was bewildering. "Nobody's seconded John's," he said at last.
+
+"Second John's nom'nation," said Skinny Mosher promptly.
+
+"All those in favor of John as captain--"
+
+Sid sprang to his feet. "Wait a minute," he snapped. "You fellows think
+you're smart, but let me tell you something. I said I was going to be
+captain, and I am."
+
+"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause
+you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you
+did."
+
+"Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose
+league ball did the team use last year?"
+
+"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly.
+
+"And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts
+were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go
+ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't
+run the team, the team can't use my things!"
+
+There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill,
+had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly
+at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably.
+
+"And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the shin
+with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make."
+
+"Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant
+ultimatum. "Which do you want?"
+
+He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not
+without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being
+blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized
+balls, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation.
+John sighed wearily.
+
+"Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally.
+
+A reluctantly assenting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the
+subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head
+emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought.
+
+"The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix
+the lot up."
+
+"But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing
+the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could
+say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the
+neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room
+for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce.
+
+Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the
+team's, and his, prestige.
+
+"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front
+might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is
+like."
+
+"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a
+moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad
+fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They
+scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there
+by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy
+field.
+
+The broken glass and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept
+further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards
+from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the
+cucumber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the
+sparse, fresh grass blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the
+dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of
+baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers"
+purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they
+turned to their captain for advice.
+
+"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at
+him in futile anger.
+
+"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.
+
+Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain,
+but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."
+
+"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of
+you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come
+on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."
+
+John dropped his rake over the fence on his return, and glanced at his
+watch as a precaution. It was nearly five! Blame the paper business
+anyway! Never did he start some important project but what time flew so
+swiftly that he had to leave just when things were getting interesting.
+He called an explanatory "paper time!" to his team mates, turned his
+implement over to Red, and left for the little delicatessen store.
+
+All the next Monday afternoon the boys labored while their captain stood
+around with his hands in his pockets and watched condescendingly. John
+picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the
+lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass,
+rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been
+carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he
+beamed his approval.
+
+"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.
+
+"Yes, and Sid'll say he did it," his chum commented bitterly.
+
+"What do we care? We'll put the home plate here," he indicated a spot
+some fifty feet north of the dairy buildings. "Then the sun won't get in
+our eyes. I'll borrow dad's big tapeline to measure off the other bases,
+and the grand stand can go here. It'll be big enough to hold 'most fifty
+people!"
+
+Silvey listened in amazement. He could run a football team as
+quarter-back to perfection, or break through the opposing line time and
+again, as he had done last autumn, but this fertile foresight was
+something beyond his comprehension.
+
+"You talk as if you see it," he said finally.
+
+"Why, I do." John dismissed the matter as worthy of no further comment.
+"But before we do any of these things, we've got to cut the grass and
+see where the bumps in the ground are."
+
+For two afternoons the whirr of lawnmowers was heard over the "Tigers'
+Home Grounds." When the many hollows and hummocks in the uneven turf
+came to light, the youthful construction boss ordered that shovels be
+brought, and another day passed in transporting dirt and leveling the
+obstructions off. Pail after pail of water was carried from the dairy
+buildings to wet down and harden the new, loose earth, and it was
+Saturday morning before the distances between the various bases and the
+pitcher's box could be measured off.
+
+"We'll start filling in the paths with cinders now," said John, as
+Silvey drove a peg into the ground to mark the location of the home
+plate.
+
+"Won't they hurt when you slide on them?" drawled Perry Alford.
+
+"But there's nothing else to use, is there?"
+
+"They're starting a flat building next old lady Meeker's on Southern
+Avenue," the boy suggested. "Why not get sand from there?"
+
+John shot him a glance of approval and called to the team members.
+"Everybody get a pail and meet at Silvey's," he concluded, as they
+started for the railroad tracks.
+
+"I'll sit here and watch the tools," said Sid, brazenly.
+
+"Aren't you going to work at all?" broke out Silvey impatiently.
+
+"Don't have to," was the unperturbed reply. "I'm the captain."
+
+They left their nominal leader to do as he desired and scattered to
+commandeer the various family buckets and fiber pails. Skinny, who lived
+farthest from the Silvey's, came up at last with his utensil, and they
+set off, single file, past Neighborhood Hall and the corner grocery
+stores, and around to quiet, sedate Southern Avenue, beating a crude
+marching rhythm on the tins as they went. At the sight of the ten-foot
+sandhill which the excavations for the apartments had formed, John broke
+into a run.
+
+"Beat you there!" he shouted.
+
+Away they went after him, pell-mell, and dashed up the yielding sides to
+bury their pails deep in the golden particles. Silvey braced himself,
+tugged his load free, and staggered along the walk for perhaps thirty
+feet. John caught up with him and also halted for a rest.
+
+At last they started again, but it was no light-hearted, carefree,
+return trip for the "Tigers." The sand-filled buckets weighed too much
+to be used as drums, and they retraced their steps slowly, dropping them
+every few minutes to ease their aching wrists. In front of Neighborhood
+Hall, Skinny found a blister on one of his hands.
+
+"Think we'll ever get back?" he asked, despairingly.
+
+"It isn't so far now," John encouraged him. "We've only got to go
+another block before we turn. Then it's a half-block down to the hole in
+the fence. Come on. I'll stump you to carry yours as far as the railroad
+tracks."
+
+Thus by making it a matter of athletic prowess the boys carried their
+loads to the destination. But the little heaps on the dusty earth looked
+pitifully insignificant. Skinny borrowed a pin and lanced the white
+protuberance at the base of his second finger.
+
+"Jiminy," he mourned, as he squeezed the water out. "It's going to be an
+awful lot of work, fellows."
+
+They raked the sand level along the path from the plate to first base.
+Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could they seem to reach even
+a quarter of the distance, and protruding grass blades showed that the
+covering was far too scanty.
+
+"Where's your wagon, John?" asked Red Brown suddenly.
+
+"Busted," said John, reproachfully. "Have you forgotten?"
+
+During the summer preceding, a fever of wagon building had seized the
+boys. Every spare wheel and tricycle frame in the block had been
+requisitioned for the construction of a half-dozen little vehicles which
+suddenly appeared to scud down the sidewalks and over the smooth macadam
+street. There had been discussions and disputes as to speed, and John's
+wagon, a long, well-oiled affair with a coat of red, discarded house
+paint on its framework, had come to grief in a collision with Brown's,
+one sunny afternoon. Even Silvey, the optimist, who had furnished the
+motive power, had looked at the wreckage in well-founded despair.
+
+"Where's yours?" Red turned abruptly to the Harrison boys.
+
+"In the basement."
+
+Skinny Mosher's, too, was still in existence. All the rest of the
+morning and afternoon, the two wagons ran merrily toward the Southern
+Avenue sand hill, or creaked slowly and laboriously back to the "Tigers'
+Home Grounds," with such good effect that but a scant ten feet of path
+remained to be filled in when John's paper route called him.
+
+Silvey and he sauntered over that evening after supper to make the final
+inspection of the work.
+
+"Just like the park diamonds, isn't it?" he asked, as Silvey stretched a
+pair of weary arms.
+
+"And Sid said he was glad he thought of it. And we worked like
+everything while he stood around!"
+
+John scarcely heard him as he stood, eyes a-dream, looking over the
+even, carefully raked turf. "The grand stand comes next, Bill. Do you
+think we ought to tear down the shack for lumber?"
+
+Bill demurred. That shaky building occupied too great a place of
+importance in the boys' lives to justify such a sacrifice. Surely there
+were enough new buildings being erected in the neighborhood without
+that.
+
+Sid made an announcement on the following Monday which made the
+postponement of that last bit of construction work imperative.
+
+"Saw the captain of the 'Jeffersons,'" he beamed as the little group
+gathered about him on the baseball diamond. "We're going to play 'em
+this Saturday."
+
+"What?" John exploded. Sid nodded his head.
+
+"They've got the best team around," Silvey broke out. "And they've been
+practicing in the park ever since the snow melted. How can we lick 'em
+now?"
+
+Sid shrugged his shoulders aggravatingly.
+
+"Haven't you any brains at all?" John stormed.
+
+"I'm captain," Sid snapped back at the insurgents. "I'm running this
+team. If you don't like it, you can quit!"
+
+The voice of Skinny Mosher, the peacemaker, broke in: "Aw, kids, never
+mind. 'Tain't so bad as it looks. Let's start practicing now, and maybe
+we can beat 'em anyway."
+
+It was excellent advice, and the boys scampered over the tracks for
+home, to return singly and in pairs with their baseball paraphernalia.
+John took up his old position at first, and Silvey donned his catcher's
+mitt to receive and return imaginary balls thrown by the other players.
+Red Brown and Perry Alford stationed themselves at second and shortstop
+respectively, while the Harrison boys stood around and waited until duty
+should call them to the outfield.
+
+"Where's Skinny and Sid?" asked John as he glanced around.
+
+"There's Mosher, now," exclaimed Silvey, as a tall and diminutive figure
+made their way down the railroad embankment. "Kid brother with him as
+usual."
+
+"Had to bring him," the unfortunate elder boy exclaimed when he reached
+the diamond. "Ma wouldn't let me come unless I did."
+
+They accepted the affliction resignedly. "He can watch," said Silvey.
+"Come on, John. Toss up your little ball while we're waiting."
+
+Accordingly, the first baseman brought out a lopsided ten-cent ball and
+threw it toward third. Skinny Mosher dropped the sphere as if it were a
+hot coal.
+
+"Go easy," he cautioned. "Sid hasn't brought my glove yet."
+
+The elder Harrison boy who aspired to fill Joe Menard's place, ran over
+to the pitcher's box, and the tossing was resumed. From third to first,
+second to pitcher, and then to Silvey, and back again. Muscles became
+limbered and arms more certain of their mark. Skinny misgauged a swift
+throw from John and caught the ball on the tip of his fingers.
+
+"Jiminy!" he yelled. "What you think you're doing?"
+
+"Butter fingers, butter fingers!" came the taunting reply.
+
+"Don't care. I'm going to wait for my glove. Here's Sid now."
+
+The team turned as one man and stared in astonishment. Their captain had
+delayed his return to don his new baseball suit, and from the spikes on
+his shoes to the visor of his red-trimmed cap, he was a perfect
+miniature of a professional player. Even John was unable to restrain an
+envious stare at the natty flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and the
+maroon and white stockings.
+
+"Cost eight dollars, it did," Sid announced, as he acknowledged the
+unconscious homage with a satisfied smile. "Dad gave it to me 'cause I
+was captain. Here's the gloves and the ball and the bat. Let's start
+practice."
+
+They ran back to their positions. Sid, bat in hand, stood by the plate,
+tossed the league ball high in the air, and knocked the sphere easily
+toward third base. Skinny, with the confidence engendered by a
+well-padded hand, scooped the ball with surprising accuracy and returned
+it. Again Sid repeated the process.
+
+Red pranced impatiently up and down on the sand path. "Give me one this
+time," he begged. "Don't send 'em all to Skinny."
+
+The captain of the "Tigers" nodded and hit the descending ball with all
+his force a little too far for Red to reach. A quick glance showed the
+impending catastrophe.
+
+"Hey, kid, get out of the way," he yelled. The warning came too late.
+The ball skimmed over the grass, struck a hummock which had been
+overlooked by the builders of the diamond, and ricochetted upward into
+the hapless Mosher youngster's stomach.
+
+Yells filled the air. Skinny, unwilling slave, stooped over his
+prostrate brother. "Hurt much?" he queried anxiously. John glanced at
+his watch in boredom, for such occurrences had lost their novelty long
+months ago.
+
+"Paper time," he called, as he made for the tracks. A last glance back
+before the dairy buildings cut off the view, showed the wailing infant
+trudging sturdily toward the walk. Every line of his figure indicated
+maddened determination to tell his mother on the whole team.
+
+Tuesday and Wednesday sped past. It became more and more apparent that a
+substitute for Joe Menard must be found if the "Tigers" were to have
+even a fighting chance of holding their own with the ancient enemy. Time
+and again Haldane Harrison took his place to whip a few slightly curving
+balls down to the critical Silvey, only to realize that his knowledge of
+the art was sadly deficient. They all had a try at it, eventually, while
+Sid stood by with a sarcastic grin on his face and watched their futile
+efforts.
+
+The next noon, John walked home with Louise, a custom sadly broken since
+the baseball season had begun, and passed a stockily built lad who was
+bouncing a baseball against the side of a house but a few doors from the
+Martin's apartment. On the way back, he stopped to watch. The newcomer
+returned his stare with equal interest.
+
+"'Lo," said John, as he walked nearer.
+
+"'Lo," said the boy with an ingratiating smile.
+
+"My name's John Fletcher."
+
+"Mine's Francis Yager," spoken with equal curtness.
+
+"Live here?" asked the first baseman of the "Tigers." The boy admitted
+that such was the case. "There's my house," explained John, pointing
+with an inkstained finger.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Francis bounced his ball against the side
+of the house a few times.
+
+"Ever play baseball?" asked John, as the boy made a difficult catch of
+an erratic return from a drain pipe. The newcomer turned, his face
+lighted with interest.
+
+"Just bet you!" he beamed. "Back home we had a team and I played--"
+
+"Pitcher?" asked John, breathlessly. The new boy nodded. Truly the fates
+were proving kind to the "Tigers" that day.
+
+"What can you throw?"
+
+"An 'in,' and an 'out,' and a 'slow ball.'" The expert paused in the
+summary of his attainments. "Last year, I was just getting so's I could
+pitch a drop. But it didn't work very well."
+
+Dinner, maternal lectures, all were forgotten as John poured out the
+tale of the "Tigers'" woes to his new friend. Arm in arm, they made
+their way up to Silvey's house. That catcher tried out the new recruit,
+while John watched eagerly, and pronounced him all and more than he had
+claimed for himself.
+
+"We'll fix the 'Jeffersons' now," John shouted confidently. "You can
+hold 'em, Francis, old boy."
+
+He marched the new member over the tracks to the ball grounds, that
+afternoon, and introduced him to the delighted team. Sid heard Silvey's
+tale of the pitcher's prowess with ill-disguised resentment.
+
+"He can play in the outfield," he said shortly. "I'm going to do it
+myself."
+
+"You!" shrieked John.
+
+"Yes, me!"
+
+"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. Pitch! Only
+reason we let you play at all last year was because--" He checked
+himself suddenly. Sid only smiled.
+
+"I'm captain," he replied, as John finished. "I'm running this team. I'm
+going to pitch, and if you don't like it, you can quit." He walked over
+to the position, leaving a dazed and resentful first baseman behind him.
+
+That evening, John returned from the paper route to eat supper
+listlessly and skip up to Silvey's as soon as he had finished. The team,
+his team which he had built up with such care last year, was going to
+the dogs, and he craved sympathy from Bill about it.
+
+"He's crazy," his chum sighed when John's outburst had slackened. "You
+should a' seen him when you'd gone for the papers, today. First he threw
+over my head, and then to one side, 'most out of my reach. He hit the
+ground twice before he could throw a fast one over the plate, and
+Francis laughed at him. 'Well,' says Sid, 'I guess I can learn before
+Saturday. I've got a book at home that tells all about it.'"
+
+"Maybe--" said John, thoughtfully.
+
+"Maybe what?"
+
+"Maybe the 'Jeffersons' 'll make so many runs in the first inning that
+he'll have to quit. Then Francis can play, and perhaps we can catch up
+with them."
+
+"But he won't let Francis learn my signals," Silvey complained. "Says
+he's captain and we've got to do just what he says."
+
+"Get Francis to come down to your yard tomorrow noon," John counseled,
+as he stood up and stretched himself. "Teach him then."
+
+Thus it came about that, unknown to Sid, two small figures rehearsed for
+a good hour, such intricacies as "Two fingers against the glove means a
+swift one," "when I pound like this, it means an 'out,'" and "this means
+an 'in'" until Francis became letter-perfect in them.
+
+That Friday afternoon, the "Tigers" gathered for the final practice
+before the first and most important game of the season. Silvey knocked
+grounders innumerable to the different members of the infield who
+handled them with uncanny dexterity, or sent long flies out to the
+waiting players until he grew tired and Sid supplanted him. Red Brown
+and one or two of the fleeter spirits of the team raced from base to
+base, practicing a little trick of sliding which Red had noticed at a
+park baseball game, and Sid took his position as pitcher for a few
+minutes' erratic practice with Silvey. John left them for the night,
+wavering between confidence and despair as to the result of the morrow.
+Everything had gone marvelously well with the exception of Sid.
+
+"If he quits early," Silvey consoled him as they sat on the Fletcher
+front steps just before bed time, "we'll win after all."
+
+"We'll have to," said John, stubbornly, as he rose in answer to his
+mother's call. "So-long, Bill."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HE'S "THROUGH WITH GIRLS"
+
+
+Nine o'clock in the morning saw the "Tigers" assembled in front of the
+Silvey home. Sid wore his elaborate outfit; Bill, the ragged football
+trousers which had done duty in the autumn, and John sported a battered
+cap. Other uniforms among them there were not, but the team made a brave
+showing, nevertheless, as it trooped lustily toward the corner. No
+scampering across the railroad embankment this time for the members. A
+baseball game demanded a more ceremonious arrival on the grounds. They
+neared the viaduct and Red and Perry Alford began a tattoo on the cement
+walk with the baseball bats. The other players broke into that
+time-honored refrain,
+
+    Hip! Hip!
+    I had a good job
+    And I quit.
+    My name is Sam
+    And I don't give a--[pause]
+    Hippetty hippetty, hip!
+
+With the corner and adult ears left behind them, Sid, in a spirit of
+bravado, filled in the tabooed expletive and aroused the awed admiration
+of his subordinates.
+
+Past the long, low, red art shops they swaggered, keeping perfect time
+to the chant as they rounded the corner. John who was a little ahead of
+the others, broke into a sharp cry of dismay.
+
+"Look! _Our grounds!_"
+
+The consternation which was on his face spread to theirs. The shaky,
+weather-beaten fence by the sidewalk had been torn down before their
+arrival. At intervals, load after load of building stone rumbled over
+hastily formed paths of heavy planks. Further in, on the field, from the
+home-plate northward over the painstakingly levelled earth, harnessed
+horses sweated and tugged at the traces as scoop after scoop bit into
+the turf and came up filled with dirt to be emptied against the railroad
+tracks.
+
+"Flats," gasped Silvey, as they drew nearer. John said nothing, but his
+lower lip trembled as the last trace of the beautifully sanded base
+lines disappeared under the excavators' devastating hands.
+
+"'Tis a pity," said the kindly Irishman, who noted their approach, "but
+it has to be, I guess, kids. Yis, the other team went home, fifteen
+minutes ago. Said they didn't guess there'd be a game today."
+
+They stopped in dazed bewilderment to watch the progress of the
+foundation work. At last, John, sick at heart, slunk away. He wanted to
+be home, away from everyone until he could get control of his feelings.
+As he came down the street with his baseball glove dangling aimlessly in
+one hand, he stumbled over the Mosher youngster who was intent upon some
+childish pursuit in the dust of the gutter.
+
+"Get out of the way," he stormed angrily. To vent his disappointment
+upon even so small an offender was a relief. The infant smiled
+maliciously.
+
+"Johnny an' Louise, Johnny an' Louise," he chanted, reviving the cry of
+the autumn before.
+
+"Well, what about it," demanded John belligerently.
+
+"Louise had a soda with Sid. Saw her, saw her!"
+
+"When?" Had Louise, too, forsaken him in this hour of grief?
+
+"Yesterday. Sidney an' Louise, Sidney an' Louise," came the taunting
+revision.
+
+John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the
+Halloween party--the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated
+in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since
+that time--clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back
+and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball
+gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his
+girl.
+
+The appearance of that gentleman around the corner put a stop to his
+meditations. John waited until he sauntered unsuspectingly up to him.
+
+"Say, Sid!"
+
+"Yes?" A note in the voice put the captain of the "Tigers" on his guard.
+
+"What's this I hear about Louise?"
+
+"N-nothing."
+
+"Been drinking sodas with her again, have you?"
+
+"Who told you?" Sid made a futile effort to edge past the inquisitor.
+
+"Never mind who. Promise not to do it any more or I'll--" He clenched
+one fist and drew it back threateningly.
+
+"Guess I won't," retorted Sid with sudden spirit. "Guess I've got as
+much right to drink sodas with her as anybody. Who's going to stop me?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+"You," scornfully.
+
+At this moment, the very cause of the dissension came skipping along
+with the inevitable package from the grocery under one arm. Feminine
+intuition told her that trouble was lurking in the air, and she would
+have passed but John held up a detaining hand.
+
+"Louise, you've been drinking sodas with Sid again."
+
+"Haven't either," in the same breath came the admission, "who told you?"
+
+John gave her a searching glance. "Tell this _guy_," he said with
+infinite scorn, "that you won't have anything more to do with him. Tell
+him you're my girl, Louise," he added incautiously.
+
+The lady's head went back to a warning angle.
+
+"Go on!" John ordered.
+
+"Guess I won't!" she snapped, angered by his persistence. "Guess I
+won't!" she repeated angrily. "'Cause I'm not anybody's girl. So there!"
+With nose held regally in the air and knees strangely jointless, she
+walked away from the pair.
+
+"Ya-a-a-h," jeered Sid incautiously.
+
+John drove out, full strength, with his right fist upon his adversary's
+nose. Sid stepped back in dismay. It wasn't fair, punching without the
+preliminary tilt of words and wary skirmishing. Again John set upon him
+and he turned, dodged behind a tree, and fled for home. Down the street
+they tore at top speed. Inch by inch, the space between the two
+diminished as they passed the Alfords, the Harrisons, and finally
+arrived at the DuPree iron gate.
+
+"Ma-a-a-a!" yelled Sid, as he struggled with the handle. "Come quick,
+come quick."
+
+The gate suddenly yielded. Sid sprang inside, up the front steps, and
+into the hallway. There he turned, locked the screen door, and stuck out
+his tongue at his adversary.
+
+"Ya-a-a-a!" he taunted.
+
+John contemplated an attack upon the flimsy screening, but a remnant of
+wisdom withheld him.
+
+    Fletcher,
+    The Fletcher,
+    The old fly-catcher!
+
+came the cry from the porch.
+
+"Think you're smart," John glared. "Just dare you to come down here!
+Just dare you to!"
+
+"The old fly-catcher" continued. John opened his lips for a reply in
+kind.
+
+    Sid DuPree
+    Went out on a spree
+    And never got back
+    'Til half-past three.
+
+The hero of the verse was struck suddenly dumb by this display of
+poetical ability. Again John repeated his latest composition. He was
+beginning to enjoy himself immensely. At the third repetition of the
+adventures of Sid, a window creaked noisily up.
+
+"John Fletcher," came the harsh voice from the upper window. "You're a
+nasty little boy, and if you don't leave Sidney alone, I'll telephone
+your mother."
+
+"Ya-a-a-ah," jeered Sid in an undertone. John looked and longed.
+
+"Go on," urged Mrs. DuPree. "The telephone's right here in the hallway."
+
+He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and crossed over
+to his own porch. Once up in his room, he threw himself on the bed, and
+as the excitement of the chase wore off began to realize the extent of
+the morning's losses.
+
+The athletic field upon which they had labored so long and carefully,
+was torn to pieces--gone forever. Worse than that, Louise wasn't his
+girl any more. She'd said so herself. No more samples of cookery, no
+more confidential little walks to and from school, no more
+squirrel-feeding excursions. And the glorious dream of the future was as
+completely demolished as the "Tigers' Home Grounds." There could be no
+thousand dollars and a home when he reached his majority now.
+
+He lay staring at the pattern in the ceiling paper, sobbing ever so
+little now and then, for some minutes, then wrenched himself miserably
+over on his side.
+
+There he found that horrid old bank staring him in the face, that same
+pig bank which stood a grinning monument to his industry of the past
+months. But what good was the paper route now? or where the pleasure in
+dropping his weekly income into that long, narrow slot? Louise wasn't
+his girl any more. She'd said so, herself.
+
+In a sudden fit of spite, he sprang up and seized the heavy, sneering
+bit of pottery in both hands. The next moment, it crashed to the floor
+and pennies, nickels, dimes, and even half-dollars rolled out on the
+carpet or mingled with the shattered bits of china. He stood astounded
+at the number for a moment, then gathered them up on his bed, and took
+careful count.
+
+Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents? He could scarcely believe
+his eyes.
+
+Then he lay back, not quite so grief-stricken, and stared thoughtfully
+into space until Mrs. Fletcher called him for dinner.
+
+[Illustration: _"Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents."_]
+
+At the table, that evening, he was unusually quiet. As he finished his
+last slice of bread and butter, he looked up at his father.
+
+"Dad, if a fellow earns a lot of money, all by himself, he can spend it
+any way he wants, can't he?"
+
+Mr. Fletcher nodded. "Why, son?"
+
+"I was just wondering. That's all."
+
+A week later, Louise was sitting on the street curbing in front of her
+apartment building, when a crimson-clad baseball warrior on a new
+bicycle sped over the macadam and came to a sudden halt beside her. She
+raised her eyes in astonished recognition. It was her late fiancé.
+
+"'Lo."
+
+"'Lo."
+
+"Like my new wheel?"
+
+"Uhu."
+
+"Bought it out of the money I was saving so's we could get married. Cost
+me twenty-one dollars, and it's got puncture-proof tires and a real
+coaster brake. Just watch me ride it!"
+
+He sped off, rode free for a moment, threw the brake on and came to a
+sudden stop, then cut a figure eight over the paving. The clear spring
+sun made miniature rainbows in the shining, rapidly revolving spokes,
+and an early robin warbled his approval of the performance from his seat
+in a linden's top.
+
+"I can ride without touching the handles, too," he boasted, as he guided
+the wheel back to her. "Isn't it peachy?"
+
+She nodded. The long, curving bars bore a suggestion of possible rides
+on this beautiful steel-and-rubber creation, if their quarrel could be
+healed, and she held out a tentative olive branch.
+
+"Want to play jacks?"
+
+John shook his head. "Going over to the park baseball diamond with the
+'Tigers.' We're going to play the 'Jeffersons,' this afternoon."
+
+"But your paper route?"
+
+He laughed joyously. "Sold it to the newspaper man. He gave me three
+dollars and twenty-five cents for the customers."
+
+"Oh!" There was a pause.
+
+"Like my baseball suit?" he asked.
+
+She gazed at the flaming horror and nodded enthusiastically.
+
+"You ought to see me run that team!"
+
+"You?" she exclaimed. "Why, I thought Sid was captain."
+
+"He _was_," with zestful emphasis on the verb. "But I bought nine
+baseball dollar uniforms and a lot of gloves and two bats, and a real
+league ball out of my money, so the kids fired Sid and elected me. He
+isn't even on the team any more."
+
+"O-o-oh!" Truly John was becoming an important figure in the juvenile
+world.
+
+"And I've got a dollar and thirteen cents left for candy and peanuts,"
+he concluded.
+
+Louise studied the confident, freckled face before her, the sparkling
+bicycle with its glossy saddle and acetylene lamp, the heavily padded
+baseball glove on the nickeled handle bars, and then their owner again.
+She took the last remnant of her pride and stamped it under foot in a
+wave of regret.
+
+"John," she said, shyly.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I won't have anything more to do with Sid."
+
+The captain of the "Tigers" only laughed. "You can go with Sid all you
+want, and drink all the sodas he'll pay for. I don't care, because--" he
+leaned his weight forward on the pedals and started for the park so
+suddenly that she barely caught his parting words, "I'm through with
+girls. I'm going to be a bachelor!"
+
+
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Son of the City, by Herman Gastrell Seely,
+Illustrated by Fred J. Arting</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: A Son of the City</p>
+<p>       A Story of Boy Life</p>
+<p>Author: Herman Gastrell Seely</p>
+<p>Release Date: February 28, 2007  [eBook #20708]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE CITY***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Julia Miller, Mary Meehan,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i000b.jpg"><img src="images/i000b.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<h1>A SON OF THE CITY</h1>
+
+<h3>A Story of Boy Life</h3>
+
+<h2>by <span class="smcap">Herman Gastrell Seely</span></h2>
+
+<h3>Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Fred J. Arting</span></h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>CHICAGO<br />
+A. C. McClurg &amp; Co.<br />
+Copyright 1917<br />
+Published October, 1917<br />
+W. F. HALL PRINTING COMPANY, CHICAGO</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>To My Father<br />
+THE COMPANION OF MANY A YOUTHFUL STROLL THROUGH CITY PARK AND SUBURBAN FIELD</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i000a" id="i000a"></a>
+<img src="images/i000a.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"H'ist away," he ordered finally. "I'll shove under when he gets high enough."</i></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. In Which Our Hero Goes Fishing</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. In Which He Goes to School</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. He Plays a Trick on the Doctor</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. In Which a Terrific Battle Is Waged</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. He Composes a Love Missive</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. In Which We Learn the Secret Code of the "Tigers"</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. He Goes to a Halloween Party</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. Wherein He Resolves to Get Married</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. He Saves for "Four Rooms Furnished Complete"</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. Concerns Santa Claus Mostly</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. He Has a Very Happy Christmas</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. In Which the Path of True Love Does Not Run Smoothly</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. He Crushes and Humiliates a Rival</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. He Buys Valentines</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. The Spring Brings Baseball</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. More About "The Greatest Game in the World"</a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. He's "Through With Girls"</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p><a href="#i029">He imagines himself a hero</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i035">"Who shot that rubber band?"</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i042">The "Tigers"</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i051">"Milk toast!"</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i152">A second helping of ice cream.</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i194">It was Sid and Louise!</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i199">Christmas dreams.</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i231">"Washrags, washrags."</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i245">"Going to be good?"</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i266">Silencing his adversary.</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i279">"Shooting the duck."</a></p>
+<p><a href="#i339">"Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents."</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>A SON OF THE CITY</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH OUR HERO GOES FISHING</h3>
+
+
+<p>Startled from a sound sleep, he fumbled blindly beneath the bed that he
+might throttle the insistent alarm clock before the clamor awakened the
+other members of the household. Then he lay back and listened
+breathlessly for parental voices of inquiry as to what he might be doing
+at the unearthly hour of half-past three on a late September morning.</p>
+
+<p>Far down the railroad embankment which passed the rear of the house, an
+engine puffed lazily cityward with a load of empty freight cars. Over
+the elevated tracks a mile to the south, a train rumbled somnolently
+towards the park terminal, and under the eaves of the house, just above
+his room, two sparrows squabbled sleepily. Inside, the only audible
+sounds were the chirpings of a cricket somewhere down the hall, and the
+furious, muffled pounding of his own little heart.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced from the window near the head of his bed. The air was
+oppressive with a strange, almost rural quietude. In the east, a faint
+streak of light brought the tree tops of the park into indistinct
+relief, and to the north a thin line of smoke floated apathetically from
+a hotel chimney to show that a light breeze from the west augured
+favorably for the morning's sport.</p>
+
+<p>Stockings, knickerbockers, and blouse were drawn on with unwonted
+rapidity. His coat and necktie he left hanging over the back of the
+chair, disdained as unnecessary impediments on a fishing trip. Then with
+a final glance from the window at the fast-graying sky, he reached
+behind the bookcase for his carefully concealed pole and tackle,
+gathered his shoes in one hand, and tiptoed down the pitchy hall with
+the stealth of a cat.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i002.jpg"><img src="images/i002.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>Down the stairway he went, step at a time, scarcely daring to breathe as
+he shifted his weight again and again from one foot to the other. On the
+first landing, a board creaked with alarming distinctness. Came a
+maternal voice:</p>
+
+<p>"John."</p>
+
+<p>Her son hugged the stairway in a very agony of fear lest his carefully
+made plans had been spoiled. Why hadn't he walked along the end of the
+steps as bitter experience had taught? He knew that board was loose.
+Again the well-known tones:</p>
+
+<p>"John, what <i>are</i> you doing?"</p>
+
+<p>A subdued babel of conversation in the big south room followed, in which
+his father's deep bass took a prominent part.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Jane, you're imagining things!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you know I forbade fishing during school mornings. And he was
+looking at the DuPree's weather vane when he watered the lawn last
+night. Get up and see what he's doing."</p>
+
+<p>John drew a sigh of relief as the deep voice sounded a sleepy protest.
+Minutes passed. His legs became cramped from inaction, yet he dared not
+stir. Were his parents asleep? Or was Mrs. Fletcher waiting merely until
+some tell-tale noise enabled her to order John senior forth on an
+expedition which would result in certain detection? If he had only
+avoided that misstep!</p>
+
+<p>Then the kindly fast-mail thundered over the railroad tracks and enabled
+the seeker after forbidden pleasures to scurry to the first floor under
+cover of the disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>In the hallway, the boy deposited his shoes and tackle very cautiously
+on the carpet, and tiptoed over to the unused grate. There he extracted
+from behind the gas log a package of sandwiches, surreptitiously
+assembled after supper the night before. Then with both hands grasping
+the doorknob firmly, he strained upwards, that weight be thrown off the
+squeaking hinges as much as possible, and swung the door back, inch by
+inch, until the opening permitted a successful exit.</p>
+
+<p>The old cat bounded from her bed on the window ledge with a thud and
+mewed plaintively for admittance as he stood with one hand on the screen
+door, and fumbled in his pockets. Sinkers, spare hooks, a line with a
+nail at one end on which to string possible victims of his skill,
+"eats," his dollar watch that he might know when breakfast time came
+around&mdash;all present and accounted for.</p>
+
+<p>The family pet protested volubly as he blocked her ingress with one foot
+and closed the door as slowly and noiselessly as it had swung open. A
+moment spent in lacing his shoes, a consoling pat for puss, and he was
+off on the dogtrot for Silvey's house, with tackle swinging easily to
+and fro in one hand and a noiseless whistle of exultation coming from
+half-parted lips which became more and more audible as his rapidly
+echoing footsteps increased the distance from home. For he had made good
+his escape, the strange fragrance of the cool, early air with its
+absence of city smoke went to his head like wine and set his pulses
+a-throb with a very joy of living, and five hours, three hundred
+glorious minutes, if the excursion were stretched a bit past breakfast
+time, of enchanting, tantalizing sport lay before him.</p>
+
+<p>A short distance from the corner, he turned in abruptly at a frame house
+which was distinguished from its neighbors by unusually ornate fretwork
+about the porch and gables, and tiptoed gently over the struggling grass
+on the narrow sidelawn. For it was here that the Silvey family lived,
+and if Bill were his boon companion with tastes akin to his, strange to
+relate, the Silvey elders were light sleepers with the same propensities
+as his own parents for curbing unlawful fishing expeditions, and there
+was need of caution.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i005.jpg"><img src="images/i005.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>He fumbled momentarily along the dark sidewall, yanked at a cord which
+swayed idly to and fro with each light air current, and gazed
+expectantly upward. Nothing happened. Again a jerk, given this time with
+a certain vindictive delight. A muffled "Ouch!" came from the open
+window as a splotch of animated white appeared indistinctly behind the
+dark screen.</p>
+
+<p>"Trying to pull my big toe off?" angrily.</p>
+
+<p>John snickered. "Got the worms?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey swallowed his wrath and nodded. "Sh-sh, not so loud. You'll wake
+the folks. The can's on the back steps. Ain't many worms though. I
+hunted under the porch and down the tracks and all over. But the
+ground's too dry."</p>
+
+<p>John shook the nearly empty can disparagingly as Silvey joined him on
+the back lawn a moment later.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiminy," he whispered, "that all you could find?"</p>
+
+<p>His chum nodded. "Maybe there's old worms or minnies from yesterday left
+on the pier. Or we can cut up the first fish for perch bait. Come on!
+Beat you over the tracks."</p>
+
+<p>They scaled the wire fence which barricaded the embankment, and cut
+across the long parallel lines of rails like frisky colts. Past the few
+unkempt buildings of the neighborhood dairy, over the small bit of
+pasturage where the master thereof kept a dozen cows that his customers
+might think their milk was fresh, daily, and across the cement road,
+they scampered at top speed, to pull up panting just inside the park.</p>
+
+<p>"Bet you I get to the lagoon bridge first," said Silvey when their
+breathing grew less labored.</p>
+
+<p>Off they raced again, now on the trim gravel walks, now on the springy
+dew-laden turf, frightening a myriad of insects from their shelters as
+the pair brushed aside protruding shrubbery and brought a chorus of
+reproof from rusty-plumed grackles who were gathering in the open spaces
+for the long migration south.</p>
+
+<p>As their footsteps echoed and re-echoed between the stone buttresses of
+the wooden planked bridge, John halted to dig frantically at his shoe
+top.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, Sil. My heel's full of cinders."</p>
+
+<p>He shook the offending boot free of the irritants, relaced it and leaned
+over the bridge rail for a moment. From beneath, northward, stretched
+the park lagoon calm and dark in the uncertain morning light. Fronting
+him rose the stately columns and porticoes of the park museum, once a
+member of an exposition whose glories are almost forgotten, which now
+veiled its need of repair in the kindly dawn and formed a symphony in
+gray with the willow-studded, low-lying lagoon banks. The air throbbed
+with the subdued noises of awakening animal life. In a shrub near them,
+a catbird cleared his throat in a few harsh notes as a prelude to a
+morning of tuneful parody, and on the slope below, a fat autumn-plumaged
+robin dug frantically in the sod for fugitive worms.</p>
+
+<p>"My! Isn't it just peachy?" breathed John ecstatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," assented his companion, intent upon the lesser spectacle of the
+robin. "Don't you wish you could find worms like he does, Fletch?"</p>
+
+<p>Once more they resumed their journey lakewards, breaking into the
+inevitable dogtrot as the long, dark pier came in sight. At the land
+end, John stooped to pick up a few sun-dried minnows which lay on a
+plank, and a little farther on Silvey grabbed eagerly at an earth-filled
+tomato can.</p>
+
+<p>"Nary a worm," he exclaimed in disgust, as he threw the tin into the
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>But shortly, their diligent search was rewarded by finding a tobacco-tin
+which contained at least a dozen samples of the squirming bait, and the
+anxiety regarding that problem was permanently allayed.</p>
+
+<p>But one disciple of Izaak Walton had arrived before the boys, and he sat
+crouched in a huddled, lonely heap at the end of the pier, in a manner
+which seemed scarcely human. As they drew nearer, John broke into a
+sudden exclamation:</p>
+
+<p>"Old hunchback! Been out here all night again. Wonder if he's caught
+anything!"</p>
+
+<p>As they passed the first of his multitude of throwlines and poles, John
+leaned forward and peered down on the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Sil," he pointed at the long string of perch which floated to and
+fro with the sluggish water. "Aren't they peaches?"</p>
+
+<p>He made a motion as if to joint his rod. The cripple drew a sharp,
+hissing breath from between thick, distorted lips and waved him away.
+Silvey caught his chum's arm warningly.</p>
+
+<p>"No use of fishing beside <i>him</i>," he asserted. "Don't you know that,
+John? Brings bad luck to everyone 'cept himself, he does. I tried it one
+morning. He kept hauling them in, all the time, and I couldn't catch a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head skeptically as they moved over to the other side of
+the pier.</p>
+
+<p>"He does!" reiterated Silvey. "Never's the day I've been out here that
+he hasn't a lot. And look at that," as a shining, squirming object rose
+unwillingly from the water. "I'll bet I couldn't catch one if I was
+there. It's because he's hunchbacked, I'm telling you."</p>
+
+<p>As John jointed his bamboo pole, he cast a furtive glance at the poor,
+misshapen being, and caught a touch of Silvey's superstitious fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," he admitted, as he reached for the worm can.</p>
+
+<p>Hooks baited, the boys dropped their lines in the water and sat down to
+dangle their legs to and fro over the pier's edge as they waited for the
+first hint as to the morning's luck. Possibly a quarter of an hour
+elapsed before Silvey's light steel rod gave a twitch, to be followed by
+another and still another. Its owner jerked a denuded hook high in the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>"First bite, first bite!" he shouted, for that honor was ever a point of
+spirited contest on the pair's many expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard?" asked John breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hard!" repeated Silvey, boastfully exultant. "Hard? Goll-e-e-e, yes.
+Didn't you see him? Bent the tip most a foot. Took the worm, too."</p>
+
+<p>Then the jointed bamboo began to shake ever so slightly and John leaned
+intently forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Bite?" queried Silvey in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"He's nibbling," said John cautiously without taking his glance from the
+flexible tip.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until he takes the hook," advised Bill. John braced himself and
+yanked a luckless perch high in the air. As it came down on the pier
+with a thud, his friend sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"That-a-boy!" he yelled exultantly as his fingers extracted the hook.
+John brought out the fish stringer, and the unfortunate minnow, firmly
+tied by the gills, was lowered slowly into the water. The pair watched
+its spasmodic efforts at escape with a great deal of gusto.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't so small, is he, John?" asked Silvey optimistically, as he leaned
+over and looked down from an angle which only a small boy could maintain
+without losing his balance. "Bet you it's going to be a peach of a day."</p>
+
+<p>The pier was now rapidly filling. A plethoric, sandy-haired German
+squatted beside the hunchback, watching an unproductive pole with a
+patience worthy of a better cause. At John's corner, a party of voluble
+loafers joked noisily as they unwound long, many-hooked throwlines and
+jointed nondescript rods. Beside Bill, a phlegmatic Scandinavian puffed
+morosely at an empty pipe. Just beyond, a fat negress shifted her bulk
+from time to time as she baited the hooks on one of her husband's
+numerous fishing outfits. Farther landward, a mixed throng&mdash;nattily clad
+business men who were snatching a few minutes of sport before business
+called, down at the heel out-of-works with nothing to do and all day to
+do it in, here a woman with a colorful shirtwaist, there a couple of
+noisy school-boys&mdash;made the sides of the pier bristle like the branches
+of a thicket hedge.</p>
+
+<p>The faint tinge of orange in the eastern sky deepened to a radiant
+crimson glow. A glistening, fast-widening, crescent sliver of the sun
+appeared on the horizon and painted a long golden path on the rippled
+lake, and still the lonely perch waited in vain for a companion in
+misery.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey jerked his line from the water and examined the untouched bait in
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Just like it was last time," he ejaculated. "I'm going down the pier
+and see what the other fellows are catching."</p>
+
+<p>He jammed his pole between two bent nails in a plank and was off,
+stopping now and then to peer downward at some trophy as he sauntered
+along. John did likewise with his rod and stretched out on the rough
+boards to look lazily up at the clear sky. It wasn't half bad after all,
+even if the fish weren't biting. There was something in this getting up
+and over to the park before the smoke got into the air, to listen to the
+songs of the birds and watch the throng of people, that more than atoned
+for the lack of luck.</p>
+
+<p>He pulled out his watch dreamily&mdash;a quarter of six and still but one
+captive&mdash;and let his glance follow the wake of a graceful, white-hulled
+gasoline cruiser which chugged its way up from the south. Presently
+Silvey returned to break in upon his revery with the exciting news that
+a man near the life-preserver post had caught five fish. John sat up.</p>
+
+<p>"What did he catch 'em on?" he asked as he stretched his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Minnows."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's try a couple of ours."</p>
+
+<p>They scraped the hooks free of the whitened worms with their finger
+nails and rebaited, only to find that the sun-parched flesh softened and
+floated away soon after it was lowered into the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Have to buy some fresh ones! Got any money?"</p>
+
+<p>A thorough search resurrected a worn copper that had lain in Silvey's
+back pocket until he had forgotten it&mdash;else the coin had gone the way of
+many another that had purchased peppermints at the school store. John
+surrendered a penny that had been given him the night before for a
+perfect spelling paper. They viewed the scanty hoard on the sun-bleached
+plank reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him." John indicated the Scandinavian, who was well supplied with
+the desired bait. Silvey stood up and jingled the two pennies in his
+grimy hand with the air of a young millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the fisherman would sell some. How many were desired?</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, give me," the boy paused, as if considering the amount sufficient
+for their needs, "give me two cents' worth."</p>
+
+<p>The merchant shook his head. "Two cents?" he sneered. "Naw! Won't sell
+any for less 'n a nickel."</p>
+
+<p>A gaunt, anaemic southerner, who was with the party of idlers, spoke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, boy. What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey turned ruefully. "Ain't got money enough to buy some minnies," he
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>The tall figure stooped abruptly, fumbled in a battered basket which
+held a miscellaneous assemblage of bait, throwlines, newspapers, and
+food, and drew forth a handful of the diminutive fish.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, boy," he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey offered the two coppers in payment.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep 'em, boy, keep 'em," with an indignant glance at the imperturbable
+fish monopolist. "I ain't like some folks."</p>
+
+<p>The boys rebaited their hooks joyfully. The cruiser which John had
+sighted earlier in the morning drew up within easy distance of the pier
+and dropped anchor. Two of her crew appeared presently in swimming suits
+and dove overboard for a morning plunge. From her diminutive, weathered
+cabin came the rattle of cooking utensils and the hiss of frying bacon
+as the cook of the day prepared breakfast. Bill stirred restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have a look at the sandwiches," he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>They stretched themselves full length on the pier end and, with an
+occasional eye to the fishing poles, munched the uncouth slabs of bread
+and jam contentedly. Silvey read the name on the boat's stern with
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Detroit," he gasped. "Gee, Fletch, don't you wish you had a boat like
+that with all the gasoline to run her?"</p>
+
+<p>John's brown eyes grew dreamy. "Just don't you, though! We could ride
+down the canal out in the Illinois River and down the Mississippi to St.
+Louis. No staying after school, no 'rithmetic lessons, no lawns to cut
+or front porches to wash on Saturdays. We'd get up when we liked and
+fish when we liked, and loaf around all day. If money ran out, we'd find
+a place where there wasn't any bridge, and ferry people across the river
+for a nickel or a dime, or whatever they charge down there. Maybe, too,
+we could get a lot of red neckties and shirts with brown and yellow
+stripes and sell 'em to the darkies for a dollar apiece. Sid DuPree says
+they buy those things and he ought to know. He spent summer before last
+down South with his ma!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd we get the money to buy 'em in the first place?" asked the
+practical Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>His chum's face clouded. "Shucks, Sil, you're always spoiling things.
+But," more hopefully, "we needn't really worry about money anyway. All
+the books I've read about the South tell how kind folks are down there,
+and how they won't allow a stranger to go hungry, not even if they have
+to give him their last hunk of cornbread. So if ferrying didn't pay, all
+we'd have to do would be to land, walk up to the nearest house, and
+knock at the door. When the big mammy cook&mdash;they always have 'em in the
+books&mdash;came to the door, we'd just look at her and say, 'We're hungry.'"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey nodded, content to revel in the glories of the daydream which
+John's more vivid imagination was spinning.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd go all the way down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Maybe we'd
+catch some alligators to make things exciting, and maybe some big yellow
+river catfish. I read about one once that was six feet long. And when we
+arrived, they'd put our pictures in the newspapers, with a big lot of
+print after them, just the way they do when someone comes to town here
+who's done something. We'd win a lot of race cups, and folks would say
+to their friends, 'See those two kids there? They took a launch all the
+way down the river from Lake Michigan by themselves.' We'd be <i>it</i> all
+the time we were there."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey, under the spell of the alluring picture, let his gaze roam
+dreamily around until it lighted upon an excited group down the pier. He
+sprang to his feet energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Fletch! Look! A man drowned, maybe. Come on quick!" Such alluring
+possibilities may come true in a city.</p>
+
+<p>They sprinted up to the rapidly increasing crowd, and wriggled, boylike,
+past obstructing arms and between tense bodies until they found
+themselves in the inner line of the circle. A carp of a size sufficient
+to excite the envy of the neighboring fishermen lay with laboring gills
+upon the water-spattered planking. The lads gazed in open-mouthed
+admiration at the large, glistening scales, the staring eyes, and the
+twitching, murky red fins.</p>
+
+<p>"Weighs five pounds if he's an ounce," orated the proud captor. "Says I
+to myself when he bit, 'I've got a bird there,' and I was right."</p>
+
+<p>John turned to his chum with the inevitable question:</p>
+
+<p>"Gee, don't you wish we could catch a fish like that?"</p>
+
+<p>And Silvey made the inevitable reply:</p>
+
+<p>"Just don't you, though!"</p>
+
+<p>They watched breathlessly as the fisherman forced his stringer between
+the large gills and out through the gaping mouth, and tied it in a
+secure double knot that there might be no danger of an escape. As the
+rebellious captive was lowered into the water, and the throng about the
+spot began to thin, the successful angler seated himself again.</p>
+
+<p>"What'd you catch him on?" John broke out.</p>
+
+<p>"Taters."</p>
+
+<p>"Do big fellows like that bite on potatoes?"</p>
+
+<p>They were assured that such was the case.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," John scratched nervously at a knot in a pier plank as he summoned
+courage for his request. "Give me a hunk, will you? I never caught a
+fish that big in my life and I sure want to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Catch." The man's eyes flashed in amusement as he opened a deep cigar
+box and tossed out a half-boiled tuber.</p>
+
+<p>For a second time that morning, the boys tested a new type of bait.
+Hoping to change his luck, John cast far out to the very limit of the
+ten cents' worth of fishing line on his reel and sat, tensely hopeful,
+for five dragging minutes. Then he jammed the pole into its old resting
+place between the bent nails.</p>
+
+<p>"No use," he exclaimed in disgust to Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly were the words out of his mouth before the reel gave a sharp
+click of alarm. The sagging line grew taut and rose more and more from
+the water as an unseen something made a frightened break for liberty.
+John seized the handle as the rod threatened to drop into the water and
+jumped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee!" he cried, half frightened by the weight and resistance of the
+fish, "Gee!"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey strained his eyes far out in an effort to descry the captive. The
+southerner who had given the minnows sprang forward with a shout of
+"Play him, boy, play him. Give him line until he turns or he'll break
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't," John gasped, his heart in his mouth. "It's all out, now."</p>
+
+<p>As the cheap line stretched almost to the breaking point, the fish
+circled rapidly landward, then, alarmed by the shoaling water, sped
+back, close by the pier, for the open lake. The minnow monopolist jerked
+his lines clear of impending entanglement and scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"Take in slack, boy, take in slack," shouted the southerner.</p>
+
+<p>John's fingers spun around like a paper pinwheel. Again the line
+tightened and again the carp turned to the shore. The news that a big
+one was hooked spread far down the pier, and the boys, for the first
+time in their lives, tasted the delight of being the cynosure of the
+eyes of a rapidly increasing crowd. The man with the potatoes had forced
+his way to the pier's edge and gave advice with an almost proprietary
+manner. The fat negress' husband, roused from his inaction, gibbered
+delightedly as the line circled more and more slowly through the water,
+while John panted and reeled, slacked and rereeled line until the
+exhausted fish rose to the surface directly beneath him.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," gasped Silvey, awe-struck.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder he fought like an alligator fish," vouchsafed the southerner.</p>
+
+<p>"Who says 'taters don't catch anything?" asked the man of that bait
+proudly. "Twenty pounds or I'll eat my shirt."</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously, very cautiously, lest the fish make a sudden frightened dash
+for liberty, John drew in line to raise the captive from the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Y'all wait a minute," said the southerner. "Land him in my minny net.
+That's safer."</p>
+
+<p>But the minnow net, thanks to its abbreviated handle, lacked an easy two
+feet of the water, reach as the gaunt, outstretched figure might.</p>
+
+<p>"H'ist away," he ordered finally. "I'll shove under when he gets high
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>Inch by inch, the quivering body rose from the water. Appeared above the
+wire rim of the net, first the staring, goggle eyes, then the slowly
+laboring gills, the twitching side fins, and six inches of glistening
+scales.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" shouted the southerner.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as if sensing the imminent danger, the great body gave a
+convulsive wrench, the light hook tore through the soft-fleshed mouth,
+and the carp, rebounding from the bark-covered piling, dove into the
+lake with a splash and disappeared from sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks!" ejaculated Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>John sat down on the pier suddenly and very quietly. His tackle had
+snarled, and as the throng returned to their own poles, he picked at the
+tangle of line in the reel while his lower lip trembled piteously.</p>
+
+<p>To have landed that Goliath among fishes! What a triumphal procession it
+would have been&mdash;a march down the home street with such a captive. How
+Sid DuPree and the Harrison boys would have stared! He rebaited and
+dropped his line forlornly into the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe he'll bite again," he suggested, hoping against fate.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes dragged. The gaunt, gray-faced southerner stretched out on
+the pier for a nap. The sandy-haired German rose from his seat beside
+the hunchback, stretched the stiffness from his arms, and unjointed his
+pole. The last neatly dressed business man was walking briskly from the
+pier. Silvey yawned listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast time, ain't it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>John's watch showed a quarter after eight. Slowly they reeled in the
+dripping lines, freed the hooks from all traces of water-soaked bait,
+and dismounted their rods. As they left the lake shore, the sun's rays
+became oppressive with heat. The air had lost the cool, fresh fragrance
+of early morning, and hinted of soot-producing factories and unsavory
+slaughter houses. Suburban trains thundered incessantly cityward,
+blending the snorts of their locomotives with the rumble of innumerable
+elevated trains and the clamoring bells of the surface cars.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the tall poplars which marked the entrance to the
+park, Silvey looked down and viewed the fruit of their morning's labors
+with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"He's awful small," he said shamefacedly. "Throw him into the bushes."</p>
+
+<p>John raised the diminutive perch into the air and regarded it glumly.
+"Cat'll eat him, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Have to sneak home the back way, then," said Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>The return home by way of the railroad tracks was ever their route when
+a fishing trip had been unsuccessful, for it avoided conveniently all
+notice by jeering playmates.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you wish we'd landed that big fellow?" breathed John, half to
+himself, as he reviewed mentally that thrilling struggle on the pier.</p>
+
+<p>"Just don't you, though!" echoed Bill, regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>They walked on for some minutes in silence. As they left the cement walk
+for the little footpath which led across the corner vacant lot to a
+break in the railroad fence, Silvey roused himself.</p>
+
+<p>"What you going to say to your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>John shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. What you going to say to
+yours?"</p>
+
+<p>So they fell to planning their excuses.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH HE GOES TO SCHOOL</h3>
+
+
+<p>But an hour had passed since his protesting assertion that "Once doesn't
+matter, Mother, and anyway, it's school time," had been followed by
+flight to the many-windowed, red-brick building, and already the
+surroundings of dreary blackboard, dingy-green calsomine, and
+oft-revarnished yellow pine woodwork were becoming irksome. The spelling
+lesson had not been so unpleasant, for he could sense the tricky "ei-s"
+and "ie-s" with uncanny cleverness, but 'rithmetic&mdash;the very name
+oppressed him. What use could be found in such prosy problems as "A and
+B together own three-hundred acres of land. A's share is twice as much
+as B's. How much does each own?" Or "A field contains four hundred
+square yards. One side is four times as long as the other. What are its
+dimensions?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown closed the hated, brown-covered book and turned to write the
+arithmetic homework on the blackboard. Instantly John's attention
+wandered to objects and sounds far more interesting than the barren,
+sultry school room.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of sparrows flew from the roof of the school to the window
+ledge nearest him, intent on their noisy quarrel, and he gave a scarcely
+perceptible sigh. Birds could enjoy the sunshine unmolested&mdash;why not he?
+A horse sounded a rapid tattoo of hoof beats over the heated street
+macadam below and he longed&mdash;as he had longed for the launch that
+morning&mdash;for a vehicle which would take him along untraveled roads to a
+country where schools were not, and small boys fished and played games
+the long days through. Next, a three-year-old stubbed her toe against
+the street curbing opposite the school and voiced her grief with
+unrestrained and therefore enviable freedom. John stirred uneasily and
+meditated upon the interminable stretch of four days which must elapse
+before Saturday. Then a majestic thunderhead in the blazing September
+sky caught his attention and the miracle happened.</p>
+
+<p>He was on his back in the big field of his uncle's Michigan farm, gazing
+upward at the white, rapidly shifting clouds. The unimpeded western
+breeze made little harmonies of sound as it swept through the tall,
+waving grass; strange birds carolled joyously from the orchard by the
+road, and near at hand the old, brown Jersey lowed lovingly to her
+ungainly calf. From the more distant chicken coop came the cackle of
+hens and the boastful crowing of a rooster.</p>
+
+<p>A shift of the thought current, and the fat, easy-going team dragged the
+lumbering, slowly moving wagon over the four-mile stretch of sand road
+to town, while he sat on the driver's seat to listen to the hired man's
+tales of army service in the Philippines, or to watch the ever-shifting
+panorama of flower and bird and animal life which he loved so well. Past
+the ramshackle farm of the first neighbor to the north, past the little
+deserted country school house, past the pressed-steel home of a would-be
+agriculturist, which had rusted to an artistic red, and down to the
+winding river which flanked the hamlet through banks lined with white
+birches and graceful poplars&mdash;"popples" the hired man called them. There
+was good fishing in the river, too. Once a twenty pound muskellunge had
+been caught, and bass were plentiful.</p>
+
+<p>But better still than that was his uncle's well-stocked trout stream.
+Again he stumbled over the root-obstructed footpath which ran along the
+east bank, stopping now and then to untangle his hook and line as he
+forced his way past thick, second-growth underbrush, or to let his hook
+float with the current past some particularly promising bit of
+watercress. There was the fallen, half-rotted log under which the swift
+current had dug a deep hole in the sandbed for the big fellows to haunt
+and pounce out upon bits of food which floated by. How his heart had
+gone pitapat when he had discovered it and had quietly, oh, so quietly,
+dropped his baited hook into the clear, spring water. Then had come a
+swift-darting something up stream, a jerk at his line to set his pulses
+throbbing, a wild scurry for freedom and&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"John!" Miss Brown's voice brought him rudely back to present day
+surroundings. He rose uncertainly, dimly conscious that his name had
+been called.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'm," he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"What was I telling the class just now?"</p>
+
+<p>He strove to collect his scattered faculties. Then his glance, roaming
+the room, caught at the newly written problems on the blackboard. He
+ventured an uncertain smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;w-was telling&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"'Were,' John."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, 'm," nervously. "Were telling the class to be sure and write
+plain, and not to use pen and ink if we couldn't get along without blots
+and&mdash;and&mdash;" What else did Miss Brown usually say to the class on such an
+occasion?</p>
+
+<p>Over in the far corner of the room, Sid DuPree snickered maliciously.
+The boy two seats ahead of him turned with an exultant grin on his
+freckled face. Several little girls seemed on the verge of foolish,
+discipline-dispelling giggles, and he felt that something had gone
+wrong. Teacher, herself, ended the suspense.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, John. Your inventive faculties do you credit. But it happens
+that as yet, I haven't said anything."</p>
+
+<p>The class broke into uproarious laughter while he stood in the aisle, to
+all appearances, a submissive, conscience-stricken little mortal.
+Inwardly he seethed with anger. What right had Miss Brown to trick a
+fellow that way? It was mean, it was cowardly, worse than stealing.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, John," she continued, looking sternly down from the raised
+platform, "I spoke just six times to you last week. Finally you promised
+me that you would pay strict attention. What have you to say for
+yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>He shot her a half-frightened glance and found her face seemingly stern
+and remorseless. He had been tempted to explain how the great
+out-of-doors called to him with an insistence which was irresistible,
+but shucks, she wouldn't understand. How was he to know that under the
+surface of it all, she sympathized with the culprit daydreamer
+exceedingly? So he hung his head in silence.</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the door. Miss Brown dismissed him with a curt nod.
+He sank thankfully into his desk as Sid DuPree sprang forward to admit
+the newcomer&mdash;a new girl and her mother. From the shelter of his big
+geography, John surveyed the couple with that calmly critical stare
+which only a ten-year-old is master of.</p>
+
+<p>The mother was nice, he decided. Fat ones always were. It was your long,
+thin woman who made trouble. Look at old lady Meeker, who lived next the
+vacant lot on Southern Avenue, where the boys gathered occasionally on
+their way from school for a game of marbles or to play split-top on one
+of the loose, decayed fence planks. Never did a glassy go spinning from
+the big dirt ring through a dexterous shot, or a soft, evenly grained
+top split cleanly to the spear head amid the proper shouts of approval
+than her fretful, piercing voice put an end to further fun. Such
+goings-on made her head ache, she averred time and again. If they didn't
+leave immediately, she'd telephone the police station. Once she had said
+it was a "wonder some parents wouldn't keep their children in their own
+back yards." She forgot that half the gang lived in apartment buildings
+with back yards only designed for clothes-drying apparatus, and that the
+other half lived in houses built upon so cramped an acreage that the
+yards were no fun to play in. But grown-ups were in the habit of
+committing such oversights&mdash;especially the skinny, cranky ones.</p>
+
+<p>As for the little girl&mdash;ah! she was good to look upon.</p>
+
+<p>Her chestnut hair hung in curly ringlets below her shoulders, almost to
+the waist of her little white frock. Her face held a slight pallor which
+was strangely fascinating to the sun-tanned urchin, and her eyes were a
+deep, rich brown. As the conversation ended between teacher and parent,
+she left the platform and walked to the front seat assigned her in a
+timid, shrinking way which stamped her as just the sort of a girl the
+fellows would make miserable on the slightest provocation. John's face
+set in an expression of heroic determination until he looked as if he'd
+swallowed a dose of castor oil!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i029" id="i029"></a>
+<img src="images/i029.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>He imagines himself a hero.</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>He'd like to catch Sid DuPree dancing around her in maddening circles,
+some afternoon, while she shrank piteously from each cry of "'Fraid cat!
+'Fraid cat!" Or that bully might throw pieces of chalk at her or pelt
+her with snowballs in the winter time until she broke into incoherent
+sobs. Then he, John Fletcher, would show that Sid where he got off at.
+He'd punch his face in, he would!</p>
+
+<p>The school room door closed upon the mother's broad back, and the hum of
+excitement at the departure subsided into the normal undercurrent of
+whispering between the pupils. Pencils scratched laboriously over rough
+manila pads as their owners copied the questions from the board. The boy
+two seats ahead of John took a wad of chewing gum from his mouth and
+stuck it on the underside of his desk. Someone over on Sid DuPree's side
+of the room dropped a book to the floor with a bang.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Brown shoved back the test papers she had been correcting and
+glanced at the clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Clear the desks," she ordered sharply. "Class prepare for physical
+culture."</p>
+
+<p>They obeyed with alacrity, for the drills were ever a relief from the
+enforced inactivity of restless little bodies. Moreover, they were
+vastly more enjoyable than mathematical perplexities or troublesome
+state and river boundaries.</p>
+
+<p>"Rise on toes, inhale deeply, and exhale ver-y slowly!" came the crisp
+command after the children had stumbled to their feet in the aisle.
+"One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four."</p>
+
+<p>Heated little faces grew even more flushed as the minute hand of the big
+wall clock showed the passing of five flying minutes. Next came, "Thrust
+forward, upwards, and from your sides," "bend trunks," to all points of
+the compass, "lunge to the right and left, and thrust forward," and a
+baker's dozen of other exercises designed to offset the weakening
+influences of cramped city environments and impure air.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, the class made a quarter-turn to the right and as they
+thus stood in parallel rows, took hold of each other's hands. At
+teacher's command, they swung their arms back and forth vigorously to an
+accompaniment of the inevitable "one-two, one-two."</p>
+
+<p>John's was a back seat, thanks to skillful maneuvering on the opening
+day of school, and flaxen-haired Olga occupied the desk ahead. A day
+earlier he had counted himself fortunate in having her for a neighbor,
+for she was clever at studies which required plodding perseverance, and
+not at all bashful about helping a fellow when teacher pounced on him
+with a catch question.</p>
+
+<p>Now he loathed her slow, insipid smile as his left hand released her
+plump right fingers at the end of the exercise. If she were only the new
+little girl!</p>
+
+<p>Then he noticed, as a prosaic business man will notice suddenly, that a
+skyscraper which he has passed daily for months is out of line with its
+neighbor, that the seat behind the new little girl was unoccupied and
+that she stood alone in the aisle during exercises. Would that he had
+possession of it!</p>
+
+<p>To sit next her, to be able to exchange the trivial, yet important,
+little confidences in which fourth-graders indulge when teacher's back
+is turned, or to win her quick, flashing smile as a reward for
+sharpening her pencil or for judicious prompting during a spelling
+lesson!</p>
+
+<p>To achieve these things, he would be willing even to relinquish the
+powers which he held by virtue of his aisle end seat. And to allow
+voluntarily some other pupil to fill the inkwells, distribute pencils,
+scratch pads, and drawing paper at their appointed intervals, and to
+indulge in a hundred and one other little acts of monitorship is no
+slight sacrifice for a boy to make.</p>
+
+<p>The geography lesson began. With the disregarded map of Africa in front
+of him as a blind, he fell to comparing the new girl with the other
+maidens of his acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Take poor, inoffensive Olga for example. Her placid being seemed clumsy
+and her movements bovine as he pictured again the dainty grace of that
+new arrival as she stepped down from the teacher's platform; or
+Irish-eyed, boisterous, fun-loving Margaret! John had regarded her with
+a great deal of favor during the past two weeks, for she was a jolly
+little sprite with a mother who, thanks to the neighborhood's laundry
+patronage, contrived to clothe her daughter in a constantly varying and
+seldom-fitting assortment of dresses. Now echoes of her noisy laughter
+returned to grate upon his memory. The new little girl wouldn't laugh
+like that. Not she! No one with so sweet a smile had need of impudent
+grins. And what a contrast between Margaret's untidy mop and those long,
+silken curls which so fascinated him.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the boy decided that here was the being who was to be his girl for
+the ensuing year&mdash;to be worshipped from afar in all probability, but to
+be, nevertheless, his girl. So he drove ruthlessly from his heart all
+memories of a certain gray-eyed Harriette, his third-grade charmer, and
+erected a purely tentative shrine to the new divinity. As yet he was not
+quite certain of his feelings&mdash;and there might be a later addition to
+the room!</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, there was the vacant seat. Temporary idol or not, he
+longed for possession of it, but he knew that although he moved heaven
+and earth to support a direct request for transfer, Miss Brown would
+never assign it to him. Many a past bitter experience had shown the most
+harmless desires to mask deep-laid juvenile plots, and she was
+singularly wary and distrustful. A way must be found to trick her into
+giving him the occupancy.</p>
+
+<p>He ate his meat and potatoes very quietly and thoughtfully that noon, a
+procedure so contrary to his usual actions that his mother asked him if
+he felt well. He nodded abstractedly, went upstairs to the big, sunny
+sewing room, searched the family needlecase for a long stiff darning
+needle and extracted several rubber bands from the red cardboard box on
+the library table. Then he sauntered off to wait in the school yard for
+assembly bell, with the air of a military strategist who has planned a
+well-laid campaign and is sanguine of success.</p>
+
+<p>The tramp of juvenile feet up the broad, school stairways grew steadily
+less until silence reigned in the big, empty corridors. Miss Brown sat
+down at her desk, drew out the black-covered record book from the
+right-hand drawer, and gave a few reassuring pats to her dark, orderly
+hair. Scurrying footsteps pounded up to the cloak room entrance. A
+moment later, Thomas Jackson, still panting and breathless, stumbled
+into his seat and mopped the beads of perspiration from his dark-skinned
+forehead with his coatsleeve. Then the tardy bell rang and Miss Brown
+began roll call.</p>
+
+<p>"Anna Boguslawsky," came her clear, even tones as the "B" names were
+reached. Hardly had Anna's timid "Here" reached her ears than a series
+of subdued cluckings came from some small boy's throat. She rapped for
+order and went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Edna Bowman."</p>
+
+<p>"Clu-wawk, clu-wawk," repeated the offender. Miss Brown laid her book
+down with a snap and glared at the class, which hesitated between
+ill-suppressed amusement and fear of teacher's wrath. She waited for one
+long, dragging moment and spoke crisply:</p>
+
+<p>"Children, you are no longer third-graders. Try to act as really
+grown-up boys and girls ought to."</p>
+
+<p>"Clu-wawk, clu-wawk," came the maddening repetition. She sprang to her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"That will be quite enough," she snapped. "If that boy makes that noise
+again he will be sent to the office and suspended for two weeks." During
+the awed silence which followed, she seated herself and took up the
+black-covered book with impressive deliberation. All went well until the
+"H's" were reached.</p>
+
+<p>"Albert Harrison," she called, "Albert!"</p>
+
+<p>"School doctor sent him home this morning," volunteered the boy nearest
+Albert's empty desk.</p>
+
+<p>As Miss Brown's eyes sought the record book again, an unseen something
+whizzed through the air. Thomas Jackson jumped to his feet and rubbed a
+chocolate ear belligerently.</p>
+
+<p>"Who shot that rubber band? I'll fix him. Who done it? He's afraid to
+let me know."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i035" id="i035"></a>
+<img src="images/i035.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"Who shot that rubber band?"</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Miss Brown stepped down from the teacher's platform with an angry swish
+of her skirts, and took up a position half-way down the aisle where she
+had a better view of the class. John studied her carefully. The usually
+smiling lips were set in a thin, nervous line, and the hand which held
+the record book trembled ever so slightly. In an opposite corner of the
+room, two little girls giggled hysterically. The ring of pupils around
+him, true to the child's creed of no talebearing, glanced at school
+books or lesson papers with preternaturally grave faces. Discipline had
+been so badly broken that the class was at the stage where a dropped
+piece of chalk or a sneeze will provoke an outburst of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>John drew the needle from his coat lapel and wedged it carefully in the
+joint between his desk and the back of Olga's seat. A glance at Miss
+Brown found her watching Billy Silvey closely in the belief that he was
+the miscreant. The time for his crowning bit of persecution had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a nerve-wracking, ear-piercing vibration filled the room. Miss
+Brown's face went white with rage. John caught the tip of the needle
+with his fingernail and bent it back again.</p>
+
+<p>"T-a-a-ang." The class gasped at the sheer audacity of the deed. A ray
+of reflected light caught the teacher's eye, and she pounced upon the
+boy before he could remove the incriminating bit of steel.</p>
+
+<p>"John Fletcher," she screamed, as she stood beside him. "So it's you who
+have been causing all this trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>He admitted as much. Sober second thought would have counseled Miss
+Brown to make good her threat of a visit to the principal's office and
+consequent suspension, but an outraged sense of personal grievance
+clamored for redress. She gained control of herself with perceptible
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Take out your books," she ordered.</p>
+
+<p>He assembled his belongings on the top of his desk&mdash;geography, reader,
+arithmetic, composition book and speller&mdash;all too new to be as yet
+ink-scarred&mdash;a manila scratch pad, a ruled block of ink paper with a
+cover crudely illustrated during his many bored moments, and a sundry
+assortment of teeth-marked pencils and pens, and stood, a smiling,
+incorrigible offender, in the aisle, awaiting further orders.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown found that smile peculiarly irritating. "The first thing to
+happen to you," she told him sternly, "is that you'll have to stay after
+school an hour for the rest of the week. As for your back seat, I let
+you keep it only on promise of good behavior, and this is the way you've
+acted."</p>
+
+<p>The maddening grin reappeared. That seat behind the new little girl was
+the only vacant one in the room located at all near Miss Brown's desk.
+The prize was all but in his possession. She was going to&mdash;she had to&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And," went on the cold, inexorable voice, "as Louise is such a
+well-behaved little girl, I'm going to let her exchange with you.
+Louise, will you take out your books?"</p>
+
+<p>He drew one piteous, gasping breath. Every vestige of sunlight seemed to
+leave the room. Slowly he fumbled among his belongings as he gathered
+them into his arms and, half-way up the aisle, stood aside to let his
+divinity pass. Longingly his glance took in every detail of the silken
+curls, the curving lashes which half hid the brown eyes the rosy,
+petulant lips, and the unmistakably snub hose. Then he walked
+uncertainly to the seat which she had just vacated.</p>
+
+<p>A little later, Miss Brown looked up from a stack of composition papers
+which had been collected by the monitors, and found John's lower lip
+a-quiver. She was greatly puzzled, for boys did not usually take
+detentions after school so much to heart. But fifteen minutes before
+school ended for the day, she knew that his troubles had vanished, for
+he was gazing out of the window with such vacant earnestness that she
+felt called upon to reprove him again for daydreaming.</p>
+
+<p>He eluded the watchful eye of authority as the exit bell rang, and filed
+down stairs with the long line of pupils. Sid DuPree dashed past him as
+he stood in the school yard, with a cry of "Just wait until teacher
+fixes you for ducking." A friend called an enthusiastic invitation to
+play tops on the smooth street macadam. Silvey stopped to convey the
+important information that the "Tigers" were to hold their first fall
+football practice in the big lot that afternoon. John promised his
+appearance&mdash;later. Other and more important matters would claim his
+attention for the next half-hour.</p>
+
+<p>At last the new little girl came down the long walk leading from the
+school yard to the street and hippity-hopped over the cement sidewalk
+towards home, with school books swinging carelessly to and fro in her
+strap.</p>
+
+<p>He started after her with the unnecessary and therefore fascinating
+stealth of an Indian, for he meant to find out where she lived. As she
+left the cross street where the telephone exchange stood, her gait
+slackened to a walk&mdash;still eastward. Past the little block of stores
+which housed a struggling delicatessen, an ambitious, gilt-signed
+"elite" tailoring establishment, and a dingy, dirty-windowed little
+jewelry shop, across Southern Avenue where gray-eyed Harriette, that
+divinity of the preceding year, lived, and still no sign of a change in
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>Once she turned and looked backward. John fled, panic-stricken, to the
+shelter of the nearest store entrance; for you might be in love with a
+girl, you might be obsessed with a desire to find her residence that you
+might pass it occasionally and wonder in a dreamy sort of a way what she
+might be doing, but the girl herself must never know it. That would be
+contrary to every precept of the schoolboy code of ethics.</p>
+
+<p>At last she turned a corner&mdash;his home corner&mdash;where the drug store
+stood, and broke again into a hippity-hop down the shady, linden-lined
+street. With heart gloriously a-thump, he watched the door of the big
+apartment building at the end of the street close upon the little
+white-clad form, and he knew that the van load of furniture which had
+been carried in on the Friday preceding belonged to her parents. So he
+retraced his steps across the street with a dolorously cheerful whistle
+on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Over the railroad tracks he went as usual to the big, weed-grown,
+rubbish-littered field north of the dairy farm, which served as baseball
+grounds, athletic field, and football gridiron, according to the season.
+There he found a baker's dozen of boys of his own age, who greeted him
+joyously.</p>
+
+<p>"Sid DuPree's gone to get his football," Silvey explained. "We'll be
+practicing in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>They were a ragged lot. Silvey boasted of a grimy, oft-patched pair of
+football pants, which were a relic of his brother's high-school career;
+Albert, the older Harrison boy, who did not seem very ill in spite of
+the physician's dismissal, owned half of an old football casing, which
+had been padded to make a head guard, and there was a scattering of
+sweaters among them. Sid DuPree, thanks to parental affluence, was the
+only boy who laid claim to a complete uniform, and presently he
+sauntered over the tracks in shining headgear, heavy jersey, padded knee
+trousers, and legs encased in shin-guards far too large for him. A new
+collegiate ball was tucked securely under one arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Here she is, fellows," he called, as he clambered into the field and
+sent the pigskin spinning erratically through the air. "Isn't she a
+peach?"</p>
+
+<p>Last year, their combats had been fought with a light, cheap, dollar
+toy, but here was one in their midst of the same weight, brand, and size
+as that which the big university team used, and which cost as much as,
+or more, than a new suit of clothes, according to the individual. They
+gathered around it, poking at the staunchly sewn seams and thumping the
+stony sides with a feeling akin to reverence.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Silvey produced a frayed, dog-eared treatise <i>How to Play
+Football</i>, which had survived two years of thumbing and tugging and
+lying on the attic floor between seasons, and proceeded to lay down the
+fundamental laws to the neophytes in the great American sport. Positions
+were tentatively assigned, and the squad raced over weeds and stones in
+an effort to master the rudimentary plays, while Silvey strutted and
+blustered and administered corrective lectures in a manner that was a
+ludicrous imitation of a certain high-school coach. Let John excel at
+baseball if he would; he was the master of the hour now, and he marched
+the boys back and forth until they panted and sweated and finally broke
+into vociferous protest. Thus the "Tigers," whose name that season was
+to spell certain defeat to similar ten-year-old teams, concluded their
+first football practice.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i042" id="i042"></a>
+<img src="images/i042.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>The "Tigers."</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>John dropped behind to talk to the elder Harrison boy as the team
+sauntered noisily homeward. He wanted to learn the details of the
+accommodating illness. Albert chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing the matter. Only the school doctor thought there was."</p>
+
+<p>That official was a recent acquisition to the school personnel whose
+duties, according to the school board's orders, were to "Make daily
+visits, morning and afternoon, to examine all cases of suspected
+illness, and prescribe, if poverty makes it necessary, that epidemics be
+safeguarded against."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked John.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my throat felt funny and I told Miss Brown. She sent me up to the
+office to see him. 'Stay home a day, my boy, until we see if it gets
+worse,'" Albert quoted. "Was I glad?"</p>
+
+<p>So that was what the new school doctor did. Thumped you around and
+looked down your throat and prescribed a day's holiday as a cure. He
+wished he'd been Albert. He'd a' stayed on the pier all morning and
+hooked the big carp again. Some folks seemed to be born lucky, anyway.
+Couldn't he fall sick too, not badly enough to go to bed, but just
+nicely sick as Al was?</p>
+
+<p>He startled his parents at supper that evening by a sudden and seemingly
+morbid thirst for information about diseases.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," he queried, between mouthfuls of bread and homemade marmalade,
+"what's measles and scarlet fever and diphtheria start out like?"</p>
+
+<p>His father chortled with amusement. Mother, after the manner of women,
+remembered his actions that noon and grew anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not feeling sick, are you, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>He didn't feel exactly well. Could she tell him about any of the
+foregoing? Perhaps he had one of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Put that marmalade right down, then. It'll upset your stomach. Here,
+let me look at your tongue!"</p>
+
+<p>He demurred. Jam wouldn't hurt him. There was nothing really wrong,
+anyway. Only one of the boys at school had gone home with the measles
+and he was wondering what it was like. Then he subsided into silence.</p>
+
+<p>Late that evening, Mr. Fletcher found the library gas burning and
+discovered his son sitting beside the desk, his eyes glued to the
+portly, green-bound <i>Family Doctor</i>. Beside him on a pad were scribbled
+copious notes. Nor would he even hint, as his father ordered him to bed,
+what he wanted them for.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>HE PLAYS A TRICK ON THE DOCTOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the morning, John sneaked from the table as soon as the last forkfull
+of fried potatoes had been devoured. When Mrs. Fletcher brought the
+breakfast plates out to the kitchen sink, she found him on tiptoe, with
+one hand fumbling among the spice tins and bottles in the top bureau
+drawer. He turned guiltily, and yawned to hide his embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"I was looking for a piece of cinnamon to chew," he explained. "Guess
+I'll be going to school now."</p>
+
+<p>His mother glanced at the alarm clock which ticked noisily in its place
+on the wall over the sink.</p>
+
+<p>"Only twenty-five minutes to nine, son. Isn't it a bit early?"</p>
+
+<p>He explained that he had to be up at school at first bell. A geography
+notebook had been left in his desk, and entries must be made in it
+before the class began. He was gathering his scattered belongings
+together in the hall when the maternal voice called him back to the
+kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mother?" with his head in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you ever learn to shut a drawer when you're through with it?"</p>
+
+<p>He shoved it back with a sulky bang. "Where's my hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you look in the front hall?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't on the floor by the big chair. That's where I most always leave
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"How about the closet hat rack?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, a surprised shout told that the lost had been found. The
+front door slammed noisily and he was off to school.</p>
+
+<p>The dishes were washed and dried, the plates and saucers stacked on the
+pantry shelves, the cups hung neatly on the appointed hooks in the
+cupboard, and the silver put away in the sideboard drawer. Then Mrs.
+Fletcher turned her attention to the tidying of the house. She made
+innumerable circles and criss-crosses with the carpet sweeper over the
+parlor rug, and was dusting the big rocker by the bay window when a
+chance glance up the street revealed two small figures playing far at
+one end of the strip of macadam. Her son, without doubt, was one of
+them. No one else wore a cap tilted back at quite so ridiculous an
+angle. The other stocky figure looked and acted like Bill Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>Why weren't they at school? Hookey? No, for truants never allowed
+themselves within sight of home and easy detection. And there was a
+certain brazen righteousness about their actions. At the big, green
+house, Silvey challenged John to a game of tag. A lamppost nearer, they
+ceased the mad, dodging chase and engaged in earnest conversation. A
+hundred yards from the Fletcher house, footsteps lagged to an
+astonishing degree and an air of lassitude overcame them that was
+inexplicable in view of recent activities. The boys mounted the front
+steps wearily. John pressed the bell as if the act consumed the last
+atom of strength in his arm.</p>
+
+<p>His mother swung back the door anxiously. "What on earth's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"School doctor sent me home," her son explained. "Think's I've got the
+measles."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Let me take a look at you." His eyes were reddened to an
+alarming degree, but there seemed little else the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"He did," John insisted. "Told me to stay home today to see if they got
+worse. Silvey and I are going fishing."</p>
+
+<p>"Fishing! And coming down with the measles?"</p>
+
+<p>He protested volubly. His head felt heavy and kind of funny, but he
+didn't think that lazying around on the pier would be harmful. The
+sunshine might do him good.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher a second time and with increased
+emphasis. She turned to Silvey. "You can go home, Bill. John can't come
+out. He's going to stay in bed until he gets better."</p>
+
+<p>John trudged wearily up the interminable stairs to his little tan-walled
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Shucks, it was just his luck! Look at Al Harrison. He came home with a
+sore throat and was allowed to play football and fool around as he
+pleased, while he, John Fletcher, was ordered to bed because the school
+doctor feared measles.</p>
+
+<p>A fellow had returned from the pier with a string of perch a yard long
+dangling from his pole. "Fishing good? Say, kid, this ain't nothing to
+what some of 'em have caught!" And he was condemned to a day's
+imprisonment while they were biting that way. It was a shame, tyranny,
+oppression worse than the old slaves labored under in <i>Uncle Tom's
+Cabin</i>. He'd run away from home, he would. Perhaps his uncle would give
+him a job on the Michigan farm if he worked his way up there. Or else he
+could commit suicide. There was the long, shiny, carving knife in the
+kitchen table drawer. He'd just bet his mother would be sorry if he used
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, he threw his clothes sulkily over the back of the wicker chair
+and, after some deliberation, drew a well-thumbed, red-covered book from
+his library shelves. Sherlock Holmes was a far better panacea for his
+troubles than the big carving knife.</p>
+
+<p>He had read and reread the tale until the episodes were known almost by
+heart, but still <i>The Sign of the Four</i> held powerful sway over his
+imagination. Thaddeus Sholto lived again to tell his nervous, halting
+tale to the astute Baker Street detective. Tobey took the two eager
+sleuths through the episode of the trail which led to the creosote
+barrels. Holmes appeared and reappeared on his fruitless expeditions as
+the boy's eyes narrowed with excitement, and his figure straightened and
+his breathing quickened as he followed the police boat in the thrilling
+pursuit of Tonga and Jonathan Small on the tortuous, traffic-blocked
+Thames.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself reading the love passages with a sudden and sympathetic
+insight. No longer did he feel tempted to skim those pages hastily that
+he might resume the thread of the main and more engrossing plot. Didn't
+Louise live almost across the street from him? Wasn't his interest in
+her explained by that paragraph, "A wondrous and subtle thing is love,
+for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"John!" His mother stood in the doorway, stern disapproval in her gaze.
+He looked at her blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Put up that book this minute. Don't you know that reading is the worst
+thing possible for inflamed eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>The treasure was surrendered regretfully. His mother replaced it on the
+shelf.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the key to your bookcase?" He shrugged his shoulders. "It
+doesn't matter. Mine fits your door, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>The squeak of the lock sounded the death knell to the one course of
+amusement that had lain open to him. His mother pulled down the window
+shades and stooped over in the darkened room to kiss him.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep a little, son," she counseled. "Mother wants you to feel better
+in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>He undressed and threw himself into bed angrily. Even books were denied
+him. What was the fun in being sick, anyway, if a fellow's mother
+insisted on taking that sickness seriously. Why wasn't she as easy going
+as Mrs. DuPree who allowed that privileged youngster to stay up as late
+as he wanted and to indulge in other liberties not usually granted to a
+boy of ten?</p>
+
+<p>Sid and the class must be finishing arithmetic now. He wished he were
+there. Anything&mdash;even school&mdash;was better than staying in bed in a
+darkened room. Did Louise enjoy his back seat? Had she found the big wad
+of chewing gum he'd left on the bottom of the desk? Was Silvey having
+the same unfortunate time as he?</p>
+
+<p>The room was warm and close in spite of the open east exposure. He
+yawned dismally. A fly lighted on his nose. He brushed it away in drowsy
+irritation. In a moment his eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>He was awakened by the buzz of the egg beater in a china bowl in the
+kitchen below him. Must be 'most dinner time. He felt hungry enough.
+What was his mother cooking? A fragrant hissing from the hot pan hinted
+of an omelet. Just let him sink his teeth into one. Wouldn't be long
+before he was ready for another.</p>
+
+<p>He roused himself and went into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Moth-a-ar," he called down the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm hu-u-ngry."</p>
+
+<p>"Lie still. I'll be up with your dinner in a few moments."</p>
+
+<p>He hoped it would be something good. Beefsteak and mashed potatoes and
+peas would be about right. Omelet would do, if there were enough. He
+could devour the house, he felt so ravenous.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly his mother appeared with the big brown tray, drew up a
+straight-backed chair to the bed, and lowered the feast to it before his
+expectant eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Milk toast!" disgustedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i051" id="i051"></a>
+<img src="images/i051.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"Milk toast!"</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>"That isn't enough for a fellow. Aren't there any potatoes or meat?"</p>
+
+<p>"They'd make your temperature rise," Mrs. Fletcher explained gently.
+"Perhaps, though, you can have some tomorrow, if you're better."</p>
+
+<p>He waited until she left the room and attacked the mushy stuff hungrily.
+Everything is grist which comes to a small boy's digestive mill, anyway,
+and the food wasn't really distasteful. Then he lay back and, for the
+first time in his active life, realized what a refined torture complete
+and enforced idleness can be.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows played incessantly on the brown wallpaper as the window
+curtains swung back and forth with the air currents and lightened and
+plunged his prison into oppressive twilight alternately. A fly made a
+complete toilette on the bed cover before his interested eyes, now
+brushing the gauzy wings, now twisting its head this way and that way,
+as if indulging in a form of calisthenics. He stretched forth a cautious
+hand to capture the insect, only to watch it buzz merrily away before
+his arm was in striking distance.</p>
+
+<p>A suburban train puffed noisily past and slowed down at the adjacent
+station. Only twenty minutes elapsed! And an afternoon of this awful
+monotony faced him.</p>
+
+<p>He blinked idly at the ceiling. This was Thursday. Played properly, his
+malady should be sufficient to keep him out of school on the morrow; but
+was the game worth the candle?</p>
+
+<p>John dressed himself hurriedly and bounced down the stairs. Mrs.
+Fletcher was in the parlor, glancing for a brief moment at a newly
+arrived magazine. He presented himself sheepishly.</p>
+
+<p>No, he didn't want to stay in bed. He felt all right&mdash;honest!</p>
+
+<p>She examined the invalid carefully. The inflammation had left his eyes
+and they were now as clear as her own. His skin felt cool to the touch,
+without a trace of fever, and his tongue was an even, healthy pink.</p>
+
+<p>"There doesn't seem much the matter with you now," she admitted. "It
+won't hurt you to stay up if you don't play too hard. There are lots and
+lots of things to do to help me."</p>
+
+<p>First, the potatoes were to be washed for tomorrow's dinner. He filled
+the dishpan full of water, dumped the sand-laden tubers in, and attacked
+them with a brush in vigorous relief at the change from deadening
+inactivity. Next, there were a hundred and one little errands to do
+about the house, for his mother began sewing on his negligee blouses,
+and the button-hole scissors, the missing "60" thread, and other mislaid
+implements must be found for her. Lastly, he announced that it might be
+well to go up to school and get the lessons for tomorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I won't miss anything," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher nodded assent. "But come right back. I don't want you to
+be sick again."</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon passed without sign of John. At supper time, he approached
+the house warily. His face was flushed, his school clothes begrimed and
+rumpled, and a bruise on his right shin forced a perceptible limp as he
+walked. He had been practicing with the "Tigers," and the scrimmage had
+been most exciting. Silvey&mdash;who had not been put to bed&mdash;had bumped into
+Red Brown in a manner which the latter regarded as unnecessarily rough.
+There had been a fight between the two, while the other aspirants for
+positions on the team stood around and yelled "Fi-i-i-ight" at the top
+of their lungs.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, everyone seemed to be inside the Fletcher house. The outlook was
+reasonably safe. He tiptoed up on the porch and stretched out on the
+swinging lounge. There his mother found him feigning a deep and
+overwhelming sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"John!"</p>
+
+<p>Sleeping boys never wakened at the first summons. That wasn't natural.
+So he waited until a maternal hand shook him vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mother?" With a doleful yawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the way you come straight home from school?"</p>
+
+<p>He protested. There were some lessons to get from Miss Brown after,
+dismissal and that had delayed him. "And I've been here ever so long."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "Just look at the state of your clothing.
+You've been playing football. Come into the house this instant!"</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed meekly. The period of invalidism was over.</p>
+
+<p>But to the harassed school doctor, it seemed on the following morning
+that John Fletcher's case was but the beginning of a long and startling
+outbreak of illness in the school.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had Miss Brown finished roll call before dark-haired Perry
+Alford, her brightest and most guileless scholar, waved his hand
+excitedly to attract attention. His eyes hurt terribly as teacher could
+see. Wouldn't it be well for him to go to the school physician? Miss
+Brown thought that it would.</p>
+
+<p>Room Ten's door closed upon the prospective invalid. But a few moments
+passed before towheaded, lethargic Olaf Johnson voiced his complaint.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, ma'm, my throat, it feels funny here." He placed a pudgy hand
+on each side of his jaw. "And this morning when I get up, my head feels
+hot."</p>
+
+<p>He, too, was sent to see the school physician.</p>
+
+<p>"Does your nose run?" asked the man of medicines when Perry finished the
+catalog of his ailments.</p>
+
+<p>Perry sneezed and admitted that it did.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else wrong with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, sir;" then with a sudden glibness, "but I don't feel like
+doing much. Only loafing around&mdash;and my head feels queer."</p>
+
+<p>"Home," ordered the doctor, emphatically. "At least four days. Tell your
+mother you've a first-class case of measles developing."</p>
+
+<p>As Perry made his exit, Olaf appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Another?" exclaimed the physician, as he exchanged a glance with the
+gray-haired principal. "Well, what's the matter with you?"</p>
+
+<p>Olaf elaborated upon the symptoms which he had described to Miss Brown.
+The young medic was puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"There are aspects which are not quite consistent," he said to the
+principal, "but the soreness suggests mumps. Shall we send him home?"</p>
+
+<p>"As you think best," nodded Mr. Downer. Olaf went the way of the
+measles-smitten Perry.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was picking up his hat and medicine case to leave when the
+office door opened again. Two more boys appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" said he, as he sat down heavily. "Is it an epidemic?"</p>
+
+<p>The principal shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"More mumps." He beckoned to the larger of the two boys. "Now it's your
+turn."</p>
+
+<p>The older urchin was sturdily built, with a deep coat of tan on his face
+that no city sun had ever bred.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong with you?"</p>
+
+<p>The situation was beginning to pall. The position of school doctor,
+newly created by the Board of Education at the close of the spring term,
+carried no munificent salary. The young practitioner had grasped at the
+opening because the routine work offered golden opportunities for
+acquiring a clientele among the parents of the various pupils. Now,
+almost at the outset, a whole morning had been consumed, and there was
+promise of a great deal more work in the future.</p>
+
+<p>There didn't seem to be anything seriously the matter with the boy. He
+felt bruised all over, that was all.</p>
+
+<p>"Where does it hurt the most?"</p>
+
+<p>"Around my back."</p>
+
+<p>"Here?" The doctor placed his hands firmly on either side of the
+patient's spine.</p>
+
+<p>"O-o-oh, don't!" he waited.</p>
+
+<p>The physician straightened up and regarded the pupil gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"My stomach feels queer and it hurts like the dickens every once in a
+while. I lost my breakfast, this morning, too!"</p>
+
+<p>A tense note crept into the inquisitor's voice. "Have you ever been
+vaccinated?"</p>
+
+<p>"No sir. We just moved to the city this summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Smallpox!" The principal turned a little pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The pain in the back and the vomiting are almost certain indications."
+He turned to the boy. "Tell your mother to notify the health department
+the very minute you get home. Your house must be quarantined
+immediately."</p>
+
+<p>Much more was said regarding precautions, and measures, and medicines,
+to which the patient listened stolidly. A disinterested observer might
+have said that he was waiting solely for the order to leave school.</p>
+
+<p>As the door closed, the authorities exchanged worried glances.</p>
+
+<p>"The health record of the school has always been remarkably good," began
+the principal.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's an epidemic," cut in the worried physician. "And what an
+epidemic. Four cases this morning, and two yesterday, ranging all the
+way from mumps to smallpox. Downer, the school ought to be closed and
+thoroughly disinfected."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that the cases are confined to one
+room, Ten, and that boys are the only victims?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear of a germ carrier. A person who, through some source
+of exposure, carries germs here and there on his or her clothes, and is
+perfectly immune to them. That's what you must have in that room. As for
+your last question, merely a coincidence. The boys happened to be the
+most susceptible to exposure, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>A bell clanged noisily. Mr. Downer stood up and looked thoughtfully from
+his window upon the orderly lines of pupils that no sooner passed from
+the school threshold than they became a howling, shouting mass of
+seeming infant maniacs.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me," he said, "Miss Brown was telling about a girl named
+Margaret, Margaret Moran, whose mother took in washing for a living.
+Spoke of it as a great joke. Said the girl wore a new dress every day,
+sometimes too long, sometimes too short, but never a fit. An ingenious
+way to reduce one item of the present high cost of living. She might be
+the one," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Always the way," his companion said sharply. "There are more epidemics
+and near epidemics started by these itinerant washerwomen than the
+medical journals can keep track of. They ought to be regulated."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," said the principal, "I think it would be wise to question
+her a little before steps are taken to close the school. She may be able
+to shed some light on matters."</p>
+
+<p>"As you wish." The physician shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be back, this
+afternoon, to help with the inquisition."</p>
+
+<p>Next to children, the gray-haired man loved flowers, and he had planted
+the barren strip of land adjoining the fence separating the school yard
+from the alley with cannas and elephant's ears. He was puttering among
+them, now seeking voracious parasites, now examining a leaf which hinted
+in its faded coloring of fast approaching frosts, when boys' voices
+coming from the alley, held his attention.</p>
+
+<p>"So you want a holiday?" John Fletcher was the speaker beyond doubt; and
+his case had been the forerunner of the epidemic.</p>
+
+<p>"Uhu."</p>
+
+<p>"Got your nickel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Show me how, first."</p>
+
+<p>A moment's silence. John was examining the seeker after advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Just want this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy assented.</p>
+
+<p>"Better have the measles, then. That's only good for one day, 'cause you
+can't fake it much longer. The disease comes on too fast. Doctor's book
+says so. Now pay attention."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Just before you go to school, shake some red pepper into your hand and
+go into a small closet. Shut the door so's none of the stuff can get
+out, and blow on it. Stay there until your eyes begin to smart. You'll
+find they're all red. That's the first symptom. Now repeat what I told
+you."</p>
+
+<p>His pupil obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Let Miss Brown take a good look and she'll send you to the doctor right
+away. When you come into the office, give a little cough as if your
+throat hurt. Let's hear you."</p>
+
+<p>The urchin hacked vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, not so loud! You couldn't do that if your throat hurt as much
+as you must pretend it does. Try again."</p>
+
+<p>This time, the effort satisfied even the teacher's critical ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, when the doctor asks what's the matter, tell him you don't
+exactly know; that your head feels sort of queer, and you were all hot
+when you woke up this morning. He'll say 'Measles' and order you 'home
+until the case develops,'" quoting the physician's words at his own
+dismissal. "Now give me the nickel."</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks, is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't worth no nickel."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to give me that nickel?" threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>"That ain't worth more'n a penny. How do I know whether it'll work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perry Alford's worked, and so did mine, and Bill Silvey's, Olaf's,
+Carl's, and the country kid's."</p>
+
+<p>"The other kids aren't paying you no nickel."</p>
+
+<p>"They are, too. Ask Mickey and his brother, and the Shepherd kids.
+They're going to be sick this afternoon, and they've paid me."</p>
+
+<p>"I can go to Olaf," asserted the would-be dead-beat. "He'll tell me what
+you told him, and it'll only cost a penny."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd better not! I'll smash his face in if he does. <i>Are you going to
+give me that nickel?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, I ain't."</p>
+
+<p>John clenched his fists belligerently. His debtor raised both arms in a
+posture of defense. The principal tiptoed noiselessly around the end of
+the fence. John sparred for an opening and his opponent spied the
+approaching figure.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i062.jpg"><img src="images/i062.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Jiggers! Old man Downer!" he yelled. "Beat it quick!"</p>
+
+<p>John turned, only to meet the principal's firm grasp on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Come up to the office," said the quiet voice. "I want to have a talk
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way to the center doors, an entrance reserved for the use of
+such awe-inspiring mortals as the faculty, visiting school
+superintendents, and parents. Up the dingy wooden stairs, worn at either
+end by the innumerable shuffling feet which had passed over them, they
+went, and into the bleak little office.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," said Mr. Downer.</p>
+
+<p>John collapsed into an uncomfortable wooden chair and gazed about him.
+There were the same desk, the same window box, filled with geraniums and
+pansies, and the same dun wall that he had seen on previous visits,
+prompted by his various sins. There was only one change. Opposite him, a
+newly framed head of Washington looked down from the wall in cold
+disapproval of the culprit who, for once in his brief life, felt
+strangely small and subdued.</p>
+
+<p>There were no questions; the principal had heard too much from his
+vantage point beside the fence. So he talked on and on and on in even,
+severe tones, of notes mailed to parents, of suspension notices, of
+school board action, and of interviews with Mr. Fletcher, until John,
+staring, motionless, at a panel in the big oak desk, felt his lower lip
+quiver. Then the gray-haired man desisted.</p>
+
+<p>"But I hope none of these measures will be necessary, John," he
+concluded.</p>
+
+<p>"N-no, sir," came the scarcely audible response.</p>
+
+<p>Had the boy looked at the kindly face, he would have seen that the deep
+set eyes were a-twinkle with suppressed merriment, but he was too
+conscience-stricken to do anything but slink from the office to the
+school yard.</p>
+
+<p>There he found that the news of his downfall had been spread among the
+fast increasing throng of boys who scampered over the pavement in
+breakneck games of tag or made tops perform miraculous tricks as they
+waited for the school bell to ring. Not a few jeered at him. One or two
+little girls who were passing stuck out their tongues. Even Sid DuPree
+and Silvey and the rest of the "Tigers" had only derisive laughter.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time in his life that he had been made to feel
+ridiculous and he liked it not at all. He felt strangely out of place
+and stood to one side of the yard, a scowl on his face, glaring at the
+throng of merrymakers. Anyway, the proceeds of his escapade were in his
+pockets; that was more money than any of the scoffers owned. He shook
+the coins consolingly.</p>
+
+<p>A boy darted past. "Y-a-a, Johnny will try to fool the doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>The scowl deepened, then vanished suddenly. "Hey!" he bellowed to an
+astonished group near him. "Come on, all of you, over to the school
+store."</p>
+
+<p>They filed, a perplexed, noisy throng, into the cramped room. The
+proprietress gasped. John swaggered forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said he, with the air of a young millionaire throwing away
+twenty-dollar tips, "I want forty-five cents' worth of six-for-a-cent
+lemon drops. Give each of these kids two and save the rest for me, if
+there is any rest!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he strutted out, a veritable lord of creation. His pockets were
+empty, but little he cared. The clamor in the school store was as sweet
+music to his ears, for it meant that his status among his play-fellows
+was restored. His bump of conceit no longer ached. So he knew that the
+victory was worth the price and again he felt at peace with the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH A TERRIFIC BATTLE IS WAGED</h3>
+
+
+<p>The following morning was clear and sun-shiny. Silvey, his trousers'
+pockets strangely distorted, sprinted down the street and halted on the
+cement walk in front of the Fletcher house.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, John-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>John appeared at an upper window in answer to the ear-piercing call. He
+carried a dustrag in one hand, and an expression of extreme discontent
+was on his freckled face.</p>
+
+<p>"What you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on out."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't." Disgruntled pessimism rang in his tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Got to tidy my room and dust the bookcase and hang up my clothes in the
+closet and cut the front grass. Mother says so."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw-w-w, shucks! Can't you get out of it?" His friend fumbled in one of
+his bulging pockets. "Look!"</p>
+
+<p>The laborer at household tasks stared with sudden interest. "Ji-miny,
+cukes! Where'd you get 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Long the railroad tracks. Vines are loaded. Nice and ripe, too.
+Watch."</p>
+
+<p>He hurled the greeny, spiny oval against the window ledge where it burst
+with the peculiar "plop," which only a wild cucumber of a certain stage
+of juicy plumpness can make.</p>
+
+<p>"The fellows are going to have a big fight," Silvey continued&mdash;"Perry
+Alford and Sid and the Harrison kids and all the rest of the gang. Ask
+your mother can you leave the work until afternoon. Tease her <i>hard</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Cucumbers ripe so early? That was fine! But could he evade the Saturday
+tasks. He would try.</p>
+
+<p>As he descended the stairs, the elation left his face and his step grew
+heavy and lifeless. He was framing a plea for freedom and his manner
+must fit the occasion. Had you seen him, you might have thought that his
+best bamboo fishing pole had been broken, or that the key to his
+bookcase was in maternal possession as punishment for some misdeed. All
+boys are splendid professional mourners anyway, and John was by no means
+an exception to the rule.</p>
+
+<p>He halted in the dingy coat closet to listen. Through the closed kitchen
+door came his mother's voice uplifted in song.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nita, Oh, Ju-a-a-nita,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ala-a-s that we must part!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He sighed deeply. Bitter experience had taught that never was moment so
+unpropitious for errands like the present as when that cheerful dirge
+filled the air. But the thought of the waiting Silvey nerved him. He
+turned the doorknob and coughed hesitantly. His mother looked up from
+the pan of apples on her lap and smiled. She knew that lagging step and
+drooping mouth of old.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, John?"</p>
+
+<p>Her son fidgeted from one foot to the other. Beginnings were always so
+difficult. At last he blurted out:</p>
+
+<p>"Mother! Bill's outside with a lot of cucumbers. Says the fellows are
+going to have a sham battle and wants me to come along."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you put your shoes away in the bag on the door and hang up your
+good knickerbockers and coat?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes began to fill. "N-no," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've been upstairs nearly an hour," Mrs. Fletcher went on
+inexorably. "I suppose your room is tidied and dusted anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite," reluctantly. If the truth were told, a new book from the
+public library had caught his eye as he was about to start, and time had
+flown as a consequence.</p>
+
+<p>His mother shook her head. "That's your regular Saturday work, John. It
+has to be finished before you can go out. You know that. And there's the
+lawn to be cut, and the porch to be hosed. You skipped them last week."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do them this afternoon. Honest, I will." His lower lip began to
+tremble. Mrs. Fletcher struggled to hide a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Bill you'll be out later." She disregarded his offer of
+compromise. "Now run along, son. Teasing only wastes time. You could be
+half finished if you'd only worked."</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the tone. It meant business in spite of the
+aggressive cheerfulness. He turned moodily and stamped out of the room.
+As the door closed, he found an outlet for the disappointment in half
+mumbled ejaculations.</p>
+
+<p>"Mean old thing. Never lets a fellow do what he wants. Just as well have
+let 'em go until afternoon. What's the use of tidying a room, anyway?
+Always gets dirty again."</p>
+
+<p>Half-way up the carpeted stairs, he tripped in his blind anger and
+bruised his knee. The pain was sufficient to make the tears&mdash;the easy
+flowing tears which had longed for an outlet from the start of the
+interview&mdash;stream from his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In a trice, he turned, threw back the door, and fled to the haven of his
+mother's lap. His arms sought clumsily to encircle her neck. She dropped
+the pan of apples on the floor, and gathered him, a sobbing little
+bundle, into her comforting arms.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, son?"</p>
+
+<p>"My knee." One uncertain hand indicated the injured spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, son, son," she laughed softly with just a hint of a catch in her
+voice as she rubbed the injury gently, "is it only when you want
+something that you love me like this?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head and snuggled closer in vehement protest. They rocked
+to and fro for some moments. Gradually the sobbing ceased and he lay
+blissfully motionless until she looked down at him. Then he said
+sheepishly,</p>
+
+<p>"If I do the lawn now, can I leave the porch and my room until
+afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher gave her son an amused shake. He sensed hope for his cause
+and began to weep anew.</p>
+
+<p>"Please!"</p>
+
+<p>His mother's smile broadened. "You little humbug," she said softly.</p>
+
+<p>John wanted to smile, too. She always said that when she was relenting.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I?" eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, make a good job of the front lawn and I'll see."</p>
+
+<p>He struggled to his feet and was on the front porch before the kitchen
+door had slammed behind him. Half-dried tears still streaked his face,
+but a smile shone through them like the sun after a summer shower.</p>
+
+<p>"Got to cut the front lawn," he said exuberantly, "but that won't take
+long. She says I can leave the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey's face clouded. "They're waiting for us in the big lot."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't take long if you help me," John hinted gently. "You run the mower
+and I'll follow with the rake."</p>
+
+<p>He darted back into the house and down into the dark, badly ventilated
+basement. Silvey sauntered around to the side, just in time to hear him
+struggling with the rusty door bolt.</p>
+
+<p>They dragged the implements up the area steps and set to work grimly. No
+time to be spent in making erratic circles or decorative designs in the
+long grass now. Up and down, up and down, the mower whirred with
+methodical thoroughness until the little plot had been cut after a
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess that'll do," said John as they bumped the tools down the rickety
+wooden steps and left them lying in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to tell her you're finished?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher's son shook his head vigorously. "S'pose I want to trim
+the edges with the shears? Come on. Beat you over the tracks!"</p>
+
+<p>The lot where the boys had held their first football practice was large
+and occupied more than half of the double city block on which the dairy
+farm was located. The far end was flanked by a row of red, ramshackle
+frame stores, occupied by photographers, art dealers, and a Greek ice
+cream soda shop. A little further in and along the railroad fence, dense
+weeds flourished, topping at times even the tallest of the boys. Nearer
+to the dairy, short, sparse grass struggled for existence under a
+profusion of tin cans, charred wood, and broken milk bottles. A
+considerable area had been cleared of these impediments, and formed the
+boys' athletic grounds. Near one corner stood a monster pile of barrels
+and boxes, collected some months past, for a bonfire; but the policeman
+on the beat had interfered with a threat of arrest for the whole tribe,
+and the giant conflagration had not taken place.</p>
+
+<p>The pair were greeted with shouts as they jumped down from the railroad
+fence.</p>
+
+<p>"What took you so long?" Sid DuPree asked.</p>
+
+<p>John explained. The members of the gang offered congratulations at the
+escape, or sympathized with him over the work yet to be done, according
+to their several viewpoints. The elder Harrison boy led the two to one
+side and pointed out a scant bushel basket of the green ammunition.
+Others explained the plans for the morning's fun.</p>
+
+<p>"Silvey 'n I'll be generals of the armies," said John, when the babel
+had diminished. Sid raised his voice in protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Give somebody else a chance. Let Red and me be it this time."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey shouted derisively. "'Member the time you got hit in the eye with
+a snowball? Went home, bawling 'Ma-m-a-a, Ma-m-a-a.' Fine general you'll
+make!"</p>
+
+<p>Sid brandished his fists with a show of braggadocio. "Want to fight
+about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Na-a-w," came the sneering reply. "Don't fight with cowards."</p>
+
+<p>John turned upon the pair imperiously. "Silvey'n I'll be generals, just
+as I said. Cut out the quarreling. If you don't like it, you don't have
+to. Want to quit?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid mumbled a sulky denial and retreated to the outer edge of the little
+group. There he poured out his troubles to the elder Harrison boy. John
+and Bill were always bossing things; ought to let him lead once in a
+while; thought they were the earth, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>John shot him a keen glance and whirled upon Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>"First choose!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't fair," objected his rival. "I wasn't ready. Draw lots."</p>
+
+<p>Perry Alford plucked a half-dozen blades of grass of varying lengths and
+folded them carefully. Then he held one, tightly closed, chubby hand
+first to Bill and then to John. The leaders compared their prizes.
+Silvey gave an exultant yell and beckoned to a gawky, loosely jointed
+lad who stood a little apart from the rest of the gang.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Skinny! You're on my side."</p>
+
+<p>Skinny's long arms made him a welcome addition to any force and a
+warrior to be feared at all times. Occasionally he performed feats of
+marksmanship which not even the two redoubtable leaders could equal.</p>
+
+<p>The group of boys drew closer. Perry Alford lagged with seeming
+nonchalance, a step in the rear of his more eager play-fellows. Sid
+DuPree picked up a pebble and threw it unerringly toward a railroad
+fence post as John eyed him regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>If only that youngster had not such a reputation for quitting under
+fire, time and again during their many mimic battles! Then his glance
+fell upon Red Brown's impudent, freckled face and he smiled. Here was a
+warrior with a temperament to delight the leader of a forlorn hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Red!"</p>
+
+<p>Sid was promptly seized upon by the rival commander.</p>
+
+<p>"Perry Alford," said John.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining half-dozen mediocrities were divided without further ado.
+Then the two leaders stepped gravely to one side and discussed the rules
+for the approaching conflict, while the rank and file of the two armies,
+twelve strong, amused themselves by wrestling, throwing bits of stone
+and glass up on the railroad tracks, and engaging in impromptu games of
+tag.</p>
+
+<p>"Each fellow gets twenty cucumbers," concluded John. "That'll leave some
+for fun, later. If a man gets hit three times, he's a deader and has to
+quit. Side wins when the other fellows are killed, same as it was last
+year."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey nodded and beckoned to his clan. The Fletcherites were about to
+withdraw to the opposite side of the field when an unforeseen
+interruption occurred.</p>
+
+<p>"Wanta fight!" announced a tousled-headed, wash-suited five-year-old
+with determination.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" retorted Silvey incautiously as he looked down upon the
+petitioner from the lofty height of ten long years of life. "This game
+ain't for babies. It's for <i>men</i>. You'd get hit in the eye and go home
+to ma-ma in a minute. You can't play."</p>
+
+<p>The infant eyed him for a moment and threw himself on the ground in a
+fit of rage. "Wanta fight! Wanta fight! Wanta fight!" he wailed again
+and again.</p>
+
+<p>Bill turned to Skinny Mosher angrily. "What do you always bring that kid
+brother along for? He spoils all our fun. Ain't you got any sense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sense?" replied that star marksman in injured tones. "You bet I've got
+sense. But what's a fellow to do when his ma says, 'Now, Leonard, take
+little brother along and see that those big, rough boys don't hurt
+him.'" Tone and mannerisms were in perfect imitation of Mrs. Mosher.</p>
+
+<p>"Give him some cucumbers and let him fool around. That'll keep him
+quiet," Red suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," retorted Silvey scornfully. "Then he'll mix in the fight and get
+hit and go home bawling, same as he did when we had the snow fort. Then
+his ma'll go around to our mas and tell 'em what rough games we play and
+how it's a wonder somebody hasn't lost an eye. We'll all get penny
+lectures and the fun'll be spoiled for a week. Oh, yes, let him fight!"</p>
+
+<p>John broke the gloomy silence which followed. "Here, kid, you can join
+both armies at once."</p>
+
+<p>The incubus ceased wailing and looked up eagerly. Silvey's and Skinny's
+faces bespoke perturbed amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;&mdash;," interrupted Red Brown.</p>
+
+<p>"You can be a Red Crosser and look after the ones who get killed," John
+continued serenely. "Only you mustn't fight. Red Crossers never do. They
+just stay around the hospitals." He fumbled in a hip pocket for the bit
+of red school chalk which he used for marking hop-scotch squares on the
+sidewalks. "Come here and I'll put the cross on your arm. And," he
+offered as alluring alternative, "if you don't like that, I'll punch
+your face and send you home!"</p>
+
+<p>Like the one non-office holder of a certain short-lived boys' club who
+was given the specially created position of "Honorable Vice-President,"
+the Mosher infant was more than placated. As he galloped off astride an
+imaginary horse for a circuit of the field, the factions breathed a
+unanimous sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"No fair firing until we say 'Ready,'" shouted the exultant diplomat, as
+he gathered his forces and led them toward their own territory.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, when they reached the tall, straggling weeds, "how're we
+going to beat 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>Immediately a babel of suggestions ensued. Bill waited a few impatient
+minutes and executed a taunting, barbaric war dance to the center of the
+field. Carefully planned campaigns were not for him; his force boasted
+too many good marksmen.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fraid cats! 'Fraid cats!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs.
+"C'ardy, c'ardy custard, eatin' bread an' must-a-ard. Come on an' get
+beat. Come on an' get beat."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded at a suggestion of Red's and turned to the dancing figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready, ch-a-arge!" he shouted. Silvey retreated promptly to the shelter
+of his own army. Presently his four weakest marksmen advanced.</p>
+
+<p>"Wants to get us fighting," explained General Fletcher, as he restrained
+his impatient subordinates. "Then he and Skinny and Sid will pick us
+off. Come on&mdash;and remember."</p>
+
+<p>They advanced silently without wasting a cucumber. The elder Harrison
+boy who led the four skirmishers, ventured a shot to open the
+engagement. Silvey, Skinny, and Sid DuPree sauntered carelessly up.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i078.jpg"><img src="images/i078.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Now!" shouted John.</p>
+
+<p>His little force split into two groups. Red, with Perry and two others,
+charged to the right of the advancing quartette, while the general's
+detachment dodged quickly past their left. Then at a signal, seven arms
+loosed a shower of missiles at the startled trio of leaders.</p>
+
+<p>A cucumber caught Skinny Mosher squarely below his ear. Another left a
+moist spot on one of Silvey's oft darned stockings. A third missile
+found another mark on the now bewildered Mosher. Red Brown advanced upon
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Surrender!" he yelled.</p>
+
+<p>Mosher fished another cucumber from his trousers and fired squarely at
+his advancing enemy. That gentleman dodged, tripped upon a bit of
+debris, and fell over backwards with a "plop." As Skinny advanced
+incautiously to make sure of his victim, Red retired him with a glancing
+shot on his upraised hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a deader, you're a deader," he yelled as Mosher lifted his arm a
+second time. "John hit you and the little Harrison kid hit you, and now
+I did. That makes three times, and you're killed entirely."</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks," grunted the disgusted corpse. "Just as I was beginning to have
+some fun, too."</p>
+
+<p>The victor busied himself in removing bits of flattened cucumbers from
+his juice-soaked hip pockets. "Just wait until ma sees these pants," he
+said ruefully. "Hey, John, I'm going after more ammunition."</p>
+
+<p>The main conflict slackened. To lose a first lieutenant at the outset,
+and to have two more members of your army near death, is no slight
+matter. Silvey grew more and more disconcerted as the failure of his
+offensive became apparent.</p>
+
+<p>"Beat it," he yelled at last as a stray shot missed his shoulder by a
+scant inch. The survivors retreated to the shelter of the boxes and
+barrels, where they maintained a desultory fire.</p>
+
+<p>The advantage of the impromptu fort began to make itself felt. Missile
+after missile shot accurately out at the attackers and retaliation was
+well nigh impossible. John withdrew his forces just out of range.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to do something," he said desperately. "Who's hit on our
+side?"</p>
+
+<p>Red pointed to a discolored nose and admitted "Twice." Perry Alford
+indicated a moist, dark circle on his wash blouse and a sticky lock of
+hair. Their leader looked grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Silvey's hit twice, and Skinny's dead, so that leaves them only five.
+But, Jiminy, Red, if you and Perry get hit, it's all up. And look where
+they are. Maybe I can get 'em to come out."</p>
+
+<p>He advanced a few paces toward the weathered heap of debris and broke
+into a time-honored taunt:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Silvey, th' bilvey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Th' rik-stick-stilvey!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To which the intrenched commander of the enemy replied,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fletcher, oh, Fletcher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Th' old fly catcher,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and exposed just enough of his person to wriggle ten brazen fingers from
+the tip of his nose. John made a last, despairing attempt.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid of getting hi-i-t! Ya-a-h!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on and hit me, then," came back the answer, which admitted of no
+retort save action.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to chase 'em out someway." He turned desperately to Red. "You
+and Perry Alford sneak up behind that thick lot of weeds when we start
+yelling and dancing like everything. Then we'll charge and drive 'em
+around to your end. But don't let 'em hit you."</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the youngest member of the Mosher family had discovered
+that his position as "Red-Crosser" carried only a decoration on his
+sleeve, which admitted of no honor or excitement whatever. He crept up,
+unobserved by the excited Fletcherites, raided the cucumber basket of as
+many of the missiles as his little pockets would hold, and halted within
+easy distance to watch the attack on the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Red and Perry sneaked stealthily to the weed-clump ambush while their
+comrades showered cucumbers on the sheltered foe recklessly.
+Occasionally the defenders replied with a shot whenever a good mark was
+presented, but for the most part, they seemed content to keep the box
+heap between them and their enemies and bide their time. Farther and
+farther away they edged in response to the flanking movement of the main
+division of John's army, until Red, deeming the moment opportune, fired.
+Perry Alford followed. Silvey, surprised by the sudden attack from the
+rear, turned and received a cucumber full upon his half-open lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Who did that?" he sputtered, as he dislodged the acrid fragments from
+his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Red threw caution to the winds and danced exultantly out in the open.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a deader. You're a deader. I killed the general. I killed the
+general."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey advanced on him furiously. "I'll punch your face in, hitting me
+in the mouth that way."</p>
+
+<p>Brown was ever in ecstasy at the prospect of a fight. "Come on and do
+it," he retorted. "Didn't last football practice, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey doubled his fists. His opponent held his ground. The rank and
+file of the two armies dropped their cucumbers and gathered in a little
+semi-circle to watch the fight. The youngest Mosher boy crept up and
+balanced himself unsteadily on one foot. In his right hand he held a
+cucumber, and on his face shone set determination.</p>
+
+<p>"Wanta fight," he cried, as the combatants began the inevitable
+preliminary sparring. "<i>Goin'ta</i> fight!"</p>
+
+<p>The next moment, a cucumber caught Silvey squarely in the eye. The
+latter turned, dug viciously in his pocket for ammunition, and fired a
+handful of cucumbers at his assailant without perceiving, in his blind
+rage, who it was. Yell after yell filled the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Now look what you've done," exclaimed Mosher miserably. "Just watch me
+catch it when he gets home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Silvey snapped, still angry as the others gathered around the
+infant, "I told him to keep out of the cucumber basket. What did he
+throw at me for?"</p>
+
+<p>The wails continued. Skinny bent anxiously over his brother. "Come,
+buddy," he coaxed. "You're not hurt badly."</p>
+
+<p>"W-a-a-a-h!" The boys began to feel alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did he hit you?"</p>
+
+<p>"W-a-a-a-h!"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey looked down remorsefully. "Here, kid, here's some cucumbers. You
+can hit me as hard as you want and get even."</p>
+
+<p>"W-a-a-a-h!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more, Mosher tried to assuage his brother's grief. "Look at the
+funny man who's coming over to see you. Don't let him find you crying."</p>
+
+<p>The "funny man" proved to be the school physician who was returning from
+a professional call. He dropped his medical case on the turf and stooped
+over the prostrate urchin, who promptly kicked him in the shins.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor drew back hastily. "What's the matter?" he queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Th-th bad boy hit me."</p>
+
+<p>"Which one?"</p>
+
+<p>A grimy, tear streaked hand pointed to Silvey. The medic turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, boy," he said majestically.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, Silvey beat a hasty retreat to the railroad tracks. There, from
+the summit of the embankment, he heaped abuse on the inoffensive figure
+with the little black case.</p>
+
+<p>"Smarty, smarty, smart-e-e-e!" he shrilled. "Johnny made a monkey of
+you. Johnny made a monkey of you!"</p>
+
+<p>The ex-members of the armies snickered. Still the shouts continued. The
+doctor flushed a deep scarlet. To retreat in the face of the taunts
+seemed cowardly&mdash;to remain was rapidly becoming insufferable.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell your friend he'd better keep quiet," he said in futile anger.
+Silvey interpreted the gesture which accompanied the ultimatum.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on and make me quit," he chanted. "Johnny made a monkey of you and
+I can, to-o-o!"</p>
+
+<p>The physician grinned sheepishly and took a few swift strides after the
+dancing figure. Silvey waited until he was almost at the wire railroad
+fence, and retreated to one of the back yards on the opposite side of
+the embankment. As the doctor retraced his steps to the sidewalk, the
+boys gazed thoughtfully at the depleted supply of ammunition. John
+turned to Skinny Mosher.</p>
+
+<p>"Take that kid away before he gets us into more trouble. He's always
+spoiling our fun, anyway. What'll we do now."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go over to the street and get chased," Perry Alford suggested, as
+Skinny started towards home with his sniffling, reluctant brother.</p>
+
+<p>They apportioned the last of the cucumbers and crossed the tracks in
+single file, pausing now to balance fantastically on the shining steel
+rails, and now to skip flat, smooth pebbles against the black, weathered
+girders which supported the block signals. As they reached the home
+precincts, a still-panting figure joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he gone?"</p>
+
+<p>John nodded. "He was only bluffing. Might have known that. We're going
+over to the flats."</p>
+
+<p>"The flats" was the largest building on their home street. Built on the
+corner, in the shape of a huge, four-storied, red brick "C," it was
+really composed of a number of apartments with separate entrances with a
+common, cement-paved inside court on which the back porches fronted. The
+basements were given over to boiler rooms, laundry tubs, and storerooms,
+linked by long, twisting, badly lighted corridors which formed excellent
+hiding places for the boys in time of pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>The gang gathered noisily just off the corner and waited for victims. A
+gray-haired, poorly clad woman shuffled past. Sid raised his arm. Silvey
+whispered a protest. "That's old lady Allen. Has the rheumatism. Leave
+her alone."</p>
+
+<p>John broke into a gleeful chortle. "Look what's coming, fellows."</p>
+
+<p>The cause of his exultation was a callow youth of sixteen, whose father
+had met with a sudden wave of prosperity and was now trying to sell his
+rather modest home that he might move to a more exclusive neighborhood.
+The son was inclined to patronize old acquaintances and affected a
+multitude of expensive tailored clothes and a light cane. John eyed the
+gray, immaculately pressed suit appreciatively and let fly.</p>
+
+<p>The boy wheeled in surprise, then stooped to pick up his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"You fellows had better cut that out," he blustered, as he straightened
+the soft, felt brim.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's going to make us?" Silvey jeered, as his cucumber hit the neat
+lapel.</p>
+
+<p>"Just do that again. I'll show you."</p>
+
+<p>A volley of the juicy missiles greeted his words. He charged upon the
+boys, who fled to the haven of the darkest of the corridors and took
+refuge in an empty outer storeroom. There they barricaded themselves and
+awaited his coming.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-a-ah," John taunted, as he heard heavy breathing through the door.
+"What'll you do now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just wait until dinner time."</p>
+
+<p>"Not going to make us stay that long, are you? Please don't be mean."</p>
+
+<p>The elder boy deigned no reply. John raised the little window which
+fronted the street and grinned. One by one the gang climbed through the
+narrow opening to the sidewalk and left their vindictive enemy guarding
+the empty storeroom.</p>
+
+<p>Across the street from the flats stood the building which housed the
+corner drug store and "Neighborhood Hall," used according to season for
+high-school dances, minstrel shows, and fraternal meetings. They
+assembled at the entrance, which commanded an excellent view of all
+approaches leading from the flats, and awaited developments.</p>
+
+<p>A little girl rounded the corner with sundry grocer's packages in her
+arms. She noticed that the boys were gathered in the excited group,
+which always spelled danger to unescorted maidens, but held bravely on.
+As she passed, Silvey yelled exultantly. Perry Alford threw wildly and
+hit the ground by her feet. Red's missile caught one nervous, white
+little hand and made her drop a bag of eggs to the sidewalk. John raised
+his arm, then lowered it as if paralyzed.</p>
+
+<p>It was Louise!</p>
+
+<p>"Quit that fellows," he cried, seizing on the first excuse which came
+into his mind. "She's a little girl."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey looked at him in blank amazement. "What of it?" he ejaculated.
+"Ain't the first time you've made one cry."</p>
+
+<p>John's lips tightened. "Don't care if it isn't," he snapped. "Stop that,
+Sid, or I'll punch your face in."</p>
+
+<p>He threw his own cucumber into the gutter to show that his was a
+peaceful errand and walked hastily over to the sobbing figure.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll leave you alone," he assured her. "Let me pick up your eggs."</p>
+
+<p>They were smashed beyond all hope of salvage, but he gathered the
+fragments of shell, with as much of the dust-laden yolks as he could
+scrape up, and placed them gravely in the torn, soggy bag. Then he took
+the bread and the butter from her very gently and turned his back on the
+gang.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i088.jpg"><img src="images/i088.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"I'll carry them all for you," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let's go
+home now."</p>
+
+<p>She acquiesced silently. They strolled down the leafy walk. John's back
+tingled unpleasantly, for he expected a shower of missiles. Louise's
+weeping ceased, save for an occasional sniffle. At last Silvey roused
+himself from the amazed silence into which his chum's actions had thrown
+him, and seized upon the solution of the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnny an' Lou-i-ise! Johnny an' Lou-i-ise!"</p>
+
+<p>Louise flushed scarlet and bit her lip. John turned and stuck out his
+tongue defiantly. An awkward silence followed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll punch that kid's head off when I catch him," he growled as the
+shouts continued. Louise looked up at him shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mind," she said.</p>
+
+<p>They halted in front of the three-story apartment where her parents
+lived. John shifted clumsily from one foot to the other, not knowing how
+to make a graceful adieu. The maiden came to his rescue with a
+parrot-like imitation of Mrs. Martin's formula for such occasions.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much&mdash;and&mdash;I'm so glad to make your acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>Though the words were ridiculously stilted, John turned with a song on
+his lips and skipped across to the home porch swing, where his mother
+found him a moment later, and made him come in and get washed for
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon he walked north to the branch library to turn in his book
+on which a six-cent fine impended. With the yellow card in his hand, he
+went over to the fiction section of the open shelves. No more Hentys, no
+more Optics. He was in love, and love stories he must have.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey, Perry Alford, and Red sauntered up just before supper to find
+out how the land lay. They found him stretched out on the porch swing
+with the latest acquisition from the library beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, John," Silvey began nervously. He was afraid he had gone a little
+too far that morning.</p>
+
+<p>John raised dreamy eyes. What did he care about commonplace declarations
+of friendship such as Silvey was making? His head was a-riot with the
+thrilling words of the latest love passage between the hero and a
+heroine so perfect that her like never existed beyond the covers of a
+novel, and the interruption bored him.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see," Perry chimed in as Bill finished, "we didn't want you to
+be mad about it."</p>
+
+<p>John waved a magnanimous dismissal. "But don't do it again," he
+cautioned apathetically, "'cause&mdash;well&mdash;she's my girl. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>And again his eyes sought the alluring pages of the book.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>HE COMPOSES A LOVE MISSIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sunday afternoon, Mr. Fletcher took his son for a long stroll in the
+park. They joined the throng of people who promenaded up and down the
+broad cement walk along the beach, and watched the antics of the
+children with their transitory castles until this pleasure began to
+pall. Then they retraced their steps westward to the big island and
+explored the fascinating, winding paths along the shrubbery-covered
+shores. Everywhere were signs of autumn. A light carpet of half-dried
+leaves had already covered the ground. The song birds in the fast
+yellowing, graceful willows were supplanted by silent, migratory groups
+of somber juncos, who fled at their approach. Here and there, they
+surprised a squirrel adding another peanut to his well-buried winter
+cache. But a little later, a pair of lovers on a narrow peninsula bank
+separated awkwardly as the two sauntered up, and John laughed joyously.
+The spirit of summer was as yet far from dead.</p>
+
+<p>Still they wandered on as their fancy pleased them. Far to the south of
+the park, John collected an armful of cat-tails from a bit of marshland,
+and Mr. Fletcher pointed out to him a strange, spotted lizard, which
+scurried for shelter from the intruders. As they returned, they loitered
+by the green, verandaed club house to count the fast diminishing fleet
+of yachts, and joined an ironic audience who watched the struggles of
+two motorboat owners with their craft, and a pair of rickety wagon
+trucks. Sunset found them climbing the home steps to sink into the easy
+porch chairs and wait blissfully until Mrs. Fletcher announced that
+supper was ready.</p>
+
+<p>Now by all the laws of small boy nature, John's eyes should have closed
+that night five minutes after his head had touched the pillow. But then
+it was that the inexplicable happened. Louise forced a disturbing
+entrance into his thoughts with a strange insistency. Was she sleeping
+peacefully or was she thinking of her rescue from the mercies of the
+gang? Perhaps she had already forgotten him. Still, the boys hadn't.
+They would probably spread the details of the love affair all over the
+juvenile neighborhood. Would she walk with him if they did?</p>
+
+<p>The big clock in the hall of the house next door struck ten. He
+discovered that a wrinkle in the sheet chafed his back and smoothed it
+out half angrily.</p>
+
+<p>Why couldn't he go to sleep? Had Louise's mother been vexed at the
+broken eggs? How pretty the girl's long ringlets had looked as she stood
+on the sunlit corner that morning. Did she like to fish? An expedition
+for two could be arranged in spite of the late season. He'd bait her
+hook and take the fish off if she wished. Lunch could be prepared
+beforehand and they wouldn't have to worry about meal time.</p>
+
+<p>Again the timepiece next door chimed its message. He counted the
+strokes&mdash;seven&mdash;eight&mdash;nine&mdash;ten&mdash;<i>eleven</i>! Only twice before had he
+remained awake so late&mdash;once on a railroad trip, and once when Uncle
+Frank had come to visit them. He rubbed his clenched fists in his eyes
+and wondered if he dared light the gas to read. He could keep his
+geography near as an excuse if anyone discovered him. Then, hastened
+possibly by the soporific influence of that school book, sleep came at
+last.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, John tried to analyze the causes for his mental rampage
+as he drew on one toe-frayed stocking. Now that his mother had roused
+him for the third and final time, he felt tired enough to sleep another
+three hours. What had been the matter?</p>
+
+<p>A love scene from that latest public library book flashed into his
+perplexed brain and he sighed contentedly. Had not Leander sacrificed
+long hours of precious slumber at the shrine of his beloved Philura? The
+inference in his own case was both obvious and satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>To tell Louise of his infatuation seemed the next and most logical step.
+He lacked the courage for a verbal declaration; therefore the message
+must be in writing. But in what form? Letter writing to a girl was a
+novel experience, and he had a horror of parental laughter if he asked
+for advice.</p>
+
+<p>"John!" his mother called from the stairway. "Aren't you ever going to
+get dressed?"</p>
+
+<p>He pulled on his second stocking hastily, with a call of "Down in a
+minute, Mother."</p>
+
+<p>His grandmother's old <i>Complete Letter Writer</i> was in the library
+bookcase. That ought to help him out of his predicament. Wasn't it the
+<i>Complete</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"John!" came a second and more peremptory interruption of his thoughts.
+"Get down here this minute."</p>
+
+<p>He started, drew on his shoes, half-buttoned them, slipped into his
+blouse, with boyish disregard for such matters as bathing, and scampered
+down the stairs to the dining-room. After a hasty meal of oatmeal and
+potatoes, he fled to the seclusion of the library. A moment of nervous
+fumbling with the lock, a rapid turning of pages, and&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"From a son at an educational institution, to his father, engaged in
+business at Boston, requesting&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But he didn't want to borrow money from Louise. "Honored Parent!" Why,
+"Honored Louise" would sound too ridiculous for anything.</p>
+
+<p>"From a merchant engaged in the hay and grain business in Baltimore, to
+a wholesale dealer in New York, complaining that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Such prosaic details as hay and grain shortages were not for him. He
+wanted a love letter, an epistle that would breathe the fire of
+adoration in every line. Didn't the old book have any? The title said
+<i>Complete</i>&mdash;What was this?</p>
+
+<p>"From a young man&mdash;" He skipped the rest of the heading&mdash;such things
+didn't have much to do with the real contents anyway.</p>
+
+<p>"Beloved&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>That sounded better.</p>
+
+<p>"When first I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened suddenly. Mrs. Fletcher gazed down at him in
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you gone to school yet? It's five minutes of nine, now. What on
+earth have you been doing?"</p>
+
+<p>The book dropped to the floor. A scant five minutes later, he stumbled
+breathlessly into the school room, only to find that roll call had been
+finished and that "B" class was holding its English recitation. Miss
+Brown frowned and made a mark in the record book on her desk, and went
+on with the class work. Out came his theme pad and pencil. The fifteen
+minute study period was his for the composition of that letter and he
+set to work.</p>
+
+<p>What did a fellow usually say to a girl, anyway? He'd never written one
+before. He twisted in his seat and caught a glimpse of the adored one's
+graceful curls, but even with this inspiration, ideas refused to come.</p>
+
+<p>"B" division closed its composition books and began to recite under Miss
+Brown's guidance,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And she, kissing back, could not know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That <i>my</i> kiss was given to her sister,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Folded close under deepening snow.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For two long weeks they had been memorizing "The First Snow-Fall," but
+were not as yet, letter-perfect in the verses. The teacher encouraged
+them. Twenty odd juvenile voices resumed the choppy, monotonous chant.
+John gripped his pencil with new life.</p>
+
+<p>Poetry! That was the only way to express your sentiments! Why hadn't he
+thought of it before? Once, in third grade, he had composed a
+masterpiece:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Think, think, what do you think?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mouse ran under the kitchen sink.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old maid chased it<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With dustpan and broom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And kicked it and knocked it<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Right out of the room.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The slip of paper had been passed to a chum for appreciation, only to
+have Miss O'Rourke pounce upon the effort and read it to an uproarious
+class. His ears burned, even now, at that memory.</p>
+
+<p>But there would be no second disaster. He began on the ruled sheet
+boldly,</p>
+
+<p>"Beloved Louise!"</p>
+
+<p>Then came a pause. Oh for a first line! You couldn't start out with "I
+love you." That would make further words unnecessary. What did people
+usually put in poems? All about stars, and the warm south wind and
+roses. A fugitive bit of verse echoed in his brain. "The rose&mdash;" He had
+it now!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The rose is red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The violet's blue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This will tell you<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I love you.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To be sure, the bit of doggerel had been inscribed on a card sent him by
+Harriette in the third-grade valentine box, but Louise need never know
+the secret of its authorship. And it expressed his feelings with such a
+degree of nicety!</p>
+
+<p>He scrawled a huge, concluding "John," folded the paper complacently,
+and waved one hand to attract Miss Brown's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, may I go over to the school store and buy a copy book?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are your lessons prepared for this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm."</p>
+
+<p>Consent was given. John rose, with the compact paper hidden in his right
+hand, and sauntered carelessly down the aisle. At his old desk, he
+paused with a fleeting glace at Louise as he dropped the note, and
+walked on into the hall. There he stopped to peer into the room through
+the half-closed door.</p>
+
+<p>Louise covered the note with one hand and drew it toward her slowly and
+with infinite caution. He watched her face breathlessly. Curiosity was
+succeeded by surprise and then by anger. A little toss of her curls, a
+glance at teacher, and she half turned toward the door. He could see
+that her face was scarlet. What was she going to do?</p>
+
+<p>Horror of horrors, she stuck out her tongue at him!</p>
+
+<p>The ways of girls were beyond his comprehension. There was no cause for
+offense in that note. He loved her. Why should she object to being told
+about it?</p>
+
+<p>He made his way moodily down the broad flight of stairs leading to the
+basement. There, in the big, dimly lighted, cement-floored playroom,
+where the children held forth on rainy days, he met a boy from another
+room, who was likewise in no hurry to return. They hailed each other in
+subdued tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Been down long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, our teacher doesn't get mad unless you're gone half an hour. Want
+to play marbles?"</p>
+
+<p>John assented joyously. His friend chalked an irregular circle on the
+floor, and presently the room resounded with shouts of "H'ist," and "No
+fair dribblin'" until the grizzled school janitor sent them flying to
+their rooms under threat of a visit to the principal's office.</p>
+
+<p>At the doorway, he paused to summon his courage, for time had flown all
+too rapidly in the basement. Louise showed not a sign of recognition as
+he passed. Miss Brown broke the oppressive silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the copy book, John?"</p>
+
+<p>His lower lip dropped in consternation. His excuse for leaving had been
+completely forgotten. "A quarter of an hour after school" was the
+sentence for the offense, and he opened his geography with a feeling of
+thankfulness that it had not been more.</p>
+
+<p>All about the brick-paved school yard, on the walk, and in the street
+gutters, were scattered oblongs of blue paper as he scampered from the
+deserted building at noon. The boy picked one of the handbills up and
+read with an odd thrill:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><h4>Professor T. J. O'Reilley's</h4>
+
+<h4>PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW</h4>
+
+<h5><i>in</i></h5>
+
+<h4>Three Stupendous, Sidesplitting Parts</h4>
+
+<h5><i>at</i></h5>
+
+<h4>NEIGHBORHOOD HALL,</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Monday, October 4, at 4:15 p.m.</i></h4>
+
+
+<h5>I</h5>
+
+<p>Punch and Judy. The old favorite as played before the Crowned Heads
+of Europe. All the well-known characters, with added mirth
+provoking innovations. Alone worth the price of admission.</p>
+
+
+<h5>II</h5>
+
+<p>Peck's Bad Boy and His Pal. Startling, amusing, and instructive
+exhibition of ventriloquism by that amazing expert, Professor T. J.
+O'Reilley. Hear the Bad Boy and his friend talk and joke as if they
+were really alive. During this act Professor O'Reilley uses one of
+his marvelous ventriloquial whistles and will explain its operation
+to the audience.</p>
+
+
+<h5>III</h5>
+
+<p>Motion Pictures. Actual figures thrown on the screen that do
+everything but talk. Thrilling display of the heroism of American
+Soldiers during the Spanish-American War! See the landing of the
+Regulars under fire! See men fall in actual battle before your very
+eyes! Watch the charge up San Juan Hill&mdash;the thrilling infantry
+skirmish!</p>
+
+
+<h5><i>Followed by</i></h5>
+
+<p>A Grand Distribution of Valuable Prizes! Glistening Ice Skates.
+Rings, Dolls, Doll Carriages, and other Toys. In addition, every
+man, woman, and child in the audience who does not win a gift, will
+receive <i>absolutely free</i>, one of Professor O'Reilley's marvelous
+ventriloquial whistles.</p>
+
+
+<h4>TWO HOURS OF AMUSING
+AND INSTRUCTIVE ENTERTAINMENT!</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Admission only ten cents!</i></h4></div>
+
+<p>Could he go? Of course, for the necessary dime was always forthcoming
+from his mother when an itinerant showman rented the corner dance hall
+for a one day performance.</p>
+
+<p>On the corner of Southern Avenue, he overtook Bill, who had stopped to
+play tops with an acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"Going?" he asked, as his chum glanced at the blue slip in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Bet your life," said Silvey decidedly. "Did you see the rings the man
+showed in the school yard?"</p>
+
+<p>John reminded him of the fifteen minute detention. "Were they pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty? They were just peaches&mdash;all gold and stones, and sparkled like
+everything."</p>
+
+<p>They parted at his front steps. John plodded thoughtfully homeward, for
+his brain buzzed with a new and daring possibility. Would Louise
+overlook the morning's fiasco and allow him to take her? He broached the
+matter of finances to Mrs. Fletcher.</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you want two dimes for? Tell Mother."</p>
+
+<p>No, he wouldn't. But he had to have the two coins. Mrs. Fletcher studied
+him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there some little girl you want to take?"</p>
+
+<p>An evasive silence followed her question. Nevertheless his brown eyes
+pleaded his cause so eloquently that one o'clock found him sitting on
+the front porch, jingling the money merrily in one hand.</p>
+
+<p>The day was crisp and sunny, with an invigorating breeze from the lake,
+which set the blood pulsing in his veins. Ordinarily, he would have
+scampered off to play with Bill and Perry Alford or Sid on the way to
+school, but not this time. He was waiting for some one.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly a dainty, pink pinafored figure with the familiar curly ringlets
+skipped past on the opposite side of the street. When she had gone
+perhaps fifty yards, John walked down the steps and followed not too
+rapidly. He must catch up quite as if by accident, for it would never do
+to have the meeting occur seemingly of his own volition.</p>
+
+<p>She saw him coming and halted at the corner drug store to gaze demurely
+at a window display of gaily tinned talcum powder. As the boy came up to
+her, a queer, choking sensation filled his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo," he gulped nervously. Not a sign of recognition. Evidently "Rose
+is red" still rankled.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo," he persevered. She raised her chin ever so slightly. "Those kids
+won't throw any more cucumbers. I fixed 'em." Perhaps the memory of his
+protection that Saturday would pave the way to peace.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo," she responded at last. They forsook the enticements of the drug
+window and walked on in embarrassed silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Had to stay after school this morning," he volunteered desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>Back to his folly again. What a dunce he was!</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, 'cause." Conversation dragged once more.</p>
+
+<p>What could he talk to her about? He knew nothing of dolls and keeping
+house and making clothes. And he didn't suppose she could tell "Run,
+sheep, run" from "Follow the leader," either. He fumbled in his pocket
+and brought out the folded blue circular with a show of nonchalance. She
+eyed it curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Going?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She didn't know.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got two tickets," eagerly. "Want to come with me?" The school yard
+lay but a half-block ahead, so he went on hurriedly, "There's Silvey and
+the bunch. I've got to see 'em. Meet you on this corner after school."</p>
+
+<p>The truth of the matter was that not even his infatuation was equal to
+passing that mob of shouting, yelling urchins with a girl by his side.</p>
+
+<p>You might have guessed that something unusual was to occur, had you
+passed Neighborhood Hall that afternoon. By the green mail box on the
+corner, an envied seventh-grade boy, subsidized by an offer of free
+admission, passed out more blue cards like the one John had found, and
+advised that they be retained, for "Them's got programs on, and you'll
+need 'em." On the broad pavement, excited little groups of boys read and
+reread the announcements amid running choruses of approving comment. Now
+and then, a fussy, important matron bustled past with a four-or
+five-year-old following in her wake. Around the door, a baker's dozen of
+boys with shaggy hair and sadly worn clothes besought the more
+prosperous of the grown-ups, "Take us in, Mister [or "Missis" as the
+case might be], we ain't got no dime."</p>
+
+<p>Inside the great, raftered, brilliantly lighted hall were rows upon rows
+of collapsible chairs, which slid and scraped on the slippery dance
+floor as their owners took possession of them. John and Louise secured
+seats in the third row, center, where they commanded an excellent view
+of the tall, black cabinet where Punch and his family were soon to
+appear. Around them, a babel of noise and confusion held sway. The place
+was filling rapidly. Boys called to each other from opposite corners of
+the room. A not infrequent shout of surprised anger arose as a seated
+juvenile clattered to the floor through the agency of some
+mischief-maker in his rear. Eighth-grade patriarchs, retained by the
+same pay as the corner advance agent, darted here and there in the
+aisles, striving to preserve order amid a great show of authority. Up on
+the little balconies at each side groups of trouble-makers performed
+gymnastics on the railings and banisters at seeming peril of their lives
+until the colored janitor ordered them down. Every now and then, the
+wailing of a heated, irritable infant rose above the din, to be quieted
+more or less angrily by its mother.</p>
+
+<p>John looked at his watch. "Most time to start," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the audience was beginning to grow restless. In the rear rows, a
+claque started a steady handclapping, and cat-calls and hisses from
+unmannerly boys became more and more frequent.</p>
+
+<p>Then entered upon the stage Professor T. J. O'Reilley amid a storm of
+relieved applause. The bosom of his stiff white shirt might have been a
+trifle soiled, the diamond glistening therein, palpably false, and the
+lapels of his full-dress coat, distressingly shiny, but to John and
+Louise, he seemed a very prince of successful entertainers. He bowed
+perfunctorily, issued a few words of admonition to the boisterous
+element in the audience, and disappeared in the long, black cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>Ensued a series of raps from somewhere in the folds of the cloth, and
+subdued cries of "Oh, dear, dear, dear! Judy, Judy, Judy! Where is she?"
+The familiar, hooked-nosed figure appeared on the little stage and John
+sighed in ecstasy. What mattered if Punch's complexion were sadly in
+need of renewal through his many quarrels&mdash;he was the same old Punch,
+and his audience greeted him as such. Judy followed.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll send her after the baby, now. You just see!" John whispered as
+the marionettes danced excitedly back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" Louise's eyes were a-glisten.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you ever ever been to a Punch and Judy show before?" asked John
+in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>In one corner of the hall, a row of badly nourished colored children
+from the district just north of the "Jefferson Toughs," forgot the
+family struggle for three meals a day and rent money in their present
+bliss, grins appeared on the faces of the adults in the hall, and the
+rest of the audience swayed and shouted and giggled as Punch made away
+with first the baby, then friend wife, the policeman, the clown, and the
+judge, and hung their bodies over the edge of the stage in time-honored
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>A prolonged groan came from the depths of the cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the devil," said John, squirming ecstatically on his hard chair.
+"There he is, in one corner where Punch can't see him."</p>
+
+<p>Punch lifted a victim from one side of the stage to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"That's one," he counted.</p>
+
+<p>The red-faced, lively little imp returned the corpse to its original
+resting place. Some minutes of this comedy followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-six," squawked the unsuspecting Punch in surprise, while the
+audience roared appreciatively. "Did I kill so many? Hello, who are
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I," came the preternaturally deep voice as Louise quaked at the
+make-belief reality of the scene, "am the devil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now they'll fight," breathed John, watching intently. "It'll be the
+bulliest fight of all, and they'll throw each other down and hit each
+other over the head forty-'leven times. Then the devil'll win."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i107.jpg"><img src="images/i107.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>But a puritanical mother had, on the tour preceding, written Professor
+O'Reilley, objecting to the devil's conquest of the unrepentant old
+reprobate, so that master of ventriloquism introduced a new character
+into the ancient tale, and the devil went the way of Punch's other
+victims.</p>
+
+<p>"H-m-m," puzzled John with wrinkled brow. "This isn't the same&mdash;What's
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Open," ordered Punch of the long, flat object which appeared beside the
+body of the devil.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an aggilator," shrilled Louise as the mystery disclosed two
+terrific rows of teeth and a long, red throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut," ordered Punch. The jaws closed with a snap.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it peachy?" whispered John.</p>
+
+<p>"Open," ordered Punch once more. Again the jaws swung slowly and
+impressively apart.</p>
+
+<p>"Close," repeated Punch, as he stooped dangerously near the yawning
+cavern.</p>
+
+<p>The jaws snapped within a thirty-second of an inch of the arch-villain's
+nose. Angered, Punch hit the beast with his little club, while the
+audience screamed in delight. Ensued a fight which changed rapidly to a
+pursuit back and forth over the bodies of Judy, the policeman, and the
+rest of the company. At last Punch tripped and the animal seized upon
+him and bore him, shrieking, below.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" asked Louise, as the little curtain descended.</p>
+
+<p>"All?" John answered, as he glanced over the other delights promised by
+the blue advertisement. "All? Why it isn't but a third over!"</p>
+
+<p>Two assistants turned impromptu stage hands and shifted the Punch and
+Judy cabinet to the rear of the stage. The professor stooped over a
+battered trunk at the side, and brought out two life-sized dolls with
+huge, staring eyes, and swinging arms and legs. He sat down on a chair
+at the center of the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"These," he said as he balanced the manikins on his knees, "are my two
+little boys. They're usually very nice little fellows, but I'm afraid
+they've been shut up so long in that dark trunk that they're feeling a
+little angry. I'll have to see. Now [to the sandy-haired caricature on
+his right], tell the people what your name is. No? Then we'll have to
+ask your friend here. What's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sambo," mouthed the black-faced marionette.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee!" whispered John, as he watched the professor's lips closely.
+"How's he do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, tell all these nice little girls and boys how old you are."</p>
+
+<p>"T-ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever go to school?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Now tell that little girl with the pink hair ribbon who's sitting in
+the third row, what you learned yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-ya-ya," interrupted the younger member of the Peck family.
+"Ya-ya-ya!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, George," admonished the ventriloquist. "Aren't you ashamed of
+yourself, behaving in this way?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I ain't," protested George incorrigibly. "Ya-ya-ya, blackface!"</p>
+
+<p>So it went for the space of a good half-hour. Pretty poor stuff, it may
+seem now, oh, you grown-ups who have lost the magic eyes of childhood,
+but snickers and shouts and giggles filled the hall while the dialogue
+lasted. Finally the lay figures waxed so disputatious that Professor
+O'Reilley consigned them to the darkness of the trunk from which they
+came.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay there until you behave yourselves," he scolded, as the groans grew
+more and more subdued in protest against the captivity.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish I could do that," said John. "Couldn't I get teacher mad, talking
+at her from the blackboard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sh-sh," whispered Louise. "He's going to speak."</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We have with us today for the
+first exhibition in this part of the city, the most wonderful invention
+of the glorious age in which you are living. After the hall is darkened,
+I shall go down to the table where that lantern stands and throw upon
+the screen actual moving pictures taken from real life. You will see the
+landing of our brave troops upon the rock-bound shores of Cuba. You will
+witness a thrilling battle with Spanish insurrectos [the professor was
+getting his history a little mixed, but that mattered not a whit to his
+audience], and brave men will fall before your eyes in the charge up San
+Joon hill. I need not state that these pictures have been secured at an
+almost fabulous cost, for Professor T. J. O'Reilley always makes it a
+point to give his patrons the best of everything, regardless of expense.
+The best of order must be kept while the hall is in darkness. Anyone
+creating a disturbance at that time will be instantly expelled."</p>
+
+<p>Thus did the professor conclude his introduction of the feature which,
+later, was to drive him and his kind out of business.</p>
+
+<p>A click, a sudden buzzing as if a giant swarm of bees were flying about
+in the center of the hall where the long, cylindrical gas tanks stood,
+and a six foot square of light flashed on the white curtain which had
+been lowered to the stage.</p>
+
+<p>The pictures flickered and jumped a great deal, and at times streaks on
+the old film gave the idea that the boat loads of infantry were
+approaching the shore in a torrent of rain, but the figures moved,
+nevertheless, and unslung rifles, and formed into companies.</p>
+
+<p>"The charge up the hill under fire," supplemented the operator. They had
+no titles for the motion pictures in those days.</p>
+
+<p>Amid a steady whirring, flashes of smoke appeared from the thickets
+overhanging the shore. A soldier threw up his arms, another pitched
+headlong into the sand, and the Americans swept up the slope in a charge
+which brooked no obstacles. Little girls handclapped vigorously, while
+the boys pounded on the floor with their feet and gave vent to weird
+whistles of enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"And so San Joon was taken!"</p>
+
+<p>"The hill wasn't on the water that way," John interrupted excitedly.
+"I've got a book at home with maps and everything. Wasn't that way at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's pretend it was," Louise replied philosophically.</p>
+
+<p>The lights flashed on in the hall to dazzle the eyes of the audience. A
+chair squeaked. There was a sound of footsteps near the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your seats," cautioned Professor O'Reilley as he jumped up on the
+stage. "The drawing for prizes will now take place. Ryan," to his
+assistant, "bring them out on the stage as I call for them."</p>
+
+<p>A babel arose. "Don't you wish you could win the skates, Jim?" "What'll
+you do if you get a ring?" "And there's dolls and doll carriages, too."</p>
+
+<p>The showman raised an arm as a signal for silence. "Will some boy step
+up to draw the tickets from the hat?"</p>
+
+<p>Four or five eager volunteers scrambled over the footlights. The
+professor selected the largest of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Number six-seventy-six!" John looked eagerly at the coupon which had
+been handed him at the door. "Number six-seventy-six! Who has it?"</p>
+
+<p>Harriette, the cast-off Harriette of last year, bobbed forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," boomed the deep voice. "A little girl, and a nice one, too."
+Harriette stuck one finger in her mouth as she shifted sheepishly from
+foot to foot. "But the skates are boy's. Isn't that too bad? Now, little
+girl, do you think you will be satisfied with a nice, new dollar bill
+instead? Will that buy a good enough pair of skates?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jimmy!" John ejaculated enviously.</p>
+
+<p>"Number three-forty-four!" he continued, as his volunteer assistant drew
+out another slip. "And another little girl. Well, she gets this
+beautiful Brazilian pearl ring, set with wonderful, glistening
+rhinestones!"</p>
+
+<p>The fortunate maiden scurried back to her mother as fast as her stocky
+little legs could carry her.</p>
+
+<p>"Number seven-hundred-fifteen! Number seven-hundred-fifteen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" shrieked John, as he nearly knocked the boy ahead of him over in
+an excited effort to get to the front. "That's me!" Was it another pair
+of skates, or a baseball bat, or the big, shining jack-knife which the
+boys had told about?</p>
+
+<p>"Number seven-fifteen is a boy, is it?" The professor's eyes twinkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye&mdash;s&mdash;sir," stammered John, nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"William," ordered the distributor of prizes as he half turned to the
+exit in the wings. "Bring out that doll carriage!"</p>
+
+<p>The house broke into vociferous mirth. Silvey, hailing him at the top of
+his lungs, counseled him to "Give it to her! Give it to her!" Sid
+DuPree's face grinned maliciously at him from the first row. Slowly he
+stumbled down the aisle with the despised toy bumping after him, and
+rejoined Louise.</p>
+
+<p>He scarcely heard the numbers of the other prize winners as they were
+called out. Nor did he pay attention to the professor's lecture on the
+operation of the famous whistle which had so amused the audience that
+afternoon.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i114.jpg"><img src="images/i114.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Someway or other, he found himself out on the street with Louise. About
+him, boys scampered home in the fast gathering dusk. One or two yelled
+taunts about the doll carriage, and John was tempted to throw the
+wicker-bodied pest into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Louise was silent. She wanted to offer consolation, for she felt that
+her escort was dangerously near tears over his humiliation, but she knew
+not how to begin. They sauntered along. John eyed the little piece of
+tape bound tin in the girl's hand with reawakening interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like it?" she asked graciously.</p>
+
+<p>He murmured a husky "yes," and put the whistle in his mouth. After a few
+uncertain "J-u-u-dys," he trudged on again in silence.</p>
+
+<p>As they stopped in front of her apartment, John had an inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Louise," he began awkwardly, "I don't want this doll carriage.
+Want it?"</p>
+
+<p>And though his words were ungracious, she caught the spirit which lay
+back of them and thanked him sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, John skipped happily homeward to make his parents miserable
+with divers attempts to imitate the noted T. J.'s Punch and Judy show.
+Two days later, he left the noise-maker lying on the floor by his bed,
+where Mrs. Fletcher confiscated it, and quiet reigned in the family
+again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH WE LEARN THE SECRET CODE OF THE "TIGERS"</h3>
+
+
+<p>For over two weeks after Professor O'Reilley had gathered up his
+properties and gone in quest of juvenile dimes in other neighborhoods,
+John waited at the corner of the school yard for Louise, gravely added
+her books to his own under his arm, and walked slowly home with her. His
+roommates were at first loud in their jeers, but gradually the primitive
+jests grew less and less frequent until the daily meeting became a part
+of the unnoticed routine of the school.</p>
+
+<p>As for his friends, Silvey, after a few caustic remarks, forbore
+comment. Sid DuPree made the condescending admission that she wasn't
+half-bad after all. And the "Tigers" found it a distinct addition to
+their prestige to have a feminine rooter who danced around on the
+sidelines and exhorted them to even greater deeds of valor as they
+ground chance opponents into the cinders of the big lot.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was, one Friday afternoon, that Miss Brown stacked her record
+books neatly in a little pile at one corner of the desk, placed the
+unmarked homework papers in one of the drawers, and made an innocent
+announcement which roused thoughts lying dormant in each boy's brain to
+instant life.</p>
+
+<p>"Halloween is only a week from Saturday. I want each member of the class
+taking part in the exercises to have the lines learned perfectly. We'll
+rehearse Monday afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the speech fell on deaf ears with John. Halloween but a
+short seven days away? Why, it seemed scarcely three mornings ago that
+he had started on the fishing trip which nearly landed the big carp. The
+gang should be a big one, this time. Silvey and Sid, the Harrison kids,
+Mosher, Perry, and Red Brown were certainties, to say nothing of smaller
+groups which might join on that final night. He drew three solitary
+pennies from his pocket, arranged them, heads up, in a row on the top of
+his desk, and stared at them until the bell rang for dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>With the coins in his hand, he swung back the door of the little school
+store, and hastened eagerly up to the proprietress. She greeted him with
+a smile, for the episode of the lemon drops was still fresh in her
+memory.</p>
+
+<p>"Pea shooters in yet?" he queried anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>They had arrived that very noon.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there wood on the ends to keep the tin from cutting your mouth?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. The door swung back again as Sid DuPree and Silvey stamped
+noisily in. It developed that they were on a similar errand, and
+presently Miss Thomas cut the cord around the big, blue bundle and gave
+them their weapons. The trio left in high spirits, puffing through the
+empty tubes, making imaginary shots at open windows, and blustering
+loudly about past performances, as they sauntered along. Silvey halted
+when the first of the grocery shops near the home corner was reached.</p>
+
+<p>"Got any peas at your house, Sid?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid shook his head. His family dined at a near-by hotel most of the
+time, and a reserve stock of any kind of food was a rarity. John
+mentioned a big jar of beans on his mother's pantry shelf.</p>
+
+<p>"They're no good," said Silvey scornfully. "Get stuck in the pea shooter
+and jam it all up. Got any money, Sid?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid had a penny. It was the day before the generous allowance from Mr.
+DuPree was due, and his finances verged upon bankruptcy. Silvey had
+another, and John contributed the remainder of his little hoard. That
+brought the total to four cents.</p>
+
+<p>"S'pose he'll sell us that little?" asked John, as they gazed at the
+tempting array of vegetables in the store window. They opened the door
+timidly. The rotund proprietor stepped forward as he stammered his
+request.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" He beamed on the trio good-naturedly. "What kind do you
+want, boys?"</p>
+
+<p>"Split's the cheapest," said Silvey thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"But they don't go as far, and it's harder to hit anything with them."</p>
+
+<p>They ordered the more expensive projectiles and divided them equally
+before they left the store. At the corner, the pharmacy was bombarded
+persistently until the drug apprentice sprang through the doorway and
+sent the boys flying down the street.</p>
+
+<p>The pursuit slackened at last and the white coated youth turned to go
+back. Silvey halted to pant a defiant "Ya-a-a, ya-a-a. Can't catch us.
+Can't catch us."</p>
+
+<p>John pulled his chum's arm impatiently and pointed to the vacant house
+just three lots south of Silvey's home.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," he whispered, suddenly cautious. "Some one's forgotten to close
+the front door tight. We can lock it from the inside and go up to the
+attic. Nobody can get in to chase us, and we won't do a thing with our
+pea shooters, oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe the folks haven't left. You can't tell."</p>
+
+<p>"We can run, then. 'Sides, they won't do anything."</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the street and tiptoed up the dusty, rain-spotted veranda
+steps. John peered into the bleak, dirty parlor and reported the coast
+clear. Nevertheless, they hesitated on the very threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"You go first," said Sid to Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," Silvey nodded apathetically. He peered in at the window.
+"You don't think there's anyone inside, do you, fellows?"</p>
+
+<p>The trio listened intently. "Might be someone upstairs," suggested Sid.
+"Tramps or something."</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks," broke in John impatiently. "You're all 'fraid cats, that's
+what you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on in, yourself," Bill retorted quickly.</p>
+
+<p>He drew a nervous breath, and swung the door swiftly back, as if afraid
+that his courage would ooze away before he reached the stairway. Sid and
+Silvey followed very cautiously over the scratched hardwood floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I shut the door?" asked Bill as he took hold of the knob.</p>
+
+<p>"N-no, we may have to run, yet."</p>
+
+<p>They explored the main floor. No one was in the library, no one in the
+narrow, badly lighted dining-room, and no one in the dingy kitchen. All
+seemed quiet upstairs. Silvey bolted the basement door that they might
+not be pursued from that quarter, and Sid, as they returned to the
+hallway, cut off the avenue of escape to the street. John led the way up
+the winding, uncarpeted stairs. Silvey followed close at his heels and
+DuPree lagged in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Boo-oo!" Sid shouted when they had ascended half the distance.</p>
+
+<p>John's pea shooter clattered to the landing. Silvey turned angrily on
+the miscreant, his face still pale from the fright.</p>
+
+<p>"I've a' mind to punch your nose for that! 'S'pose there was really
+somebody!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i121.jpg"><img src="images/i121.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>At last they reached their goal. Tales of wandering vagrants with lairs
+in the attics of vacant houses proved untrue in this instance, and John
+swung back the hinged window in the gable with a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiminy!" he exclaimed as he looked down upon the bright, reassuring
+play of light and shadow on the lawn and macadam below. "Isn't this
+great?"</p>
+
+<p>The boys stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was
+impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber
+wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They
+concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of
+the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by
+the hair brush or corset steel method.</p>
+
+<p>The teamster, bewildered by the steady rain of missiles, could see no
+one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery
+boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected
+pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, was
+exempt from assault.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows of the house tops and the lindens spread across the street
+and shut off gradually the flood of sunlight through the attic window.
+The Mosher four-year-old trotted past, just out of range, on his way
+towards home and an early supper. John wasted a few ineffectual peas on
+a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof
+gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk
+of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side,
+whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his pea
+shooter.</p>
+
+<p>"Better leave him alone," Sid cautioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't do anything to us," John scoffed. "Doors are all locked. And
+how's he going to tell our mothers when he doesn't know who we are?"</p>
+
+<p>He filled his mouth anew, took aim with the long tin tube, and let fly.
+Bill seconded him nobly. The quarry halted, looked upwards, and received
+Sid's volley full in his face.</p>
+
+<p>"He's coming up the steps," yelled John, who was watching the effect of
+the attack. "Jiggers, fellows, he's coming up the steps."</p>
+
+<p>They turned to fly to safety. But where was a haven of refuge to be
+found? They could hear his angry footsteps tramping up and down on the
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Were those front windows locked?" Sid asked.</p>
+
+<p>John shrugged his shoulders miserably. An angry pounding echoed through
+the deserted hall and bare, cheerless rooms. They stole silently down to
+the second floor.</p>
+
+<p>"There's more closets to hide in, here," said John hopefully. He glanced
+from a rear window to the little pantry gable which stood but a story's
+height from the back yard. "If he gets in, we can climb out and drop. It
+won't hurt much."</p>
+
+<p>Their enemy tried the door again. Once a window rattled ominously. Sid's
+face regained a little of its color. "They were locked after all.
+Jiggers, there he is around the back!"</p>
+
+<p>They drew hastily away from the opening as a purple, distorted face
+glared up into theirs. A moment later, he was kicking at the back door.</p>
+
+<p>"That's bolted, too," said Silvey thankfully. "I guess we're safe."</p>
+
+<p>At last he left and went around to the front. They listened for a second
+attack from that quarter. Not a sound in the house, save the dripping of
+a leaky faucet in the bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, fellows." John led the way to the stairs. "We'll open the back
+door and run like everything!"</p>
+
+<p>The rapidly deepening dusk cast weird shadows through the empty rooms as
+they tiptoed tensely to the first floor. Once Sid imagined that he saw
+the fat man hiding in a nook in the hall where the evening gloom lay
+deepest, and they raised eery echoes through the house in their
+panic-stricken flight back to the top of the stairway. Past the fearsome
+corner again, through the stuffy kitchen where a ray of gas-light from
+the next house fell upon the tall, cylindrical water boiler and gave
+them a second fright, and out into the blessed freedom of the back yard.
+There they broke for the railroad tracks and home.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fletcher had already arrived from the office, and was in the
+kitchen, talking, as Mrs. Fletcher prepared supper. That meant that it
+was long after six, and John was under strict orders to report upon his
+immediate arrival from school! But as he came in, still panting, the
+shining rod caught her eye, and his sin of omission was forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"Pea shooter! Give it here, John. One night of Halloween pranks is
+enough, let alone a whole week of it."</p>
+
+<p>He surrendered the weapon reluctantly. "Now mind," she added as the bit
+of tin was dropped into the top drawer of the kitchen bureau, "you're
+not to buy another one, either."</p>
+
+<p>Mothers were peculiarly unsympathetic about premature pranks; take
+Fourth of July, no matter how many firecrackers a fellow owned, he had
+to sneak off to the big lot to light them if he wanted to celebrate on
+even the day before.</p>
+
+<p>So there was little left to do but look longingly forward to the great
+night. On Monday, as he dressed, John found himself repeating, "Only
+four more days." His last thought on Tuesday was, "That makes just
+three." Thursday afternoon at school, as he chanted a silent refrain,
+"Day after tomorrow's Halloween, day after tomorrow's Halloween," the
+boy in the seat just behind tapped him stealthily on the shoulder and
+passed over a bit of folded paper.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced up at Miss Brown. She was filling out the monthly report
+cards and was not likely to detect him, but he held the note underneath
+his desk as he opened it, nevertheless. It was from Silvey and ran in
+nearly illegible figures:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">17-12-19-13. 14-22-22-7 26-7 7-19-22 8-19-26-24-16<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">26-21-7-22-9 8-24-19-12-12-15 7-12-23-26-2 26-15-15<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">7-19-22 7-18-20-22-9-8 7-19-22-9-22. 25-18-15-15.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He ran his hand back of the untidy jumble of school books and pads and
+drew out an oft creased, finger marked sheet, the secret code of the
+"Tigers":</p>
+
+<table>
+
+<tr><td>A</td><td>  B</td><td>  C</td><td>  D</td><td>  E</td><td>  F</td><td>  G</td><td>  H</td><td>  I</td><td>  J</td><td>  K</td><td>  L</td><td>  M</td></tr>
+<tr><td>26</td><td> 25</td><td> 24</td><td> 23</td><td> 22</td><td> 21</td><td> 20</td><td> 19</td><td> 18</td><td> 17</td><td> 16</td><td> 15</td><td> 14</td></tr>
+<tr><td>  N</td><td>  O</td><td>  P</td><td>  Q</td><td> R</td><td> S</td><td> T</td><td> U</td><td> V</td><td> W</td><td> X</td><td> Y</td><td> Z</td></tr>
+<tr><td>13</td><td> 12</td><td> 11</td><td> 10</td><td> 9</td><td> 8</td><td> 7</td><td> 6</td><td> 5</td><td> 4</td><td> 3</td><td> 2</td><td> 1</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>He began deciphering the message with a concentration never meted out to
+his school work. Five minutes of effort resulted in:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>John. Meet at the shack after school today all the Tigers there.
+Bill.</p></div>
+
+<p>He caught Silvey's gaze upon him and nodded to show that he had received
+the note. The pair would have met on the way home from school, anyway,
+but what was the use of a secret code unless it was used at every
+possible opportunity?</p>
+
+<p>The shack was a rickety, frame affair, built during the long summer
+vacation when time hung heavy on the boys' hands, and the tribal desire
+for a stronghold waxed too strong to be denied. Three of the walls were
+formed of odd planks scavenged from neighboring woodpiles and fences,
+eked out, here and there, with a few pantry shelves taken from vacant
+houses. The fourth was nothing but the picket fence, but as Silvey
+expressed it when viewing their handiwork, "It doesn't rain much from
+the north, anyway." Door for the low entrance there was not, and the
+roof, whose shingles were purchased by an arduously earned half-dollar,
+became a veritable sieve when the raindrops were pounded through by a
+driving gale from the lake.</p>
+
+<p>The furnishings consisted of a chair, which had long since parted with
+its back, and a small, shaky desk which had in some way survived the
+interval between its Christmas presentation and the fall school term. In
+the one drawer were kept the original of the "Tigers'" secret code, a
+twenty-five cent rubber stamp outfit which had been used to print the
+set of membership rules, beginning, "I. No swearing," and two sadly
+battered, springless, and rusty revolvers. Where they had originated, no
+one could remember, but there they lay, unsuspected by parental
+authorities, to be used as a possible defense against the incursions of
+the "Jefferson Toughs," who ruled the district to the immediate north,
+or to be dragged forth, as in the present case, to lend an air of
+solemnity to the many plots hatched between the four cramped walls.</p>
+
+<p>Red Brown descended the side steps into the yard, in answer to the
+summons of the clan, and found John in his r&ocirc;le of master-at-arms,
+strutting back and forth before the doorway. Silvey, as befitted the
+holder of the exalted office of president, was sitting inside on the
+crippled chair. John whipped the more formidable of the two weapons from
+his back pocket and pointed it at the breast of the intruder.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" Brown obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Who goes there?" The formula had been borrowed from a thrilling Civil
+War story.</p>
+
+<p>"Friend," came the prompt reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Advance, friend, and give the countersign."</p>
+
+<p>Red opened his mouth doubtfully, then hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up."</p>
+
+<p>"I've forgotten it."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, think&mdash;<i>hard</i>."</p>
+
+<p>John jabbed the muzzle of the revolver into his ribs with a steadily
+increasing pressure. Brown thought&mdash;hard. Finally he broke out,</p>
+
+<p>"It's easy enough for you to remember. You made it up."</p>
+
+<p>Which was true, for the master-at-arms, who was also the secretary, had
+drafted the rules and was responsible for the initiation ceremonies and
+passwords of the organization.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on. I'll help you."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't," hopelessly. "It's clean out of my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Have to stay away from the meeting, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, John, quit your fooling. It doesn't matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the start. 'Oppy.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oppy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the rest of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Nother 'Oppy,' wasn't there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it was 'Oppy-poppy&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Oppy-poppy&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Oppy-poppy-oppy-nox.' Let's hear you say it all."</p>
+
+<p>Red repeated it triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Right. Pass friend to the meeting of the 'Tigers.'"</p>
+
+<p>All the other members had trouble with the tongue twister. Either they
+left out the distinguishing "p" in the third syllable, or forgot the
+final "oppy" and had to have their memories refreshed in much the same
+manner as that of the first arrival. This was precisely what John had
+intended. What was the use of being both secretary and master-at-arms of
+a club if you couldn't have some fun at the expense of your fellow
+members?</p>
+
+<p>Inside, Silvey's glance took in the prostrate figures of Sid, Red Brown,
+and Perry Alford, who were packed so closely together in the enclosure
+that they could scarcely move, then roamed listlessly past John with his
+insignia of office, out to the sunlit fence and railroad tracks. Red
+yawned wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up and do something, Sil."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Skinny?" asked the president.</p>
+
+<p>"Down town with Mrs. Mosher," Sid volunteered. "She wanted him to help
+her carry packages home."</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," commented Perry, sympathetically. "If I had her for a mother, I'd
+run away. Honest, I would!"</p>
+
+<p>"And the Harrison kids?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both sick in bed. Too many pork chops again."</p>
+
+<p>"Master-at-arms and secretary," Silvey raised his voice. "Come on in."</p>
+
+<p>John squatted in the doorway and gazed meaningly at his superior. They
+had walked home from school together that afternoon, and instructions
+upon the proper way of opening a meeting had been profuse. Silvey grew
+palpably nervous.</p>
+
+<p>"This here meeting," he blurted at last.</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't the way I told you." John shook the revolver in disapproval.
+"Meeting will now come to order."</p>
+
+<p>"Meeting will now come to order," Silvey repeated mechanically.
+"Secretary call the roll."</p>
+
+<p>John snapped his fingers in disgust. He had been so busy looking after
+Silvey's duties that he'd forgotten his own. There was an interchange of
+glances between the two before the president spoke up scornfully,</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to let that go. Who'll be in the gang this year?"</p>
+
+<p>Each member present raised a hand. The two leaders in the affair beamed.
+Everything augured for a successful night of sport.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll we do?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i130.jpg"><img src="images/i130.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>"Let's go outside where there's room," Sid suggested. "My leg's gone to
+sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said John a few minutes later, as the five boys stretched
+themselves out on the soft grass beside the shack, "there's the garbage
+cans on the flats' back porches. They're never, taken in on Halloween."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey nodded. "'Member the chase the janitor gave us last year before
+we had half of 'em spilled?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was because we started at the bottom and worked up," explained the
+master strategist. "This time we'll begin at the top and spill 'em out
+as we go down. We'll be off before the janitor learns about it."</p>
+
+<p>Red chewed on a blade of grass thoughtfully. "Leave milk bottles alone
+this time. 'Specially old lady Boyer's."</p>
+
+<p>The members nodded approval. On the Halloween preceding, Sid had
+discovered a solitary container on a window near the flat entrance and
+dashed it to the cement walk amid exultant yells. Hardly had the noise
+subsided when a wrinkled, gray-haired head made a distracted appearance
+at the opening, with a cry of, "I want my milk! I want my milk!"
+Returning a moment later from panic-stricken flight, the full meaning of
+the act dawned upon the boys and remorse overcame them. A hasty search
+for coin of the realm, a moment of consultation, and Silvey, boosted
+high on his comrades' shoulders, had rapped on the window ledge. "It
+ain't much, ma'am, but it's all we got, and we didn't know the bottle
+was yours," he had murmured; and, all unwitting of the sardonic humor of
+the act, had passed in a check good for a drink at a near-by saloon.</p>
+
+<p>There were moments of reflective silence. "Isn't there something new we
+can do this year?" Silvey appealed to his fellow members. "Garbage cans
+and doormats and ringing electric bells are fun, but isn't there a trick
+we've never worked before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get some grease and spread it over a porch before you ring the bell,"
+suggested Sid. "My big brother, who's away at college, used to do it.
+Told me so, himself."</p>
+
+<p>"I tried that once," Red broke in scornfully. "Nearly broke my back
+getting away. Besides the fellow never steps where he ought to."</p>
+
+<p>John spat with sudden deliberation at a chip of wood on the turf. "Who
+can get a lot of tomato cans without any holes in them?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey mentioned a city dump just north of the park, where cans of all
+sizes and conditions were to be found. His chum nodded approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sid, you and Perry go over there Saturday morning and bring back as
+many middling-sized ones as you can carry. You other fellows cut up
+pieces of string about as long as you are."</p>
+
+<p>"S'posing the trick don't work after all that trouble?" asked Sid
+irritably. John was always giving him jobs to do.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring a hose key Halloween night," went on John, ignoring the
+interruption. "We'll tie a string to a tin, fill it up with water from
+the hose pipe on the front lawn, and tie it to the doorknob. Door jerks
+open when the bell rings&mdash;you know how mad a fellow is then&mdash;and the
+water goes flying into the hall, ker-splash! Bet you that'll make some
+fun!"</p>
+
+<p>The others regarded the inventor in silent admiration. "How about the
+cop?" asked one of them finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Never got mad last year, did he? He's all right. Besides, he's too fat
+to run very fast."</p>
+
+<p>The back door in the Silvey home squeaked disturbingly as Mrs. Silvey
+appeared. A dusting cap was jammed determinedly over one eye, and in one
+hand was a broom.</p>
+
+<p>"Bill, you come in here right away. I want you to help me move the hall
+rug."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey drawled a response. "Jes' wait until we get through talking. It
+won't be a minute." He turned to the rest of the "Tigers." "Everybody
+got pea shooters?" They had, or would have before the eventful day
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"I bought a peachy false-face," Perry boasted in the lull of the
+conversation which followed. "You ought to see it; looks just like a
+circus clown."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave it at home," said John brusquely. "You can't see out of 'em when
+you're running away, and they get all sticky, anyway. They're for kids,
+not for fellows like us."</p>
+
+<p>"Bill!" scolded the maternal voice again. "Come in the house this
+minute, before I tell your pa on you when he gets home."</p>
+
+<p>There was that final note of exhausted patience in Mrs. Silvey's voice
+which commanded instant obedience. He rose with alacrity. As he mounted
+the steps, the boys still at liberty scampered away in the fast
+gathering dusk for a game of "Run, sheep, run," down the tracks and over
+the grass plots and back yards on the street.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly six when John came panting into the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you been doing, son?" asked his mother as she half turned
+from the gas stove to smile down at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, talking about Halloween, and what we're going to do, and lots of
+things. It's going to be peachy."</p>
+
+<p>"Mind, you're not to destroy property or anything like that. Otherwise,
+you'll have to stay in the house Saturday night."</p>
+
+<p>He yawned with elaborate carelessness. "Just going to blow beans and
+ring doorbells, same as we did last year. Isn't it supper time? I'm
+hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll eat as soon as your father gets home, son." She turned to give
+the creamed potatoes a stir lest they stick to the pan. "Oh, I nearly
+forgot! There's a letter at your place on the dining-room table. It came
+in the afternoon mail."</p>
+
+<p>"For me?" Surprise made his voice rise to a funny squeak. "Who from?"</p>
+
+<p>"A young lady, I think."</p>
+
+<p>He dashed into the dining-room and opened the envelope with clumsy
+fingers. On a diminutive sheet of note paper, decorated at the top with
+two laughing gnomes, ran an invitation copied from some older person's
+formula:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Louise Martin requests the pleasure of Mr. John Fletcher's company
+at a Halloween party to be given at her home on Saturday, October 31st,
+from eight to ten o'clock."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>HE GOES TO A HALLOWEEN PARTY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of course, he accepted. The temptation of a whole evening in the lady's
+company was too great. But no sooner had he dropped his reply in the
+corner mail box than he began to consider the cost.</p>
+
+<p>The doormats and porch furniture of the neighborhood would go unharmed
+for aught that he might do. No raids on the flats' garbage cans, no
+ringing of doorbells, or raining peas through open windows. And only
+through the vainglorious boasting of the gang on Sunday morning would he
+know of the success of his string-and-can trick. Shucks! He was out of
+it all.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast, Mrs. Fletcher glanced at the clear sunlight on the
+house across the road and announced that John's Saturday tasks would be
+suspended in honor of the day. He raced up to the Silveys, and found the
+expedition for cans starting out under the leadership of his chum. Once
+in the park, the quartette broke into impromptu games of tag, dashing
+over the moist grass, or halting to puff lustily that they might watch
+their breaths in the clear, frosty air. Tiring of this as they came to
+the site of an old exposition bicycle race-track, they ran up and down
+the grass-covered sides until Perry reminded them that the morning would
+be over before they knew it, and started on a dogtrot for the goal.</p>
+
+<p>Cans there were in profusion, also a fascinating array of wreckage of
+other nature in this dump, which lay just north of the park. John picked
+up a suitable container.</p>
+
+<p>"Get 'em like this," he ordered Perry and Sid. "And be sure they don't
+leak."</p>
+
+<p>As the two walked obediently off, he prowled among the debris of his own
+accord. Silvey raised a shout from the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>"Look-e-e." He held up a chair minus one leg and a back for John's
+admiring approval. "Won't this be great for the shack?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid and Perry turned and took a few steps toward Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," ordered the president and his secretary in unison, "get busy with
+those cans. What do you suppose you came over here for?"</p>
+
+<p>A little later, John discovered a pair of warped, rusty bicycle wheels,
+and hastened over to Silvey with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't we make a peachy wagon with these if we find two more?" he said
+excitedly. "Bet you anything she'll go faster'n the fastest one on the
+street."</p>
+
+<p>Sid came up, his arms filled with tins. "That's enough," he blurted. "If
+you want any more, you can get 'em yourselves." He looked down sullenly
+at his rust-spotted waist. "Always the way. We do the work and you come
+along and boss."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," retorted John magnificently as Perry dropped his collection
+beside Sid's, "we didn't <i>have</i> to come at all, did we?"</p>
+
+<p>They apportioned the rusty objects and the broken chair and wheels
+between them and sauntered slowly homewards. It was easily dinner time
+before the street was reached, and the party broke up as soon as the
+booty was deposited in the Silvey back yard. John lingered a moment to
+help Silvey carry the junk into the "Tigers'" club house.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," Bill exclaimed as he gazed at the nondescript jumble, "I'll bet
+you it'll be a peachy time tonight."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded ecstatically. Then a lump caught in his throat and held him
+speechless for a moment. After all, he was out of the fun, and he hadn't
+the heart to tell his chum, either. He turned to leave.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon the clan gathered again on the turf beside the shack and
+went over the evening's campaign. The new family in the large green
+house across the road still had a big swing suspended from the veranda
+ceiling. If they didn't remove it, the boys intended to. Sid DuPree
+reported that the gate on Otton's back fence could be lifted from its
+hinges very easily. It would be great fun to replace the bit of porch
+furniture with it. As for doormats, the preoccupied neighborhood doctor
+had left his out last Halloween, and could be depended on to do it
+again; also, there were the apartment entrances, each with a heavy
+rubber mat in front of the stone steps. As for the can-and-string trick,
+the frame dwelling where the fat little tailor lived was marked for the
+experiment, as were a half dozen others.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," chuckled Silvey, "don't you wish it was dark now?"</p>
+
+<p>John fingered his pea shooter wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>At last the welcome dusk blotted out the long shadows on the railroad
+tracks and the "Tigers" filed stealthily out of the yard to commence the
+skirmishing before supper, which always came as a prelude to the more
+important evening campaign. They darted up and down steps, rang
+doorbells, and raised eery cat-calls which echoed between the houses,
+and pelted pedestrians to their hearts' content.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the door of the big green house swung open and threw a shaft
+of golden light across the leaf-strewn macadam, over against the Alford
+dwelling, which stood opposite. Four white-sheeted figures danced down
+the steps and paraded on the walk in front of the home lot, tooting
+horns and performing antics in a manner which no set of self-respecting
+ghosts ever dreamed of.</p>
+
+<p>"Her kids," John snapped scornfully. "'Member how she chased us out of
+the street last Saturday because we were making too much noise with our
+tops? Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>They divided silently into two parties. The one slipped across the road
+on tiptoe and hugged the shadows of the houses as they advanced, halting
+finally under the shelter of an adjacent porch. The other walked boldly
+some distance down the walk on the far side of the street, crossed over,
+also, and executed a similar maneuver.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a pea caught the biggest of the four apparitions on the nose
+and caused him to drop his horn to the sidewalk. As he stooped to pick
+it up, a volley sent his younger brothers and sister scurrying
+porchward, amid cries of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!" The "Tigers" yelled
+gleefully. John forgot himself so far as to dance incautiously into the
+path of light. Then from the shadows of the porch swing&mdash;that same swing
+which was to transport itself mysteriously far down the street in the
+evening&mdash;emerged the tall, angular figure which had driven them away
+that other Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiggers!" came the shout of warning.</p>
+
+<p>"John Fletcher!" That doughty leader retreated to the shelter of the
+shadows. "I'll telephone your mother this minute. Such a lot of bullies
+I've never seen before in my life!"</p>
+
+<p>The boys were in for it. Nevertheless, they listened to the prolonged
+tirade with suppressed amusement. Its conclusion was an order to the
+quartette to go down on the walk again.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't touch a hair of your heads now," she boasted unwisely.</p>
+
+<p>Again came the stinging volleys on the sheeted figures. A few of the
+peas flew by chance, or otherwise, in the direction of the protectress,
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into the house this minute," she called to her brood. "I'll fix
+'em."</p>
+
+<p>The door slammed angrily. Through a front window, the boys could see her
+at the telephone in the lighted hallway. They redoubled the bombardment
+of the house in defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Across the street a door creaked. Mrs. Alford's voice carried to where
+the excited little group stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Per-e-e-e, it's nearly seven. Supper is ready. Come in and get washed
+right away!"</p>
+
+<p>The "Tigers" gasped and dispersed quickly. Half-past six was the
+deadline for the evening meal with most of them, and parental scoldings
+were in order.</p>
+
+<p>"See you at eight," Silvey called as he turned north.</p>
+
+<p>John stopped short. Hang that party!</p>
+
+<p>"I w-won't be with the gang," he quavered.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" Bill could scarcely believe his ears. John explained haltingly.</p>
+
+<p>"That kid! I knew she'd make trouble."</p>
+
+<p>The murder was out; the worst was over with. But it would never do to
+let his chum think that he regretted the choice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know." John gathered courage and glibness as he went on.
+"Saw two ice cream freezers going in the back way this afternoon, and
+Jiminy, Silvey, her mother's some cook. Louise says [he hadn't laid eyes
+on that lady since Friday] she's just baked four chocolate layer cakes
+with nuts and candies in the frosting. And there's lots of other things.
+Now, don't you wish you were me?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey shrugged his shoulders and admitted that the entertainment had
+its alluring side.</p>
+
+<p>"Chocolate cake," he repeated. "Just think, all you can eat."</p>
+
+<p>There was an envious silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Strawberry ice cream. Three helpings to a fellow; and I'll have more,
+'cause I wouldn't let you throw cucumbers at Louise."</p>
+
+<p>His chum's face grew wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"S'long," said John exuberantly. He had not only converted the scoffer,
+but he now found that the gang's plans for the evening no longer held a
+charm for him. What a peach of a time he would have at the Martins'!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher greeted him with a suppressed smile as he came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Riley telephoned," she began reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Old sorehead!" he exclaimed. "Didn't hurt 'em any."</p>
+
+<p>The maternal smile broadened. There was little sympathy between that
+quarrelsome lady and the other mothers of the street, anyway. "But you
+shouldn't torment little children like that, son. It isn't manly."</p>
+
+<p>John murmured a few sheepish words under his breath, and asked tactfully
+if supper were ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you forgotten the party?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "You'll find your blue serge suit all cleaned and
+waiting for you on your bed. But John, dear, do be a little more careful
+next time you eat candy. I had a terrible time with those spots."</p>
+
+<p>After supper, he ran up to his room. There lay the suit, true evidence
+of his mother's thoughtful kindness. As he drew off his school
+knickerbockers, he noticed that his stockings had sagged, small-boy
+fashion, and formed a little roll of cloth just above his shoe tops. He
+pulled them up. How on earth had all that mud gotten there? In a moment
+he was at the head of the stairs, shouting, "Mother, Mother,
+Moth-a-a-a-r! Where are some clean stockings?" and went off to her room
+in search of them. His boots, too, were dusty and scratched; how long
+was it since he had blackened them?</p>
+
+<p>A five-minute session with the shoe-shining outfit, heretofore despised
+as a useless nuisance, made them glisten as did the kitchen stove after
+that Saturday polishing task had been completed. Before him stood the
+washstand with its cold marble basin, the soap trays, washrags,
+toothbrushes, and other instruments of torture. He turned on the water
+and considered a moment as to just how far he should extend the
+waterline. Still, he was going to a party, her party, and his appearance
+must be beyond reproach. So he soaped his face vigorously and ran his
+wet hands around to the back of his neck. Then he surveyed as much of
+the result of his labors as he could see with a new satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped into his little wash blouse hastily. The alarm clock
+indicated fifteen minutes of the hour and no time was to be lost. But
+which of his four ties should he wear? His blue one was wrinkled because
+it had lain beneath the bed for over a week before he had resurrected
+it. The tan-and-black striped one given him by his uncle was in equally
+bad condition. And Louise had said she hated green. After all, his
+brilliant crimson four-in-hand was the nicest. It contrasted with his
+dark suit the best, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>He presented himself a sheepishly smiling little figure with neatly
+parted hair, for his mother's inspection. She looked up with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"If it isn't our little John! And so clean that I scarcely know him.
+Come here and let me look at your ears."</p>
+
+<p>They were immaculate! Mrs. Fletcher exchanged a glance of mock surprise
+with her husband. "It's the first time that's happened since he was old
+enough to wash himself."</p>
+
+<p>John, junior, seized his hat and slammed the door as he sprang down the
+front steps. Why did grown-ups always carry on so? There was nothing
+unusual in washing one's ears, was there?</p>
+
+<p>He stopped across the street from the building to watch for a moment.
+The Martin parlor on the second floor was ablaze with light.
+Occasionally an adult moved now and then within range of the windows as
+she shifted chairs to and fro. A boy from Southern Avenue, with whom he
+had a speaking acquaintance, walked up and into the entrance with an air
+of unnatural gravity. John could see him give his tie a twitch as he
+rang the front bell. A brougham drove up and a little girl encased in
+innumerable fluffy wraps was escorted up the steps by her mother. More
+girls followed from time to time. Some skipped merrily up to the door;
+others sauntered more slowly, tittering excitedly as they went along.
+John decided that it was time to go in.</p>
+
+<p>Up the heavily carpeted stairway, with its ornately panelled wainscoting
+and brown wallpaper, a half turn to the right, and the goal of the
+evening lay before him. The stout woman whom he had seen silhouetted in
+the window greeted him with a gracious smile.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is the John Fletcher of whom Louise is always talking!"</p>
+
+<p>A maid, subsidized for the evening, took his hat and coat away to some
+mysterious recess. Mrs. Martin led him into the parlor, lighted to a
+soft glow by deftly shaded electric bulbs.</p>
+
+<p>"Now let me introduce you," she said. "This is Martha Gill." He bowed
+awkwardly to the lady of the carriage. "And this, Ella Black." So it
+went, all down the smiling, giggling circle, as he promptly forgot each
+name in the presence of a new beauty.</p>
+
+<p>He joined the boys with a sigh of relief. They stood in an awkward group
+near the piano, and grinned and poked each other furtively in the ribs,
+and made mocking allusions to half-known juvenile love affairs until
+Mrs. Martin reentered with Louise.</p>
+
+<p>The little girl had never appeared so daintily bewitching to John; no,
+not even on that memorable first day at school. Her long, graceful curls
+were caught in a big, blue silk bow which matched her dress, and her
+eyes were a-dance with the excitement of her first party. She greeted
+the company with a shy, quick smile and sat down in the chair nearest
+her exultant worshiper. A constrained silence took possession of the
+little gathering again.</p>
+
+<p>If the children were to enjoy themselves at all, something must be done
+to put them at their ease. Mrs. Martin clapped her hands loudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who likes 'Musical chairs'?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>The little girls applauded vociferously. The boys, as became members of
+the more reserved sex, nodded condescendingly. While not as exciting as
+wrestling, or "Run, sheep, run," the game would pass the time away. In a
+moment they were sent flying to the different rooms in the flat after
+straight chairs of all sizes and descriptions, while Mrs. Martin
+supervised the formation of the long line which extended into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said she, as she stepped over to the piano, "is there anyone who
+doesn't know how to play this game?"</p>
+
+<p>No fear of kill-joy amateurs with "Musical chairs." The children had
+become experts at the pastime through other parties innumerable. She
+seated herself at the instrument and ran her fingers over the keys.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the procession started. Little girls lingered as long as possible
+by each inviting seat. Boys scurried past the chairs facing in the
+opposite direction, or slid around the treacherous ends lest they be
+caught. Still the waltz strains swung onward until they seemed eternal
+to the anxious players. Then a false note, another, a pause, and a wild
+scramble for safety. Bashful maidens sat on trousered knees and
+scrambled up after still vacant places. Other players squabbled for the
+possession of contested chairs. At last the babel died away, and another
+cry arose:</p>
+
+<p>"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Fletcher's out of it."</p>
+
+<p>It was always the way; he was ever too reluctant to dispossess a girl of
+a nearly won prize to be a success at the game. But he took up a
+position beside the pianist and watched with amused interest. It was
+really just as good fun as being a participant.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually all were eliminated save the Southern Avenue boy and Louise.
+The music began again under Mrs. Martin's nimble fingers, and swelled in
+volume like the notes of a church organ. Then it dragged and paused just
+long enough to send Louise flying to the seat before it picked up the
+fateful melody. Suddenly, without hint of a finish in the throbbing,
+rapidly beating march, there came the end. Louise found herself standing
+with the high-wooden back toward her, while the Southern Avenue
+contestant yelled triumphantly from his throne.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks!" said John in disgust. "Why didn't he let her have it? I
+would."</p>
+
+<p>Next came "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket." The fun grew
+fast and furious. No standing aloof in a corner of the room for the boys
+now. They enjoyed themselves too well, as each, in turn, chased, or was
+chased by some nimble-footed maiden around the circle. There followed
+"Thimble, thimble, who's got the thimble," and then Mrs. Martin's even
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps some boy will suggest a game."</p>
+
+<p>The winner of "Musical chairs," emboldened by his triumph, called out,
+"Kiss the pillow!"</p>
+
+<p>Little shrieks and cries of "Won't play!" arose from some of the girls.
+Others maintained a coy silence. Eventually the whole company joined;
+that is, all save John. He saw no fun in such pastime. What was the use
+of kneeling on a pillow and kissing, for example, homely Ella Black?
+Other boys might, if they wished. There was but one divinity worthy of
+his homage, and he would pay none of it to other maidens.</p>
+
+<p>So he followed Mrs. Martin into the dining-room, to that lady's great,
+though secret, merriment, and helped her arrange the plates and the
+spoons and napkins for the refreshments which were to follow later. The
+shouts from the parlor rose louder and louder.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a sudden silence. Mrs. Martin turned towards the hall. Surely
+they didn't need her assistance again! As she passed the doorway, cries
+of "Post-office," "let's play 'Post-office,'" broke forth, and she
+returned to the table with a satisfied smile. Evidently the members of
+the party were furnishing their own amusement with great success.</p>
+
+<p>Louise, her curls bobbing excitedly, darted into the room and seized
+John by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," she begged, for she was afraid he wasn't enjoying himself in
+the lonely dining-room. "Come on, Johnny. Please!"</p>
+
+<p>It was his lady who commanded, so he obeyed. They had drawn a green
+porti&egrave;re across the curtain pole in the doorway until the little alcove
+with the bookcase was shut off from the larger room for all practical
+intents and purposes. Jimmy, the Southern Avenue boy, waxing more and
+more masterful, had appointed himself postmaster, and strutted beside
+the narrow opening which remained. And to hold that position in a game
+of "Post-office" is no slight thing. Not only is the postmaster the sole
+witness of all that transpires behind the secretive curtain, but he is
+privileged to turn over the exalted office to a temporary substitute and
+hale the lady of his heart forward, if he so desires.</p>
+
+<p>There was no lack of mail. Hardly had the window been declared open than
+the postmaster's chum stepped up and, after a moment of whispered
+conversation, disappeared behind the porti&egrave;re. Called the master of
+ceremonies in stentorian tones:</p>
+
+<p>"Two packages and three letters for Martha Gill!"</p>
+
+<p>Martha Gill shook her head. Cries of "Go ahead" arose from the boys,
+while the girls tittered at her embarrassment. At last she gathered up
+courage and darted past the sentinel. John stared in amazement. Two
+packages and three letters&mdash;two hugs and three kisses&mdash;what was there in
+that overdressed little doll to merit such favor?</p>
+
+<p>Correspondence became fast and furious. Eventually the postmaster called
+John forward and whispered a name in his ear before he went into the
+alcove. His appointee, concealing his astonishment as best he could,
+called out, "Ella Black, Ella Black; four letters for Ella Black!" at
+the top of his lungs. But for that much-despised young lady to be so
+honored by the social lion of the evening was more than he could
+comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>As the postmaster resumed his duties, a voice cried, "Johnny, it's your
+turn. You haven't sent any mail yet."</p>
+
+<p>John flushed and shook his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat!
+'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of mischief began
+that scornful chant:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">C'ardy, c'ardy, custard,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eatin' bread an' mustard!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>He clenched his fists. If it must be, he'd show them he was no coward! A
+moment later, as he stood tensely in the alcove, came the postmaster's
+cry of "One letter for Louise Martin," and the green curtain swung aside
+to admit her.</p>
+
+<p>She returned from the sanctum composedly. He waited a moment that they
+might not reappear together, and came out with eyes shining and heart
+a-beat.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He had kissed her!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had kissed her!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The entrance of Mrs. Martin and the maid, the one bearing heaping dishes
+of ice cream, and the other, as he had unwittingly prophesied, a
+luscious, heavily-frosted chocolate cake, brought him down to more
+mundane thoughts with alacrity. Indeed, he devoted himself to his
+portion with such earnestness that he was able to finish and place his
+empty plate innocently under his chair, and wait until his plight caught
+the servant's eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, haven't you had any, little boy?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"How did Mrs. Martin ever come to skip you? I'll bring you some right
+away!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i152" id="i152"></a>
+<img src="images/i152.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>A second helping of ice cream.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>When she reappeared, he winked heartily at his amazed companions and
+settled to the second helping of ice cream.</p>
+
+<p>At last the party came to an end, as all such joyous occasions must, and
+he found himself on the sidewalk, looking up once more at the now
+darkened parlor. Far up the street came the hooting and jeering of a
+gang&mdash;possibly his own&mdash;although the voices seemed older and strange,
+and the gate of the house next the apartment building had disappeared,
+leaving empty hinges as mute testimony that some band of witches had
+done their work thoroughly and well.</p>
+
+<p>In response to his prolonged ring and joyous kicks on the home door,
+Mrs. Fletcher let him in. "Don't pound so hard, son," she cautioned.
+"We're not deaf."</p>
+
+<p>"Might a' thought it was some Halloween gang if I didn't," he defended
+himself as he threw his hat on the nearest chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a good time?" she queried.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I?" The earnestness of his voice left little doubt as to his
+sentiments. "Did I? You just bet I did!"</p>
+
+<p>The family always slept late on Sunday morning, but at that, John, worn
+out by the excitement of the preceding evening, stirred drowsily when
+his father appeared in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, John; time to get up."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dad," gazing at him with lackluster eyes. As Mr. Fletcher left, he
+turned his face promptly toward the wall and dropped off to sleep again.</p>
+
+<p>"John!" It was his mother's voice this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Uhu."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you get up when your father called you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, let me alone. I don't want any breakfast. Honest, I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! You can take a nap in the afternoon if you want. Come on. I
+won't go down stairs until I see you up."</p>
+
+<p>He might as well, then. Mrs. Fletcher was pretty well versed in his
+tricks, thanks to long years of experience, and there was little chance
+of further delay. So John sat up and dangled his legs over the side of
+the bed, while he rubbed his sleep-laden eyes with his fists.</p>
+
+<p>"Need a wet washrag?"</p>
+
+<p>No. He was wide awake now. He listened to her steps on the stairs, and
+to the opening of the front door as his father brought in the morning
+paper. Then he fingered one stocking abstractedly.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, prompted by Mrs. Fletcher's remonstrances, her
+husband came up and found the boy staring with unseeing eyes far over
+the railroad tracks into the park. In his hand was the same stocking
+which he had picked up so many minutes before.</p>
+
+<p>At last he appeared in the dining-room, to find that his father and
+mother had eaten their meal. His hair was half brushed, and his face and
+neck untouched by cleansing water (hadn't they been soaped the night
+before?), but he set to work on the nearly cold breakfast with a will.
+He removed his empty grain saucer from the bread and butter plate and
+looked up suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," he said irresolutely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Mother&mdash;how old does a fellow have to be to get married, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>His father chortled with merriment. John flushed an embarrassed red. His
+mother restrained a smile as she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"About twenty-one, dear, and lots of people wait until they're older.
+Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Does it cost very much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cost much?" Mr. Fletcher dropped the Sunday paper to the floor and
+looked at his son and heir attentively. "Why, I should say it does. You
+ought to have at least a thousand dollars saved before you even <i>think</i>
+of marrying."</p>
+
+<p>"John," cautioned Mrs. Fletcher reprovingly. "Don't torment the child."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see," went on her husband, unheeding. "You're ten now. If you
+want to marry by the time you're twenty-one, that means you'll have to
+earn about a hundred dollars a year from now on. Better begin right
+away."</p>
+
+<p>"Raise my allowance, will you, dad?" came the unexpected retort. "I'm
+only getting a quarter a week now, and Sid DuPree's father gives him a
+whole dollar."</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," was the grave reply. "If you want to support a family,
+you'll have to do it of your own accord. You and your mother keep me
+busy as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a quarter, then," the boy persisted. "That's all I want.
+Please!"</p>
+
+<p>His father dug into his pockets and brought out the desired coin. "The
+nest-egg for the second generation of Fletchers," he grinned. "Catch,
+son."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later John disappeared in the direction of a little
+stationery and toy shop which lay some blocks to the north. But not a
+word could Mr. Fletcher draw from him as to the aim of the expedition.
+He returned with a mysterious package which he took up to his room and
+then sauntered out to Silvey's house.</p>
+
+<p>A little later his mother, who had gone upstairs to dress herself for
+dinner, came down to the dining-room where John, senior, still sat
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>"John," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear?" with a hasty glance away from the news sheet.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," her smile was tender, "there's a big, china pig bank up
+on that boy's bureau? I believe he's taken your words in earnest!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEREIN HE RESOLVES TO GET MARRIED</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Thursday date for the game with the "Jeffersons" had been selected
+in early September, and there had been a tacit truce between the two
+factions as a result. For three afternoons of that first week in
+November, the "Tigers" sacrificed their games of tops and "Run, sheep,
+run" on the altar of the football god, and trooped over to the big lot
+as soon as school was dismissed. There, Silvey, self-appointed coach of
+the team, expounded the rudiments and the higher attributes of the sport
+as culled from a series of ten-cent hand books, and ran the team through
+signals and trick formations in a way that would have amused a
+university football coach.</p>
+
+<p>Louise went down town with her mother, so the team was deprived of the
+support of its feminine rooter on the eventful afternoon. They met in
+front of Silvey's. John boasted the one addition made to the equipment
+of that first practice when he appeared with a second-hand pair of
+shin-guards which he had acquired from a boy at school in exchange for a
+dime and an agate shooter. Presently Sid appeared with the football, and
+they trooped towards the lot in a compact, determined little group.</p>
+
+<p>As they climbed over the railroad fence on the opposite side of the
+tracks, the "Jeffersons," who were as badly equipped as their rivals,
+greeted them defiantly. There was a moment or so of conference between
+Silvey and the Shultz boy before they tossed for sides on the field.
+Then the teams lined up, kicked off, and sweated and toiled and wrangled
+through one half of the game without result. Towards the end of the
+second period, the heavier invaders began a slow march over the
+cinder-strewn ground toward their opponents' goal and victory.</p>
+
+<p>Onward, onward, inch by inch, first down, five (this was the day of
+unreformed football), second, three, third, one yard to gain, while the
+"Tigers" shouted "Ho-o-old 'em! Ho-o-old 'em!" in desperation. On the
+ten-yard line, indicated by stakes driven in the ground at each side of
+the field, the lighter eleven braced for a last stand. As the
+"Jeffersons'" youthful quarter attempted to pass the ball, Silvey broke
+through and knocked the pigskin from his hands towards John, who grabbed
+it and ran to the other end of the field for the one and decisive
+touchdown of the game.</p>
+
+<p>"Time," called Silvey, striving vainly to make himself heard above the
+exultant shouts. "Time, I tell you!" Captain Shultz of the "Jeffersons"
+drew out a watch, borrowed from a friend for the occasion, and compared
+it with the one in Bill's possession.</p>
+
+<p>The game was over and the "Jeffersons" had lost.</p>
+
+<p>The victors swaggered woodenly around by the ice cream soda shop and art
+stores to the home street. No cutting across the tracks for them now;
+this was a march of triumph! The vanquished trailed sulkily along, some
+twenty feet behind, giving vent now and then to cat-calls of defiance
+and disgruntled suggestions that the game would have ended differently
+if this or that member had played better. At the corner, Silvey turned.</p>
+
+<p>"We licked you!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We licked you! We
+licked you!"</p>
+
+<p>Shultz raised his voice above the clamor of his team. "Just wait until
+we catch you alone. You'll be sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>John shrugged his shoulders. "We'll all stick together coming home from
+school. And if they catch just one of us, why, we can maul them, too."
+For Shultz's declaration meant that the guerrilla warfare was in full
+swing again.</p>
+
+<p>Sid's muscles stiffened and his back began to ache. Silvey owned a
+discolored spot over one eye where an opponent had tried to disable him
+during a tense moment of the game. John's shin was badly bruised, and
+Perry Alford had wrenched his ankle. The other members had minor hurts.
+Only Red Brown had, by some miracle, come through the battle unscathed.</p>
+
+<p>"We won," said Silvey happily, as they stopped in front of his house.
+"Come on, now, all together!"</p>
+
+<p>They broke into the "Tigers'" exultant war cry, which is very much the
+same as that of the football team to which you belonged as a boy:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sis-boom-bah!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sis-boom-bah!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Tigers," "Tigers,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rah, rah, rah!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then they left for their several homes, too worn out to do anything but
+rest.</p>
+
+<p>Up in his room John threw himself on the bed with a sigh. His injured
+leg hurt terribly&mdash;but they'd won. Pity Louise had missed the defeat of
+the "Jeffersons." Why did women folks always have to go shopping,
+anyway? Only spent a lot of money on hats and other foolishness.</p>
+
+<p>He turned over wearily and found the yellow pig bank leering at him from
+the bureau with hungry, malignant eyes. Where was that apportioned two
+dollars which he was to earn by the end of the week? Four days had
+already elapsed, and the beast's interior was as empty as it had been on
+the toy-shop shelf. Why had he bought those lemon drops on Monday? And
+the marbles and his rubber spear top? Was there anything left after the
+shin-guard purchase? He sat up on the edge of the bed and rummaged in
+his pockets. One lonely penny remained from his weekly allowance of a
+quarter.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i161.jpg"><img src="images/i161.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>He dropped the coin into the long slot and shook the pig disgustedly.
+Two dollars could never be earned by Saturday night. Not even if three
+lawns were to be cut, and a half-dozen errands run for the neighbors. He
+slammed the big china animal back on the bureau and went down to supper.
+The lonely copper had seemed to make the beast sound more hollow than
+ever as it rattled against the unglazed interior.</p>
+
+<p>That night the wind veered to the south, and Friday proved to be mild
+and sunny, save for a touch of autumnal haze in the air. But not even
+this freakish return of summer could rouse him from the grumpy mood
+which held over from the night before.</p>
+
+<p>He scanned the front yards on the street as he sulked along to school.
+How slowly grass grew in the fall! Not a lawn needed trimming, and as
+for freeing them from leaves, the nearly denuded boughs made such
+operations unnecessary. Coin of the realm seemed further away than ever.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, the haze thickened and hinted of rain. As he and
+Louise sauntered homeward, a drop of water spattered on her cheek.
+Another hit him on the nose, and it was but a short time before the
+cement sidewalks were covered with rapidly merging mosaics of a darker
+hue.</p>
+
+<p>What luck! Dimes and even quarters, quickly and easily earned, were
+within his grasp. He left Louise at the apartment entrance and dashed
+into his own front hall in great excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got the umbrellas," he shouted, as he struggled into his raincoat.
+"I'm going out with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't take my good one," Mrs. Fletcher cautioned. But he was beyond
+earshot, best umbrella and all, before the words were out of her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Down the water-glazed street he ran, its dust now laid by the
+refreshing, pounding torrent, past the barrier of the railroad ticket
+office, thanks to the friendly agent, and up the worn steps to the
+station platform. Other boys were there, each with two or three
+umbrellas, who viewed the newcomer with disfavor. Ere long, each
+suburban train from town would discharge its quota of daintily dressed
+shoppers, pallid office clerks and stenographers and prosperous business
+men. Not one of them would carry protection from the soaking rain, and
+competition between the juvenile vendors threatened to become acute.</p>
+
+<p>A lean, light suburban engine pulled in amid a cloud of escaping steam
+and a hissing of airbrakes. John spied a tall slender woman in a car
+doorway arranging a paper over her hat, and raced along beside the
+platform until it came to a halt.</p>
+
+<p>"Umbrella home, lady?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. "To the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Behind her loomed a tall, slightly bowed, black-haired lawyer whom John
+had seen on the long, wooden veranda of that substitute for home more
+times than he could count on his ten fingers. He, too, took advantage of
+a rented shelter. Together the couple made their way down the dripping
+steps while John followed exultantly. Two at once&mdash;and the hotel but a
+scant block and a half away! At the broad entrance, they paused.</p>
+
+<p>"How much do I owe you, little boy?" asked the lady, with a smile.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i163.jpg"><img src="images/i163.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Dime," was the laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and
+there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the
+lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at
+once. That <i>was</i> luck. A moment later John was sprinting back at top
+speed.</p>
+
+<p>No double fare the next time, but the helpless stenographer lived a
+street farther west, and each additional block meant another nickel
+according to the unwritten umbrella tariff.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifteen cents, madam," he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>She retreated discreetly to the shadow of the apartment hallway to dive
+into her stocking bank, while he watched two bedraggled sparrows on the
+sidewalk until she reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>On his return, he found the trains running on the five-minute, rush-hour
+schedule. Each carried its revenue of small change for the eager,
+clamoring boys. Once, a gray-haired, kindly-eyed man gave John a quarter
+and would receive no change, and another time a friend of his mother's
+did likewise. But for the most part, ten- and fifteen-cent fees were his
+lot.</p>
+
+<p>Rifts in the misty clouds to the west appeared, which hinted of an end
+to the rain. Nevertheless, he jingled the change in his pocket
+light-heartedly. He had made more in the brief eighty minutes than he
+could cutting the Langley's lawn, or by other juvenile chores which
+would consume a like time. And, if he were fortunate, there was still
+time for another customer before the storm ceased.</p>
+
+<p>He found her. She was dressed in some rustling brown taffeta stuff and
+carried her hat in a carefully pinned page of newspaper. Her face was
+sunken and lined and rouged to lessen the ravages of age, and her hair
+was palpably mismatched. Moreover, instinct warned that his offer would
+be refused, for she was one of the tall, skinny folks. Nevertheless, he
+approached her.</p>
+
+<p>"Umbrella home, lady? Can I take you home under an umbrella?"</p>
+
+<p>He could. Instantly all criticism of her personal appearance vanished.
+True, she might be trying to keep up appearances like the old-maid
+teacher who scolded knowledge into the eighth-grade class, but she was
+willing to spend money for his benefit, and that made all the difference
+in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Past the hotel they went, and down the five long, successive blocks of
+gray stone university buildings which flanked that side of the
+boulevard. John's spirits rose. His last was to be a quarter customer,
+at the least. Then they turned southward and dodged pools of water in
+the muddy street crossings and on the walks for another two squares. She
+halted at a grimy, run-down apartment building and closed the umbrella.
+Thirty-five cents! He opened his mouth to name the fee, but she
+interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the umbrella, little boy." She stepped into the stuffy,
+badly-lighted hallway. "Thank you very much for taking me home."</p>
+
+<p>Before he could say a word of protest, the weather-beaten oak door swung
+to in his face and the lady fled up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>When he had recovered from his surprise, he stamped angrily in after
+her. What should he do? He wanted that money. He didn't care if she had
+disappeared. He'd ring the bell and keep on ringing it until she
+answered or the batteries gave out. But which bell? The building was
+four-storied, with flats front and rear, and which of the cramped
+apartments did she occupy? And there were dozens of roomers' cards over
+the dusty speaking tubes. To find her was impossible. He had been
+tricked, and tricked nicely, and he might as well go back.</p>
+
+<p>When he was a block from the station the rain changed to a sudden fine
+drizzle and halted. The umbrella business was ended for the afternoon.
+Nevertheless, he had been fairly successful. If that old maid had paid
+what was due him, the small change in his pocket would have totaled a
+dollar and thirty cents. But ninety-five cents wasn't bad, as it was.</p>
+
+<p>He sauntered in from the dark street a few minutes later and stacked the
+dripping umbrellas in the rack in the hallway. Then he burst into the
+kitchen to tell his mother the news.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do with all that money, son?"</p>
+
+<p>He blinked a moment at the brilliancy of the gas-light, and guessed he'd
+save most of it. At that Mrs. Fletcher smiled, and he grinned sheepishly
+back. She had probably guessed the secret. Mothers had uncanny ways of
+seeing right into fellows, and he might as well tell her now.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise and I are going to be married when I'm twenty-one," he blurted.
+"I'm starting to save now, and she's going to get her mother to teach
+her how to cook beefsteaks and keep house."</p>
+
+<p>Then he ducked from her amused kisses and ran up to his room. Down came
+the pig bank from the resting place on the bureau, and out on the white
+coverlet came the result of his work. Piece by piece the money
+disappeared in the narrow slot, until not even a nickel was left for
+lemon drops at the school store. Then he shook the porker with
+satisfaction. It didn't sound so empty now, and the hungry look seemed
+to have disappeared from the yellow china face. The eyes held an
+expression of sleepy content, if an insensate bit of china could do such
+a thing.</p>
+
+<p>Ninety-six cents was a good start. But he'd have to hustle every minute
+of Saturday morning. The advent of autumn had so discouraged the growth
+of grass on the home street that he would have to invade Southern
+Avenue. Surely he could find some sort of a job on that long,
+well-groomed street.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast he sneaked off to drag the lawn-mower from its storage
+place in the basement. The rattle and bang of the iron frame against the
+area steps caught Mrs. Fletcher's alert ear. She raised the little
+side-pantry window and looked out as he lifted the implement up on the
+walk.</p>
+
+<p>"John!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mother?" A sheepish note crept into his voice. "Taking the mower
+out of the basement; that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going with it?"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, nowhere in particular. He hoped to earn a little money; that was
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your room picked up?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"And the front porch has to be hosed off for Sunday; never mind the
+neighbors until my work's finished, son."</p>
+
+<p>Mothers must have forty-'leven pairs of ears to catch fellows the way
+they did. He stopped to argue with her, but she shook her head
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"That won't do a bit of good, John. You're just wasting time when you're
+talking this way."</p>
+
+<p>She was right. And wasting time meant just so many minutes less in which
+to earn a dollar and four cents. He scampered upstairs and pitched the
+book which had lain under the bed since a certain clandestine
+night-reading session into the case. Next, his odds and ends of clothing
+and ties were thrown on the closet floor with a prayer that they might
+not be discovered before he made his escape. With his bureau top set
+hastily in order, he reported for duty below. Out with the hose-reel and
+up with the nozzle on the porch. A twist of the key, and the water
+spurted forth while his mother watched the procedure in amazement. He
+was taking five minutes for work which consumed twenty-five, ordinarily!</p>
+
+<p>But when the water splashed against the sun-blistered clapboards of the
+veranda wall, his spurt of energy diminished. He adjusted the nozzle
+until the fine spray came from the hose and watched the miniature
+rainbow in the bright sunlight. An earnest spider was repairing a web up
+under the eaves in anticipation of coming storms, and John shifted back
+to the hard stream to dislodge the industrious spinner. The old cat
+trotted around from the back porch and made faces at a squirrel which
+had strayed from the park to enjoy the more munificent bounty which the
+kind-hearted housewives and children on the street offered. He shot the
+quarrel-quelling stream in their direction, and the pair scampered away
+to safety. As yet a good half of the porch was untouched by water, and
+he dropped the hose to the floor with the nozzle pointed toward the
+baseboard, while little rivulets trickled over the dust-strewn boards
+until they joined larger streams, just as the little black river lines
+in his school maps did.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden, sharp tapping at the window which fronted the porch.
+Mrs. Fletcher's voice jerked him from the clouds of miniature
+geographical research to the realities of his task.</p>
+
+<p>"John! Half an hour's gone already. Do get the hose reeled up!"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i170.JPG"><img src="images/i170.JPG" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>A few hasty strokes of the broom&mdash;his mother's best, taken unknown to
+her&mdash;obliterated all traces of the water systems, and the hard spray was
+splashed against the windows just long enough to splatter the sashes
+well. The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or
+two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one
+shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to
+find Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An
+ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on
+out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be
+back until dinner time."</p>
+
+<p>Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have
+to pitch in alone.</p>
+
+<p>Around the corner he went, the mower still beating a noisy tattoo over
+the pavement, past the big new apartment building with flats which
+actually rented for a hundred dollars a month, and down to the long row
+of older houses, erected when land was cheap, and set far back from the
+walk; still on past foot after foot of trim grass plots, through a
+mud-puddle in the street which held more water than was good for the
+already rusty blades, and across to the opposite sidewalk before he
+found a prospect of employment.</p>
+
+<p>He swung back the gate and tiptoed up the weathered steps. The window
+shades were down and the cobwebs hung thick on the porch railings and
+under the eaves. Yet the place was occupied, for he had noticed a
+homeless cat dragging an unsavory meal from a well-filled garbage pail
+at the side. He rang the bell once, twice, thrice, before the door
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Want the lawn cut?" he asked of the wrinkled, tremulous dame who faced
+him.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, angry at being disturbed. He walked down the walk
+mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear that there was no revenue to be gained this day. So he
+turned toward the home street and dropped the mower into the area way
+just loudly enough to bring Mrs. Fletcher to the side window.</p>
+
+<p>"That you, son? Run up to the corner and get some lamb chops, that's a
+good boy." She tossed him a half-dollar. "And get ready for dinner when
+you come back."</p>
+
+<p>He set off thoughtfully, for the problem of earning still annoyed him.
+He hated to fall down on the newly made resolution the very first week.
+If it were only winter and a heavy snow falling! Then he'd make money
+quickly enough, but in late autumn&mdash;why folks wanted to walk to the
+corner for groceries themselves because the tang in the clear, snappy
+weather made the errand enjoyable!</p>
+
+<p>As the door of the butcher shop closed behind him, he saw Shultz, leader
+of the "Jeffersons" and sworn enemy, tugging at a heavy suitcase as he
+struggled to keep pace with the athletic young lady to whom it belonged.</p>
+
+<p>Why couldn't he do likewise? Three ten-cent suitcase jobs would bring
+his capital to a dollar and twenty-four cents, and that was better than
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he had eaten, he left the house on the trot for the suburban
+station, where he had seen his football rival. He waited in front of the
+three iron turnstiles, now dancing up and down, now watching the ants in
+a hill which was forming between two paving blocks, and now scanning the
+thrice reread headlines of the papers on the unpainted news stand by the
+station entrance. A gentleman came with golf sticks bound for the park
+links; there came ladies innumerable who had been delayed on their
+shopping expedition&mdash;and still no sign of employment. Locals came and
+went, and expresses followed on twenty-minute runs until his memory
+failed in counting them, before a puffy, white-moustached gentleman in
+tweeds grunted a noisy passage down the platform steps.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i173.jpg"><img src="images/i173.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Satchel carried, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it to the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>John explained. The traveler should have left the train at the station
+three blocks to the south. But it wasn't so very far, even at that.
+"Shall I carry it for you?" he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded jerkily and paused to light a cigarette. As they left,
+Shultz sauntered up and stood aghast at this invasion of his territory.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" he ejaculated finally.</p>
+
+<p>John held his course, grip in either hand. He was a little nervous, but
+his business rival dared not take revenge while his patron was with him.
+After that&mdash;well, he guessed he could take care of himself if that
+"tough"&mdash;a term of endearment used by the "Tigers"&mdash;bothered him.</p>
+
+<p>A lapse of ten minutes found him fingering a quarter as he stood on the
+broad hotel steps. Would he go back, when such fees were in prospect?
+You bet. That dirty-faced kid had no mortgage on the place. He'd like to
+see any trouble between them. He would call out the "Tigers," he would!</p>
+
+<p>Shultz was pacing up and down in front of the station when John came up.
+The expression on his face was far from pleasant, and the boy began to
+regret his fit of bravado. But shucks, that tough wouldn't dare do
+anything. He stopped at the turnstiles once more, and Shultz glared at
+him angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"What you trying to do?"</p>
+
+<p>John explained. He wanted to make a little pocket money.</p>
+
+<p>"Well you can't here. G'wan home before I smash your face!"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't," stubbornly. "Got just as much right as you here."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. "Well are you going?" asked the "Jefferson's"
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll make you." He advanced, fists doubled. They circled around and
+around on the pavement, each looking for an opening through the other's
+guard. Suddenly the bigger boy lunged forward and his fist went true to
+the mark&mdash;John's nose. They sparred again, now feinting forward, now
+stepping backward, like two young turkey cocks. A tall, blue-clad,
+brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz raised the alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheese it, the cop!"</p>
+
+<p>They broke for cover, each in the direction of home and parental
+protection, while the guardian of the peace stood and laughed at the
+fleeing figures.</p>
+
+<p>Once well down the street, John pulled up, panting, and rubbed his nose.
+That kid had certainly hit it. The organ hurt like the mischief, and
+felt as if it were three sizes too big. He hoped it wouldn't be like
+that at school, Monday.</p>
+
+<p>He heard a familiar voice, "Hello!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned quickly. Louise, and at this, of all times!</p>
+
+<p>"What you been doing?" She looked at his face curiously.</p>
+
+<p>He forced a smile. "Fight, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he hurt you much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only here." John pointed to the injured appendage and added, "Gee, you
+ought to see him. Black eye, and his lip's bleeding something fierce!"
+His lady must never know that he came out second best in the battle.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he turned a-tremble from the reaction of his feelings. He
+wished his feminine playmate down town, over in the park, any place
+where she couldn't talk to him. He wanted to get home, to have mother's
+gentle hands lay cooling bandages on his nose, and his eyes began to
+fill with tears. For in spite of his air of defiance, he had been beaten
+and the knowledge stung him into a poignant longing for sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Louise, with the intuition of her sex, changed the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Look what I've got," she held a brown package at arm's length. "Sugar
+from the grocer's. Mother's going to teach me how to bake, this
+afternoon. Want to watch?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded gratefully and went with her to the flat where that memorable
+party had been held. In the airy kitchen, Mrs. Martin instructed Louise
+in the mysteries of mixing flour, spices, and molasses into that sticky
+mass which composes the dough for delicious, old-fashioned gingerbread.
+John stood at the young lady's side and watched dreamily. Just wait
+until he had that thousand dollars saved and could rent a kitchen of his
+own!</p>
+
+<p>After the mixture was poured into the pan, the two children, spoons in
+hand, scraped the mixing dish of its residue of uncooked delicacy, and
+decided that the effort would prove a huge success.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until it's baked," said Louise, "and you can have a piece."</p>
+
+<p>John was transported into a seventh heaven of ecstasy, and followed her
+into the parlor. They sat on the floor and played dominoes while the
+minutes flew past.</p>
+
+<p>"That's five games for me," Louise broke out exultantly. John nodded and
+gazed listlessly around the room. On the bottom shelf of the magazine
+table was a red and black checkerboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's play that," he pointed with one grimy finger.</p>
+
+<p>Louise demurred. "I don't know how."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll teach you," her victim said eagerly. So she did penance for her
+victories until Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway and smiled down at
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, kiddies. It's ready now."</p>
+
+<p>They broke for the kitchen in a wild dash, leaving boards and men on the
+carpet as they had finished with them.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, John sauntered into the house, his hat cocked
+exultantly over one ear, and his mouth redolent of savory spices. He
+heard voices in the dining-room and stuck his head in between the
+porti&egrave;res.</p>
+
+<p>"That you, John?" asked his mother. "Where on earth have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up at Louise's." His spirits were too high to notice the admonitory
+note in her voice. "She baked a cake all by herself, and when it was
+done, I had a great big piece. And Mother," his voice rose proudly at
+the memory of that effort, "it was better'n any ginger cake you ever
+made in all your life!"</p>
+
+<p>When he had placed his napkin in his ring and gone out on the front
+porch, Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband and her husband smiled back
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>"The little imp," she murmured finally.</p>
+
+<p>But it was the first foretaste of the time when another woman should
+dispossess her of her son's love, and she liked this touch in the
+childish comedy not at all.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>HE SAVES FOR "FOUR ROOMS FURNISHED COMPLETE"</h3>
+
+
+<p>The early Sunday church bells roused him to consciousness that the clear
+autumn sunlight was streaming in through the east window. The other
+members of the family were as yet not awake, so he stretched lazily and
+recalled, incident by incident, that blissful afternoon with Louise. How
+pretty she had looked when she had opened the oven door, and how
+delighted she had been when he had sampled and approved her first
+gingerbread! It almost atoned for the defeats at dominoes.</p>
+
+<p>He rolled over. There stood the pig bank on the bureau, staring down at
+him with an air which said, plainly as if spoken, "John Fletcher, you're
+a failure. Two dollars was your goal for the week. There's but a dollar
+and twenty-nine cents in me. What are you going to do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Nor would it allow his conscience to rest during the hours which
+followed. Louise had accepted an invitation to feed the squirrels in the
+park that afternoon, so he begged a nickel from his father for peanuts
+and rushed in to his mirror to see if his face needed washing. There was
+the four-footed caricature to insinuate that he might better be thinking
+of means to increase his weekly income, instead of squandering money on
+fat, saucy park squirrels.</p>
+
+<p>He was beginning to hate the bit of china. Why hadn't he purchased
+instead a mail-box bank that owned no such accusing eyes?</p>
+
+<p>Not until after supper, when he threw himself on the bed to face, for
+the first time, the problem of earning a steady weekly income, did the
+yellow, glazed features cease to trouble him.</p>
+
+<p>He stared thoughtfully at the flicker of the gas rays against the wavy
+markings in the ceiling paper for some minutes. How was a boy to earn
+money? What were the channels of revenue by which the "Jefferson
+Toughs," Shultz and his ilk, made pitiful contributions to the family
+war fund against the enemies of fuel, food, and clothing bills?</p>
+
+<p>Shultz sold papers. Very well, John Fletcher would do likewise. If
+twenty papers were sold daily, a weekly revenue of forty-eight cents
+would come from that source. The allowance from his father would bring
+the amount up to, say, seventy-five cents. Could he hope for five
+errands a week from the neighbors? That would make a dollar and a
+quarter. But where, oh, where, was the other money to come from?</p>
+
+<p>In any case, hard, persistent work, man's work, lay before him and it
+must be done in a man's way. No more tops, marbles, "Run, sheep, run,"
+or even snow fights! The thousand dollars which meant a home was to be
+earned by his twenty-first birthday, and such trivialities might delay
+the achievement of that heart's desire.</p>
+
+<p>The first test of the resolution came within the next twenty-four hours.
+As the pupils formed in line for the afternoon, he fingered a dime in
+his pocket repeatedly, for the coin represented the investment for his
+first newspaper venture. In the school yard Silvey darted up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, John-e-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John, not greatly enthusiastic over the hail.</p>
+
+<p>"It's open practice at the university today. Red and me are going. It'll
+be the biggest game, next Saturday, and, Jiminy, you ought to watch the
+quarter-back kick! Come along?"</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head regretfully. Too well he knew the joys which awaited
+them within the big enclosure with its towering bleachers. Hadn't he
+haunted the gate for just such opportunities, last year? Hadn't Bill and
+he discovered a hole in the fence and laid plans to see one of the early
+games by its aid? And hadn't an unfeeling freshman emptied a bucket of
+water as he had crawled half through the opening? But the dime in his
+pocket was a reminder of last week's procrastinating failure.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't," said he finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Got to work&mdash;sell papers."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey stared, scarcely believing his ears. John scuffed the school walk
+with one sadly abused shoe.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he went on reflectively, "I've got to have a thousand dollars
+by the time I'm twenty-one."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get married."</p>
+
+<p>"That girl again!" Bill ejaculated scornfully. "Aw, come on, Johnny.
+Just once won't hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"No," retorted John firmly. "I've got to act like a man now. I haven't
+any more time for kid foolishness!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kid foolishness!" repeated Silvey in awe-struck tones, as his chum
+turned and walked rapidly away, "kid foolishness! Gee!"</p>
+
+<p>As for John, he was finding hidden sweets in the new vocation. Never had
+Silvey's eyes held such astounded respect as they had at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>Shultz lived in a brown brick, ramshackle tenement diagonally opposite
+the apartments in which the gang had found shelter that day of the
+cucumber fight. Once, the flats had been advertised as being the utmost
+in modern conveniences, but that had been in the days when the park
+museum was glorified as an exposition building. Since then, a long
+succession of tenants had scented the dark, badly lighted corridors with
+a variety of garlicky odors, and the rentals had been lowered until only
+the most necessary repairs could be afforded to keep the building in
+order. So there the block stood, making a tawdry front with small, and
+often-remodeled stores, as it waited for one of the numerous small fires
+which were always starting to consume it.</p>
+
+<p>Shultz was playing on the walk in front of the grimy main entrance. It
+was John's purpose to learn the hour of arrival for the newspaper wagon,
+and whatever other information on news vending the boy might be willing
+to give. His erstwhile enemy doubled both fists as he crossed the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Want another bloody nose?"</p>
+
+<p>John raised an open palm as a token of peace. "When's the wagon drive
+up?"</p>
+
+<p>The ex-captain of the "Jefferson's" looked at him suspiciously. "What do
+you want to know for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sell papers. What do you s'pose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Old man lost his job?" There could be but one motive for engaging in
+the paper business according to his simple mind.</p>
+
+<p>John thought a moment. It was all very well to tell his chum of the
+cause for the sudden desire for money, but not this boy. The love affair
+would be all over school by morning recess. He nodded, taking the
+easiest way out of the dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>"Had a fight with his boss," the would-be merchant invented boldly,
+throwing plausibility to the winds. "Came home last night, crying like
+everything. There isn't enough to eat, and we have to pay the gas bill,
+so I'm going to work."</p>
+
+<p>All enmity vanished instantly. The pair were comrades in misfortune, and
+as such John was to be aided in every possible way.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe'll be around in half an hour," Shultz explained generously. "Stay
+here with me and I'll tell him you're a new kid, and fix things up. How
+many are you going to buy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dime's worth."</p>
+
+<p>"Think you can sell 'em all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easy."</p>
+
+<p>Shultz studied him for a moment and decided that the novice had better
+learn the vicissitudes of the business through bitter experience. John
+wasn't the kind to take advice, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>At last the green, one-horse cart pulled up by the delicatessen at the
+side of the old apartments. The boys crowded up to the wagon step.
+Shultz surrendered a nickel for his nightly quota of eight papers and
+pointed to his pupil.</p>
+
+<p>"New kid, Joe."</p>
+
+<p>"What's his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"John."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, John, how many?"</p>
+
+<p>He reached up the dime and received a neat bundle of papers in return.
+The other boy left to make deliveries to established customers, while
+John dashed exultantly over to the railroad station. He was a real paper
+boy now. The news sheets under his arm proved that.</p>
+
+<p>An incoming suburban train pulled in at the platform overhead. Steam
+hissed from the pistons, and the first few puffs of locomotive smoke
+arose as the engine got under way again. Then came the pound, pound,
+pound of a multitude of feet as the weary, scurrying passengers made the
+turnstiles click continuously. John opened his mouth to call his wares.</p>
+
+<p>"Pa&mdash;a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A man with a red necktie glanced down at him. The rest of the word
+became inaudible. What was the matter with his voice, anyway? There was
+nothing to be ashamed of in selling papers. The policeman wouldn't
+arrest him. Again he forced a shout, and practiced until he could yell
+at the top of his lungs like an old hand at the game.</p>
+
+<p>The last saffron tint of the autumn sun faded from the western sky.
+Lights appeared one by one in the windows of the flat buildings and
+glistened like jewels in the fast gathering dusk. The store windows on
+either side of the street cast brilliant reflections far across the
+macadam. The lamplighter, speeding from post to post on a bicycle,
+paused long enough to leave a flickering beacon on the corner, then sped
+away with his long torch over one shoulder. Trains came and went.
+Business men in well-tailored, immaculate suits walked briskly past.
+Weak arched clerks with home pressed trousers slouched wearily along.
+Chattering women innumerable scurried by on the walk. His dollar watch
+showed a quarter past six in the light from the ticket office window and
+John counted his papers.</p>
+
+<p>Eleven on hand and five paltry coppers in his right trousers' pocket.
+Caught with an overstock! Not only had the prospective profits vanished,
+but a deficiency impended as well. He began to understand the cause of
+Shultz's question&mdash;and supper impended.</p>
+
+<p>He snatched a moment under the light from the street lamp to glance at
+the funny sheet, for the excitement of the new occupation had prevented
+such amusement earlier in the afternoon. As he unfolded a copy, a
+glaring headline on the first page held his attention.</p>
+
+<p>Again the turnstiles clicked, and again came the shifting crowd. But
+John Fletcher was not on the station corner to vend his wares. Instead,
+that small boy was legging it westward as fast as he could go. Past the
+school, past the row of dilapidated houses which lay beyond, past the
+plank-walled football grounds and the last of the gray stone,
+many-windowed university buildings, into the residence district which he
+had marked as his goal.</p>
+
+<p>This section of the city was so far removed from the railroad station
+that the inhabitants made use of the slower street car lines to take
+them to and fro from work. Frank Smith, bookkeeper in a wholesale house,
+would be still on his way home, and this difference between the
+expensive fifteen-minute train service, and the fifty-five minutes of
+the more plebeian surface system was all that made his plan feasible.
+What would Mrs. Smith know of the day's news occurrences?</p>
+
+<p>He waited until his panting grew less violent before he sauntered down
+the gas lit, unpretentious street, with a cry of,</p>
+
+<p>"Extry paper! All about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-per
+here. Extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>Heads became silhouetted in numerous windows as their owners tried to
+catch his words.</p>
+
+<p>"A-a-all about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-a-per!"</p>
+
+<p>A door swung back, releasing a flood of light against the unkempt front
+lawn of a two-story cottage. John dashed up the shaky steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Extry, lady? All about the big murder?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded and handed him a penny. The boy looked at it scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Extras are a nickel!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the paper's marked 'one cent.'"</p>
+
+<p>"S'pose it would pay," his voice was as grave as a financier's,
+discussing a huge stock transfer, "to chase all over and miss supper,
+just to make three cents on eight papers? No, lady, price is a nickel.
+Always is."</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand. The woman capitulated and went back into the house
+for the stipulated coin.</p>
+
+<p>The sale wiped out the deficit and made an even break on the venture,
+the worst to be feared. Selling extras which were not extras to people
+who thought they were was proving a most profitable undertaking. He
+resumed his stroll down the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Extra-e-e-e paper here! South Side family murdered! Extry paper! Extry,
+extry, extre-e-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>Every fourth or fifth residence yielded its toll to the grewsome lure.
+At last but one newspaper remained. He redoubled his vocal efforts.</p>
+
+<p>A woman, her arms full of grocery packages, stopped him and fumbled in
+her purse. Across the street, a whistle sounded. He dropped the nickel
+into his pocket, gave over the last of the troublesome sheets, and
+started for home. Again came the whistle. He made a trumpet of his hands
+and bellowed "Sold out" as he turned the corner. If he had only more
+copies! At least sixty could have been sold.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, fifty cents for the pig bank&mdash;a dime was to be reserved
+for the morrow's capital&mdash;wasn't bad. Surely the other dollar and a half
+could be saved by the end of the week. Earning a thousand dollars was as
+easy as rolling off a log.</p>
+
+<p>John kissed his mother good-bye in high good humor, as he left for
+school in the morning. She watched him for a moment as he danced along
+the gusty, wind-swept street, and went in to sit by the parlor grate for
+a few moments. Hardly had she opened her magazine when the front
+door-bell rang, and the neighbor from across the way stood on the
+threshold, panting and very much excited.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mrs. Fletcher," she shrilled in her acrid tones. "Do tell me
+all about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Her hostess led her into the parlor and drew up a companion chair before
+the fire. "About what?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"About Mr. Fletcher." The neighbor warmed her hands a moment before the
+dancing flames, while Mrs. Fletcher looked a mute inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Shultz, she's my washerwoman," went on the thin, nasal voice,
+"said this morning that John had told her little boy he had to sell
+papers because your husband had had trouble with his employer and had
+lost his position." She would have added further details as to the
+straits the Fletchers were supposed to be in, if something in that
+lady's manner had not prevented her.</p>
+
+<p>"So I said to Mrs. Leland, next door," concluded the neighbor from
+across the way, "that I hoped things were not as bad as they seemed, and
+that I'd run right over to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"John told <i>what</i>?" asked that youngster's mother, now that the verbal
+torrent had halted.</p>
+
+<p>The story was repeated. Mrs. Fletcher broke into relieved laughter.
+"I'll have to interview that son of mine when he gets home," she said as
+she leaned forward to explain matters.</p>
+
+<p>But when John did appear, his mother was far more lenient with him than
+he had any right to expect. She was still too amused at the turn of
+affairs to be anything else.</p>
+
+<p>Two weeks sped past. In spite of the success of that first paper
+venture, the lesson was not lost upon John, who recruited a dozen or so
+regular customers from among his mother's friends the next afternoon.
+Since then, thanks to persistent effort, the list had steadily grown
+until he was able to double his first day's order without danger of
+financial loss. The errands for the neighbors had not materialized to
+swell his income, nor had other umbrella days followed the first one.
+But indeed, the paper route occupied too much of his time to permit such
+side issues.</p>
+
+<p>His minimum income was now at the respectable mark of a dollar and
+seventeen cents a week and still growing. At first, the thought that he
+was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he
+remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year
+from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when
+that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak,
+overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't
+accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner
+was singularly convincing.</p>
+
+<p>Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her
+from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the
+park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the
+science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch,
+tomorrow."</p>
+
+<p>He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers
+spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?</p>
+
+<p>Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang
+it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which
+was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his
+afternoons?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
+Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy
+streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small
+boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were
+returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store
+window caught his eye.</p>
+
+<p>Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the
+walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a
+dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped
+around it.</p>
+
+<p>He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently,
+as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.</p>
+
+<p>"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to <i>three hundred and sixty-five
+dollars</i>."</p>
+
+<p>He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser
+and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on
+them! Then came the appalling thought: <i>"How far would a thousand
+dollars last with such prices?"</i></p>
+
+<p>All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on
+the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected
+problem. If bedroom furniture <i>alone</i> cost that much and the pictures
+and carpet were still to be paid for, the total would at least be four
+hundred and fifty dollars. The parlor should cost even more, for chairs,
+a sofa, and a reading table were to be placed in it. As for the
+dining-room, he shrank from a consideration of that expense! And there
+were dishes and books and silverware! Two thousand dollars was the least
+he could expect his five furnished rooms to cost, and he had considered
+half that amount sufficient for all expenses. Newly married folks
+usually took honeymoon trips, too. He groaned. Would he ever earn enough
+to marry Louise?</p>
+
+<p>Thanksgiving drew nearer. At school, on the Wednesday immediately
+preceding, the chosen few who were Miss Brown's personal aides, stayed
+after school at noon to decorate the room for the entertainment to be
+given at a quarter of two. Her desk was backed against the wall, and the
+cornstalks used by the drawing class as models for their efforts, were
+grouped against it to form a background for the impassioned actors. A
+supply of pumpkins, gourds, and other autumnal fruits of the earth,
+borrowed by the teacher from the grocer with whom her mother traded,
+gave still greater festivity to the room.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need of roll call. Every child was there, for they were too
+much interested to absent themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown gave a brief history of the origin of the day. A little girl
+whose pink dress clashed violently with her red hair and freckled
+complexion, followed with a rendition of a doleful poem beginning:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Only a grain of corn, Moth<i>ur</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Only a grain of corn.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then the class sang one of the songs in the fourth-grade music book and
+settled back expectantly, for the feature piece of the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey and Red Brown dragged a long, green curtain along a wire which
+ran from one side of the room to the other, until the platform was
+hidden from the room's eager gaze. A scurry of gray calico came from the
+coat closet which served as the green room for the amateur actors. A
+boy, muffled mysteriously in a long cloak, followed. Miss Brown gave a
+last look to see that the stage was properly arranged, and the curtain
+was pulled back against the wall again.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i194" id="i194"></a>
+<img src="images/i194.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>It was Sid and Louise!</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It was Sid and Louise! He'd thrown aside the long cloak (insisted upon
+because he'd feel like a fool if the class saw him in costume while
+waiting for the play to begin), and stood forth in high, paper cuffs
+hiding his coat sleeves well up to his elbows, and a queerly shaped,
+high-buckled hat which threatened to slide down over his ears at any
+moment. Louise, in a Priscilla gray gown, waited for the pilgrim father
+to begin his lines. The class applauded wildly, for the spirit of make
+believe threw them back into those tempestuous early days along the
+Atlantic Coast.</p>
+
+<p>John heard not a word of the scenes which followed. He was sorely
+disturbed. There was Sid on the platform with his beloved, waving his
+arms back and forth in fervid, pump-handle motions which Louise seemed
+to mind not a bit. Hang it all, that kid must be trying to cut him out!
+But he'd show him. Just wait until his thousand dollars was earned.</p>
+
+<p>Then his calculations of that Saturday evening came back to throw an icy
+feeling into the pit of his stomach. What right had he to hope when
+housefurnishings were at such a figure?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher set him to picking the pinfeathers from the turkey when he
+came in from his paper route that night. He turned to with a gusto,
+mindful of the culinary treats which were to come, and blissfully
+conscious of four long holidays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
+in which he could sleep as late as he wanted&mdash;besides, he could see a
+little more of Louise. He didn't like the way she had acted on the
+platform. Perhaps he had been a little neglectful, but just wait a few
+years. Then he'd&mdash;but the thought of that costly furniture put an end to
+his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Thanksgiving morning he haunted the kitchen incessantly, dancing now to
+the little pantry to swing back the doors and feast his eyes on the huge
+mince pie which waited on the bottom shelf, and then back to the kitchen
+where he pestered his mother with innumerable questions until she drove
+him out into the snappy, late November air. He scampered up to Bill's
+house, where the two boys retired to the chilly seclusion of the shack
+and compared notes.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got a fifteen-pound turkey," said John boastfully.</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing," Silvey dug scornfully into the hard dirt floor with
+his heel. "You ought to see ours. Twenty pounds, and my, such a big
+fellow! Cranberry sauce an' roast potatoes, an' squash to go with him.
+Umm-m-m."</p>
+
+<p>"So've we," retorted John, undaunted by this itemized account. "Your
+turkey may be bigger'n ours, but it won't taste as good, for my ma (he'd
+forgotten his assertion regarding Louise) is the best cook in the whole
+world and there isn't anyone can beat her."</p>
+
+<p>Certain empty pangs in nature's alarm clock brought him home half an
+hour early to inquire about dinner. He was most starved to death.
+Wouldn't mother hurry it up? Mother couldn't&mdash;expert cookery was not to
+be hurried. He'd better go out again for a while.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, he carried the morning paper into the parlor and lounged in the
+big easy chair. The minutes slipped past as he devoured news items, the
+fiction supplement, and miraculous patent medicine announcements with
+amusing impartiality. He turned to an inner page and found a huge
+advertisement staring him in the face. At the top, floated a streamer
+with the legend, "You furnish the girl, we furnish the house!" Further
+down the page were furniture bargains innumerable, for sale on a plan of
+"One dollar down, seventy-five cents per week," and in the center,
+between heavy rules, was the announcement, "Four rooms, furnished
+complete, only ninety-five dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>"John," called his father from the dining-room. "Come to dinner!"</p>
+
+<p>He threw the paper from him in sudden exultation, and danced in to the
+dining-table. His eye took in each detail of the evenly browned national
+bird, the long, slender stalks of celery in the dainty china dish, the
+deep-red cranberry jelly, the appetizing roasted potatoes, and the
+golden squash, and he smiled happily.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiminy, that looks good, Mother!" He plumped into his seat. "Hurry up,
+dad, I'm most ready to eat the house!"</p>
+
+<p>But through his brain, as he attacked a third helping of turkey and its
+accessories, there still ran the exultant echo of "Four rooms, furnished
+complete, only ninety-five dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus did the day become a real Thanksgiving to him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>CONCERNS SANTA CLAUS MOSTLY</h3>
+
+
+<p>At early dusk of the Friday holiday, he scampered to a hiding place
+underneath a house porch while Sid DuPree, his face buried in his arms,
+stood against a tree trunk and counted "Five hundred by five" as rapidly
+as he could. But as the cry of "Coming" echoed between the closely built
+houses, John's conscience suddenly robbed him of all the pleasure in the
+game of "Hide and seek." An afternoon of suitcase jobs had been
+frittered away, and the paper wagon was due in another fifteen minutes.
+So he withdrew reluctantly to haunt the walk in front of the
+delicatessen store and wonder that the work upon which he had entered
+with such gusto was becoming so irksome.</p>
+
+<p>A sharp, long-delayed touch of winter had crept into the air the night
+before, and set his toes to tingling as he drew his blue, knitted
+stocking cap further over his ears. He scampered along the petrified
+lawns on the paper route until the last news sheet was delivered, then
+blew lustily on his black mittens to warm his numbed fingers as he
+started for home. There, under the cheerful influence of the glowing
+parlor grate, he waited lazily until the last trace of tingling had left
+his hands, and spread a copy of the evening paper out on the carpet
+before him.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i199" id="i199"></a>
+<img src="images/i199.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>Christmas dreams.</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>First he looked at the cartoon on the front page, and then at the
+grotesque drawings on the back sheet comic section. Those finished, he
+returned to the first page, where an account of a ghastly train wreck
+held him spellbound. Searching on an inner page for the rest of the
+narrative, he came across a department store's advertisement which
+banished all thoughts of mangled victims and splintered cars from his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Beginning tomorrow, Santa Claus will be in his little house in our
+greatly enlarged fifth-floor Toyland to greet each and all of his
+friends. See the animated bunnies and the blacksmith shop in the Brownie
+Village, and the wonderful display of toys of every description which
+Santa has gathered for the delight of the children." There followed
+enticing cuts of toys with even more alluring descriptions and, alas!
+oftentimes prohibitive prices.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to the paper business, the holiday season had crept up almost
+unnoticed. Santa was an exploded myth, these years, but the stereotyped
+cut of the jovial, fat-cheeked saint at the top of the page brought John
+a thrill of anticipation, nevertheless. Christmas was coming. What did
+he want?</p>
+
+<p>After supper, he rummaged in the library until he found his mother's box
+of best stationery. He drew a few sheets and several envelopes from the
+neat container, and sat down at his father's big writing desk to begin
+his series of Christmas letters to certain responsive relatives. These
+favored ones heard from him regularly four times a year&mdash;before his
+birthday, before Christmas, and as soon after each of these feast days
+as his mother could force letters of acknowledgment from him. John
+dipped the pen too deeply into the inkwell, and wiped his finger tips
+dry on his trousers. Then he began,</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Aunt Clara: I hope you are well. The weather is fine but getting
+cold. Christmas is coming so I thought I would write you. I want&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused for reflection. Bill Silvey had been given a toy electric
+motor, last year. It was now in the juvenile scrap heap, thanks to an
+attempt to harness the bit of machinery to the powerful lighting current
+in Sid's house, but it had been delight indescribable to swing the
+little switch and watch the armature gain momentum until it hummed like
+a bee. So the first of his desires ran, "Motor, electric. Batteries,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>Last year, Bill and he had built a shaky bob for use on the park
+toboggan, only to have a collision with a park water hydrant, used for
+flooding the field, and the remains of the sleds had gone to their
+respective family woodpiles. So down went, "Sled, coaster, with round
+runners."</p>
+
+<p>The descriptive bit was to eliminate any possibility of getting a high,
+useless girl's sled, which would go to pieces in less than no time.</p>
+
+<p>As he thought of each article he wrote, "Hockey skates. My old ones are
+rusted. A knife. Mine's lost." And last, but not least, "Books, lots of
+them."</p>
+
+<p>That exhausted his list of needs. There were a thousand other things
+which he knew he wanted if he could only think of them, but the
+innumerable boyish desires which had arisen since his birthday in June
+had fled, and, try as he would, he could recall none of them. As a last
+desperate resort, he scrawled a concluding "Anything else useful," and
+signed it, "Your loving nephew, John."</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, an errant breeze from the east veiled the clear starlight of
+the early evening as if by magic, and by morning had marshaled long,
+heavy rows of slate-hued clouds which drove over the city from the lake.
+The temperature, too, rose above the freezing point and gave the only
+boy in the Fletcher household a chance to bank the ever-hungry furnace,
+and shut off all draughts. He employed his respite in a blissful perusal
+of the double-page advertisements in the Sunday paper.</p>
+
+<p>Toys, hundreds of them! The department stores vied with each other in
+the profusion of their offerings. Illustrations of "William Tell
+Banks&mdash;drop penny in bank and Tell shoots apple from son's
+head"&mdash;mechanical engines which sped around three-foot circles of track
+until any human engineer would become dizzy; sleds of every description
+from humble ones at fifty cents to long, elaborately enameled speed
+kings with spring-steel runners, and games in innumerable variety, made
+him read and reread the alluring pages until his eyes ached.</p>
+
+<p>He sighed and looked up dreamily. The moisture-laden clouds from the
+east had borne out the newspaper forecast of "probably snow flurries,"
+and he jumped to the window.</p>
+
+<p>Heavy, feathery flakes were swirling earthward with the vagaries of the
+air currents. Here they eddied out from between the houses to disappear
+on the shining black macadam of the street and sidewalks, there they
+gave a momentary touch of white to the brown, frost-bitten lawns as a
+prophecy of that which was yet to come. In front of the Alfords',
+Silvey, Perry, and Sid, danced back and forth with shouts of laughter as
+they tried to catch the elusive bits of white. He would have joined
+them, but an ache in his stomach told that dinner was near, so he
+returned from his vantage point with a cry of "Mother! Mother! Mother!
+It's getting Christmasier every minute!"</p>
+
+<p>Nor did the Spirit of the Holidays allow his interest to lessen during
+the days when the advertisements lost their fascination through
+monotonous repetition. As he and Bill ran home at noon one day, a
+quartette of men with bulging, gray denim bags on their shoulders, left
+big yellow envelopes on each and every house porch of the street. They
+were rigidly impartial in their work, and John dashed up the steps of
+that same vacant house which the boys had held that day with the pea
+shooters.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" he cried, drawing the gaudy pamphlet from the manila casing.
+"It's the <i>Toy Book</i>, Silvey!"</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Toy Book</i> had been issued since time immemorial by one of the down
+town stores, and its yearly visit made it something of an institution
+among the juveniles of the street. On the cover, a red-coated,
+rosy-cheeked Saint Nick, with a toy-filled pack, was descending a
+snow-capped chimney while his reindeer cavorted in the background. On
+the back were rows of dainty pink, blue, and green clad dolls with
+flaxen ringlets and staring, china eyes&mdash;trash which interested John not
+at all. Why didn't they put engines and sleds and worth-while things
+there?</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Bill," he said suddenly. "Let's collect 'em."</p>
+
+<p>They waited until the distributors were too far down the street to
+interfere, and sneaked up and down the house steps with careful
+thoroughness. As the bundles under the two boyish arms were becoming
+heavy, Mrs. Fletcher darted out by the lamppost in front of the house
+and beckoned to John vigorously. He left Bill with a show of regret, for
+the dozen odd copies under his arm were far less than he would have
+liked.</p>
+
+<p>Louise sauntered home with him after school that day. As they passed
+Southern Avenue, the lady's gaze rested on a muddy object in the street
+gutter, and John stooped to pick it up. Torn, disfigured with
+innumerable heel marks and wagon wheels, the battered bundle of paper
+was all that remained of a Christmas booklet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Louise in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you get one?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. Evidently other boys at her end of the street had
+emulated John and Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"Tells all about toys," he volunteered. "I'll bring you one with the
+paper, if you want."</p>
+
+<p>She thanked him and dropped the ruin regretfully. Those dolls on the
+back cover were so enticing.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you glad Christmas is coming?" John asked. "Gee, I wish it was
+day after tomorrow."</p>
+
+<p>Louise nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want for Christmas?" he pursued.</p>
+
+<p>She didn't know. "A doll&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A doll!" he interrupted in disgust. What did she want with dolls? They
+would be of no use when she had grown up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a doll," said Louise decidedly. John feigned placating approval.
+"And doll clothes," she went on, "and new hair ribbons and things for my
+dresses, and lots and lots of other presents. What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>He told her briefly. "But that isn't half," he concluded, as they
+loitered on the apartment steps. "I'm trying to think of the others all
+the time. Jiminy!" with a glance at his watch, "I'd better be going.
+I've got work to do."</p>
+
+<p>But there were no interviews with prospective newspaper customers that
+afternoon. After John had started the parlor grate for his mother, he
+fell under the spell of one of the wonder-books and scanned page after
+page of the illustrations until Mrs. Fletcher interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to deliver your papers, son? It's a quarter of five
+now."</p>
+
+<p>What a pest the paper route was getting to be, always demanding his
+attention just as he wanted to do something else. He rose to his feet
+and stretched both arms to take the cramps out of them, pitched the
+booklet into a corner of the hall, and dashed to the closet for his coat
+and mittens.</p>
+
+<p>After the evening meal, John brought out another of his store of gaudy
+toy books and went into the parlor. His father, following a few moments
+later, looked down at the little figure on the carpet before the fire,
+and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, son?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy raised his head, brown eyes a-dream with visions of automobiles,
+steam engines, and hook and ladder outfits.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking at this," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fletcher drew up the big, easy armchair which he liked so well, and
+lifted him into his lap. A moment later, the two heads, the old and the
+young, bent over the picture-laden pages.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, daddy." John pointed to a locomotive with pedals and a seated cab
+for a youthful engineer. "I saw one, once. All red and shiny, with a
+black smokestack. And the bell really rings."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you think that's too much money for a toy?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy nodded reluctantly. "Still, it's such lots of fun to just <i>wish</i>
+for things, even though you know you can't have them."</p>
+
+<p>The strong arms tightened about him tenderly for a moment. As they
+relaxed, John turned the leaves back rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's begin at the very beginning," he explained, then rapped the first
+page petulantly. "Nothing but dolls and dolls and more dolls," as a
+procession of things dear to the feminine heart passed by; "and doll
+bathtubs and dishes and other sissy things." He bent forward suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's better. A 'lectric railroad. Let's take your pencil." He marked
+an irregular cross beside the illustration. "And here come the sleds.
+Lots of them aren't so very 'spensive. And banks," he smiled. "I guess
+mine's big enough, isn't it, daddy?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fletcher joined in the smile. Indeed until he had seen that porker
+safe on his son's bureau, he had no idea that so large a china animal
+existed. The boy broke in on his thoughts excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Punch and Judys!" His memory swept back to the raftered hall and
+Professor O'Reilley's performance. "They're such fun, and they don't
+cost very much. If I had one, I wouldn't spend any money on those shows,
+either."</p>
+
+<p>His father chuckled at the bit of juvenile diplomacy. "You'd better make
+out your Christmas list for us before that pencil gets worn out making
+crosses, son."</p>
+
+<p>He slid from the paternal knee and was off to the library in a trice.
+Mrs. Fletcher had overheard the finish of the conversation and smiled in
+on him before she joined her husband in reading the evening paper.
+Minutes passed.</p>
+
+<p>"Most finished, son?" called Mr. Fletcher. "It's nearly bedtime, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>A grunt was the only response.</p>
+
+<p>"Better add a few things you'll need around the flat when you and Louise
+are married!"</p>
+
+<p>"John!" Mrs. Fletcher rattled her newspaper disapprovingly. "Do stop
+teasing that boy."</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later, her son appeared in the doorway, yawning sleepily.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't ready yet," he said. "I'm going to bed now."</p>
+
+<p>Late the following evening, Mrs. Fletcher opened her son's door to see
+if he slept soundly, and a scrap of paper fluttered from an anchoring
+pin to the floor. She picked it up. True to his peculiar custom, John
+had presented his Christmas needs in a manner which seemed more delicate
+than to ask in person for them. With a whimsical, sympathetic smile, she
+rejoined her husband in the big bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Look what your joking did last night!" She handed him the slip of
+paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for
+Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for
+dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as
+if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier writing that
+which told of a longing not to be denied, "Books, lots of them."</p>
+
+<p>Christmas drew nearer. The delivery wagons from the down-town stores
+made more and more frequent stops at the Fletchers, to leave odd-shaped
+bundles in the hallway, bundles at which John would gaze longingly as if
+to pierce the outer wrappings and excelsior. Watching the packages
+arrive was half the fun of Christmas, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>His own shopping list was small. He broached the subject of a gift for
+his father to Mrs. Fletcher. Would she buy it, the next time she went to
+town? "Then it'll be a surprise for dad." Likewise he approached Mr.
+Fletcher. "Then mother won't know I'm buying her a book," he explained.
+But he was uncertain what to order for Louise. He'd never made a present
+to a girl before.</p>
+
+<p>The Friday before the great holiday, the papers upset his plans. The
+store of the <i>Toy Book</i> announced that "Santa Claus leaves tomorrow for
+his home at the North Pole. As a farewell inducement to the children of
+this city to visit him, he will give a splendid present to each and
+every girl or boy accompanied by an adult."</p>
+
+<p>The North Pole part was all bosh. John knew that well, thanks to his
+present sophistication. But the lure of the present set him to thinking.
+Couldn't he&mdash;providing of course that maternal permission was given&mdash;go
+down town and do his shopping Saturday afternoon and wander around the
+different toy displays to his heart's content? But there was the paper
+route. Blame the nuisance, anyway!</p>
+
+<p>He sprinted up to see Bill after supper. Would his chum make the
+deliveries if he gave him a list of the customers? John would be willing
+to pay a dime for the service.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey assented gladly, for ten-cent pieces were scarcities among the
+small boy population just before Christmas, when the display of penny
+and five-cent novelties in the school store window proved so tempting.
+Thus the difficulty was solved.</p>
+
+<p>Two o'clock the following day found John following the varied shopping
+crowd through the revolving doors of the biggest department store.
+Inside, the aisles were packed with a jostling, slowly moving throng.
+Fat, breathless hausfraus rubbed elbows with high-cheeked, almond-eyed
+Slav maidens, and tired office clerks took advantage of the half holiday
+to fill their shopping lists. Here, a well-dressed, clear-complexioned
+lady of leisure examined an expensive knickknack, there an Irish mother
+led her brood to the throng around the elevators that they might see
+Santa Claus. But they were all filled with a desire to buy, buy, buy, in
+the name of the Christmas Spirit, and buyers and department heads rubbed
+their hands gleefully as they watched the overworked clerks. John fought
+his way to the nearest floorman, a white-haired veteran of many such
+rush seasons.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the neckties?" he asked. That employee looked down at him
+wearily. "Next to the last aisle&mdash;to your right."</p>
+
+<p>Past the silverware counter, past the women's gloves, past innumerable
+little booths with high-priced holiday trinkets, and past the
+fountain-pen display&mdash;at last the long, oval counter came in sight.
+Eager purchasers stood two and three deep around the spaces where goods
+were on display. Clerks hurried back and forth in response to the calls
+of the wrapping girls, and change carriers popped unceasingly from the
+pneumatic tubes. John plied his elbows vigorously and worked his way
+through the thickest of the crowd. Above him, hands grabbed feverishly
+at the tangled heap of ties on the counter top, while querulous voices
+requested instant attention from the sales force.</p>
+
+<p>One of the four-in-hands dropped over the edge. The boy seized upon it,
+fingered it, and threw the bit of goods back in the heap. Poor stuff
+that, even at a quarter. His mother's frequent dissertations upon silk
+samples which she had brought home had taught him that much. He waved a
+frantic hand to attract attention until a tall, spectacled clerk took
+pity on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see a tie, a real one! Don't care if I have to pay a whole
+half-dollar for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"What color?"</p>
+
+<p>John's lower lip drooped. He hadn't noticed his father's taste in
+neckwear. "Red," he hazarded at last.</p>
+
+<p>A crimson horror was thrust in front of him. Yellow cross-stripes
+clamored against the fiery background. The clerk twisted it deftly
+around his forefinger and, behold, it was made up as if in the paternal
+collar.</p>
+
+<p>"Like it?"</p>
+
+<p>John nodded and brought out a fifty-cent piece which he had forced from
+the pig bank that morning. A moment later, the wrapped holly box was
+given him, and he was off in the direction of the book department.</p>
+
+<p>Still the crowds! They choked the aisles and carried him here and there
+at the mercy of their eddies. Now he was forced up against a wooden
+counter edge, now jammed against two fat women in rusty black who were
+buying devotional books for the edification of less pious friends. At
+last a sign, "Popular copyrights, fifty cents a volume," gave impetus to
+his hitherto haphazard course.</p>
+
+<p>The poorly dressed salesgirl behind the counter smiled down at him in a
+manner which successive ten o'clock sessions had failed to eradicate.
+"What kind?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>His gaze wandered helplessly over the bewildering array of volumes.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's something everyone's reading," she suggested, holding up an
+inane, pretty-girl covered book. He eyed it dubiously and pointed to a
+title which hinted of the West and of Indian fights.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me that one," he said decisively. His own love affair had proven
+that heroes and heroines in every day life never have the easy sailing
+which a limited reading of popular novels had implied. Anyway, cowboy
+stories were the most exciting.</p>
+
+<p>With the two packages wedged securely under his arm, he battled a way to
+the elevators. The family shopping was over and the real business of the
+day, a tour of the toy section and a present for Louise, called him.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifth floor," droned the elevator man. "Toys, dolls, games,
+Christmas-tree ornaments."</p>
+
+<p>His words became drowned in a sudden babel which made ordinary
+conversation impossible. A murmur of a thousand voices blended with the
+rattle of mechanical trains and the tooting of toy horns. Impatient
+salesmen called "Cash, cash, cash!" at the top of their lungs. Wails
+arose from hot, disgruntled infants. Now and then a large steam engine
+in operation at one counter corner, whistled shrilly when mischievous
+juvenile hands swung back the throttle.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of the floor, where the carpet and rug department had
+been shifted for the holiday season, a long line of people were waiting.
+Heavily clad, perspiring women shifted infants from one arm to the other
+as they walked patiently along. Poorly clad street loafers sought to
+idle away their time with a visit to Santa Claus. Tall, slim young women
+yanked their little brothers into place or besought small sisters to
+"Hush up, we're nearly there!" And up and down the whole line, a baker's
+dozen of streets gamins skirmished on the lookout for some adult to whom
+they might attach themselves for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>Clearly that pointed the way to the little house and the fulfillment of
+the gift promise.</p>
+
+<p>John worked himself cautiously along the line in spite of cries of,
+"Cheater, look at him!" from boys with maternal impediments to prevent
+like maneuvers. When the white, asbestos snow-covered house came in
+view, John halted discreetly, for, with the goal so near, he could not
+risk being thrown out of the line for cutting ahead of others.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the people moved forward until the interior of the room was
+visible through the little side window. At the far end of a wooden
+counter, a fat, red-coated Santa Claus passed trinket after trinket into
+eager juvenile hands, pausing now and then, as childish lips lisped
+requests for dolls, sleds, or other toys.</p>
+
+<p>On the very threshold, a stocky store employee interposed a hand in
+front of John.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your folks?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The boy gasped. That condition of the distribution had been completely
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" pressed the inquisitor, a smile about his lips.</p>
+
+<p>He gazed about desperately. Just leaving the room was a buxom German
+woman in black, with a hat covered with bobbing, blue-green plumes.</p>
+
+<p>"There she is," he pointed. "That's my mother. I got separated from
+her."</p>
+
+<p>The man removed his arm and chuckled. At least three other urchins had
+claimed relationship with that self-same lady.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the old saint at last. His ruddy-cheeked mask was softened by
+perspiration, and there was a droop about his red-clad shoulders which
+expressed a wish that this, the last day of his sojourn in the city,
+were already over. John grabbed the cheap pencil box which was handed
+him. The guardian at the exit was crying, "Keep moving, keep moving,"
+and the lethargic line in obedience carried John beyond the confines of
+the house to new wonders.</p>
+
+<p>If the Brownie Village forced staid adults to pause and smile
+appreciatively at the whimsicalities of gnome life, the juveniles halted
+and dragged and impeded the progress of the procession as each new
+wonder confronted them.</p>
+
+<p>White-furred little bunnies moved solemnly along at intervals over
+concealed runways, stopping now and then to bow to the amused audience.
+Winking, gray-bearded elves bobbed up from behind canvas rocks to wave
+diminutive hands before popping back to their shelters. One sun-bonneted
+fellow in patched overalls bent spasmodically over a little wooden wash
+tub on a hill. Further on, a perpetual clatter drew attention to the
+rustic forge where a brown-clad smith hammered lustily at a miniature
+horse shoe. At the end, stood a second brazen-lunged sentry, who like
+the other, implored the crowd to "Keep moving. Please keep moving."</p>
+
+<p>Out by the toy counters, John found a dirty-faced street gamin in
+patched knee trousers confronting him. They eyed each other for a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Going 'round again?" asked John.</p>
+
+<p>The boy nodded. "What'd he give you?"</p>
+
+<p>John displayed his pencil box; the boy, a discordant reed whistle.</p>
+
+<p>"Want to trade?" No sooner offered than accepted. What was the use of a
+school pencil box anyway?</p>
+
+<p>Again they fell in with the Santa Claus line, hoping devoutly that the
+sentry would not recognize them. But on the third trip as they nodded
+toward an unkempt, brown-shawled Italian woman, the clerk bent over.</p>
+
+<p>"Three times and <i>out</i>," he whispered as the boys' hearts went pitapat.
+"See?"</p>
+
+<p>They saw, and went off in search of new pleasures. First they stopped at
+the mechanical train booth. When the operator of the miniature railroad
+was engaged, John's new found friend threw over a tiny switch and caused
+an unlooked for wreck on the line. A floorwalker pounced on them and
+ordered them away, so they sauntered down the aisle to a crowd which
+courted investigation.</p>
+
+<p>"Kid lost," explained the street gamin, who possessed an uncanny trick
+of working his way through a throng. "They're taking him away now."</p>
+
+<p>Along counter after counter, the boys wandered, past the dollar
+typewriter booth, through the doll carriage aisle, where a little girl
+tried to carry a vehicle away with her and made things momentarily
+exciting, and over by the electrical toys, the building blocks, and the
+sleds.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee," said the dirty-faced boy as they stooped to examine a price tag,
+"My legs are 'most off me."</p>
+
+<p>John examined his watch. Half past six! And he should have started for
+home an hour ago. Already his stomach clamored for something to eat. He
+invested a nickel in peanuts, and the pair devoured them ravenously.
+Then John wiped the last traces of salt from the corners of his mouth,
+said good-bye, and fled for the elevator. It would be nearly eight when
+he arrived and mother might be anxious over this trip&mdash;his first
+alone&mdash;to town.</p>
+
+<p>He passed through the revolving doors for the second time that day and
+stopped short in the brilliantly lighted street. He'd forgotten about
+Louise! But perhaps some one would make a purchase for him later.</p>
+
+<p>He passed a store with a red auction flag waving in the doorway. In the
+window was a tempting array of cheap jewelry, watches, and holiday
+goods. Surely there must be something that would be suitable for his
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>The room was filled with tobacco smoke and the odor of unwashed
+humanity, for chilled vagrants helped to swell the throng which gathered
+around the raucous-voiced auctioneer. As John entered, that worthy
+lifted a glistening object in a green plush case high in the air that
+all might see it.</p>
+
+<p>"This lady's watch has been asked for, gentlemen. Sixteen jewels in its
+movement and a solid gold-filled twenty-year case&mdash;and fit for any lady
+in the land to wear. Will somebody start bidding?"</p>
+
+<p>John fumbled in his pocket and took inventory of the remains of the two
+dollars which had been filched from the pig bank. Presents for his
+mother and father had depleted the sum by half, peanuts had cost a
+nickel, and carfare, including the return trip, would account for
+another dime.</p>
+
+<p>"How much am I offered, gentlemen," persisted the man behind the glass
+counter. "How much am I offered?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no response. He passed the timepiece to a man in the front row
+and requested that he examine it carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it a beauty?" He raised the watch in the air again. "Now, will
+some one please bid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eighty-five cents," called John. Subdued laughter arose as the
+auctioneer bowed elaborately. "I thank you. This gentleman knows a good
+thing when he sees it. Eighty-five, eighty-five, a dollar and a half, a
+dollar and a half, two dollars, two dollars, two dollars&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The boy lost interest in the proceedings. What was the use of wishing
+that you might give such a trinket to your lady love if you hadn't the
+money to pay for it?</p>
+
+<p>There were books, but Louise was not over fond of reading; ash trays,
+atrocious Japanese vases with wart-like protuberances on their sides,
+and cut-glass dishes&mdash;each in its turn went to some fortunate, or
+unfortunate, who outbid John's modest offer.</p>
+
+<p>At last the auctioneer rummaged among the conglomeration of articles on
+the counter below him and brought forth a little china dish.</p>
+
+<p>"I have here," he began, "a hand-painted china vanity box. Think of it,
+gentlemen, these dainty violets are hand painted, and the top is solid
+gold-filled. Inside is a soft, dainty, powder puff. How much am I
+offered for this beautiful trinket. An ideal gift for wife, sister, or
+sweetheart. How much am I offered?"</p>
+
+<p>A man in a far corner of the room bid a quarter. The auctioneer looked
+pained. "Only a quarter bid? Gentlemen, it's a shame. The time taken to
+decorate it was worth more than that. Only a quarter bid? That gentleman
+must be married. Is that all he thinks of his wife?"</p>
+
+<p>The gathering tittered derisively. Came a bid of forty cents as a reward
+for his efforts.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty cents," the droning voice went on. "Forty cents&mdash;forty&mdash;forty,
+fifty cents, I thank you&mdash;fifty cents, fifty cents, fifty-five,
+fifty-five, going at fifty-five, fifty-five, better than nothing,
+fifty-five&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Eighty-five</span>!" shouted John.</p>
+
+<p>"Sold," concluded the auctioneer. "Sold to our friend here at
+eighty-five cents. Will the lucky purchaser step up to the cashier?"</p>
+
+<p>With the precious package safely in his pocket, the boy darted for the
+car line. Another hour had elapsed, and he dreaded the "penny lecture"
+which must be awaiting him on his arrival.</p>
+
+<p>But inside the street car, though the air was stifling, and large,
+heedless grown-ups crushed him with each jolt of the uneven roadbed, his
+spirits rose buoyantly.</p>
+
+<p>His holiday shopping was concluded. Christmas was less than a week away,
+and he had a vision of a beautifully hand-painted vanity box with a
+glistening solid gold-filled top greeting him from Louise's chiffonier
+when his thousand dollars had been achieved and the age of twenty-one
+reached which allowed him the independence of marriage.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>HE HAS A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Christmas Eve! Home to a six-o'clock supper after the daily paper
+distribution was finished, and then to bed, "'Cause going to bed early
+makes Christmas come sooner, Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>On the back porch, the tree, a big, bushy-branched fir, lay waiting to
+be carried into the front hall. The lower floor was filled with
+mysterious packages, so disguised by bulky wrappings that their contents
+could not even be surmised, and all over the house, from the attic where
+the tree decorations were stored, to the holly-trimmed parlor hovered an
+air of holiday expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>He loved that thrill, did John. Earlier, the possibilities which Santa's
+visit held furnished it to him, for who was to know which of the many
+needs that personage would see fit to satisfy? And the very Christmas
+after he had exposed the old fellow as a delightful, kindly fraud, he
+had sheepishly asked his parents to decorate the tree and arrange the
+gifts as before, "'Cause being surprised is the best part of Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>That night when he had caught Santa! The memory of it brought a
+retrospective smile to his lips, in spite of the shivers which the
+chilled bed sheets sent through his warm little body. Awakened by a
+noise below, he had drawn the old bathrobe about him as protection from
+the frosty air, and tiptoed into the dark hallway. Well around the stair
+landing, a scene met his eyes!</p>
+
+<p>There stood the tree, wedged firmly into the soapbox support with flat
+irons around the base for ballast. In one corner of the room, a Noah's
+ark, which later came to an untimely end on a mud-puddle cruise, had
+spilled its assortment of cardboard animals out on the carpet. Near the
+doorway lay a red fireman's suit, and in the dining-room, bending over
+the candy-filled cornucopias on the table were his father and mother.</p>
+
+<p>"W-where's Santa Claus?" he had stammered, not grasping the situation at
+first. A sharp, gasping breath of surprise came from his mother as his
+father broke into chagrined laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you've found him, son," had been the reply. And that was the
+end of Santa Claus.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later, a long, empty freight train rattled cityward
+unnoticed, as John's regular breathing told off, faithfully as any
+timepiece, the fast lessening minutes which stood between him and
+Christmas Day.</p>
+
+<p>He wakened with a start. The late, gray dawn of winter was peering in
+between the window shades and the sashes, casting hesitant shadows about
+the room. He rubbed his eyes sleepily for a moment, then, remembering,
+sprang to his feet and opened the blinds.</p>
+
+<p>A dun railroad embankment lay before him, with lighter streaks which
+told where the shining rails lay. Over on the boulevards, the arc lights
+twinkled sleepily, their long night vigil nearly finished. The barren
+tree tops which skirted the park, made a lace work against the frosty,
+winter's sky, and here and there, chance rays of light threw piles of
+rubbish in the big lot into unlovely relief. The same kindly, grimy,
+disorderly neighborhood of the day before and the year before, and yet
+the spirit of Christmas cast a halo over the whole and beautified it in
+the boy's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Christmas, it's Christmas," he repeated over and over again as he
+drew on his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Then for a tiptoed scamper down the stairs for a view of the surprises
+which were awaiting him in the hall below.</p>
+
+<p>A scent of pine, reminiscent of the sweet-scented Michigan forests, made
+him sniff eagerly. There towered the tree on the spot where its
+predecessors had stood in front of the fireplace, so tall that the tip
+barely missed the ceiling. Gleaming spheres caught the light from the
+stair window in brilliant contrast with the dark, needled depths.
+Cornucopias, candy laden, weighted the boughs. Sugar chains made
+symmetrical festoons of beads as they looped down from the upper
+branches, and innumerable candles stood stiffly in their holders,
+waiting for the taper in his father's hand to bring them to life.</p>
+
+<p>Underneath the tree lay his presents. Not so many, perhaps, oh, sons of
+richer parents, as you may have had, but John's eyes grew wider and
+wider with delight as each object greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>There lay the sled, long, low and scarlet, not as ornate as the
+expensive "Black Beauty," for which he had longed, but quite as
+serviceable. At the terminal of a railway system which encircled the
+tree base, stood a queer, foreign mechanical engine, with an abbreviated
+passenger car, and on a corner of the sheet which was to protect the
+carpet from candle drip, was a dry battery and diminutive electric
+motor. Then there were books&mdash;Optics, The Rover Boys, and others of
+their ilk&mdash;which would furnish recreation for months to come, regardless
+of his rapid reading.</p>
+
+<p>Of course he turned the switch and listened to the hum of the little
+motor until the battery threatened to be exhausted; of course the
+railway was put into immediate and repeated operation, regardless of the
+noise which might awaken his parents. And he stood up, at least three
+times, sled pressed tightly against his chest, and made imaginary dashes
+down the park toboggan, outspeeding even the long bobsleds as the ice
+flew beneath him. Then he glanced at the title pages of the books again
+and even read a page or two from each opening chapter that he might know
+which would have the honor of being chosen for first consumption by his
+hungry mind. Finally, he stretched out on his back beneath the tree and
+gazed upward, watching each glistening detail in utter content.</p>
+
+<p>Voices upstairs told John that his parents had wakened at last. Up the
+winding flight as fast as his little legs could carry him, and into the
+big south room with a cry of, "Oh, Mother! Mother! Daddy! it's just
+fine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy, son?" asked his mother as he snuggled down beside her on the
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. Happy? Who wouldn't be with all those treasures in his
+possession? Mr. Fletcher chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a box on your mother's bureau which we forgot to put under the
+tree," he said. "You can open it here if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>The boy was up and back in a trice, this time to his father's bed, where
+he sat and tugged at the pink string fastenings until a set of doll's
+dishes came in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"That's in answer to that list of yours," he was told. "Think those will
+do for your flat, son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Louise'll like 'em," he smiled unabashed. "I'll give 'em to her with my
+other present."</p>
+
+<p>More chuckles, more smiles, and more laughter. What matter if all else
+in the world went wrong, if the Spirit of Christmas reigned supreme in
+that family for the day?</p>
+
+<p>"What did you see in the parlor, John?" asked his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Something in the parlor?" The boy was on his feet again. "Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute until I get my bathrobe and I'll go with you."</p>
+
+<p>A little later, the two descended the stairway, hand in hand. John's
+gaze followed his father's pointing finger as they stood on the parlor
+threshold. In front of the dead grate, was a three foot, denim-covered,
+cabinet. From the square opening at the top hung half a dozen or so of
+limp, dangling figures.</p>
+
+<p>"Punch and Judy!" John could scarcely believe his eyes. "Oh, Daddy!
+Daddy!"</p>
+
+<p>In a moment, Punch was on his right hand and Judy on his left as he
+wiggled his fingers back and forth to see if they worked as did the
+showman's at Neighborhood Hall. Judy bobbed up on the stage as his
+father beamed down at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Punch, Mr. Punch," she called. But her voice had neither the range
+nor the strength which Judy demanded to be successful, and he drew the
+marionettes off his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," he said to his father, "you work 'em. Mine don't act right."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher stretched himself out on the floor behind
+the little cabinet. John shifted to the front and watched eagerly with
+his head resting on his hands.</p>
+
+<p>What a Punch and Judy show it was that ensued! Mr. Fletcher, drawing on
+his fertile imagination, invented a new set of domestic quarrels for the
+unhappy couple, brought in a doctor and a clown, (two lifelike dolls
+which supplemented the original, limited performers), and kept John
+shrieking with laughter until the ruddy-faced little devil brought the
+performance to a close in the time-honored way. Subdued laughter in the
+doorway made them both look up with a start. There stood Mrs. Fletcher,
+fully dressed, with a smile on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"John senior," she ordered with mock severity, "go upstairs and dress
+yourself for breakfast immediately. I do believe you're the biggest boy
+of the two in spite of your age."</p>
+
+<p>After the morning meal had been eaten, John devoured the contents of a
+candy-filled cornucopia from the tree, and drew on his stocking cap,
+coat, and mittens. Louise's presents were to be delivered, and that was
+a matter which brooked no unseemly delay.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Martin's sister answered his ring at the apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise home?" he inquired eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Her aunt explained that Louise had gone out of town with her mother for
+a three-day Christmas visit.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be back, the day after tomorrow," she consoled him.</p>
+
+<p>So he left the presents in her charge with instructions to give them to
+his lady on the very moment of her arrival, and scampered down the
+carpeted stairway again.</p>
+
+<p>Sid DuPree met him in front of his house. John surveyed him warily.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo!"</p>
+
+<p>"What'd your folks give you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, lots of things. What'd you get?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid stopped a moment to recount his various gifts, lest one of them be
+omitted in the effort to impress his neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nother football," he boasted. "Cost five dollars, it did."</p>
+
+<p>"I got a railway with forty-'leven pieces of track."</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle sent me a peachy pair of boxing gloves," Sid continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Just wait till you see what my uncle sends me. Always comes in the
+mail, it does, but it hasn't come yet. Besides, I got a new sled."</p>
+
+<p>"And I've got a punching bag."</p>
+
+<p>"But you ought to see my 'lectric motor," retorted John, still
+undaunted. "You just wait till you see the toys I make for it to run."</p>
+
+<p>Sid had saved his last and most cherished possession until the last. "My
+mother, she gave me a real gun, a Winchester. It'll shoot across the
+lake, it shoots so far. I'm going hunting with it on the ranch, next
+summer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right." John was not in the least nonplussed. "But the cops
+won't let you shoot it in the city, and you've got to wait until spring
+comes before you can use it. I can go home and have all sorts of fun
+with <i>all</i> my things, <i>now</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey and Perry sauntered up.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo!" came the inevitable greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo!" came the inevitable reply.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you get for Christmas?" asked Perry.</p>
+
+<p>John allied himself instantly with Sid in the effort to outboast the new
+arrivals.</p>
+
+<p>"Sid's got a sure enough gun," he said impressively. "Bigger'n I am."</p>
+
+<p>"And John's got an electric motor," chimed in Sid as John finished.
+"He's going to hitch it on his his new sled with a pair of oars, and go
+rowing over the snow when snow comes. My, but it's strong!"</p>
+
+<p>"We've got a Christmas tree," spoke up Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>"So've we," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"So've we," Perry added.</p>
+
+<p>"But mine's bigger'n any of yours," Bill insisted. "It's so big, we most
+had to cut a hole in the ceiling to set it up. And wide? It's so wide I
+can hardly get in the room with it."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't," exclaimed John incredulously. "Nothing can be bigger'n ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see," was Silvey's unanswerable retort. So the quartette
+trooped up the street to "come and see."</p>
+
+<p>On their way, they passed the postman, struggling under his load of
+Christmas packages. Not only was his leather sack packed to overflowing
+with mail, but a little cart which he dragged behind him on the walk
+also held its quota of letters and gifts.</p>
+
+<p>"Merry Christmas!" the boys called to him. He was a genial soul, not in
+the least like the evil-tempered crank who had held the route the year
+before.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled back at them, for he had just been given a seventh necktie
+which a family had decided was too hideous to be worn by the original
+recipient, and was in high spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"Any mail for us?" came the chorus of inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>He fingered the mail in his sack. "Here you are, young Fletcher! Catch!"</p>
+
+<p>"From my aunt," announced John proudly as he looked at the postmark.
+"She always sends me jim-dandy things for Christmas." He ripped the
+protecting envelope away and stared in amazement at the two
+white-crocheted squares in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Washrags, washrags!" jeered the boys. For once, Aunt Clara had followed
+the haphazard suggestion at the end of his letter and had sent something
+useful.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i231" id="i231"></a>
+<img src="images/i231.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"Washrags, washrags."</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+
+<p>He jammed the offending gifts into his pocket, and sought to change the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Silvey, let's see that big tree of yours." So they stamped up
+the Silvey front steps and into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"There," said Bill, pointing proudly at the family fir.</p>
+
+<p>John gave one disgusted glance. "That? Why that's set on a little table!
+Wouldn't come near the ceiling if it was on the floor. Come down to my
+house and I'll show you a <i>real</i> tree."</p>
+
+<p>They left the Silvey house noisily.</p>
+
+<p>"Beat you down to John's," Perry shouted as they stood on the front
+walk. Away they went, puffing like little steam engines, in the cold
+air. A moment later, they stood admiringly in the Fletcher hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, isn't our tree bigger'n yours?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey admitted that it was, thus adding the final restoring touches to
+John's complacency. Then they staged an impromptu Punch and Judy show
+and played with the other toys until Mrs. Fletcher, beaming in spite of
+perspiration, came into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"The turkey's most done, John, so the boys had better go home now. They
+can come back at five to see the tree lighted, if they wish."</p>
+
+<p>Would they care to? You just bet they would!</p>
+
+<p>The front door slammed behind them, and John went out to the kitchen to
+nibble at bits of celery, sample the cranberry sauce, and in other ways
+annoy his busy mother until she turned on him despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake, John, go into the parlor and read one of your new
+books until dinner's ready if you can't be quiet."</p>
+
+<p>By five in the afternoon, he was so thoroughly surfeited with the
+season's delights, that he had barely enough energy to stand in the
+window and peer into the lighted area around the street lamp as he
+watched for his guests; for to bountiful helpings of turkey, potatoes,
+cranberry sauce, dressing, and a quarter of one of his mother's
+delicious plum puddings had been added cornucopia after cornucopia of
+candy, until his stomach, for once in his life, caused misgivings as to
+its food capacity.</p>
+
+<p>Perry Alford came punctual to the minute, and shortly thereafter Red
+Brown, Sid DuPree, Silvey, and Skinny Mosher. Mrs. Fletcher had made use
+of her telephone to make the gathering a little more of a party for John
+than he had anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>Another display of the presents followed, while his father and mother
+stood in the parlor doorway and beamed down upon the youngsters. When
+the excitement had died away somewhat, Silvey spoke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have a Punch and Judy show now, fellows."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, dad," added John. "You can do it best."</p>
+
+<p>So for the second time that day, the room formed the theater for that
+ancient, comic tragedy. But as the devil popped up on the shaky little
+stage to make an end to Punch, there came a cry of protest from the
+audience who were squatting breathlessly on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not yet, not yet. Please, not yet."</p>
+
+<p>So Punch triumphed in his fight with the little red-faced imp, and the
+play went forward through a new and altogether delightful chapter of the
+Punch family's existence. Amid the laughter which followed its
+conclusion, John disappeared silently and came back into the room with a
+box of tapers.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, daddy, light the tree."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher obeyed. Candle after candle on the tinselled
+branches sprang into life until the fir stood in a flickering blaze of
+glory while the boys stood back and watched with a feeling akin to awe
+at the beauty of it. At a propitious moment, he reached carefully
+between the waving lights and brought out snap crackers and little tin
+horns from the branches. There was one of a kind for each excited guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish there were girls," said Perry to Red, as they tugged at their
+respective ends of a snapper. "Then it's more fun. They always act
+'fraid cat, and scream when it goes off." He unrolled the little
+cylinder of paper which had been concealed in the foil wrapping. "My
+hat's pink. What's yours?"</p>
+
+<p>Cornucopias came next, four to a boy. They donned their hats, and
+munched candy after candy silently while the candles burned low. At last
+Mr. Fletcher clapped his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Form in line and march into the dining-room and back by the tree, five
+times, and blow hard as you can on your horns!"</p>
+
+<p>The procession started. Passers-by on the sidewalk stopped and looked in
+through the lighted window to see the cause of the disturbance. A flame
+sputtered as it burned perilously near a resinous twig.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" called Mr. Fletcher. "Everybody blow!"</p>
+
+<p>The lower flames vanished two and three at a time. Those higher up
+followed more slowly. At last but one flickering beacon at the top of
+the tree remained to defy all the boys' efforts. John's father watched
+in amusement, then gathered him up in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, hard!" And the last candle went out.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher suggested "Hot potatoes," and the minutes sped joyously
+past until the telephone rang.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell Perry to come home for supper," was the message. That youngster
+slipped on his overcoat sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Wish'd there wasn't any old telephones," he snapped as he opened the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>His departure was a signal for a lull in the festivities. Mrs. DuPree
+sent a servant over for Sid, and the other boys followed shortly,
+leaving the family to watch in the darkness beside the parlor grate.
+Mrs. Fletcher broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been a beautiful Christmas," she said softly. "A beautiful
+Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>John nodded contentedly from his father's knee. Again, the only sound to
+be heard in the room was the soft whick-whicker of the burning coal as
+the flames licked the chimney breast, or the occasional rustle of
+falling ash. Suddenly footsteps pounded up on the porch and the bell
+rang loudly. John opened the door, and Silvey came panting into the
+hallway with skates in one eager hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on over to the lagoon with me," he shouted breathlessly. John
+looked at his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"How about your supper?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Hadn't he eaten enough candy for
+a dozen suppers? "Please let me go, Mother," he concluded. "Please. It's
+Christmas!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no resisting such a plea. He flew upstairs to resurrect his
+last year's skates from the attic, and was back in a moment for his
+mittens and stocking cap. The door slammed as the two dogtrotted it down
+the street. At the corner, John slackened speed.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure there's skating, Bill?" he asked. Never, so far back as he
+could remember, had the ice been in condition for the sport by December.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey nodded emphatically. "Saw six fellows go by the house with skates
+on their shoulders. So I asked 'em."</p>
+
+<p>They left the park gravel path, now flanked on either side by leafless
+shrubbery, and struck out over the hard macadam of the road. As they
+reached the board walk leading to the warming house on the boat landing,
+John strained his eyes eagerly ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"There is, oh, there is," he cried as the long tile roof by the boat
+house came in sight. "I can see 'em."</p>
+
+<p>They spurted and pulled up at the skating house doors. A moment later
+they were in the crowded, brightly lighted interior. Directly beneath
+the apex of the roof, ran a lunch counter which divided the place into a
+section for men, and another for women, escorted or not, as the case
+might be. Long, wooden benches ran along each wall, all filled with a
+constantly shifting occupancy. John seized the first available seat and
+drew on his skates. A stamping on the hacked, wooden floor to make sure
+that the steel runners were locked firmly, a wobbly interval as he
+stepped out and sought control of his ankles, a momentary pause on the
+steps, and he was out on the ice, with Silvey following. They executed a
+few maneuvers and sat down on the boat landing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ice is great," said Bill, as he tightened a skate strap. "Doesn't it
+feel funny, though?"</p>
+
+<p>John nodded and stood up again. "Beat you around the island," he
+challenged.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than they were off. Silvey's new skates cut the ice
+cleanly at every stroke, while his chum's duller pair skidded and slid
+now and then as he gained headway. Along the narrowing, west pond, past
+helpless beginners whose efforts not to appear ridiculous made them
+doubly so, past staid business men, past arm-linked couples from the
+university dormitories, and out on the thirty-foot path of scraped ice
+which encircled the island. There Silvey slowed up.</p>
+
+<p>"Getting bumpy," he cautioned. "Watch out!"</p>
+
+<p>The warning came too late. John's skate sank to his shoe sole in a crack
+and sent him sprawling. He stood up shakily and rubbed a bruised knee.</p>
+
+<p>"First fall, first fall," yelled Bill as he turned back. "Hurt much?"</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head and started off again bravely. They got into the
+swing of it as they swept under the second island bridge and out on the
+last lap of the course. Faster and faster their legs flew over the ice
+as they dodged cracks with more certainty. Skater after skater was left
+behind, often by a hair's-breadth margin of safety which evoked
+half-heard protests as they skimmed on.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost there," shouted Bill as he increased his efforts to the utmost.</p>
+
+<p>"Tie," yelled John as he shot over and grabbed an arch of the northern
+bridge to stop his momentum. "Look at the crowd. What's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>They skated slowly over and around until they found a thin space in the
+human circle which allowed them a view of proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy skaters," whispered Bill. "Look at him write his name on the
+ice."</p>
+
+<p>"And the medals on his sweater. Gee, don't you wish you were him?"</p>
+
+<p>A voice broke in on them.</p>
+
+<p>"Scatter there, scatter." The policeman forced his way to the center.
+"You're blocking the way to the skating house. Keep moving!"</p>
+
+<p>In obedience to the majesty of the law, the boys skated off and found a
+secluded, smooth bit of ice nearer shore. There, John tried to cut a
+shaky "J" on the ice and fell over backwards. Shortly afterward, Silvey
+met with a similar fate, and the boys looked at each other despondently.
+Both pairs of ankles were aching badly from the unaccustomed exercise,
+but neither wanted to admit it. Silvey loosened one of his skate straps.</p>
+
+<p>"Got your watch, John?"</p>
+
+<p>It showed a quarter past nine. "Our mothers'll be waiting for us," he
+said. Thus a way to honorable retreat was found.</p>
+
+<p>They stamped stiffly back to the warming house and took off their
+skates. John held his numbed fingers as near to the glowing coal stove
+in the center of the room as he dared, while Bill studied the
+age-stained menu over the lunch counter.</p>
+
+<p>"My treat," he said, as he drew a bright half-dollar from his pocket.
+"What'll you have?"</p>
+
+<p>John ordered his favorite, mince pie; his host, a cut of half-baked
+apple. They washed the food down with a glass of cider apiece, and
+stumbled out on the board walk toward home.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel's funny, walking after you've had skates on," John commented as
+they trudged along the dark path. Silvey spoke up, "Say, John."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know Sid DuPree?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's trying to cut you out with Louise. Saw her in the corner
+drug store with him, drinking ice cream sodas."</p>
+
+<p>John's foot caught in a piece of loosened turf at the edge of the gravel
+walk. Otherwise, he gave no sign that he had heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't mad because I told you, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>His paper route had kept him too busy to give the attention due her, but
+if Louise were inclined to succumb to the blandishments of ten-cent
+sodas at a drug store, he was glad to know it. Such incidents might
+result in disaster for the great plan if allowed to run unhindered.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel's like a thaw," said Bill, trying to rouse his chum from the
+revery into which his announcement had plunged him.</p>
+
+<p>Again John nodded. Indeed there was a curious softness in the air.
+Perhaps the promise of a long skating season was to prove false after
+all. But he must see Louise, the very moment of her return. Then Sid had
+better watch out.</p>
+
+<p>He was at his front steps before he realized it.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," called Silvey, as he turned for home.</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," replied John a trifle wearily. And with the same feeling
+of morose taciturnity, a strange mood on this of all nights, he
+undressed and crept into bed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE DOES NOT RUN SMOOTHLY</h3>
+
+
+<p>But the softness in the Christmas air did not presage a thaw. When Mrs.
+Fletcher closed the windows in her son's room the following morning, and
+laid her hand on his motionless shoulder, she awakened him with a
+greeting of, "Come, son, look out and see what's happened."</p>
+
+<p>Snow! A veil of fine, driving flakes scurried groundward with each gust
+of wind from the lake and half hid the passenger-laden suburban trains,
+and the ramshackle dairy buildings across the tracks. Already the
+cinder-laden railroad embankment was covered with a white mantle, too
+new as yet to be anything but spotless, which in places had drifted
+across the rows of rails. Along the street, each smoke-tinged roof and
+window ledge had a share of the rapidly deepening coverlet which sped
+from the leaden clouds to mask the gray, unlovely earth.</p>
+
+<p>John drew on his knickerbockers hurriedly. No time for a peep at one of
+his new books now. Not only was the snow a thing of beauty, but it
+offered certain revenue if he and Bill appeared with their shovels
+before competition became too keen. So he appeared in the dining-room
+with surprising promptness.</p>
+
+<p>"Sick, John?" asked his mother with gentle sarcasm, as he sat down to
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head as he gulped down spoonful after spoonful of the
+steaming oatmeal. Now and then he glanced out of the window at the walks
+and porches of the street. They were still untouched, but there was need
+of haste.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind the potatoes, Mother," he said, as he hurried to the coat
+closet for his wraps. "I'm going shovelling."</p>
+
+<p>He ran down into the basement and was out and down the street with the
+wooden shovel over his shoulder before Mrs. Fletcher realized that he
+had escaped. She hailed him back.</p>
+
+<p>"How about our walk, son?" she asked, as she stood in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head in protest. "I don't get paid for that. Bill and I'll
+do it when we get through."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much!" There was decision in his mother's tones. "That means it
+won't be cleaned before noon."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw-w-w, Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>The door closed and put a stop to further parleying. He stood by the
+lamppost, undecided as to which course to pursue. Should he walk boldly
+off and take the consequences, or was discretion the better part of
+valor after all? Still, when a fellow's mother wanted something done, it
+was useless to try to evade the task, and he was just beginning to
+realize it.</p>
+
+<p>He set to work. Before long the cheerful scraping of the wooden shovel
+against the pavement restored his good humor. His face became flushed,
+and he stopped a moment to pull his stocking cap back from his hot
+forehead, for the exercise was making his blood circulate rapidly. The
+long walk which led to the back door could be skipped, and the porch
+railings left snow-capped as they were, for his aim was to fulfill the
+barest letter of his orders before Mrs. Fletcher looked out of the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, he knocked the snow from his shovel, and sneaked up
+the street, slipping now and then as his feet struck concealed ice on
+the walk, and once he fell sideways into a soft drift. As he walked up
+the Silvey steps, a snowball hit him on the leg, and another sped past
+his nose. He turned to find Bill on the lawn with a snowball in one
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Surrender," came the call.</p>
+
+<p>John dropped his shovel to the floor and seized a handful of snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to fight or get snow jobs with me?" he asked, as he pounded the
+mass into an uneven sphere.</p>
+
+<p>For an answer, his chum dropped his missile and ran around to the back
+yard, to reappear with his own shovel. He pointed down the street. Two
+members of the unemployed were making the snow fly at the DuPree's with
+an earnestness which boded ill for their youthful competitors.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's try Southern Avenue," said John. "Perhaps there won't be anyone
+there."</p>
+
+<p>No sooner said than done. But as they rounded the corner, they found
+that three of the "Jeffersons" had organized an expedition of their own
+and were cleaning the walk and porch of the house nearest the corner.
+Their leader motioned to Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on back home, or we'll smash your faces in."</p>
+
+<p>John promptly stuck out his tongue. "They can't fight," he said
+scornfully, "and two of 'em are 'fraid cats. Let's try the big yellow
+house, Bill."</p>
+
+<p>With a glance back at the foe, they ran up the steps and rang the bell
+persistently until a becapped, flustered servant opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask the missis if she wants the walk cleaned?" said Silvey, who usually
+handled the negotiations for work.</p>
+
+<p>Scraps of conversation floated down to the boys from the upper regions
+whence the girl had disappeared with the message. Presently she came to
+the head of the stairs and called down to them, "How much you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Bill made a mental inventory of the appearance of the grounds as the
+boys had approached the house. "Quarter," he said promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Missis, she say 'all right,'" said the maid.</p>
+
+<p>The boys stamped out of the hallway and set to work with a will. Silvey
+began at one end of the broad veranda floor, while John made the snow
+fly from the railings and porch posts. Next came the steps, and the walk
+leading down the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>"This won't take long," said John optimistically.</p>
+
+<p>He stooped to fix a shoelace which had become untied. Silvey yielded to
+temptation and gave him a shove into the heaped snow, to have him rise
+angrily and dig the half-thawed slush from between his neck and collar.
+Then he sprang at his partner and they went sprawling again, but this
+time, Bill was the underdog. The two boys struggled for a while until
+John sat heavily on his foe's stomach, and pinioned the resistant arms
+with his knees. Then the fun began. "Going to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey looked desperately up at the handful of snow held high above his
+head.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i245" id="i245"></a>
+<img src="images/i245.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"Going to be good?"</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>"Look, here, Fletch&mdash;don't you wash my face, don't you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Going to be good?" asked John again.</p>
+
+<p>His answer was a wrench for freedom. Thud, came a soft mass down on
+Bill's nose and open mouth. He spluttered and rolled over desperately,
+trying to throw John from his vantage point. The front door creaked, and
+an alien voice called,</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, you boys? Ain't you ever going to get finished?"</p>
+
+<p>They rose sheepishly to find the servant smiling down at them from the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Missis says, 'hurry up,'" she cautioned them.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey picked up his shovel and began to make the snow fly
+industriously. Presently the fit of ardor wore off, and he stared
+thoughtfully at the long stretch of walk which still remained between
+the front porch and the back yard.</p>
+
+<p>"How much did I say we'd do this for?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Quarter," said John, as he leaned on his shovel handle.</p>
+
+<p>"Wished I'd made it thirty-five cents!"</p>
+
+<p>Foot by foot, they cleared a path well around by the side of the house.
+The milkman, the butcher, and the gas inspector had each left heavy
+footmarks which were difficult to remove and made progress slow. At the
+rear steps, a huge drift met their gaze, and Silvey stretched his aching
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"What'd we say we'd do this for?" he asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"Quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"Wished I'd said <i>half a dollar</i>. There's a walk on the other side,
+too."</p>
+
+<p>No skylarking now. Their muscles ached too much from the exercise to
+waste their energy in other channels. When the cut through the drift had
+been made, and the back porch and basement walk freed of the covering,
+Bill leaned his shovel against a clothes-line post, and surveyed the
+result of their labors malevolently.</p>
+
+<p>"Next time we do this, John," he snapped emphatically, "we'll charge a
+whole dollar!"</p>
+
+<p>But the mischief had been done. By the time they had been paid the
+well-earned quarter, not a house near them offered prospect of
+employment. And at the far end of the street, the "Jeffersons" were
+making a last reconnoissance before deserting the neighborhood for more
+fruitful fields of labor.</p>
+
+<p>"Now see what you did when you shoved me into the snow," said John
+ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you didn't have to wash my face," retorted Bill. Secretly he was
+not sorry that the work was at an end. "Get your new sled and we'll go
+hitching. Beat you over to our street."</p>
+
+<p>They dashed up the nearest private walk into a residential back yard,
+and dropped their shovels over the back fence. John wedged one foot
+between a telegraph pole and a picket, and drew himself up.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Sil."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey braced himself for the spring. A rear window in the house creaked
+open and a woman's head appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you boys doing?" called the shrill voice. They dropped over
+into the other yard, and John started to run.</p>
+
+<p>"She's in curl papers," said Bill. "She won't chase us. Let's fix her."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll call the police if you go through again," she persisted as the
+boys filled their hands with snow. John gave a few finishing pats to his
+missile.</p>
+
+<p>"How'd you like to have her for a mother?" he asked his chum, as he drew
+his arm back for the assault.</p>
+
+<p>A projectile broke against the window sash and showered snow fragments
+upon the untidy hair. A second went a serene way through the opening and
+dissolved in a blot of hissing water on the kitchen stove. The frame
+slammed to with a violence which threatened destruction to the window
+glass, and John grabbed his shovel with an exultant yell.</p>
+
+<p>"Now run like the dickens!"</p>
+
+<p>They parted at the Silveys'. John continued on a dogtrot towards home,
+and a moment later was pestering Mrs. Fletcher at her work in the
+kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's some rope, Mother?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked from the pile of napkins on the ironing board. "What do you
+want it for, son?"</p>
+
+<p>"My sled."</p>
+
+<p>She walked over to a box behind the kitchen gas range and drew out a
+three-foot length. "Will this do?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Got to be lots longer than that."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going hitching, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, John! There have been little boys killed because wagons ran over
+them when their ropes broke and they couldn't get out of the way!"</p>
+
+<p>He evaded his mother's eye and sneaked from the house. Silvey was
+waiting for him impatiently on the front walk.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the line?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't go," complained John. "She won't let me."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, come on. We'll go over to Southern Avenue and she won't know a
+thing about it. I'll get you a rope from our house."</p>
+
+<p>His feeble scruples vanished. A five-minute stop at the Silveys sufficed
+to make the necessary alterations in John's equipment. Bill brought out
+his own sled, and they started for the corner. In front of the grocery
+store, they found Pete, the wagon boy, placing the last of the noon
+orders in his cart.</p>
+
+<p>"Give us a hitch," they begged.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded a cheery consent. "But hurry. These have got to be delivered
+in time for dinner."</p>
+
+<p>The boys ran the ropes rapidly around the rear axle and jumped on the
+sleds. A shout, a sudden jerk, and they were off, swinging around the
+corner on Southern Avenue with a momentum which shot them far to one
+side. John drew a breath of relief, for it was his first experience at
+the sport. Bill looked up from between the sled runners and grinned.</p>
+
+<p>Along they sped. The smooth steel slid easily now over the closely
+packed snow in the wagon ruts, now over bumps which forced involuntary
+grunts from between their lips. As the horse increased his pace they
+tightened their grasp on the sled hand-holes.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoa," shouted Pete. The wagon stopped abruptly as he reached back into
+the body for a package, and the sleds shot under the wagon almost up to
+the horse's hoofs, before the boys could find a holding place in the
+hard snow for their toes.</p>
+
+<p>John dragged his sled out, and lay back on it while he waited for Pete
+to reappear. The sun had pierced the heavy clouds, and dazzled the eyes
+of the neighborhood with glistening reflections on the white, unsullied
+lawns and doorsteps. On the more exposed portions of the closely packed
+house roofs, the melting snow formed long, dagger-like icicles which
+hung from the eaves, or clustered thickly around drain pipes and
+gutters. The heel-packed lumps which had defied the efforts of the
+wooden shovels to remove them from the cement walks showed dark,
+water-marked edges under the influence of the warming rays. Near him in
+the street, a flock of hungry sparrows fought boldly over a bit of
+vegetable which had fallen from a passing fruit vender's cart, and in
+the clear, dancing air was a touch of elixir which set his pulses to
+throbbing.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, although Silvey had asked no question, "it's just
+peachy."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it?" acquiesced Bill. "And your mother's afraid you'll get hurt,
+doing it."</p>
+
+<p>The smile vanished. What if Mrs. Fletcher should find out! The joys of
+the sport, sweeter through their illegality, were not sufficient to
+prevent a sinking sensation in his stomach at the thought of such a
+catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>There came a scurry of footsteps on the walk close by him, another
+caution from Pete and his sled rope tightened again. They drove from one
+street to another, working ever westward until the gray-stone,
+red-roofed buildings of the university were behind them. When but a
+package of steak, bread, or a similar trifle was to be delivered, John
+or Bill dashed around to the back porch or through a basement flat
+areaway, while the driver sat and smoked in state on his seat. Thus the
+arrangement was of mutual benefit to the parties concerned.</p>
+
+<p>At last they halted before a dingy, eight-flat apartment building. Pete
+carried the last, and heaviest, consignment of edibles in to its owner
+and returned, a moment later, to stand on the curbing with a kindly
+smile on his heavy-featured face.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, boys," he said, as he drew his cap down over his ears and forehead
+until the peak nearly met his black, bushy brows, "hang on tight, and
+I'll give you a real ride back."</p>
+
+<p>A flick at the ribs of the fat, easy-going horse, and the two sleds were
+flying homeward. The depressions and hoof marks in the snow flew between
+the runners at a speed which dizzied their owners. Bits of ice,
+dislodged by the horse's hoofs, flew up and struck the boys' faces
+stinging blows. Past the university buildings, past the school which now
+stood empty and deserted because of the Christmas holidays, past
+impatient pedestrians on the street corners, and over to Southern Avenue
+where Pete turned in abruptly to the alley entrance of the grocery
+store. Silvey screamed a warning as his sled, running straight ahead,
+felt the tug of the tow rope, and skidded in a wide circle over the
+rough, uneven snow. John tried to save himself from a similar fate, but
+he had delayed too long. Straight for a huge snow bank, the two sleds
+headed, struck the curbing, and capsized with their owners underneath.</p>
+
+<p>John rose shakily with an uncertain smile on his lips. His chum dug some
+snow from his ears and ran forward to unhitch the sleds. The grocer's
+clock showed a quarter after twelve, so they started for the home
+street. As they parted, John held up a detaining hand.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i253.jpg"><img src="images/i253.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"That quarter," he explained. "Come on back to the drug store and get it
+changed. I want to put my share in the pig bank."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey drew off one moist mitten, and fumbled in his trouser's pockets
+with a perplexed frown. Neither was it in his coat, nor in his blouse.
+Where had it been left?</p>
+
+<p>"S'pose we lost it when we took that spill?"</p>
+
+<p>There was another fruitless search before the boys went back to the
+grocery corner. There, they raked the snow bank over and over, levelled
+and reheaped it, and levelled it again before their ardor cooled. At
+last they were convinced that the coin was hopelessly lost. John turned
+away moodily.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," he said. "I'll be getting scolded if I don't get home for
+dinner." It was hard to lose the proceeds of a morning's work in such a
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher was waiting for him when he came into the hallway,
+stamping his feet lustily to free them from the last lingering traces of
+snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the brush, Mother?" he asked, as he shook his coat. She brought
+him the implement and watched him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I forbid you to go hitching, this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" he asked na&iuml;vely, taken aback at the sudden accusation.
+Mothers had the most mysterious ways of discovering things.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled in spite of herself. "I asked the little Mosher boy where you
+were and he said he'd seen you riding off behind Anderson's grocery
+wagon. What do you think I ought to do to such a disobedient little
+boy?"</p>
+
+<p>He didn't know. But he wished that he might lay hands on that kid
+brother of Skinny's. He'd teach him a thing or two about holding his
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"You're getting too big to spank," she commented as he stood silently
+before her. He nodded a cheerful assent to this.</p>
+
+<p>"So I think you'd better stay in the house this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"A-w-w-w, Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>She went into the dining-room where the table had been set for the
+noonday meal for two, and heaped his plate with potatoes and gravy,
+while he stood looking miserably out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>The sun's rays were melting the surface of the snow and turning it a
+dirty gray. Up the street, Perry Alford was winging snowballs at a
+black, leafless trunk opposite his house. That meant good packing, and
+snow fights, snow men, and a baker's dozen of other exciting amusements.</p>
+
+<p>To be gated on such an afternoon!</p>
+
+<p>"Come, son!" said Mrs. Fletcher, as he turned away with quivering lip,
+and drew his chair to the table. "Be a man. Mother's right about it,
+isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>He admitted that her sentence was but justice, and attacked the dinner
+with an appetite which no sorrow could diminish. Then he tramped slowly
+up to his room and threw himself down on his bed with a book to while
+away the weary stretch of afternoon confronting him.</p>
+
+<p>Straightway the centuries rolled back, and the present day sorrows were
+forgotten. The times of the good king Alfred held sway as he followed
+the exploits of the hero against his Danish enemies with breathless
+interest. Again and again did the young earldorman's well-drilled band
+sally forth from its stronghold to attack larger bodies of the foe, and
+again and again did the boy on the bed wish that he was living in those
+soul-stirring times. Then came the building of the <i>Dragon</i>, for war
+must be waged on the sea as well as by land, and a call of, "Oh,
+John-e-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e-e!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood up regretfully. One of his legs was cramped from lying
+motionless so long, and he limped into the front room. Silvey was below
+on the water-streaked walk.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't. She found out about my hitching this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw-w-w, come on. The fellows are building a snow fort in the big lot,
+and pretty soon, we're going to have a big fight." He reached down,
+scooped up a handful of the moist snow, and patted it easily into a
+small, hard ball. "Look, packing's fine. Go down and tease her!"</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head. Mother was inexorable on such occasions, and never
+had there been a time on record, no matter what the weeping or wailing,
+when a gating had been lifted. So he would meet his punishment without
+further ado.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey went disconsolately back towards home, and the prisoner returned
+to his room and stared from the window which overlooked the railroad
+tracks. Presently he turned away and rummaged in the bureau in the big
+south room until he found his mother's opera glasses. A moment or so of
+adjustment, and he smiled contentedly. If he could not be a participant,
+he would at least witness the battle.</p>
+
+<p>The construction of the fort was well under way. Long, erratic paths in
+the snow showed where the three big balls had been rolled which formed
+the most exposed wall. They were almost as tall as the boys, themselves,
+and even now Sid and Red Brown and Perry Alford were digging their heels
+into the slippery footing as they moved a fourth to its proper place.
+Mosher, bent almost double, was rolling a new and rapidly increasing
+sphere over the soft snow. The walls completed, the gang devoted
+themselves to filling in the crevices, smoothing the surface, and to
+testing the weak places in the fortress. A few busy minutes were spent
+in making ammunition, then Sid, his longing for leadership gratified at
+last, led his army behind the "U" shaped protection. Bill beckoned his
+followers out of range, and missiles began to fly. John laid the glasses
+down wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>Shucks! watching only made him want to join worse than ever. The book
+was better than that!</p>
+
+<p>Dusk came at last, and liberation. As he was returning from the
+newspaper route, the sight of a familiar figure, in the lighted circle
+of a street lamp, made him cross over. It was Louise.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo."</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo."</p>
+
+<p>John paused. It was a difficult thing to lead up to her faithlessness
+tactfully. She broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Those dishes were dear. But, oh, John, I liked the powder puff jar the
+best of all!" Which was the truth, for the fact that he thought her old
+enough for such feminine weapons was a soul-satisfying compliment.</p>
+
+<p>He murmured a perfunctory acknowledgment. "Louise, what's this I've been
+hearing about you and Sid drinking sodas together at the drug store?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood speechless, thinking of a defense.</p>
+
+<p>"It's got to quit. Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't I have sodas with him?" his lady broke out vindictively.
+"You never take me anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>Didn't she understand that all of his playtime was taken up with earning
+money for her? "But we can go skating tonight," he concluded
+pacifically.</p>
+
+<p>"That isn't spending money on me. And Sid does, lots and lots of times."</p>
+
+<p>The words hurt. He'd show her that two could play at that game, even if
+the funds were to be drawn from the pig bank.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," he shot back recklessly. "We'll go to the theater a
+week from Saturday. Isn't that better than sodas?" He watched her
+anxiously for she was most dear to his suddenly constant heart.</p>
+
+<p>She assented eagerly. Nevertheless, it was plain that she still thirsted
+after the drug store flesh pots. He must interview Sid in the morning,
+for that catch in her voice was far from reassuring.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>HE CRUSHES AND HUMILIATES A RIVAL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sid, with new skates glistening at his side, was bound for the park
+lagoon when John ran across the street and stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along?" asked Sid amicably. John shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to talk to you," said he. "Bill says you're trying to cut me out
+with Louise. It's got to stop."</p>
+
+<p>"What's he know about it?" asked the culprit defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And Louise told me you'd taken her up to the drug store."</p>
+
+<p>Sid shrugged his shoulders. "Guess I've a right to. What have you got to
+say about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said John slowly, "She's my girl&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sid sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"And we're going to get married on the money from the paper route when I
+grow up and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" Sid laughed unpleasantly. "Go ahead and save your money. I don't
+care. I'm spending mine&mdash;on her&mdash;and you can't stop me either."</p>
+
+<p>Money, money, money! All he was hearing these days was about spending,
+not saving it, and Sid's words, as had his lady's, riled him not a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to take her out, too," he shot back. "Won't be a cheap thing
+like sodas, either. We're going to the theater, we are, and then she'll
+promise not to speak to you any more. If she won't, I'll punch your face
+in, first time I catch you."</p>
+
+<p>"Theater!" said Sid, so impressed that the concluding threat passed
+unheeded.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to buy the tickets, this afternoon," John boasted. "Main floor
+seats at the 'Home'&mdash;<i>seventy-five cents each!</i> Don't you wish you were
+going?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid's skates slipped from his shoulder into the snow. He picked them up
+and looked at John uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll cost a lot of money, won't it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Most two dollars," magnificently.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's take her together, then. I'll pay half the carfare and the
+seats."</p>
+
+<p>John thought a moment. The plan possessed certain advantages. He would
+be able to observe how Louise acted with Sid, for one; and if he didn't
+consent, that persistent rival would take her later, anyway, which would
+be a thousand times worse. Besides, the prospect of two hard-earned
+dollars being frittered away for an evening's entertainment had been far
+from pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>"The tickets are for a week from Saturday," he said slowly. "Want me to
+get you one?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid nodded and dug into his pocket for a handful of Christmas change. He
+passed over a dollar and twelve cents to John, and left for the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>Half a dozen times as the street car bounced westward over the uneven
+track, John decided to tell Sid that, after all, the entertainment was
+for but two. He would probably spoil all the fun, anyway, and then the
+evening would be a total failure. He was still undecided when he stepped
+up to the tawdry box office with its photographs of local theatrical
+stars.</p>
+
+<p>"How many?" asked the man at the little window.</p>
+
+<p>John drew out a coin from his pocket. Heads, Sid joined them; tails, he
+should be Louise's sole escort. Heads it was. The fates had willed it;
+let the outcome be for good or ill.</p>
+
+<p>When he told of the arrangement at the family supper table, that
+evening, his parents choked.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said Mr. Fletcher, his voice still shaking with laughter,
+"that you'll sit, one on each side of the lady, and glare because she
+took the last piece of candy from the other fellow's box."</p>
+
+<p>Candy? Why, of course. The heroine of each of the novels he had read,
+was always receiving toothsome dainties and showers of roses from her
+many admirers. But he couldn't afford both methods of expressing his
+devotion, and candy alone would have to do. This taking your best girl
+to a show promised to be far more expensive than he had thought.</p>
+
+<p>Need it be said that his shoes were veritable ebony mirrors, that
+eventful evening? Or that his ears were clean, even to the very recesses
+under the lobes? And when such a thing occurs, you may be sure that
+Solomon in all his glory was arrayed no more immaculately than that
+small boy.</p>
+
+<p>He presented himself promptly at the door of the Martin flat at
+half-past seven. Louise was in her room while Mrs. Martin added the
+finishing touches to the party dress which she was wearing in honor of
+the occasion, so he shoved the two-pound box of dipped caramels, ordered
+in spite of paternal objections, into his overcoat pocket and sat down
+in the big parlor rocker to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly thereafter, Sid appeared with a tissue-wrapped bouquet of roses
+in his hand. "For Louise," he told Mrs. Martin.</p>
+
+<p>John glared at him stolidly, and regretted his choice of candy. It would
+have taken a little of that confident smile away, if his rival had found
+himself antedated by a gift of a similar nature.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later found them bouncing along over the same car
+line which John had used on the ticket quest. The conveyance was poorly
+heated, but the children were too excited to notice the cold. Louise was
+wearing two of the roses on her frock, and Sid was in high spirits
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever been out West, Louise?" he asked with a side glance at John. The
+lady shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I was, all last vacation&mdash;real ranch, real cowboys. Used to take pony
+rides every day."</p>
+
+<p>John sketched a caricature on the frosty window pane and sulked in
+silence. Why didn't his folks make enough money to take him on such
+summer jaunts? Then he wouldn't have to sit like a dummy and listen to
+his rival out-talk him with the one girl he cared anything about.</p>
+
+<p>"And walk?" continued Sid, secure in his romancing, now that he knew
+that neither of his auditors had been beyond the Mississippi. "Why, the
+air's so fine that you can walk ever so far without feeling tired.
+Breakfast at the ranch was at seven, and once, I walked twenty miles
+just to get up an appetite for it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing," John snapped moodily. "I walked thirty miles before
+breakfast, once, too. It was right here in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" gasped Sid, scarcely believing his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," assented John cheerfully. "It was in the afternoon before, but
+that didn't make any difference. It was before breakfast, wastn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Louise giggled. Sid kicked against the wicker seat cushion in front of
+him and was silent. John rubbed a clear spot on the frost-etched car
+window and peered into the outer darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Next block's ours," he grinned, still elated at the success of his
+thrust. "Come on, Louise."</p>
+
+<p>They scrambled wildly for the door. Sid was the first in the street and
+helped the lady down from the high car-step, while John drew the tickets
+from his coat pocket and led the way to the brilliantly lighted theater
+lobby. Louise's eyes glistened with excitement as the trio stopped to
+look at the posters beside the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Martha, the Milliner's Girl," Sid read slowly from the huge letters at
+the top of the bulletin board.</p>
+
+<p>"Peach of a show," John commented, as they walked past the line of
+people waiting their turn at the box office. "Six folks killed, and
+shooting and everything. I asked the man when I bought the seats."</p>
+
+<p>A uniformed usher led them impressively to their places and presented
+them with programs. John stooped over his fianc&eacute;e and helped her off
+with her coat as he leered at Sid. That gentleman leaned easily back in
+the upholstered theater chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice seats," he remarked with a touch of condescension. "A little near
+the stage [the words had been Mrs. DuPree's, once upon a time], but
+they'll do."</p>
+
+<p>"I like 'em," John snapped angrily. Louise acquiesced. Sid scowled and
+fell back upon the wild and woolly West as a means of maintaining the
+conversational upper hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Once I went hunting, last summer"&mdash;he began. John glanced at his watch.
+Ten minutes before the performance would begin; ten long, dragging
+minutes of Sid's talk about a place of which he knew nothing. Why had he
+brought his voluble rival along?&mdash;"hunting for bear," continued the
+narrator. "Lots of fun, Louise. One of the cowboys took me with him 'way
+up a mountain. We went into a big, dark forest with palms&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Palms don't grow out West," John interrupted savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they do."</p>
+
+<p>"Geogerfy says they don't."</p>
+
+<p>"This was a part the geogerfies don't know anything about," serenely.
+"Ever been out there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then keep quiet. <i>I have.</i> Well, there were the palms and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Was there to be no respite from the steady flow? John suddenly
+remembered the candy, and reached for his overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," exclaimed Louise, as the white, pink-stringed box was brought
+forth. Sid stopped, obviously disconcerted. John unwrapped the dainties
+and threw the paper on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Have some?" he asked as he lifted the cover.</p>
+
+<p>The lady's lips closed over a chocolate-covered caramel. Sid's did
+likewise. John helped himself to a third and leaned back happily. At
+last a way of silencing his adversary had been found.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i266" id="i266"></a>
+<img src="images/i266.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>Silencing his adversary.</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>Conversation was temporarily impossible, so the trio gazed eagerly
+around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a
+head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish
+mechanic, who shifted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed
+collar scraped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded
+Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully pressed black suit;
+the mother, watchful of her two mischievous, blue-eyed urchins. Young
+gallants of the neighborhood filled the boxes at either side of the
+auditorium, taking this, the most expensive, means of proving their
+devotion to their lady loves. In the rear of the theater were the first
+and second balconies, occupied by voluble men and women of all ages and
+nationalities. Ahead, hung the stage curtain, decorated with staring
+advertisements, "Lamson, the neighborhood undertaker," "Trade at the
+corner grocery. Vegetables always at the lowest market prices,"
+"Snider's drug store, prescriptions, choice candies, and camera
+supplies," and the like. From somewhere in the heights came a sharp
+"rap-rap-rap," which echoed even to the more forward rows on the main
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Gallery," explained John. "Fellow knocks on the back of one of the
+benches to make the boys behave." His jaws resumed the burden of
+reducing that persistent caramel to a swallowable state.</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra of five filed solemnly in through the little door beneath
+the stage and took their accustomed places. A dart, propelled by an
+urchin of the upper regions who evidently had no fear of the monitor's
+stick, sailed serenely downward and found a resting place in a blonde
+lock of the salesgirl's hair. The footlights flashed on, and the
+musicians struck up a lilting, popular air, as Sid cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the cowboy&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Have another?" interrupted John, extending the box of tenacious
+goodies.</p>
+
+<p>"Sh-h," whispered Louise. "There goes the curtain."</p>
+
+<p>Why Martha had selected the hapless vocation of milliner's apprentice,
+John could not understand. For it was in Madame's little millinery shop
+in New York that Mordaunt Merrilac, gentleman by appearance, and leader
+of a desperate band of counterfeiters, met and became infatuated with
+the heroine. This he revealed in a soliloquy punctuated by frequent
+tugging at his black mustache, and strode majestically to the rear of
+the long, gloomy basement in which the first act was laid. There he
+joined three overalled mechanics in shirtsleeves, who puttered gingerly
+about a table on which were mysterious vats and a brightly glowing
+electric crucible.</p>
+
+<p>"Is all in readiness?" growled Mordaunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, master."</p>
+
+<p>"Into the acid vat with the plate, then." He drew out a jewelled watch
+and studied the dial with knitted brows. "Ten long minutes before we
+know of our success."</p>
+
+<p>A muffled scream, long-drawn and filled with terror, broke in upon the
+silence which followed. Louise, Sid, and John leaned anxiously forward
+on the very edges of their seats.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" gasped the tallest of the workmen.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis nothing," sneered the villain. "Come, Ralph, draw out the die."</p>
+
+<p>The group gathered anxiously around the bit of metal. Mordaunt
+scrutinized it carefully, and strode swiftly over to an opposite corner
+of the stage where an ancient letterpress stood. Running an inked roller
+over the surface of the etching, he placed it on the bed of the press,
+revolved the wheel rapidly in one direction, reversed, and drew forth a
+slip of white paper.</p>
+
+<p>"The face of a twenty-dollar bill to perfection," he exclaimed as he
+examined the dark oblong at one end. "Men, you may go."</p>
+
+<p>Thus was the intricate process of counterfeiting depicted, and the
+audience, as audiences did in Shakespeare's time when a sign represented
+a forest or a tree or a mountain, allowed its imagination to make the
+thing seem plausible.</p>
+
+<p>Mordaunt raised his voice. "Dolores!" he called, once, twice, thrice.</p>
+
+<p>A tall, lithe creature in dark, clinging robes, with the black hair of
+all villains and villainesses, responded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, brother?" she whined from the head of the basement stairway.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring me Martha."</p>
+
+<p>The ogre had commanded, therefore the maiden was flung down the steps
+before him&mdash;slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful
+sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's throat, willy-nilly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, oh, please let me go!" she wailed. Louise's lower lip
+trembled sympathetically. Such a tender slip of a heroine to be at the
+mercy of such an unscrupulous monster!</p>
+
+<p>"Still stubborn, Martha?" Mordaunt snarled.</p>
+
+<p>The girl drew herself up proudly. Only her heaving bosom told of the
+physical struggle which had forced her into the basement den. John could
+not help marvelling at her recuperative powers.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," she murmured with flashing eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Think it over well," the black mustachioed one persisted. "Am I so
+odious? Marriage with me means riches, girl, riches. And I would be kind
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head vehemently. "Never, never, never would I marry a man
+who lives as you. Though you beat me, though you torture me [Louise's
+eyes welled in spite of herself], never can you force me into such
+wedlock."</p>
+
+<p>Hasty footsteps sounded at the head of the stairway. Ralph, the etcher,
+dashed down into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"The police!" he shrieked. "They are about to raid us!"</p>
+
+<p>Merrilac muttered a curse. "Take her away," he growled to his sister of
+the clinging robes. "Take her to your home by the secret passage." He
+pressed a button and a panel in the wall swung back. "Ralph and I must
+remain to destroy the die! Quick, on your life, be quick!"</p>
+
+<p>Would the police come in time? Nay, John and Sid and Louise, not yet.
+That would have ended the play in the first act. Dolores dragged the
+heroine away with her. Mordaunt swung the panel back into place and ran
+over to the table where the counterfeiting apparatus lay.</p>
+
+<p>"Look you to your automatics!" he shouted. "And up with the trapdoor,
+Ralph. The acid vats must be hidden."</p>
+
+<p>But the police were upon them as he spoke. Revolvers cracked. Jack
+Harkness, blonde, curly haired, and of magnificent physique, let his
+firearm drop as he clapped his hand to a suddenly nerveless right arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wounded," he bellowed, "but after them! Let not that arch villain
+escape!"</p>
+
+<p>A bluecoat sprang forward, halted, and fell flat on his face. Ralph, a
+heroic sacrifice in spite of his guilt, intercepted a bullet meant for
+Mordaunt. Then the master counterfeiter, realizing that his cause was
+hopeless, raised a hand as a token of surrender, and advanced slowly to
+receive the waiting handcuffs. As the policeman raised his hands to slip
+them on, he dashed suddenly past to the stairway, and slammed the door
+behind him. A key squeaked in its little-used lock, and the
+representatives of the law stared at each other for one dazed, dragging
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Harkness flung his muscular form against the door again and
+again until it broke from its hinges. As his subordinates dashed up the
+stairway in futile pursuit, he dallied in the bullet-marked room that he
+might walk to the center of the stage and wave his unwounded arm
+melodramatically.</p>
+
+<p>"I will rescue her," he vowed solemnly. "I will rescue my little Martha
+though the chase leads to the burning, sand-strewn deserts of Africa!"</p>
+
+<p>There was tumultuous applause and the curtain. Louise leaned back in her
+seat with shining eyes. John drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it just peachy?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid DuPree nodded. "Makes me think of the way the cowboys used to shoot
+off their revolvers on the ranch."</p>
+
+<p>"Have another candy," suggested John promptly. Again was the flow of
+reminiscences successfully checked.</p>
+
+<p>But the author of "Martha, the Milliner's Girl," was too considerate of
+the welfare of his hero to lead him on an expensive trip to Africa; for
+that worthy, as are all such stage beings, was poor and otherwise
+honest. So the second act revealed a richly furnished room in Dolores'
+apartment, not many miles away from the scene of act one. Martha threw
+herself on the luxuriously upholstered lounge in a paroxysm of sobs.
+Dolores entered, still clothed in dark, clinging robes. Entered also
+Mordaunt Merrilac, as beetling of brow as ever. Perfervid conversation
+ensued between the trio in which little Martha tearfully ordered the
+villain to release her.</p>
+
+<p>"My detention here will avail you naught, Mordaunt Merrilac," she
+quavered. "In spite of all you can do, some day, my hero, Jack Harkness,
+will find this den and rescue me!" Prolonged handclapping came from the
+more genteel portion of the audience, mingled with cheers and cat-calls
+from the gallery.</p>
+
+<p>The villain laughed sardonically. "Still you hope for rescue by him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then wait." He pressed a convenient button. Through the heavily
+curtained doorway, closely guarded by the two remaining members of the
+gang, walked Jack Harkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee!" gasped John, consternation-struck by this new development. It was
+evident that the same stupidity which had allowed Merrilac to make his
+escape in the first act, had led this singularly wooden-headed hero into
+that villain's trap.</p>
+
+<p>"So, my proud beauty," hissed Mordaunt, "you expect this man to save
+you? 'Tis futile. At twelve, tonight, we shall plunge him into the
+Hudson River, and you, Martha, shall see him die!"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Martha gave a piercing shriek, swooned, and the curtain fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Crickets!" sighed John, as a prodigious bumping behind the lowered
+curtain told of scenery that was being shifted, "I wish they'd hurry
+up." Louise nodded silently, while the box of carmels lay neglected on
+her lap; and for once during the evening, Sid could find no parallel for
+such thrilling events in the scenes of his last vacation trip.</p>
+
+<p>Almost before they realized it, the curtain rose again and revealed the
+hut on the Hudson. In one corner of the dismal interior stood Jack
+Harkness, bound, but appropriately defiant. In the other, on the floor
+lay the weak, sobbing little heap that was Martha. In the center stalked
+a triumphant Mordaunt with his two confederates.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Harkness," he hissed, "your time has come. Men, throw back the
+trapdoor." Ah, those ever-present trapdoors!</p>
+
+<p>He walked over to the opening. "The Hudson runs muddy tonight," he
+murmured, as a shudder ran through the audience, "and very cold. 'Tis
+well. Drag forth the prisoner and loose his bonds."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped to jerk Martha to her feet. The rude door at the rear sprang
+open, and the police burst in upon the scene. The two counterfeiters
+sought for an escape, and Jack, sudden strength returning to his
+immobile limbs, sprang upon the startled Mordaunt. A terrific struggle
+ensued, and a tender scene between the two lovers as the police dragged
+their three captives from the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"At last, little Martha," Harkness murmured as he looked down at her.</p>
+
+<p>"At last," she murmured, gazing shyly into his face. Then came a long,
+passionate kiss&mdash;and the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>Sid sprang to his feet and helped Louise on with her coat, but John,
+stumbling after them up the aisle and out on the crowded street, neither
+noticed nor cared. The play triangle of two men and a maid seemed
+strangely analogous to his own love affairs. Sid was Mordaunt Merrilac,
+Louise was little Martha, and he was the heroic Jack Harkness. Neither
+counterfeiters nor police would participate, but that did not diminish
+the tenseness of the situation, nevertheless. He was roused from his
+revery by Sid's voice as they came to the street car corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a drug store, Louise. Let's go in and have a soda."</p>
+
+<p>Dreaming again, and Sid had stolen another march on him! He trailed
+sulkily in and the trio sat down in the little wire-backed chairs before
+a round, shiny table. The drug clerk came forward ceremoniously and
+stood beside them.</p>
+
+<p>"My treat," said Sid grandly. "What'll you have, Louise?"</p>
+
+<p>She wasn't certain. A feeling of dull resentment took possession of
+John. If Sid was going to act this way, he'd make it as costly an affair
+as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Chop-suey sundae," he announced, after a hasty glance at the printed
+menu.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" stammered Sid. Such a delicacy cost a whole quarter, the most
+expensive treat that the soda fountain purveyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said John calmly. "Better take one, too, Louise," he added
+maliciously. "They taste just peachy."</p>
+
+<p>She accepted his suggestion gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a glass of water," ordered Sid weakly. It is an awful thing to
+possess soda liabilities of fifty cents when you have but three dimes
+and two nickels in your pocket.</p>
+
+<p>John sensed his rival's predicament and smiled. Slowly, with manifest
+enjoyment in every mouthful, he devoured the tempting, frozen treat.
+Then he leaned back in his chair contentedly and waited for Louise to
+finish. The white-coated soda clerk approached the table for payment,
+and the terror which crept into Sid's face was strangely like that on
+Mordaunt's when the police had broken into the river hut. He drew out
+his inadequate supply of small change and looked at it blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, boys," prompted the man of syrups and sodawater, "I can't wait
+all day."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't enough money," whispered Sid at last.</p>
+
+<p>John turned, a hint of the stage hero's mannerisms in his dramatic
+gesture. "What? Invite us for a treat and then can't pay for it? You're
+a fine one, Sid." He drew a half-dollar from his own pocket and flung it
+down on the table. "Never mind him," he turned to Louise. "I'll pay your
+car fare home!"</p>
+
+<p>And with the crushed and humiliated Sid following them miserably, he led
+the way from the drug store to the waiting car.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>HE BUYS VALENTINES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sid made one more effort to cope with Miss Martin's suddenly aggressive
+fianc&eacute;. John came upon the couple one late, crisp January afternoon, as
+he was leaving for the paper route. Louise did her best to appear
+nonchalant as he picked his way carefully across the slippery,
+wagon-rutted road, and Sid, after a longing glance toward the iron fence
+which surrounded the home lot, decided to brazen matters out.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nother chop-suey sundae?" John sneered as he eyed his rival
+scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't fair, always talking about that," blurted Sid. "How'd I know
+the money I'd need when I left home?"</p>
+
+<p>John deemed the excuse unworthy of notice, and turned to Louise.</p>
+
+<p>"What's he want this time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go skating with him," she replied after a moment's hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Then ask you to have a treat in the warming house, and let you pay for
+it 'cause he didn't bring enough money. I'll teach you to skate&mdash;tonight
+if your mother'll let you. Silvey said the ice was fine yesterday, and
+everything'll be peachy. Want to come?"</p>
+
+<p>What maiden wouldn't? John glanced at his watch. The paper wagon was due
+in five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to run," he said hastily. "See you tonight!" He left on the
+dogtrot for the corner.</p>
+
+<p>His school books eyed him reproachfully as he hunted for his skate
+straps after supper. An arithmetic test impended, and he had a
+composition to write. Nevertheless, he disregarded both tasks serenely
+and called for his lady. With her skates swinging with his over one
+shoulder, they started for the park.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever been skating before?" he asked casually as he took hold of her arm
+that she might pass a slippery bit of walk in safety.</p>
+
+<p>Louise shook her head. "Once a mud puddle froze in front of the house
+where I used to live, and I got a broom and tried. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>Then, for an instant, John regretted the invitation. To teach an
+absolute novice, no matter what the age, to skate with a passable degree
+of security is no light task. But his hesitation vanished, ten minutes
+later, when he fastened her skates on and helped her through the doorway
+of the warming house. It is no unpleasant thing for a small boy's best
+girl to cling to his arm as did his when they walked, oh so cautiously,
+down the skate-chopped steps from the boat landing.</p>
+
+<p>As they stepped out on the slippery ice, Louise made a last, despairing
+grab for the step rail.</p>
+
+<p>"You go on and skate, Johnny," she pleaded. "I'll just stay here for a
+while."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i279" id="i279"></a>
+<img src="images/i279.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"Shooting the duck."</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Nothing loath, he sped off in and out among the swiftly moving, ever
+changing throng of people. In a moment he shot back to a less crowded
+space near her, where he "shot the duck," balanced himself first on one
+foot and then on the other, and finally came to an abrupt halt, leaving
+a trail of ice shavings in his wake.</p>
+
+<p>"My!" said Louise as he stood beside her, panting a little. "I wish I
+could do those things."</p>
+
+<p>He beamed. "They're easy. Hang on to my arm and I'll show you. Now, step
+out with me. One-two, one-two, one-two."</p>
+
+<p>Her ankles bent over until they touched the ice, and her breath came in
+quick, nervous gasps. Nevertheless, she followed bravely over a scant
+ten feet of the rink.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that easy?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded with an assurance which she was far from feeling. "My skate
+strap hurts. The right one. Loosen it, John."</p>
+
+<p>He knelt to make the necessary alteration. As he stood up, one of his
+lady's feet started off on an unauthorized expedition, and she grabbed
+him by the arm with a fervency which nearly proved disastrous.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't start again just yet," she begged. "I'm tired."</p>
+
+<p>As they stood there, a pounding, scurrying figure in black, Red Brown,
+sped past at top speed. Silvey followed closely, noted the situation,
+and slowed up.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave her in the skating house and come on," he called. "Red's got it
+and we're having heaps of fun."</p>
+
+<p>Skinny Mosher and Perry Alford came, both in pursuit of the fleet-footed
+Brown. Sid DuPree, puffing audibly, stopped just out of reach, glad of
+any pretext to halt long enough to catch his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see her skate," he sneered, knowing that Louise dared not release
+her escort for pursuit. "You're a fine teacher, you are. Don't you wish
+you were with us?"</p>
+
+<p>John's eyes followed him longingly as he skated off. The temptation of
+Silvey's invitation was great, and with any other maiden, would have
+proved fatal. But the lure of the rosy dream for the future was still
+strong. He freed himself gently from her grasp, and was two yards away
+before she realized what he had done.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said with satisfaction. "I knew you could stand up. Now,
+skate to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw-w-w, Johnny, come on back. I'm going to fall!"</p>
+
+<p>"No you're not," said John decisively. "Try and you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>Louise essayed one ineffectual stroke and stood helpless. "I t-think
+you're just horrid," she whimpered.</p>
+
+<p>He grew a trifle impatient. "You'll never learn that way." Why were
+girls always so afraid to try things, anyway?</p>
+
+<p>She made another halting attempt, reached forward to catch him, and felt
+herself slipping, then straightened up, leaned too far backwards, and
+her feet shot suddenly out from under her. Pupil and teacher crashed to
+the ice. John was the first to recover himself, although the unexpected
+fall had been a severe one. He stooped over his lady in spite of
+strangely shaky knees, and found her sobbing, partly from nervous shock
+and partly from mortification.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurt, Louise?" She sat up angrily and dug her mittened hands into her
+eyes. He caught a murmur of "Horrid old thing!" and she began to sob.
+The boy knelt and removed her skates gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he suggested wisely. "We'll go into the warming house and have
+something to eat. Then you'll feel better. Catch hold of my hand. One,
+two, three! Up you come."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down on one of the gray, wooden benches which lined the big
+room. Louise studied the dingy sign on the post by the counter.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't mad, are you?" he asked anxiously. "I didn't do it on purpose."</p>
+
+<p>The easy tears had dried and she shook her head cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me some apple pie," she began. Thus peace was concluded.</p>
+
+<p>When she had drained the last drop of cider from the glass and dropped
+the pasteboard pie plate on the floor, John kicked it under the seat
+with his heel and leaned over to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Take some more," he urged. "I'm not Sid DuPree."</p>
+
+<p>Since the disastrous one in late December, there had been two
+exceedingly prosperous snowfalls to supplement the newspaper revenue,
+and he had plundered the pig bank for funds for the evening with a clear
+conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Again Louise eyed the placard. Coffee was for grown-ups, and strictly
+forbidden at home; therefore she would sample a cup of it. "And a
+red-hot sandwich and some more apple pie, Johnny."</p>
+
+<p>When she had finished, they started for home. Their feet were still
+unaccustomed to the difference between walking and skating and they
+stumbled now and then along the path. As they came to the road, John
+looked down at her anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a good time?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was peachy."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you glad you didn't go with Sid?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Have enough to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>She assented heavily. Strange how the taste of that forbidden coffee
+lingered in her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning as Miss Brown called the roll, John gave a quick glance
+backward along the aisle. His lady was absent. The strangely assorted
+meal had been too much for her.</p>
+
+<p>But attacks of indigestion rarely last more than a day, and this one
+proved no hindrance to the series of tri-weekly skating parties, minus
+refreshments, in which the pair participated. After two weeks of
+laborious lessons, Louise found that she was able to take a few sure
+strokes without gulping and calling for masculine aid. The first trip
+around the rough ice about the island followed, sure test of a
+beginner's prowess, and, behold! the youthful mentor found the lessons
+no longer irksome.</p>
+
+<p>As they sauntered home, skates clashing merrily at every step over the
+arc-lit snow of the park driveway, one starlit February night, Louise
+broke into a sudden delighted giggle.</p>
+
+<p>"Day after tomorrow's Lincoln's birthday. Aren't you glad?"</p>
+
+<p>Glad? Was ever a schoolboy sorry for an added day of freedom?</p>
+
+<p>"Two days after that's St. Valentine's day. We'll have a box up at
+school then. What kind of valentines do you like best?" he quizzed in
+return. "Paper hearts and things with lots of lace on them, or celluloid
+ones in boxes?"</p>
+
+<p>Louise hesitated for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I like," she said finally, "any kind of valentines, but best I like
+lots and lots of them&mdash;more'n anyone else in the room gets. Last year I
+was third, and in second grade a girl got one more valentine than I did.
+It was only a comic, but that gave her nine, and I had eight. This year
+I want to be first!"</p>
+
+<p>It was no small honor which the girl craved. To lead in the valentine
+distribution is to be acknowledged the belle of the room until the June
+examinations break up the little, pupil cliques and send their members
+to the different higher-grade rooms. John resolved that her wish should
+be fulfilled, but that achievement lay at the end of a path beset with
+pitfalls. Let rumor make the rounds that he purposed stuffing the box,
+and others would play at the same game. Witness a girl in an early
+grade, the homeliest of the room, who begged a dollar from her father
+and filled the box to overflowing with a hundred penny valentines
+addressed to herself.</p>
+
+<p>He left for his paper route half an hour earlier, that Lincoln's
+birthday afternoon, and turned abruptly westward as he reached the
+corner where the wagon drove up with his nightly bundle. He halted a
+moment in front of the school store. In the window was the usual display
+of rubber balls, penny trinkets, and magazines, and beyond them, he
+could see the deserted interior. As he had foreseen, the holiday had
+brought the usual lack of juvenile trade, and investment in the
+valentine market could be made without fear.</p>
+
+<p>He swung the door back. The trip bell rang noisily, and tall, angular
+Miss Thomas came out from the suite of little rooms in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Valentines," said he briefly. She reached a shallow box containing a
+dozen or so of the little printed love missives to the glassy-topped
+counter, where he pawed them over with one half-washed hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I want more than these!"</p>
+
+<p>The look of boredom, bred by long months of finicky penny purchasers,
+vanished. She stooped for one of the packets of fresh stock on the lower
+shelf. As he broke it open, she readjusted her heavy-rimmed spectacles,
+and watched his actions with amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Hearts of cardboard with crudely pierced edges of blue forget-me-nots,
+little square folders bearing pictures of doves, a cottage, an old mill,
+or a bit of idealistic scenery&mdash;he sorted them all. Each appropriate
+sentiment on the inner leaf, "To one I love," "To my true love," and the
+like, was read and approved before he shoved the packet away from him.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see your two-penny ones."</p>
+
+<p>Gorgeously laced, these, with cut-outs in the center to reveal
+butterflies, arrow-pierced hearts, or Dresden Shepherdesses. He selected
+three of the gaudy creations.</p>
+
+<p>"The nickel ones&mdash;in boxes."</p>
+
+<p>Thus did he aspire to brilliantly-colored celluloid for the crowning
+jewel of the St. Valentine's sacrifice. He handed the assortment to Miss
+Thomas with a sheepish grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Envelopes for them, too. How much?"</p>
+
+<p>She counted them with gaunt, practiced fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Sixteen penny ones, three two-centers, and one at five. Do you want one
+or two-cent envelopes?"</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at the assortment of paper containers. Monstrosities of hearts,
+cupids, and entwining fretwork were embossed on each, but save for the
+intricacy of design, there was little difference between them. He
+indicated his choice.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty-three cents," said Miss Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>John paid the sum without a tremor and dashed for the door. The
+selection had taken longer than he had planned and he was afraid he
+would miss the paper wagon.</p>
+
+<p>That evening was passed in addressing the envelopes at his father's
+library desk. Five of them were scrawled in a heavy backhand, with the
+aid of his mother's broad, stub pen, and five more in his normal
+handwriting. He finished the others in a variety of huge pothooks with
+blackly crossed "T's" and dotted "I's," and viewed the result of his
+labors with great satisfaction. Louise would never guess that they had
+come from the same donor.</p>
+
+<p>Their despatch to the valentine box was the next thing to trouble him.
+If he deposited so large a number of love tokens in one, or even two
+installments, it would certainly attract attention. He took Silvey into
+his confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you want Louise to know where they came from?" asked his chum
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause getting the most valentines in the room won't be half the fun if
+she knows I sent 'em all."</p>
+
+<p>"Give 'em to me," said Silvey. "I'll put half in, myself, and Red can
+take the rest."</p>
+
+<p>Promptly at two-thirty, that Fourteenth of February, Miss Brown brought
+the recitations to a close and laid her little, black record book in the
+desk drawer, then drew the big, slotted cardboard box toward her and
+smiled down at the expectant pupils.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll ask you to keep as quiet as possible," she requested. "Otherwise,
+we may disturb some of the grown-up, eighth-grade classes who are too
+old for these things."</p>
+
+<p>No need of any such caution. The children were quiet as the proverbial
+mice as they waited for the first name to be called.</p>
+
+<p>"John Fletcher."</p>
+
+<p>He stumbled to his feet in amazement. Had Louise sent him a valentine?
+As he opened the envelope, a gaudy caricature of a gentleman with
+reddened nose, paste-diamond pin, and flowered vest met his eyes.
+Underneath was a bit of doggerel elaborating certain traits ascribed to
+"The Rounder." He twisted suddenly in his seat and surprised a smile of
+exultation on Sid's face.</p>
+
+<p>Just wait until school was over. He'd fix him for that.</p>
+
+<p>"Olga," called Miss Brown with a smile, some moments later.</p>
+
+<p>Flaxen-haired Olga simpered up to receive her missive. The excited buzz
+of conversation which arose claimed John's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"That makes eight for her."</p>
+
+<p>"But Louise has nine!"</p>
+
+<p>Names of several girls who were popular only in the eyes of their
+youthful swains followed. The teacher shuffled the remaining valentines
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Four more for Olga, and three for Louise."</p>
+
+<p>John turned anxiously and encountered a look of placid satisfaction on
+Olaf's stolid face; that same Olaf who had offered to sell his symptom
+list for a fifth of the market price.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise Martin, two more."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Six</i> for Olga!"</p>
+
+<p>John leaned tensely forward. He had sent but an even twenty of the gaudy
+trinkets, and this sudden influx of rival valentines threatened
+dangerously to pass that number. More envelopes were passed out. From
+behind him, he caught the excited whisperings of two girls.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise has twenty!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Olga, twenty-one!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown stooped to turn a broad box right side up on her desk.</p>
+
+<p>"The last valentine," she concluded. "Here you are, Louise."</p>
+
+<p>Had Sid sent that? He'd smash his face in if he had. The unexpected
+addition had saved the day for his sweetheart, but that kid had no
+business butting in, anyway! Miss Brown watched the buzzing groups of
+pupils.</p>
+
+<p>"There's just fifteen minutes left before dismissal," she said
+considerately. "You may spend it in looking at each other's valentines
+if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>The pupils crowded back to his lady's seat, while he stood on a chair
+near the wall and craned his neck to see the vision of celluloid and
+pink and blue ribbon which had come in that last box. She examined the
+wrappings again, but no identifying mark could be found. As John stepped
+down, Sid DuPree tried to edge past him, and found his way blocked
+immediately. Louise looked up at her youthful fianc&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Johnny, Johnny," she smiled delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent&mdash;" began Sid from behind his shoulder. Then was John filled with
+sudden wrath. He would squelch this persistent rival once and for all.</p>
+
+<p>"You sent it?" he sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"I did," DuPree replied. Louise watched the two eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why that cost all of a quarter. And kids who asks folks to have sundaes
+and then can't pay for them, don't spend that much for valentines.
+Cheapskates never do!"</p>
+
+<p>Sid scowled. Before he could make suitable reply, Miss Brown rapped for
+order and he had to go back to his seat. There, as he squirmed in his
+seat while waiting for the dismissal bell, he caught John looking at him
+and stuck out his tongue as a manifestation of his scorn. But that
+gentleman only grinned. Wrongfully or no, he knew that the credit for
+the twenty-five cent valentine had been given to him, and he was content
+to let matters rest as they were.</p>
+
+<p>Valentine's day past, Washington's birthday was the one festive oasis
+left for the children in the desert of school days. Though the cold
+weather held marvelously well, little by little the thermometer beside
+the drug store's door showed rising-temperature levels as John stopped
+to look at it on the way to school. The long, northern shadows which the
+houses and apartments cast against the soot-grayed snow were shortening
+rapidly, and his paper route, so long patrolled in entire or
+semi-darkness, was now completed just as dusk set in.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miss Brown reached back in her desk drawer for a certain packet of
+narrow manila envelopes, that last February afternoon, and brought to a
+certain small boy who occupied the seat just in front of her desk,
+sudden realization that March was upon the class.</p>
+
+<p>"Please have them signed and returned by Monday," she told the pupils as
+she distributed them.</p>
+
+<p>John drew the white, finger-marked card from the ragged envelope, and
+his face went first white and then scarlet as his eye followed the long
+column of marks. Accusing memories of lessons half done or postponed
+with a hope that teacher wouldn't call on him, of a skating party with
+Louise when a geography map should have been outlined, and of arithmetic
+papers hurriedly done in the half-hour "B" class recitation period, to
+be returned with a heavily penciled "20" or "30" across their surfaces,
+arose to annoy him. His teacher spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"There are one or two boys and girls in the 'A' class who will have to
+do better next month," John fancied that she was looking squarely at
+him, "or they'll be sent down into the 'B' division."</p>
+
+<p>That wasn't the worst of the matter. He had to take that testimonial of
+disgrace <i>home</i> to be signed, and duly commented upon, by his mother.</p>
+
+<p>The card reposed safely in his pocket over Saturday, while he pondered
+now and then upon the least painful method of breaking the news to her.
+Sunday passed. On Monday morning, as he stood up from the breakfast
+table, he broke out,</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, son?"</p>
+
+<p>His courage vanished, and he was unable to go any further.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"N-nothing. It was a peachy breakfast." He kissed her nervously and went
+into the hall for his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot to bring it," he told Miss Brown that morning school session.
+At noon, he had the same excuse.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if it isn't here tomorrow morning, I'll send you home after it,"
+that sophisticated supervisor of juveniles replied. And with this
+uncomfortable fact ever in his mind, he set out on the afternoon journey
+with the newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>The weather seemed to have shaped itself for his mood. A curious, raw
+dampness had crept into the still air, and overhead was a level, sullen
+expanse of gray vapor. Locomotive smoke showed that the light breeze had
+shifted suddenly to the south, and there was an indefinable attitude of
+expectancy about, as if the big city with its varied expanse of
+buildings and vacant lots and snow-filled parks was waiting for
+something. As he stamped up the front porch steps and kicked the snow
+from his shoe soles, a fine, almost invisible drizzle began.</p>
+
+<p>Blame that report card, anyway. Perhaps if he presented it with the
+"hundred" spelling paper that very day, his mother wouldn't be too
+severe with him. He'd try that experiment in the morning, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>But upon waking, he stared from his window in delight at the spectacle
+which the capricious weather had formed for him. The rain had increased
+as the night passed, and had frozen upon the chilled trees and house
+roofs. The linden on the Fletcher lawn was coated with fairy lace work,
+and the denuded lilac bush across the way shone black through its glassy
+covering. The long expanse of dark, cement walk which flanked each side
+of the snowy road was coated with ice and made walking for pedestrians a
+matter of some danger. As he jerked his tie into position, Perry Alford
+shot past on his skates, and he hurried down to breakfast. He'd have a
+little of that sport before school, himself.</p>
+
+<p>But as he rose joyously from the table, he stopped short. There was that
+report card; and he knew that his plans were shattered. Mrs. Fletcher's
+remarks upon his many deficiencies would consume every minute of the
+time before school.</p>
+
+<p>"My report," he said briefly. She looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"John!"</p>
+
+<p>He gazed out of the window in a forlorn effort to appear unconcerned.</p>
+
+<p>"Reading, 'F'," quoted Mrs. Fletcher, "and last month it was 'G'."</p>
+
+<p>He drew out his watch and set the big hand forward ten minutes. If he
+used a little strategy, he could at least shorten the lecture by that
+amount of time.</p>
+
+<p>"Arithmetic, 'P'," she went on. "And geography, 'P'. And you told me you
+had all your lessons done when I gave you permission to go skating those
+evenings. I'm very much displeased with you."</p>
+
+<p>He grew desperate. When Mrs. Fletcher began to talk about being
+displeased and grieved, there was trouble ahead. He drew a much-chewed
+pencil from his coat pocket and handed it to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry and sign, Mother," he begged. "It's school time."</p>
+
+<p>She scribbled a reluctant signature at the bottom and looked at it
+thoughtfully. "I'll keep this to show to your father this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I've had it three days already," he blurted. "It's got to go back
+today."</p>
+
+<p>He snatched the card from her hand, showed his watch as she protested,
+and fled for his coat. Once at the corner, he stopped running and
+smiled. The escape had been fairly easy and with a minimum of fuss, and
+he was immeasurably light-hearted, now that the report card bugaboo was
+off his mind.</p>
+
+<p>At Southern Avenue, he caught up with Sid, Silvey, and Perry Alford.
+Bits of ice dropped from the trees to the walk as they sauntered along,
+and water dripped from the icicles on the eaves of the apartments and
+stores as the morning rise in temperature began to take effect.</p>
+
+<p>"Feel's as if it's going to thaw," said Silvey as they came to a very
+slippery stretch of walk. So the quartette slid up and down on the ice
+as long after the second assembly bell as they dared, and with the fear
+of tardiness upon them, dashed for the school yard.</p>
+
+<p>His pocket was empty, and his conscience clear, and the morning session
+passed swiftly for John. At noon, as the long lines filed into the
+school yard to freedom, he looked about him with delight.</p>
+
+<p>The winter's deposit of snow was melting into little rivulets which
+trickled merrily along wagon ruts until they came to the street drains.
+First-graders stopped to splash soggy snowballs into a huge puddle which
+had collected in the street just beyond the alley, and the
+drip-drip-drip of the water, from the trees and buildings to the wet,
+glistening sidewalks was as music to his ears. He broke into a run
+toward home from pure exuberance of feelings, and halted now and then to
+fill his lungs with the sunlit, pregnant air which the south wind had
+brought.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of the continuation of the "penny lecture" which was waiting
+failed to dampen his spirits, even though it threatened curtailment of
+his evenings with Louise. For if the skating parties were over, spring
+with its marbles, tops, and kindred delights had arrived and all sorrow
+fled before it.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SPRING BRINGS BASEBALL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Little by little the snow disappeared. During the first days of the
+thaw, lethargic city employees chopped paths through the melting ice to
+the street drains. Bare edges of the cement walks appeared in places,
+and at night the puddles and pools in the street hollows bore a thin,
+frozen covering. As the month passed, the crystals became more and more
+rare, and green areas of grass appeared on the more exposed portions of
+the neighborhood lawns. The children turned from their sport of sailing
+sticks and improvised boats down the trickling, artificial brooklets to
+take part in games of "Run, sheep, run" and "Hide-and-seek" over the
+rapidly softening turf. A pelting, refreshing rain from the south drove
+away the last soot-stained vestiges of the snow lying in the protecting
+shadows between the houses, and presto, Miss Thomas' little store
+displayed a window stock of agates, catseyes, and common clay marbles to
+tempt pennies from boyish pockets.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after school, during recess, and for long minutes before the
+afternoon session, the alley which flanked the school yard was marked
+with rings of varying dimensions. The air resounded with cries of, "No
+hudgins," "H'ist," "Your shot," or "You dribbled," as the players
+contested for prizes of five- and six-for-a-cent clay marbles.
+Occasionally two of the big eighth-grade boys would draw a six-foot
+circle in the earth and play for "K'nicks, dime ones," and the game
+would bring a crowd, three deep, from the neighboring players to applaud
+or gasp at each shot.</p>
+
+<p>Even John, man of business that he was, could not resist the temptation.
+The last traces of that autumnal scorn toward "such foolishness"
+vanished as he became the owner of two shooters and a pocketful of the
+more common marbles.</p>
+
+<p>The clan spirit among the different boyish cliques at school revived
+again. Skinny Mosher, who had hugged the warm house during the coldest
+days of the winter, caught suddenly up with John and Silvey as they
+frolicked home for dinner, and brought the news that a "Jefferson Tough"
+had threatened to punch his face in, with no provocation whatsoever. The
+long-discussed secret code took a new lease on life, and cipher messages
+passed to the various corners of room ten with a frequency which drove
+Miss Brown nearly to distraction.</p>
+
+<p>That early April afternoon saw the reunion of the "Tigers" in the Silvey
+back yard. They viewed the dilapidated, weather-beaten club house with
+reawakened interest. Quoth John,</p>
+
+<p>"It's awful dirty where the snow worked in through the fence. Let's fix
+her up." Down into the basement went Bill at the words, and reappeared
+with an old broom, a hammer, and some nails.</p>
+
+<p>"A lot of the boards are loose," he said, as the boys grabbed the
+implements.</p>
+
+<p>Sid stood around and offered voluble suggestions, but the others fell to
+work with a will. At the end of a half-hour the dirt floor was brushed
+free of debris with a thoroughness never attained on maternal cleaning
+assignments, and the little desk was dragged from its winter shelter of
+the house to occupy the customary position of state.</p>
+
+<p>Red Brown stretched out on the springy, alluring sod near the building.
+John and Sid, Skinny and Silvey, followed his example.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this great?" the red-haired one asked blissfully. Sid reverted to
+the cause for the summons of the clan.</p>
+
+<p>"How about the 'Jeffersons'?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Babel reigned instantly. Silvey was for picking them off, one by one.
+Red counseled a sudden descent in force upon the home haunts of the
+enemy. A rear window in the Silvey house creaked upward, and a feminine
+voice pierced the sun-filled air.</p>
+
+<p>"Land's sakes, Bill Silvey, get off that wet ground this minute. You'll
+catch your death of cold lying there this early in April."</p>
+
+<p>The boy sprang to his feet, while his friends grinned sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, John Fletcher," Mrs. Silvey went on, "you needn't laugh. Your
+mother won't like it a bit better, if I telephone her. She'll call you
+home in a minute!"</p>
+
+<p>They all rose at this. Truly, modern electrical inventions widen the
+maternal scope of authority.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks!" said Skinny, as he brushed some dead grass from his coat. "Now
+she's spoiled it all. What'll we do?"</p>
+
+<p>John tossed his battered cap high in the air in a sudden access of
+spirits. "One for scrub," he shouted. "First raps for the first game of
+scrub. Go home and get your league ball and bat, Sid. I'll bring my
+first baseman's glove. Silvey'll find his catcher's mitt. Beat you home!
+Beat you home!"</p>
+
+<p>They were off. Down the cement sidewalk they darted, their quick breaths
+showing ever so slightly in the crisp air. John stamped up the steps and
+into the front hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!" he called. "Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, son?" came the voice from the big second floor sewing room.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's my baseball glove?" He kicked against the bottom step of the
+stairway impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you wipe your feet when you came in?" came the disconcerting
+inquiry. "I don't want the carpets all over mud."</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Go back and wipe them right away. Then come up and tell me what you
+want."</p>
+
+<p>He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the
+porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the
+basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know
+where it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you leave it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother
+picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the
+one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's,
+and I've got to get it <i>quick</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet
+shelf, the other day."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The
+door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son
+dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad
+property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your bases," he called as he heaved the objects into the yard
+with a recklessness which threatened destruction to the turf. "Johnny
+was first at bat, wasn't he?"</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i302b.jpg"><img src="images/i302b.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>They took their positions in the order of the numbers which they had
+called earlier. Silvey stood behind the home plate, Sid DuPree was in
+the pitcher's box, Red played first base, and Skinny Mosher stood near
+the fence to cover the outfield, second, and third as best he could. Sid
+ground the ball into the heel of his heavily padded mitt, as he had seen
+professional pitchers do, bent forward, and threw the ball over Silvey's
+head against the back wall of the house. "Ya-ah," taunted John as the
+catcher scrambled for the ball. "'Fraid to put 'em near me. 'Fraid to
+put 'em near me."</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/i302a.jpg"><img src="images/i302a.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Again a window creaked, and again a maternal voice showed that attention
+had been drawn to the "Tigers" latest recreation.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>are</i> you boys trying to do?" fretfully. "Don't you know this
+house has windows in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go easy," cautioned Bill in an undertone. "Remember, Sid, you haven't
+thrown a ball since last summer. I don't want any 'penny lectures'
+'cause you smashed some glass."</p>
+
+<p>Sid drew his arm back for the second time. John leaned forward, caught
+the slowly moving ball with the full force of the bat, and tore for
+first base.</p>
+
+<p>"Over the fence is out, over the fence is out," came the chorus.
+"Silvey's turn next."</p>
+
+<p>The ex-batsman took up the position near the fence in disgust. Skinny
+moved forward to the pitcher's box, and Sid replaced Bill as catcher.
+The muscles of Skinny's long, thin arms tightened as he grasped the ball
+for his first pitch of the season.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the subdued afternoon babel of the city was dwarfed by a
+humming of factory whistles, some long drawn and of deep bass, others
+quicker and higher pitched, rising and dying away in succession as they
+were supplanted by the distance-mellowed notes of other establishments
+with lagging time clocks. Dismay robbed John's face of the grin of a
+moment before.</p>
+
+<p>"Five o'clock," he cried as he threw the baseball glove into the
+quickening grass. "Jiminy, kids, and the paper wagon comes at ten of!"</p>
+
+<p>Inquiry at the little dingy-windowed delicatessen and milk depot
+confirmed his fears. The cart had arrived on time, and his customers
+would expect their news sheets that evening.</p>
+
+<p>What a pest the business was growing to be. It wasn't half-bad in winter
+when the afternoons were short, but now that spring had arrived, there
+were so many delightful demands on a boy's time. He counted the coins in
+his pocket, and made a mental calculation of the number of papers
+actually needed.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me all you've got," he demanded of the astonished delicatessen
+proprietor. That thin-haired, shaky-fingered gentleman counted the
+papers on the black news stand.</p>
+
+<p>"There's one for ol' Miss Anderson, an' one for&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind them," John broke in excitedly. "Give me all your papers!
+You've got to!"</p>
+
+<p>At that, the number was pitifully inadequate for his demands. He
+retraced his steps to the corner and hurried over to the suburban
+railroad station. There, the leader of the "Jefferson Toughs" was trying
+to dispose of the last of his wares.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have 'em all," said John. His rival gazed at him in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Quit your kiddin'," he ejaculated finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Honest 'n truth," John assured him. "Missed the paper wagon, and I've
+got to fix my customers, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>Next, he ran westward to the little school store to beg Miss Thomas to
+disappoint her steady patrons for just this once. The search led him far
+beyond the university buildings and the gray-stone flat which had marked
+the limits of their hitching trip in February, down to the business
+street with its rattling surface cars which lay a full mile west of
+John's home. He returned by a side street, four blocks to the north,
+stopping at the numerous little stationery and notion shops on the way.
+Even with that, certain staid and substantial customers were horrified
+to find that the yellowest of yellow newspapers had supplanted their
+conservative favorite, that evening.</p>
+
+<p>He came home tired and footsore, and went wearily to bed after a
+half-eaten supper. The business which he had built up so zestfully in
+the autumn had enfettered him, and was shaping his leisure moments like
+an inexorable machine, and the realization of it gave him moodily
+thoughtful moments during the remainder of the week.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, blessedly work free, was warm and sun-shiny. As soon as he had
+eaten dinner, he grabbed his battered cap from the hall chair and
+started for the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Going for a walk," he explained to Mrs. Fletcher as she looked up from
+the Sunday paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise going with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much! Silvey'n me are going on a real walk. We don't want to feed
+squirrels on an afternoon like this."</p>
+
+<p>It was as if the entire city's population had turned out to welcome the
+arrival of spring. The street leading from the car terminal was thronged
+with a constantly moving procession bound for the park. White-faced
+stenographers and anaemic clerks came from the dingy boarding-house
+districts to the north. Stockily built mechanics swaggered along with
+their simpering, gaudily dressed lady loves. Here and there were entire
+families of substantial Germans and Swedes, and occasionally, swarthy
+Italians and beady-eyed, voluble Jews. Sooner or later, they all lost
+themselves in the winding gravel paths of the park, or made their way to
+the broad walk along the lake front, where the air was filled with their
+polyglot babel.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it peachy?" asked John as the boys passed the long, parallel rows
+of poplars which marked the edge of the park. "Come on, Bill. Let's go
+to the island."</p>
+
+<p>The path led them by the boat landing. All traces of the warming house
+which had sheltered so many numbed skaters during the winter had been
+removed. In its stead, were piled rows upon rows of yellow,
+flat-bottomed boats, one on top of another, with boards separating them.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" John pointed them out. "That means summer's coming soon, and
+fishing, and school vacation." On the island, they found two severely
+dressed, angular students from the university who stood beneath a small
+brown bird in the branch of a budding maple. As he sunned himself
+happily, the taller of the two consulted a book which she held in one
+hand in a manner vaguely suggestive of Miss Brown and school
+recitations.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a little smaller than Wilson's thrush, Maria," she admitted.
+"Still&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>John chuckled; "Nothing but a sparrow." He brushed past a bench on which
+was squatted a be-shawled, unwashed, immigrant grandmother. "Come on
+down this little path, Bill. Perhaps we can find some birds if we look."</p>
+
+<p>But the season was still a little too early for the arrival of the
+robins, the yellowhammers, and the elusive kinglets and thrushes from
+the southland. Though the boys stalked in and out the winding,
+bush-beset trail, their search startled only nervous-tailed squirrels
+and dozens of the feathered gamins which had so sorely puzzled the two
+schoolmams. But the dandelions were poking their green shoots through
+the deposit of snow-packed autumn leaves, and the moss on the tree
+trunks lightened the somber gray of the bark. In one inlet of the
+lagoon, John caught a gleam in the water which was not a ripple
+reflection of the sun's rays.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunfish," he whispered to Bill.</p>
+
+<p>A bungling pair of grown-ups crashed down the path and drove the wary
+feeders to cover in deeper water. The boys waited a few futile minutes
+for their return, then dashed noisily over the wooden south bridge, past
+the golf links with its dense mass of patiently waiting enthusiasts, and
+down the gently sloping road to the stone bridge which marked the
+entrance to the yacht harbor.</p>
+
+<p>There, where the black, bobbing buoys marked the moorings of the summer
+fleet of skiffs and schooners, of noisy little open motorboats, and
+long, heavily powered gasoline cruisers, Silvey found an empty bottle on
+the graveled shore. John looked at it reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Got some paper?"</p>
+
+<p>Bill found an old spelling sheet in his pocket. John tore off the
+cleanest end and, with the curving side of the bottle for a writing
+board, scribbled a laborious note.</p>
+
+<p>"Lat 57, Long 64," he began, remembering the inevitable heading of the
+missives in sea-faring novels. "Nancy Lee sank this date, August 3,
+1872. All hands lost but me. Frank Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that for?"</p>
+
+<p>He worked the note down the narrow glass neck and plugged it with a bit
+of driftwood. "Maybe somebody, 'way across the lake, will find this," he
+explained, as he threw the receptacle far out on the water. "Then
+they'll think a ship's sunk."</p>
+
+<p>"What's 'lat' and 'long'?" asked Silvey, as they watched it bobbing up
+and down with the ripples.</p>
+
+<p>"The checkerboard lines on the geography maps," his chum answered
+evasively, as they retraced their steps northward.</p>
+
+<p>At the macadam road they hesitated. On the other side lay the smaller
+golf course, which offered excellent amusement because of its many
+enthusiastic novices at the sport, and the lure of an occasional
+shrubbery-hidden ball which might be found by keen eyes. Ahead,
+stretched the lake and the broad walk, thronged with laughing, friendly
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go the beach way," said John suddenly. Indeed, no spring jaunt
+could be complete without a stroll over the clinging, weather-beaten
+sand.</p>
+
+<p>They halted first at the long pier, and walked out to the end to catch
+the invigorating freshness of the water-kissed south wind. There, a
+persistent fisherman, the first of that season's nimrod tribe, leaned
+against the life-preserver post.</p>
+
+<p>John leaned cautiously over to see if captive perch were floating back
+and forth. Only ruffled water met his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Biting any?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The fisherman shook his head. "A mite early, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know," John encouraged. "Come on, Sil, let's sit down and
+watch. Maybe he'll catch something soon."</p>
+
+<p>So the boys dangled their feet over the edge of the pier until the
+lengthening shadows told that it was time to leave for home. They rose
+regretfully and resumed the saunter along the broad walk with its many,
+occupied benches. Down on the sand, children hazarded spring colds as
+they fashioned hills and castles by the lake. Further along, an ardent
+youth serenely disregarded photographic rules and pointed his kodak at a
+group of laughing girls who stood between him and the setting sun. As
+the boys left the park, they passed a group of gray-suited ball players,
+which had been using one of the park diamonds near the golf links. John
+watched them a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"Most time for our team to get together again," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey nodded. "Sid was talking about it after the game of scrub the
+other day. Wants to be captain this year."</p>
+
+<p>John laughed scornfully. As Silvey well knew, he, himself, intended to
+be re-elected to that important office. "Let's go home by the big lot
+and see what it's like," he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later they clambered over the shaky fence which separated
+the field from the sidewalk and neighboring dairy pasturage. Silvey dug
+his foot into the yielding turf, which had formed the scene of that
+football scrimmage between the "Jeffersons" and the "Tigers."</p>
+
+<p>"'Most dry enough to play on," he observed.</p>
+
+<p>John nodded. The flat, white stone which had been used for a home plate
+during the summer had been removed as a hindrance to the gridiron sport,
+and the base lines which had been worn into the turf by frequent boyish
+footsteps, were almost obliterated by the winter's debris and the rank,
+quickening grass. Not an inspiring view by any means, yet John gazed
+upon it in dreamy satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's make 'er a <i>real</i> home grounds," he said suddenly. "Soon as it
+gets drier, we'll bring our rakes over and get this stuff out of the
+way;" he kicked a rusty tin can to one side. "Then we'll cut the grass
+and make cinder base lines, and everything'll be just peachy."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey beamed, enthralled as usual by John's fertile imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," went on John, as he retraced his steps to the walk, "we'll get
+some lumber from new flat buildings and put up a grand stand and call it
+'The Tigers' Baseball Park.'"</p>
+
+<p>They halted some minutes later in front of the Silvey house. John's
+watch told of at least a quarter of an hour before supper time, and they
+perched themselves on the top step to talk of fishing, of the May
+vacation of a week which would soon be upon them, of the leaky roof in
+the shack, and lastly of the baseball team.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe Menard's folks had to move," said Silvey, as he thought over the
+roster of last year's organization.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get a pitcher somewhere," said John, a trifle impatiently, as he
+changed the subject. "So Sid wants to be captain, does he?"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey smiled, as does an adult listening to the vagaries of a child.
+"You know him as well as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"But who'll vote for him? There's Red and Skinny and you and me and
+Perry and the Harrison kids, all don't like him. If it wasn't for that
+baseball and bat, and those gloves of his, he couldn't a' played with us
+last year."</p>
+
+<p>Silvey shrugged his shoulders. "He's going around school, saying that
+he's going to be captain of the 'Tigers' this year."</p>
+
+<p>"You're president of the club, aren't you?" said John, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>His chum nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go around and see all the fellows. Any of 'em who won't vote for
+me, you tell 'em they'll be dropped from the club. We'll have a meeting
+when everything's fixed, and Mr. Sid DuPree won't think himself so
+smart."</p>
+
+<p>Never was precinct canvassed more thoroughly by a municipal candidate
+than was the membership of the "Tigers" by the two boys during the week
+which followed. John dropped the usual walk home with Louise, one day,
+that he might talk to Skinny Mosher, and hung around the school yard
+another noon, that he might reassure himself of Brown's loyalty. With a
+clear majority of six assured over Sid's lone vote, code notices were
+sent back and forth between the different members until Miss Brown
+threatened to send the responsible parties to the principal's office.</p>
+
+<p>With victory certain, John raced across the school yard and caught up
+with a certain maiden whom he had neglected sorely of late.</p>
+
+<p>"We're going to have a ball team election tomorrow," he explained, as he
+took possession of her school books. "I've been awfully busy."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she replied absently. "Sid told me. Says he's going to be
+captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess not!" John was too pleased with the surprise prepared for his
+rival to realize the revelation in her words. "Smarty DuPree hasn't much
+show when six of the fellows are going to vote for me."</p>
+
+<p>Conversation lagged. Miss Martin was nervously alert lest she encounter
+a friendly greeting from Sid while her escort was with her, and John
+became absorbed in the affairs of the morrow. Strangely enough, he
+experienced a feeling of relief when he left her at the apartment
+building and was able to race back to the shack where Silvey was
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p>There the two planned and boasted of combats to take place under his
+leadership on the renovated baseball field, until a warning conscience
+reminded John that it was nearing paper time.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>MORE ABOUT "THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD"</h3>
+
+
+<p>One by one, the boys filed in through the Silvey gateway, to squat
+outside the club-house entrance until their roster was complete. Bill
+glanced nervously at Sid and cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"It's baseball time," he began abruptly. "And we've got to elect our
+captain and manager. Any&mdash;" he paused and looked at John.</p>
+
+<p>"Nom'nations?" said the latter promptly.</p>
+
+<p>There was an awkward silence. Sid tightened his grasp on a handful of
+the fresh, green turf. John looked meaningly at Red Brown, who spoke up
+as he had been instructed.</p>
+
+<p>"I nom'nate John Fletcher. He was captain last year 'n he ought to be
+this."</p>
+
+<p>"Any one else?" asked Silvey.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to be captain," said Sid, curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't nom'nate yourself," ruled the president. "Somebody's got to do it
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody's got to second it, too," supplemented John.</p>
+
+<p>Sid gazed helplessly about. Truly this newly made maze of parliamentary
+law was bewildering. "Nobody's seconded John's," he said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Second John's nom'nation," said Skinny Mosher promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"All those in favor of John as captain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sid sprang to his feet. "Wait a minute," he snapped. "You fellows think
+you're smart, but let me tell you something. I said I was going to be
+captain, and I am."</p>
+
+<p>"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause
+you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you
+did."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose
+league ball did the team use last year?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts
+were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go
+ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't
+run the team, the team can't use my things!"</p>
+
+<p>There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill,
+had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly
+at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably.</p>
+
+<p>"And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the shin
+with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make."</p>
+
+<p>"Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant
+ultimatum. "Which do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not
+without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being
+blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized
+balls, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation.
+John sighed wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally.</p>
+
+<p>A reluctantly assenting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the
+subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head
+emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought.</p>
+
+<p>"The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix
+the lot up."</p>
+
+<p>"But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing
+the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could
+say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the
+neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room
+for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce.</p>
+
+<p>Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the
+team's, and his, prestige.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front
+might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is
+like."</p>
+
+<p>"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a
+moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad
+fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They
+scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there
+by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy
+field.</p>
+
+<p>The broken glass and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept
+further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards
+from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the
+cucumber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the
+sparse, fresh grass blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the
+dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of
+baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers"
+purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they
+turned to their captain for advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at
+him in futile anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.</p>
+
+<p>Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain,
+but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."</p>
+
+<p>"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of
+you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come
+on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."</p>
+
+<p>John dropped his rake over the fence on his return, and glanced at his
+watch as a precaution. It was nearly five! Blame the paper business
+anyway! Never did he start some important project but what time flew so
+swiftly that he had to leave just when things were getting interesting.
+He called an explanatory "paper time!" to his team mates, turned his
+implement over to Red, and left for the little delicatessen store.</p>
+
+<p>All the next Monday afternoon the boys labored while their captain stood
+around with his hands in his pockets and watched condescendingly. John
+picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the
+lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass,
+rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been
+carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he
+beamed his approval.</p>
+
+<p>"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and Sid'll say he did it," his chum commented bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"What do we care? We'll put the home plate here," he indicated a spot
+some fifty feet north of the dairy buildings. "Then the sun won't get in
+our eyes. I'll borrow dad's big tapeline to measure off the other bases,
+and the grand stand can go here. It'll be big enough to hold 'most fifty
+people!"</p>
+
+<p>Silvey listened in amazement. He could run a football team as
+quarter-back to perfection, or break through the opposing line time and
+again, as he had done last autumn, but this fertile foresight was
+something beyond his comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>"You talk as if you see it," he said finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I do." John dismissed the matter as worthy of no further comment.
+"But before we do any of these things, we've got to cut the grass and
+see where the bumps in the ground are."</p>
+
+<p>For two afternoons the whirr of lawnmowers was heard over the "Tigers'
+Home Grounds." When the many hollows and hummocks in the uneven turf
+came to light, the youthful construction boss ordered that shovels be
+brought, and another day passed in transporting dirt and leveling the
+obstructions off. Pail after pail of water was carried from the dairy
+buildings to wet down and harden the new, loose earth, and it was
+Saturday morning before the distances between the various bases and the
+pitcher's box could be measured off.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll start filling in the paths with cinders now," said John, as
+Silvey drove a peg into the ground to mark the location of the home
+plate.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't they hurt when you slide on them?" drawled Perry Alford.</p>
+
+<p>"But there's nothing else to use, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're starting a flat building next old lady Meeker's on Southern
+Avenue," the boy suggested. "Why not get sand from there?"</p>
+
+<p>John shot him a glance of approval and called to the team members.
+"Everybody get a pail and meet at Silvey's," he concluded, as they
+started for the railroad tracks.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll sit here and watch the tools," said Sid, brazenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to work at all?" broke out Silvey impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't have to," was the unperturbed reply. "I'm the captain."</p>
+
+<p>They left their nominal leader to do as he desired and scattered to
+commandeer the various family buckets and fiber pails. Skinny, who lived
+farthest from the Silvey's, came up at last with his utensil, and they
+set off, single file, past Neighborhood Hall and the corner grocery
+stores, and around to quiet, sedate Southern Avenue, beating a crude
+marching rhythm on the tins as they went. At the sight of the ten-foot
+sandhill which the excavations for the apartments had formed, John broke
+into a run.</p>
+
+<p>"Beat you there!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Away they went after him, pell-mell, and dashed up the yielding sides to
+bury their pails deep in the golden particles. Silvey braced himself,
+tugged his load free, and staggered along the walk for perhaps thirty
+feet. John caught up with him and also halted for a rest.</p>
+
+<p>At last they started again, but it was no light-hearted, carefree,
+return trip for the "Tigers." The sand-filled buckets weighed too much
+to be used as drums, and they retraced their steps slowly, dropping them
+every few minutes to ease their aching wrists. In front of Neighborhood
+Hall, Skinny found a blister on one of his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Think we'll ever get back?" he asked, despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't so far now," John encouraged him. "We've only got to go
+another block before we turn. Then it's a half-block down to the hole in
+the fence. Come on. I'll stump you to carry yours as far as the railroad
+tracks."</p>
+
+<p>Thus by making it a matter of athletic prowess the boys carried their
+loads to the destination. But the little heaps on the dusty earth looked
+pitifully insignificant. Skinny borrowed a pin and lanced the white
+protuberance at the base of his second finger.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiminy," he mourned, as he squeezed the water out. "It's going to be an
+awful lot of work, fellows."</p>
+
+<p>They raked the sand level along the path from the plate to first base.
+Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could they seem to reach even
+a quarter of the distance, and protruding grass blades showed that the
+covering was far too scanty.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your wagon, John?" asked Red Brown suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Busted," said John, reproachfully. "Have you forgotten?"</p>
+
+<p>During the summer preceding, a fever of wagon building had seized the
+boys. Every spare wheel and tricycle frame in the block had been
+requisitioned for the construction of a half-dozen little vehicles which
+suddenly appeared to scud down the sidewalks and over the smooth macadam
+street. There had been discussions and disputes as to speed, and John's
+wagon, a long, well-oiled affair with a coat of red, discarded house
+paint on its framework, had come to grief in a collision with Brown's,
+one sunny afternoon. Even Silvey, the optimist, who had furnished the
+motive power, had looked at the wreckage in well-founded despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's yours?" Red turned abruptly to the Harrison boys.</p>
+
+<p>"In the basement."</p>
+
+<p>Skinny Mosher's, too, was still in existence. All the rest of the
+morning and afternoon, the two wagons ran merrily toward the Southern
+Avenue sand hill, or creaked slowly and laboriously back to the "Tigers'
+Home Grounds," with such good effect that but a scant ten feet of path
+remained to be filled in when John's paper route called him.</p>
+
+<p>Silvey and he sauntered over that evening after supper to make the final
+inspection of the work.</p>
+
+<p>"Just like the park diamonds, isn't it?" he asked, as Silvey stretched a
+pair of weary arms.</p>
+
+<p>"And Sid said he was glad he thought of it. And we worked like
+everything while he stood around!"</p>
+
+<p>John scarcely heard him as he stood, eyes a-dream, looking over the
+even, carefully raked turf. "The grand stand comes next, Bill. Do you
+think we ought to tear down the shack for lumber?"</p>
+
+<p>Bill demurred. That shaky building occupied too great a place of
+importance in the boys' lives to justify such a sacrifice. Surely there
+were enough new buildings being erected in the neighborhood without
+that.</p>
+
+<p>Sid made an announcement on the following Monday which made the
+postponement of that last bit of construction work imperative.</p>
+
+<p>"Saw the captain of the 'Jeffersons,'" he beamed as the little group
+gathered about him on the baseball diamond. "We're going to play 'em
+this Saturday."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" John exploded. Sid nodded his head.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got the best team around," Silvey broke out. "And they've been
+practicing in the park ever since the snow melted. How can we lick 'em
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>Sid shrugged his shoulders aggravatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you any brains at all?" John stormed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm captain," Sid snapped back at the insurgents. "I'm running this
+team. If you don't like it, you can quit!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice of Skinny Mosher, the peacemaker, broke in: "Aw, kids, never
+mind. 'Tain't so bad as it looks. Let's start practicing now, and maybe
+we can beat 'em anyway."</p>
+
+<p>It was excellent advice, and the boys scampered over the tracks for
+home, to return singly and in pairs with their baseball paraphernalia.
+John took up his old position at first, and Silvey donned his catcher's
+mitt to receive and return imaginary balls thrown by the other players.
+Red Brown and Perry Alford stationed themselves at second and shortstop
+respectively, while the Harrison boys stood around and waited until duty
+should call them to the outfield.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Skinny and Sid?" asked John as he glanced around.</p>
+
+<p>"There's Mosher, now," exclaimed Silvey, as a tall and diminutive figure
+made their way down the railroad embankment. "Kid brother with him as
+usual."</p>
+
+<p>"Had to bring him," the unfortunate elder boy exclaimed when he reached
+the diamond. "Ma wouldn't let me come unless I did."</p>
+
+<p>They accepted the affliction resignedly. "He can watch," said Silvey.
+"Come on, John. Toss up your little ball while we're waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, the first baseman brought out a lopsided ten-cent ball and
+threw it toward third. Skinny Mosher dropped the sphere as if it were a
+hot coal.</p>
+
+<p>"Go easy," he cautioned. "Sid hasn't brought my glove yet."</p>
+
+<p>The elder Harrison boy who aspired to fill Joe Menard's place, ran over
+to the pitcher's box, and the tossing was resumed. From third to first,
+second to pitcher, and then to Silvey, and back again. Muscles became
+limbered and arms more certain of their mark. Skinny misgauged a swift
+throw from John and caught the ball on the tip of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Jiminy!" he yelled. "What you think you're doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Butter fingers, butter fingers!" came the taunting reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't care. I'm going to wait for my glove. Here's Sid now."</p>
+
+<p>The team turned as one man and stared in astonishment. Their captain had
+delayed his return to don his new baseball suit, and from the spikes on
+his shoes to the visor of his red-trimmed cap, he was a perfect
+miniature of a professional player. Even John was unable to restrain an
+envious stare at the natty flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and the
+maroon and white stockings.</p>
+
+<p>"Cost eight dollars, it did," Sid announced, as he acknowledged the
+unconscious homage with a satisfied smile. "Dad gave it to me 'cause I
+was captain. Here's the gloves and the ball and the bat. Let's start
+practice."</p>
+
+<p>They ran back to their positions. Sid, bat in hand, stood by the plate,
+tossed the league ball high in the air, and knocked the sphere easily
+toward third base. Skinny, with the confidence engendered by a
+well-padded hand, scooped the ball with surprising accuracy and returned
+it. Again Sid repeated the process.</p>
+
+<p>Red pranced impatiently up and down on the sand path. "Give me one this
+time," he begged. "Don't send 'em all to Skinny."</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the "Tigers" nodded and hit the descending ball with all
+his force a little too far for Red to reach. A quick glance showed the
+impending catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, kid, get out of the way," he yelled. The warning came too late.
+The ball skimmed over the grass, struck a hummock which had been
+overlooked by the builders of the diamond, and ricochetted upward into
+the hapless Mosher youngster's stomach.</p>
+
+<p>Yells filled the air. Skinny, unwilling slave, stooped over his
+prostrate brother. "Hurt much?" he queried anxiously. John glanced at
+his watch in boredom, for such occurrences had lost their novelty long
+months ago.</p>
+
+<p>"Paper time," he called, as he made for the tracks. A last glance back
+before the dairy buildings cut off the view, showed the wailing infant
+trudging sturdily toward the walk. Every line of his figure indicated
+maddened determination to tell his mother on the whole team.</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday and Wednesday sped past. It became more and more apparent that a
+substitute for Joe Menard must be found if the "Tigers" were to have
+even a fighting chance of holding their own with the ancient enemy. Time
+and again Haldane Harrison took his place to whip a few slightly curving
+balls down to the critical Silvey, only to realize that his knowledge of
+the art was sadly deficient. They all had a try at it, eventually, while
+Sid stood by with a sarcastic grin on his face and watched their futile
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p>The next noon, John walked home with Louise, a custom sadly broken since
+the baseball season had begun, and passed a stockily built lad who was
+bouncing a baseball against the side of a house but a few doors from the
+Martin's apartment. On the way back, he stopped to watch. The newcomer
+returned his stare with equal interest.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo," said John, as he walked nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo," said the boy with an ingratiating smile.</p>
+
+<p>"My name's John Fletcher."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine's Francis Yager," spoken with equal curtness.</p>
+
+<p>"Live here?" asked the first baseman of the "Tigers." The boy admitted
+that such was the case. "There's my house," explained John, pointing
+with an inkstained finger.</p>
+
+<p>There was an awkward silence. Francis bounced his ball against the side
+of the house a few times.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever play baseball?" asked John, as the boy made a difficult catch of
+an erratic return from a drain pipe. The newcomer turned, his face
+lighted with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Just bet you!" he beamed. "Back home we had a team and I played&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pitcher?" asked John, breathlessly. The new boy nodded. Truly the fates
+were proving kind to the "Tigers" that day.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you throw?"</p>
+
+<p>"An 'in,' and an 'out,' and a 'slow ball.'" The expert paused in the
+summary of his attainments. "Last year, I was just getting so's I could
+pitch a drop. But it didn't work very well."</p>
+
+<p>Dinner, maternal lectures, all were forgotten as John poured out the
+tale of the "Tigers'" woes to his new friend. Arm in arm, they made
+their way up to Silvey's house. That catcher tried out the new recruit,
+while John watched eagerly, and pronounced him all and more than he had
+claimed for himself.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll fix the 'Jeffersons' now," John shouted confidently. "You can
+hold 'em, Francis, old boy."</p>
+
+<p>He marched the new member over the tracks to the ball grounds, that
+afternoon, and introduced him to the delighted team. Sid heard Silvey's
+tale of the pitcher's prowess with ill-disguised resentment.</p>
+
+<p>"He can play in the outfield," he said shortly. "I'm going to do it
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You!" shrieked John.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. Pitch! Only
+reason we let you play at all last year was because&mdash;" He checked
+himself suddenly. Sid only smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm captain," he replied, as John finished. "I'm running this team. I'm
+going to pitch, and if you don't like it, you can quit." He walked over
+to the position, leaving a dazed and resentful first baseman behind him.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, John returned from the paper route to eat supper
+listlessly and skip up to Silvey's as soon as he had finished. The team,
+his team which he had built up with such care last year, was going to
+the dogs, and he craved sympathy from Bill about it.</p>
+
+<p>"He's crazy," his chum sighed when John's outburst had slackened. "You
+should a' seen him when you'd gone for the papers, today. First he threw
+over my head, and then to one side, 'most out of my reach. He hit the
+ground twice before he could throw a fast one over the plate, and
+Francis laughed at him. 'Well,' says Sid, 'I guess I can learn before
+Saturday. I've got a book at home that tells all about it.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe&mdash;" said John, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe the 'Jeffersons' 'll make so many runs in the first inning that
+he'll have to quit. Then Francis can play, and perhaps we can catch up
+with them."</p>
+
+<p>"But he won't let Francis learn my signals," Silvey complained. "Says
+he's captain and we've got to do just what he says."</p>
+
+<p>"Get Francis to come down to your yard tomorrow noon," John counseled,
+as he stood up and stretched himself. "Teach him then."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it came about that, unknown to Sid, two small figures rehearsed for
+a good hour, such intricacies as "Two fingers against the glove means a
+swift one," "when I pound like this, it means an 'out,'" and "this means
+an 'in'" until Francis became letter-perfect in them.</p>
+
+<p>That Friday afternoon, the "Tigers" gathered for the final practice
+before the first and most important game of the season. Silvey knocked
+grounders innumerable to the different members of the infield who
+handled them with uncanny dexterity, or sent long flies out to the
+waiting players until he grew tired and Sid supplanted him. Red Brown
+and one or two of the fleeter spirits of the team raced from base to
+base, practicing a little trick of sliding which Red had noticed at a
+park baseball game, and Sid took his position as pitcher for a few
+minutes' erratic practice with Silvey. John left them for the night,
+wavering between confidence and despair as to the result of the morrow.
+Everything had gone marvelously well with the exception of Sid.</p>
+
+<p>"If he quits early," Silvey consoled him as they sat on the Fletcher
+front steps just before bed time, "we'll win after all."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to," said John, stubbornly, as he rose in answer to his
+mother's call. "So-long, Bill."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>HE'S "THROUGH WITH GIRLS"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nine o'clock in the morning saw the "Tigers" assembled in front of the
+Silvey home. Sid wore his elaborate outfit; Bill, the ragged football
+trousers which had done duty in the autumn, and John sported a battered
+cap. Other uniforms among them there were not, but the team made a brave
+showing, nevertheless, as it trooped lustily toward the corner. No
+scampering across the railroad embankment this time for the members. A
+baseball game demanded a more ceremonious arrival on the grounds. They
+neared the viaduct and Red and Perry Alford began a tattoo on the cement
+walk with the baseball bats. The other players broke into that
+time-honored refrain,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hip! Hip!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I had a good job<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I quit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My name is Sam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I don't give a&mdash;[pause]<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hippetty hippetty, hip!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>With the corner and adult ears left behind them, Sid, in a spirit of
+bravado, filled in the tabooed expletive and aroused the awed admiration
+of his subordinates.</p>
+
+<p>Past the long, low, red art shops they swaggered, keeping perfect time
+to the chant as they rounded the corner. John who was a little ahead of
+the others, broke into a sharp cry of dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! <i>Our grounds!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The consternation which was on his face spread to theirs. The shaky,
+weather-beaten fence by the sidewalk had been torn down before their
+arrival. At intervals, load after load of building stone rumbled over
+hastily formed paths of heavy planks. Further in, on the field, from the
+home-plate northward over the painstakingly levelled earth, harnessed
+horses sweated and tugged at the traces as scoop after scoop bit into
+the turf and came up filled with dirt to be emptied against the railroad
+tracks.</p>
+
+<p>"Flats," gasped Silvey, as they drew nearer. John said nothing, but his
+lower lip trembled as the last trace of the beautifully sanded base
+lines disappeared under the excavators' devastating hands.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a pity," said the kindly Irishman, who noted their approach, "but
+it has to be, I guess, kids. Yis, the other team went home, fifteen
+minutes ago. Said they didn't guess there'd be a game today."</p>
+
+<p>They stopped in dazed bewilderment to watch the progress of the
+foundation work. At last, John, sick at heart, slunk away. He wanted to
+be home, away from everyone until he could get control of his feelings.
+As he came down the street with his baseball glove dangling aimlessly in
+one hand, he stumbled over the Mosher youngster who was intent upon some
+childish pursuit in the dust of the gutter.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of the way," he stormed angrily. To vent his disappointment
+upon even so small an offender was a relief. The infant smiled
+maliciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnny an' Louise, Johnny an' Louise," he chanted, reviving the cry of
+the autumn before.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what about it," demanded John belligerently.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise had a soda with Sid. Saw her, saw her!"</p>
+
+<p>"When?" Had Louise, too, forsaken him in this hour of grief?</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday. Sidney an' Louise, Sidney an' Louise," came the taunting
+revision.</p>
+
+<p>John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the
+Halloween party&mdash;the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated
+in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since
+that time&mdash;clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back
+and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball
+gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of that gentleman around the corner put a stop to his
+meditations. John waited until he sauntered unsuspectingly up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Sid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" A note in the voice put the captain of the "Tigers" on his guard.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this I hear about Louise?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Been drinking sodas with her again, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you?" Sid made a futile effort to edge past the inquisitor.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind who. Promise not to do it any more or I'll&mdash;" He clenched
+one fist and drew it back threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I won't," retorted Sid with sudden spirit. "Guess I've got as
+much right to drink sodas with her as anybody. Who's going to stop me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am!"</p>
+
+<p>"You," scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, the very cause of the dissension came skipping along
+with the inevitable package from the grocery under one arm. Feminine
+intuition told her that trouble was lurking in the air, and she would
+have passed but John held up a detaining hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Louise, you've been drinking sodas with Sid again."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't either," in the same breath came the admission, "who told you?"</p>
+
+<p>John gave her a searching glance. "Tell this <i>guy</i>," he said with
+infinite scorn, "that you won't have anything more to do with him. Tell
+him you're my girl, Louise," he added incautiously.</p>
+
+<p>The lady's head went back to a warning angle.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" John ordered.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I won't!" she snapped, angered by his persistence. "Guess I
+won't!" she repeated angrily. "'Cause I'm not anybody's girl. So there!"
+With nose held regally in the air and knees strangely jointless, she
+walked away from the pair.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-a-a-h," jeered Sid incautiously.</p>
+
+<p>John drove out, full strength, with his right fist upon his adversary's
+nose. Sid stepped back in dismay. It wasn't fair, punching without the
+preliminary tilt of words and wary skirmishing. Again John set upon him
+and he turned, dodged behind a tree, and fled for home. Down the street
+they tore at top speed. Inch by inch, the space between the two
+diminished as they passed the Alfords, the Harrisons, and finally
+arrived at the DuPree iron gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma-a-a-a!" yelled Sid, as he struggled with the handle. "Come quick,
+come quick."</p>
+
+<p>The gate suddenly yielded. Sid sprang inside, up the front steps, and
+into the hallway. There he turned, locked the screen door, and stuck out
+his tongue at his adversary.</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-a-a-a!" he taunted.</p>
+
+<p>John contemplated an attack upon the flimsy screening, but a remnant of
+wisdom withheld him.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fletcher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Fletcher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old fly-catcher!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>came the cry from the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Think you're smart," John glared. "Just dare you to come down here!
+Just dare you to!"</p>
+
+<p>"The old fly-catcher" continued. John opened his lips for a reply in
+kind.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sid DuPree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Went out on a spree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never got back<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Til half-past three.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The hero of the verse was struck suddenly dumb by this display of
+poetical ability. Again John repeated his latest composition. He was
+beginning to enjoy himself immensely. At the third repetition of the
+adventures of Sid, a window creaked noisily up.</p>
+
+<p>"John Fletcher," came the harsh voice from the upper window. "You're a
+nasty little boy, and if you don't leave Sidney alone, I'll telephone
+your mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Ya-a-a-ah," jeered Sid in an undertone. John looked and longed.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," urged Mrs. DuPree. "The telephone's right here in the hallway."</p>
+
+<p>He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and crossed over
+to his own porch. Once up in his room, he threw himself on the bed, and
+as the excitement of the chase wore off began to realize the extent of
+the morning's losses.</p>
+
+<p>The athletic field upon which they had labored so long and carefully,
+was torn to pieces&mdash;gone forever. Worse than that, Louise wasn't his
+girl any more. She'd said so herself. No more samples of cookery, no
+more confidential little walks to and from school, no more
+squirrel-feeding excursions. And the glorious dream of the future was as
+completely demolished as the "Tigers' Home Grounds." There could be no
+thousand dollars and a home when he reached his majority now.</p>
+
+<p>He lay staring at the pattern in the ceiling paper, sobbing ever so
+little now and then, for some minutes, then wrenched himself miserably
+over on his side.</p>
+
+<p>There he found that horrid old bank staring him in the face, that same
+pig bank which stood a grinning monument to his industry of the past
+months. But what good was the paper route now? or where the pleasure in
+dropping his weekly income into that long, narrow slot? Louise wasn't
+his girl any more. She'd said so, herself.</p>
+
+<p>In a sudden fit of spite, he sprang up and seized the heavy, sneering
+bit of pottery in both hands. The next moment, it crashed to the floor
+and pennies, nickels, dimes, and even half-dollars rolled out on the
+carpet or mingled with the shattered bits of china. He stood astounded
+at the number for a moment, then gathered them up on his bed, and took
+careful count.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents? He could scarcely believe
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Then he lay back, not quite so grief-stricken, and stared thoughtfully
+into space until Mrs. Fletcher called him for dinner.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="i339" id="i339"></a>
+<img src="images/i339.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents."</i></h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>At the table, that evening, he was unusually quiet. As he finished his
+last slice of bread and butter, he looked up at his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, if a fellow earns a lot of money, all by himself, he can spend it
+any way he wants, can't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fletcher nodded. "Why, son?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was just wondering. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>A week later, Louise was sitting on the street curbing in front of her
+apartment building, when a crimson-clad baseball warrior on a new
+bicycle sped over the macadam and came to a sudden halt beside her. She
+raised her eyes in astonished recognition. It was her late fianc&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo."</p>
+
+<p>"'Lo."</p>
+
+<p>"Like my new wheel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Uhu."</p>
+
+<p>"Bought it out of the money I was saving so's we could get married. Cost
+me twenty-one dollars, and it's got puncture-proof tires and a real
+coaster brake. Just watch me ride it!"</p>
+
+<p>He sped off, rode free for a moment, threw the brake on and came to a
+sudden stop, then cut a figure eight over the paving. The clear spring
+sun made miniature rainbows in the shining, rapidly revolving spokes,
+and an early robin warbled his approval of the performance from his seat
+in a linden's top.</p>
+
+<p>"I can ride without touching the handles, too," he boasted, as he guided
+the wheel back to her. "Isn't it peachy?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. The long, curving bars bore a suggestion of possible rides
+on this beautiful steel-and-rubber creation, if their quarrel could be
+healed, and she held out a tentative olive branch.</p>
+
+<p>"Want to play jacks?"</p>
+
+<p>John shook his head. "Going over to the park baseball diamond with the
+'Tigers.' We're going to play the 'Jeffersons,' this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"But your paper route?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed joyously. "Sold it to the newspaper man. He gave me three
+dollars and twenty-five cents for the customers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Like my baseball suit?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at the flaming horror and nodded enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to see me run that team!"</p>
+
+<p>"You?" she exclaimed. "Why, I thought Sid was captain."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>was</i>," with zestful emphasis on the verb. "But I bought nine
+baseball dollar uniforms and a lot of gloves and two bats, and a real
+league ball out of my money, so the kids fired Sid and elected me. He
+isn't even on the team any more."</p>
+
+<p>"O-o-oh!" Truly John was becoming an important figure in the juvenile
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"And I've got a dollar and thirteen cents left for candy and peanuts,"
+he concluded.</p>
+
+<p>Louise studied the confident, freckled face before her, the sparkling
+bicycle with its glossy saddle and acetylene lamp, the heavily padded
+baseball glove on the nickeled handle bars, and then their owner again.
+She took the last remnant of her pride and stamped it under foot in a
+wave of regret.</p>
+
+<p>"John," she said, shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't have anything more to do with Sid."</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the "Tigers" only laughed. "You can go with Sid all you
+want, and drink all the sodas he'll pay for. I don't care, because&mdash;" he
+leaned his weight forward on the pedals and started for the park so
+suddenly that she barely caught his parting words, "I'm through with
+girls. I'm going to be a bachelor!"</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE CITY***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 20708-h.txt or 20708-h.zip *******</p>
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@@ -0,0 +1,9871 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Son of the City, by Herman Gastrell Seely,
+Illustrated by Fred J. Arting
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Son of the City
+       A Story of Boy Life
+
+
+Author: Herman Gastrell Seely
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 28, 2007  [eBook #20708]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE CITY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Julia Miller, Mary Meehan, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net/c/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 20708-h.htm or 20708-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/0/20708/20708-h/20708-h.htm)
+      or
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+
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+
+
+
+A SON OF THE CITY
+
+A Story of Boy Life
+
+by
+
+HERMAN GASTRELL SEELY
+
+Illustrations by Fred J. Arting
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chicago
+A. C. McClurg & Co.
+Copyright 1917
+Published October, 1917
+W. F. Hall Printing Company, Chicago
+
+
+
+
+To My Father
+
+THE COMPANION OF MANY A YOUTHFUL STROLL THROUGH CITY PARK AND SUBURBAN
+FIELD
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _"H'ist away," he ordered finally. "I'll shove under when
+he gets high enough."_]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. In Which Our Hero Goes Fishing
+
+      II. In Which He Goes to School
+
+     III. He Plays a Trick on the Doctor
+
+      IV. In Which a Terrific Battle Is Waged
+
+       V. He Composes a Love Missive
+
+      VI. In Which We Learn the Secret Code of the "Tigers"
+
+     VII. He Goes to a Halloween Party
+
+    VIII. Wherein He Resolves to Get Married
+
+      IX. He Saves for "Four Rooms Furnished Complete"
+
+       X. Concerns Santa Claus Mostly
+
+      XI. He Has a Very Happy Christmas
+
+     XII. In Which the Path of True Love Does Not Run Smoothly
+
+    XIII. He Crushes and Humiliates a Rival
+
+     XIV. He Buys Valentines
+
+      XV. The Spring Brings Baseball
+
+     XVI. More About "The Greatest Game in the World"
+
+    XVII. He's "Through With Girls"
+
+
+
+
+A SON OF THE CITY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN WHICH OUR HERO GOES FISHING
+
+
+Startled from a sound sleep, he fumbled blindly beneath the bed that he
+might throttle the insistent alarm clock before the clamor awakened the
+other members of the household. Then he lay back and listened
+breathlessly for parental voices of inquiry as to what he might be doing
+at the unearthly hour of half-past three on a late September morning.
+
+Far down the railroad embankment which passed the rear of the house, an
+engine puffed lazily cityward with a load of empty freight cars. Over
+the elevated tracks a mile to the south, a train rumbled somnolently
+towards the park terminal, and under the eaves of the house, just above
+his room, two sparrows squabbled sleepily. Inside, the only audible
+sounds were the chirpings of a cricket somewhere down the hall, and the
+furious, muffled pounding of his own little heart.
+
+He glanced from the window near the head of his bed. The air was
+oppressive with a strange, almost rural quietude. In the east, a faint
+streak of light brought the tree tops of the park into indistinct
+relief, and to the north a thin line of smoke floated apathetically from
+a hotel chimney to show that a light breeze from the west augured
+favorably for the morning's sport.
+
+Stockings, knickerbockers, and blouse were drawn on with unwonted
+rapidity. His coat and necktie he left hanging over the back of the
+chair, disdained as unnecessary impediments on a fishing trip. Then with
+a final glance from the window at the fast-graying sky, he reached
+behind the bookcase for his carefully concealed pole and tackle,
+gathered his shoes in one hand, and tiptoed down the pitchy hall with
+the stealth of a cat.
+
+Down the stairway he went, step at a time, scarcely daring to breathe as
+he shifted his weight again and again from one foot to the other. On the
+first landing, a board creaked with alarming distinctness. Came a
+maternal voice:
+
+"John."
+
+Her son hugged the stairway in a very agony of fear lest his carefully
+made plans had been spoiled. Why hadn't he walked along the end of the
+steps as bitter experience had taught? He knew that board was loose.
+Again the well-known tones:
+
+"John, what _are_ you doing?"
+
+A subdued babel of conversation in the big south room followed, in which
+his father's deep bass took a prominent part.
+
+"Nonsense, Jane, you're imagining things!"
+
+"But you know I forbade fishing during school mornings. And he was
+looking at the DuPree's weather vane when he watered the lawn last
+night. Get up and see what he's doing."
+
+John drew a sigh of relief as the deep voice sounded a sleepy protest.
+Minutes passed. His legs became cramped from inaction, yet he dared not
+stir. Were his parents asleep? Or was Mrs. Fletcher waiting merely until
+some tell-tale noise enabled her to order John senior forth on an
+expedition which would result in certain detection? If he had only
+avoided that misstep!
+
+Then the kindly fast-mail thundered over the railroad tracks and enabled
+the seeker after forbidden pleasures to scurry to the first floor under
+cover of the disturbance.
+
+In the hallway, the boy deposited his shoes and tackle very cautiously
+on the carpet, and tiptoed over to the unused grate. There he extracted
+from behind the gas log a package of sandwiches, surreptitiously
+assembled after supper the night before. Then with both hands grasping
+the doorknob firmly, he strained upwards, that weight be thrown off the
+squeaking hinges as much as possible, and swung the door back, inch by
+inch, until the opening permitted a successful exit.
+
+The old cat bounded from her bed on the window ledge with a thud and
+mewed plaintively for admittance as he stood with one hand on the screen
+door, and fumbled in his pockets. Sinkers, spare hooks, a line with a
+nail at one end on which to string possible victims of his skill,
+"eats," his dollar watch that he might know when breakfast time came
+around--all present and accounted for.
+
+The family pet protested volubly as he blocked her ingress with one foot
+and closed the door as slowly and noiselessly as it had swung open. A
+moment spent in lacing his shoes, a consoling pat for puss, and he was
+off on the dogtrot for Silvey's house, with tackle swinging easily to
+and fro in one hand and a noiseless whistle of exultation coming from
+half-parted lips which became more and more audible as his rapidly
+echoing footsteps increased the distance from home. For he had made good
+his escape, the strange fragrance of the cool, early air with its
+absence of city smoke went to his head like wine and set his pulses
+a-throb with a very joy of living, and five hours, three hundred
+glorious minutes, if the excursion were stretched a bit past breakfast
+time, of enchanting, tantalizing sport lay before him.
+
+A short distance from the corner, he turned in abruptly at a frame house
+which was distinguished from its neighbors by unusually ornate fretwork
+about the porch and gables, and tiptoed gently over the struggling grass
+on the narrow sidelawn. For it was here that the Silvey family lived,
+and if Bill were his boon companion with tastes akin to his, strange to
+relate, the Silvey elders were light sleepers with the same propensities
+as his own parents for curbing unlawful fishing expeditions, and there
+was need of caution.
+
+He fumbled momentarily along the dark sidewall, yanked at a cord which
+swayed idly to and fro with each light air current, and gazed
+expectantly upward. Nothing happened. Again a jerk, given this time with
+a certain vindictive delight. A muffled "Ouch!" came from the open
+window as a splotch of animated white appeared indistinctly behind the
+dark screen.
+
+"Trying to pull my big toe off?" angrily.
+
+John snickered. "Got the worms?" he asked.
+
+Silvey swallowed his wrath and nodded. "Sh-sh, not so loud. You'll wake
+the folks. The can's on the back steps. Ain't many worms though. I
+hunted under the porch and down the tracks and all over. But the
+ground's too dry."
+
+John shook the nearly empty can disparagingly as Silvey joined him on
+the back lawn a moment later.
+
+"Jiminy," he whispered, "that all you could find?"
+
+His chum nodded. "Maybe there's old worms or minnies from yesterday left
+on the pier. Or we can cut up the first fish for perch bait. Come on!
+Beat you over the tracks."
+
+They scaled the wire fence which barricaded the embankment, and cut
+across the long parallel lines of rails like frisky colts. Past the few
+unkempt buildings of the neighborhood dairy, over the small bit of
+pasturage where the master thereof kept a dozen cows that his customers
+might think their milk was fresh, daily, and across the cement road,
+they scampered at top speed, to pull up panting just inside the park.
+
+"Bet you I get to the lagoon bridge first," said Silvey when their
+breathing grew less labored.
+
+Off they raced again, now on the trim gravel walks, now on the springy
+dew-laden turf, frightening a myriad of insects from their shelters as
+the pair brushed aside protruding shrubbery and brought a chorus of
+reproof from rusty-plumed grackles who were gathering in the open spaces
+for the long migration south.
+
+As their footsteps echoed and re-echoed between the stone buttresses of
+the wooden planked bridge, John halted to dig frantically at his shoe
+top.
+
+"Wait a minute, Sil. My heel's full of cinders."
+
+He shook the offending boot free of the irritants, relaced it and leaned
+over the bridge rail for a moment. From beneath, northward, stretched
+the park lagoon calm and dark in the uncertain morning light. Fronting
+him rose the stately columns and porticoes of the park museum, once a
+member of an exposition whose glories are almost forgotten, which now
+veiled its need of repair in the kindly dawn and formed a symphony in
+gray with the willow-studded, low-lying lagoon banks. The air throbbed
+with the subdued noises of awakening animal life. In a shrub near them,
+a catbird cleared his throat in a few harsh notes as a prelude to a
+morning of tuneful parody, and on the slope below, a fat autumn-plumaged
+robin dug frantically in the sod for fugitive worms.
+
+"My! Isn't it just peachy?" breathed John ecstatically.
+
+"Yes," assented his companion, intent upon the lesser spectacle of the
+robin. "Don't you wish you could find worms like he does, Fletch?"
+
+Once more they resumed their journey lakewards, breaking into the
+inevitable dogtrot as the long, dark pier came in sight. At the land
+end, John stooped to pick up a few sun-dried minnows which lay on a
+plank, and a little farther on Silvey grabbed eagerly at an earth-filled
+tomato can.
+
+"Nary a worm," he exclaimed in disgust, as he threw the tin into the
+lake.
+
+But shortly, their diligent search was rewarded by finding a tobacco-tin
+which contained at least a dozen samples of the squirming bait, and the
+anxiety regarding that problem was permanently allayed.
+
+But one disciple of Izaak Walton had arrived before the boys, and he sat
+crouched in a huddled, lonely heap at the end of the pier, in a manner
+which seemed scarcely human. As they drew nearer, John broke into a
+sudden exclamation:
+
+"Old hunchback! Been out here all night again. Wonder if he's caught
+anything!"
+
+As they passed the first of his multitude of throwlines and poles, John
+leaned forward and peered down on the water.
+
+"Look, Sil," he pointed at the long string of perch which floated to and
+fro with the sluggish water. "Aren't they peaches?"
+
+He made a motion as if to joint his rod. The cripple drew a sharp,
+hissing breath from between thick, distorted lips and waved him away.
+Silvey caught his chum's arm warningly.
+
+"No use of fishing beside _him_," he asserted. "Don't you know that,
+John? Brings bad luck to everyone 'cept himself, he does. I tried it one
+morning. He kept hauling them in, all the time, and I couldn't catch a
+thing."
+
+John shook his head skeptically as they moved over to the other side of
+the pier.
+
+"He does!" reiterated Silvey. "Never's the day I've been out here that
+he hasn't a lot. And look at that," as a shining, squirming object rose
+unwillingly from the water. "I'll bet I couldn't catch one if I was
+there. It's because he's hunchbacked, I'm telling you."
+
+As John jointed his bamboo pole, he cast a furtive glance at the poor,
+misshapen being, and caught a touch of Silvey's superstitious fear.
+
+"Maybe," he admitted, as he reached for the worm can.
+
+Hooks baited, the boys dropped their lines in the water and sat down to
+dangle their legs to and fro over the pier's edge as they waited for the
+first hint as to the morning's luck. Possibly a quarter of an hour
+elapsed before Silvey's light steel rod gave a twitch, to be followed by
+another and still another. Its owner jerked a denuded hook high in the
+air.
+
+"First bite, first bite!" he shouted, for that honor was ever a point of
+spirited contest on the pair's many expeditions.
+
+"Hard?" asked John breathlessly.
+
+"Hard!" repeated Silvey, boastfully exultant. "Hard? Goll-e-e-e, yes.
+Didn't you see him? Bent the tip most a foot. Took the worm, too."
+
+Then the jointed bamboo began to shake ever so slightly and John leaned
+intently forward.
+
+"Bite?" queried Silvey in turn.
+
+"He's nibbling," said John cautiously without taking his glance from the
+flexible tip.
+
+"Wait until he takes the hook," advised Bill. John braced himself and
+yanked a luckless perch high in the air. As it came down on the pier
+with a thud, his friend sprang to his feet.
+
+"That-a-boy!" he yelled exultantly as his fingers extracted the hook.
+John brought out the fish stringer, and the unfortunate minnow, firmly
+tied by the gills, was lowered slowly into the water. The pair watched
+its spasmodic efforts at escape with a great deal of gusto.
+
+"Ain't so small, is he, John?" asked Silvey optimistically, as he leaned
+over and looked down from an angle which only a small boy could maintain
+without losing his balance. "Bet you it's going to be a peach of a day."
+
+The pier was now rapidly filling. A plethoric, sandy-haired German
+squatted beside the hunchback, watching an unproductive pole with a
+patience worthy of a better cause. At John's corner, a party of voluble
+loafers joked noisily as they unwound long, many-hooked throwlines and
+jointed nondescript rods. Beside Bill, a phlegmatic Scandinavian puffed
+morosely at an empty pipe. Just beyond, a fat negress shifted her bulk
+from time to time as she baited the hooks on one of her husband's
+numerous fishing outfits. Farther landward, a mixed throng--nattily clad
+business men who were snatching a few minutes of sport before business
+called, down at the heel out-of-works with nothing to do and all day to
+do it in, here a woman with a colorful shirtwaist, there a couple of
+noisy school-boys--made the sides of the pier bristle like the branches
+of a thicket hedge.
+
+The faint tinge of orange in the eastern sky deepened to a radiant
+crimson glow. A glistening, fast-widening, crescent sliver of the sun
+appeared on the horizon and painted a long golden path on the rippled
+lake, and still the lonely perch waited in vain for a companion in
+misery.
+
+Silvey jerked his line from the water and examined the untouched bait in
+disgust.
+
+"Just like it was last time," he ejaculated. "I'm going down the pier
+and see what the other fellows are catching."
+
+He jammed his pole between two bent nails in a plank and was off,
+stopping now and then to peer downward at some trophy as he sauntered
+along. John did likewise with his rod and stretched out on the rough
+boards to look lazily up at the clear sky. It wasn't half bad after all,
+even if the fish weren't biting. There was something in this getting up
+and over to the park before the smoke got into the air, to listen to the
+songs of the birds and watch the throng of people, that more than atoned
+for the lack of luck.
+
+He pulled out his watch dreamily--a quarter of six and still but one
+captive--and let his glance follow the wake of a graceful, white-hulled
+gasoline cruiser which chugged its way up from the south. Presently
+Silvey returned to break in upon his revery with the exciting news that
+a man near the life-preserver post had caught five fish. John sat up.
+
+"What did he catch 'em on?" he asked as he stretched his arms.
+
+"Minnows."
+
+"Let's try a couple of ours."
+
+They scraped the hooks free of the whitened worms with their finger
+nails and rebaited, only to find that the sun-parched flesh softened and
+floated away soon after it was lowered into the water.
+
+"Have to buy some fresh ones! Got any money?"
+
+A thorough search resurrected a worn copper that had lain in Silvey's
+back pocket until he had forgotten it--else the coin had gone the way of
+many another that had purchased peppermints at the school store. John
+surrendered a penny that had been given him the night before for a
+perfect spelling paper. They viewed the scanty hoard on the sun-bleached
+plank reflectively.
+
+"Ask him." John indicated the Scandinavian, who was well supplied with
+the desired bait. Silvey stood up and jingled the two pennies in his
+grimy hand with the air of a young millionaire.
+
+Yes, the fisherman would sell some. How many were desired?
+
+"Aw, give me," the boy paused, as if considering the amount sufficient
+for their needs, "give me two cents' worth."
+
+The merchant shook his head. "Two cents?" he sneered. "Naw! Won't sell
+any for less 'n a nickel."
+
+A gaunt, anaemic southerner, who was with the party of idlers, spoke up.
+
+"Yeah, boy. What's the matter?"
+
+Silvey turned ruefully. "Ain't got money enough to buy some minnies," he
+explained.
+
+The tall figure stooped abruptly, fumbled in a battered basket which
+held a miscellaneous assemblage of bait, throwlines, newspapers, and
+food, and drew forth a handful of the diminutive fish.
+
+"Yeah, boy," he smiled.
+
+Silvey offered the two coppers in payment.
+
+"Keep 'em, boy, keep 'em," with an indignant glance at the imperturbable
+fish monopolist. "I ain't like some folks."
+
+The boys rebaited their hooks joyfully. The cruiser which John had
+sighted earlier in the morning drew up within easy distance of the pier
+and dropped anchor. Two of her crew appeared presently in swimming suits
+and dove overboard for a morning plunge. From her diminutive, weathered
+cabin came the rattle of cooking utensils and the hiss of frying bacon
+as the cook of the day prepared breakfast. Bill stirred restlessly.
+
+"Let's have a look at the sandwiches," he suggested.
+
+They stretched themselves full length on the pier end and, with an
+occasional eye to the fishing poles, munched the uncouth slabs of bread
+and jam contentedly. Silvey read the name on the boat's stern with
+interest.
+
+"Detroit," he gasped. "Gee, Fletch, don't you wish you had a boat like
+that with all the gasoline to run her?"
+
+John's brown eyes grew dreamy. "Just don't you, though! We could ride
+down the canal out in the Illinois River and down the Mississippi to St.
+Louis. No staying after school, no 'rithmetic lessons, no lawns to cut
+or front porches to wash on Saturdays. We'd get up when we liked and
+fish when we liked, and loaf around all day. If money ran out, we'd find
+a place where there wasn't any bridge, and ferry people across the river
+for a nickel or a dime, or whatever they charge down there. Maybe, too,
+we could get a lot of red neckties and shirts with brown and yellow
+stripes and sell 'em to the darkies for a dollar apiece. Sid DuPree says
+they buy those things and he ought to know. He spent summer before last
+down South with his ma!"
+
+"Where'd we get the money to buy 'em in the first place?" asked the
+practical Silvey.
+
+His chum's face clouded. "Shucks, Sil, you're always spoiling things.
+But," more hopefully, "we needn't really worry about money anyway. All
+the books I've read about the South tell how kind folks are down there,
+and how they won't allow a stranger to go hungry, not even if they have
+to give him their last hunk of cornbread. So if ferrying didn't pay, all
+we'd have to do would be to land, walk up to the nearest house, and
+knock at the door. When the big mammy cook--they always have 'em in the
+books--came to the door, we'd just look at her and say, 'We're hungry.'"
+
+Silvey nodded, content to revel in the glories of the daydream which
+John's more vivid imagination was spinning.
+
+"We'd go all the way down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Maybe we'd
+catch some alligators to make things exciting, and maybe some big yellow
+river catfish. I read about one once that was six feet long. And when we
+arrived, they'd put our pictures in the newspapers, with a big lot of
+print after them, just the way they do when someone comes to town here
+who's done something. We'd win a lot of race cups, and folks would say
+to their friends, 'See those two kids there? They took a launch all the
+way down the river from Lake Michigan by themselves.' We'd be _it_ all
+the time we were there."
+
+Silvey, under the spell of the alluring picture, let his gaze roam
+dreamily around until it lighted upon an excited group down the pier. He
+sprang to his feet energetically.
+
+"Fletch! Look! A man drowned, maybe. Come on quick!" Such alluring
+possibilities may come true in a city.
+
+They sprinted up to the rapidly increasing crowd, and wriggled, boylike,
+past obstructing arms and between tense bodies until they found
+themselves in the inner line of the circle. A carp of a size sufficient
+to excite the envy of the neighboring fishermen lay with laboring gills
+upon the water-spattered planking. The lads gazed in open-mouthed
+admiration at the large, glistening scales, the staring eyes, and the
+twitching, murky red fins.
+
+"Weighs five pounds if he's an ounce," orated the proud captor. "Says I
+to myself when he bit, 'I've got a bird there,' and I was right."
+
+John turned to his chum with the inevitable question:
+
+"Gee, don't you wish we could catch a fish like that?"
+
+And Silvey made the inevitable reply:
+
+"Just don't you, though!"
+
+They watched breathlessly as the fisherman forced his stringer between
+the large gills and out through the gaping mouth, and tied it in a
+secure double knot that there might be no danger of an escape. As the
+rebellious captive was lowered into the water, and the throng about the
+spot began to thin, the successful angler seated himself again.
+
+"What'd you catch him on?" John broke out.
+
+"Taters."
+
+"Do big fellows like that bite on potatoes?"
+
+They were assured that such was the case.
+
+"Say," John scratched nervously at a knot in a pier plank as he summoned
+courage for his request. "Give me a hunk, will you? I never caught a
+fish that big in my life and I sure want to!"
+
+"Catch." The man's eyes flashed in amusement as he opened a deep cigar
+box and tossed out a half-boiled tuber.
+
+For a second time that morning, the boys tested a new type of bait.
+Hoping to change his luck, John cast far out to the very limit of the
+ten cents' worth of fishing line on his reel and sat, tensely hopeful,
+for five dragging minutes. Then he jammed the pole into its old resting
+place between the bent nails.
+
+"No use," he exclaimed in disgust to Silvey.
+
+Hardly were the words out of his mouth before the reel gave a sharp
+click of alarm. The sagging line grew taut and rose more and more from
+the water as an unseen something made a frightened break for liberty.
+John seized the handle as the rod threatened to drop into the water and
+jumped to his feet.
+
+"Gee!" he cried, half frightened by the weight and resistance of the
+fish, "Gee!"
+
+Silvey strained his eyes far out in an effort to descry the captive. The
+southerner who had given the minnows sprang forward with a shout of
+"Play him, boy, play him. Give him line until he turns or he'll break
+away."
+
+"Can't," John gasped, his heart in his mouth. "It's all out, now."
+
+As the cheap line stretched almost to the breaking point, the fish
+circled rapidly landward, then, alarmed by the shoaling water, sped
+back, close by the pier, for the open lake. The minnow monopolist jerked
+his lines clear of impending entanglement and scowled.
+
+"Take in slack, boy, take in slack," shouted the southerner.
+
+John's fingers spun around like a paper pinwheel. Again the line
+tightened and again the carp turned to the shore. The news that a big
+one was hooked spread far down the pier, and the boys, for the first
+time in their lives, tasted the delight of being the cynosure of the
+eyes of a rapidly increasing crowd. The man with the potatoes had forced
+his way to the pier's edge and gave advice with an almost proprietary
+manner. The fat negress' husband, roused from his inaction, gibbered
+delightedly as the line circled more and more slowly through the water,
+while John panted and reeled, slacked and rereeled line until the
+exhausted fish rose to the surface directly beneath him.
+
+"Gee," gasped Silvey, awe-struck.
+
+"No wonder he fought like an alligator fish," vouchsafed the southerner.
+
+"Who says 'taters don't catch anything?" asked the man of that bait
+proudly. "Twenty pounds or I'll eat my shirt."
+
+Cautiously, very cautiously, lest the fish make a sudden frightened dash
+for liberty, John drew in line to raise the captive from the water.
+
+"Y'all wait a minute," said the southerner. "Land him in my minny net.
+That's safer."
+
+But the minnow net, thanks to its abbreviated handle, lacked an easy two
+feet of the water, reach as the gaunt, outstretched figure might.
+
+"H'ist away," he ordered finally. "I'll shove under when he gets high
+enough."
+
+Inch by inch, the quivering body rose from the water. Appeared above the
+wire rim of the net, first the staring, goggle eyes, then the slowly
+laboring gills, the twitching side fins, and six inches of glistening
+scales.
+
+"Now!" shouted the southerner.
+
+Then, as if sensing the imminent danger, the great body gave a
+convulsive wrench, the light hook tore through the soft-fleshed mouth,
+and the carp, rebounding from the bark-covered piling, dove into the
+lake with a splash and disappeared from sight.
+
+"Shucks!" ejaculated Silvey.
+
+John sat down on the pier suddenly and very quietly. His tackle had
+snarled, and as the throng returned to their own poles, he picked at the
+tangle of line in the reel while his lower lip trembled piteously.
+
+To have landed that Goliath among fishes! What a triumphal procession it
+would have been--a march down the home street with such a captive. How
+Sid DuPree and the Harrison boys would have stared! He rebaited and
+dropped his line forlornly into the water.
+
+"Maybe he'll bite again," he suggested, hoping against fate.
+
+The minutes dragged. The gaunt, gray-faced southerner stretched out on
+the pier for a nap. The sandy-haired German rose from his seat beside
+the hunchback, stretched the stiffness from his arms, and unjointed his
+pole. The last neatly dressed business man was walking briskly from the
+pier. Silvey yawned listlessly.
+
+"Breakfast time, ain't it?" he asked.
+
+John's watch showed a quarter after eight. Slowly they reeled in the
+dripping lines, freed the hooks from all traces of water-soaked bait,
+and dismounted their rods. As they left the lake shore, the sun's rays
+became oppressive with heat. The air had lost the cool, fresh fragrance
+of early morning, and hinted of soot-producing factories and unsavory
+slaughter houses. Suburban trains thundered incessantly cityward,
+blending the snorts of their locomotives with the rumble of innumerable
+elevated trains and the clamoring bells of the surface cars.
+
+When they came to the tall poplars which marked the entrance to the
+park, Silvey looked down and viewed the fruit of their morning's labors
+with disgust.
+
+"He's awful small," he said shamefacedly. "Throw him into the bushes."
+
+John raised the diminutive perch into the air and regarded it glumly.
+"Cat'll eat him, I guess."
+
+"Have to sneak home the back way, then," said Silvey.
+
+The return home by way of the railroad tracks was ever their route when
+a fishing trip had been unsuccessful, for it avoided conveniently all
+notice by jeering playmates.
+
+"Don't you wish we'd landed that big fellow?" breathed John, half to
+himself, as he reviewed mentally that thrilling struggle on the pier.
+
+"Just don't you, though!" echoed Bill, regretfully.
+
+They walked on for some minutes in silence. As they left the cement walk
+for the little footpath which led across the corner vacant lot to a
+break in the railroad fence, Silvey roused himself.
+
+"What you going to say to your mother?"
+
+John shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. What you going to say to
+yours?"
+
+So they fell to planning their excuses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+IN WHICH HE GOES TO SCHOOL
+
+
+But an hour had passed since his protesting assertion that "Once doesn't
+matter, Mother, and anyway, it's school time," had been followed by
+flight to the many-windowed, red-brick building, and already the
+surroundings of dreary blackboard, dingy-green calsomine, and
+oft-revarnished yellow pine woodwork were becoming irksome. The spelling
+lesson had not been so unpleasant, for he could sense the tricky "ei-s"
+and "ie-s" with uncanny cleverness, but 'rithmetic--the very name
+oppressed him. What use could be found in such prosy problems as "A and
+B together own three-hundred acres of land. A's share is twice as much
+as B's. How much does each own?" Or "A field contains four hundred
+square yards. One side is four times as long as the other. What are its
+dimensions?"
+
+Miss Brown closed the hated, brown-covered book and turned to write the
+arithmetic homework on the blackboard. Instantly John's attention
+wandered to objects and sounds far more interesting than the barren,
+sultry school room.
+
+A couple of sparrows flew from the roof of the school to the window
+ledge nearest him, intent on their noisy quarrel, and he gave a scarcely
+perceptible sigh. Birds could enjoy the sunshine unmolested--why not he?
+A horse sounded a rapid tattoo of hoof beats over the heated street
+macadam below and he longed--as he had longed for the launch that
+morning--for a vehicle which would take him along untraveled roads to a
+country where schools were not, and small boys fished and played games
+the long days through. Next, a three-year-old stubbed her toe against
+the street curbing opposite the school and voiced her grief with
+unrestrained and therefore enviable freedom. John stirred uneasily and
+meditated upon the interminable stretch of four days which must elapse
+before Saturday. Then a majestic thunderhead in the blazing September
+sky caught his attention and the miracle happened.
+
+He was on his back in the big field of his uncle's Michigan farm, gazing
+upward at the white, rapidly shifting clouds. The unimpeded western
+breeze made little harmonies of sound as it swept through the tall,
+waving grass; strange birds carolled joyously from the orchard by the
+road, and near at hand the old, brown Jersey lowed lovingly to her
+ungainly calf. From the more distant chicken coop came the cackle of
+hens and the boastful crowing of a rooster.
+
+A shift of the thought current, and the fat, easy-going team dragged the
+lumbering, slowly moving wagon over the four-mile stretch of sand road
+to town, while he sat on the driver's seat to listen to the hired man's
+tales of army service in the Philippines, or to watch the ever-shifting
+panorama of flower and bird and animal life which he loved so well. Past
+the ramshackle farm of the first neighbor to the north, past the little
+deserted country school house, past the pressed-steel home of a would-be
+agriculturist, which had rusted to an artistic red, and down to the
+winding river which flanked the hamlet through banks lined with white
+birches and graceful poplars--"popples" the hired man called them. There
+was good fishing in the river, too. Once a twenty pound muskellunge had
+been caught, and bass were plentiful.
+
+But better still than that was his uncle's well-stocked trout stream.
+Again he stumbled over the root-obstructed footpath which ran along the
+east bank, stopping now and then to untangle his hook and line as he
+forced his way past thick, second-growth underbrush, or to let his hook
+float with the current past some particularly promising bit of
+watercress. There was the fallen, half-rotted log under which the swift
+current had dug a deep hole in the sandbed for the big fellows to haunt
+and pounce out upon bits of food which floated by. How his heart had
+gone pitapat when he had discovered it and had quietly, oh, so quietly,
+dropped his baited hook into the clear, spring water. Then had come a
+swift-darting something up stream, a jerk at his line to set his pulses
+throbbing, a wild scurry for freedom and--
+
+"John!" Miss Brown's voice brought him rudely back to present day
+surroundings. He rose uncertainly, dimly conscious that his name had
+been called.
+
+"Yes, 'm," he stammered.
+
+"What was I telling the class just now?"
+
+He strove to collect his scattered faculties. Then his glance, roaming
+the room, caught at the newly written problems on the blackboard. He
+ventured an uncertain smile.
+
+"You--w-was telling--" he began.
+
+"'Were,' John."
+
+"Yes, 'm," nervously. "Were telling the class to be sure and write
+plain, and not to use pen and ink if we couldn't get along without blots
+and--and--" What else did Miss Brown usually say to the class on such an
+occasion?
+
+Over in the far corner of the room, Sid DuPree snickered maliciously.
+The boy two seats ahead of him turned with an exultant grin on his
+freckled face. Several little girls seemed on the verge of foolish,
+discipline-dispelling giggles, and he felt that something had gone
+wrong. Teacher, herself, ended the suspense.
+
+"Very good, John. Your inventive faculties do you credit. But it happens
+that as yet, I haven't said anything."
+
+The class broke into uproarious laughter while he stood in the aisle, to
+all appearances, a submissive, conscience-stricken little mortal.
+Inwardly he seethed with anger. What right had Miss Brown to trick a
+fellow that way? It was mean, it was cowardly, worse than stealing.
+
+"Now, John," she continued, looking sternly down from the raised
+platform, "I spoke just six times to you last week. Finally you promised
+me that you would pay strict attention. What have you to say for
+yourself?"
+
+He shot her a half-frightened glance and found her face seemingly stern
+and remorseless. He had been tempted to explain how the great
+out-of-doors called to him with an insistence which was irresistible,
+but shucks, she wouldn't understand. How was he to know that under the
+surface of it all, she sympathized with the culprit daydreamer
+exceedingly? So he hung his head in silence.
+
+There was a knock at the door. Miss Brown dismissed him with a curt nod.
+He sank thankfully into his desk as Sid DuPree sprang forward to admit
+the newcomer--a new girl and her mother. From the shelter of his big
+geography, John surveyed the couple with that calmly critical stare
+which only a ten-year-old is master of.
+
+The mother was nice, he decided. Fat ones always were. It was your long,
+thin woman who made trouble. Look at old lady Meeker, who lived next the
+vacant lot on Southern Avenue, where the boys gathered occasionally on
+their way from school for a game of marbles or to play split-top on one
+of the loose, decayed fence planks. Never did a glassy go spinning from
+the big dirt ring through a dexterous shot, or a soft, evenly grained
+top split cleanly to the spear head amid the proper shouts of approval
+than her fretful, piercing voice put an end to further fun. Such
+goings-on made her head ache, she averred time and again. If they didn't
+leave immediately, she'd telephone the police station. Once she had said
+it was a "wonder some parents wouldn't keep their children in their own
+back yards." She forgot that half the gang lived in apartment buildings
+with back yards only designed for clothes-drying apparatus, and that the
+other half lived in houses built upon so cramped an acreage that the
+yards were no fun to play in. But grown-ups were in the habit of
+committing such oversights--especially the skinny, cranky ones.
+
+As for the little girl--ah! she was good to look upon.
+
+Her chestnut hair hung in curly ringlets below her shoulders, almost to
+the waist of her little white frock. Her face held a slight pallor which
+was strangely fascinating to the sun-tanned urchin, and her eyes were a
+deep, rich brown. As the conversation ended between teacher and parent,
+she left the platform and walked to the front seat assigned her in a
+timid, shrinking way which stamped her as just the sort of a girl the
+fellows would make miserable on the slightest provocation. John's face
+set in an expression of heroic determination until he looked as if he'd
+swallowed a dose of castor oil!
+
+[Illustration: _He imagines himself a hero._]
+
+He'd like to catch Sid DuPree dancing around her in maddening circles,
+some afternoon, while she shrank piteously from each cry of "'Fraid cat!
+'Fraid cat!" Or that bully might throw pieces of chalk at her or pelt
+her with snowballs in the winter time until she broke into incoherent
+sobs. Then he, John Fletcher, would show that Sid where he got off at.
+He'd punch his face in, he would!
+
+The school room door closed upon the mother's broad back, and the hum of
+excitement at the departure subsided into the normal undercurrent of
+whispering between the pupils. Pencils scratched laboriously over rough
+manila pads as their owners copied the questions from the board. The boy
+two seats ahead of John took a wad of chewing gum from his mouth and
+stuck it on the underside of his desk. Someone over on Sid DuPree's side
+of the room dropped a book to the floor with a bang.
+
+Then Miss Brown shoved back the test papers she had been correcting and
+glanced at the clock.
+
+"Clear the desks," she ordered sharply. "Class prepare for physical
+culture."
+
+They obeyed with alacrity, for the drills were ever a relief from the
+enforced inactivity of restless little bodies. Moreover, they were
+vastly more enjoyable than mathematical perplexities or troublesome
+state and river boundaries.
+
+"Rise on toes, inhale deeply, and exhale ver-y slowly!" came the crisp
+command after the children had stumbled to their feet in the aisle.
+"One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four."
+
+Heated little faces grew even more flushed as the minute hand of the big
+wall clock showed the passing of five flying minutes. Next came, "Thrust
+forward, upwards, and from your sides," "bend trunks," to all points of
+the compass, "lunge to the right and left, and thrust forward," and a
+baker's dozen of other exercises designed to offset the weakening
+influences of cramped city environments and impure air.
+
+In conclusion, the class made a quarter-turn to the right and as they
+thus stood in parallel rows, took hold of each other's hands. At
+teacher's command, they swung their arms back and forth vigorously to an
+accompaniment of the inevitable "one-two, one-two."
+
+John's was a back seat, thanks to skillful maneuvering on the opening
+day of school, and flaxen-haired Olga occupied the desk ahead. A day
+earlier he had counted himself fortunate in having her for a neighbor,
+for she was clever at studies which required plodding perseverance, and
+not at all bashful about helping a fellow when teacher pounced on him
+with a catch question.
+
+Now he loathed her slow, insipid smile as his left hand released her
+plump right fingers at the end of the exercise. If she were only the new
+little girl!
+
+Then he noticed, as a prosaic business man will notice suddenly, that a
+skyscraper which he has passed daily for months is out of line with its
+neighbor, that the seat behind the new little girl was unoccupied and
+that she stood alone in the aisle during exercises. Would that he had
+possession of it!
+
+To sit next her, to be able to exchange the trivial, yet important,
+little confidences in which fourth-graders indulge when teacher's back
+is turned, or to win her quick, flashing smile as a reward for
+sharpening her pencil or for judicious prompting during a spelling
+lesson!
+
+To achieve these things, he would be willing even to relinquish the
+powers which he held by virtue of his aisle end seat. And to allow
+voluntarily some other pupil to fill the inkwells, distribute pencils,
+scratch pads, and drawing paper at their appointed intervals, and to
+indulge in a hundred and one other little acts of monitorship is no
+slight sacrifice for a boy to make.
+
+The geography lesson began. With the disregarded map of Africa in front
+of him as a blind, he fell to comparing the new girl with the other
+maidens of his acquaintance.
+
+Take poor, inoffensive Olga for example. Her placid being seemed clumsy
+and her movements bovine as he pictured again the dainty grace of that
+new arrival as she stepped down from the teacher's platform; or
+Irish-eyed, boisterous, fun-loving Margaret! John had regarded her with
+a great deal of favor during the past two weeks, for she was a jolly
+little sprite with a mother who, thanks to the neighborhood's laundry
+patronage, contrived to clothe her daughter in a constantly varying and
+seldom-fitting assortment of dresses. Now echoes of her noisy laughter
+returned to grate upon his memory. The new little girl wouldn't laugh
+like that. Not she! No one with so sweet a smile had need of impudent
+grins. And what a contrast between Margaret's untidy mop and those long,
+silken curls which so fascinated him.
+
+Yes, the boy decided that here was the being who was to be his girl for
+the ensuing year--to be worshipped from afar in all probability, but to
+be, nevertheless, his girl. So he drove ruthlessly from his heart all
+memories of a certain gray-eyed Harriette, his third-grade charmer, and
+erected a purely tentative shrine to the new divinity. As yet he was not
+quite certain of his feelings--and there might be a later addition to
+the room!
+
+In the meantime, there was the vacant seat. Temporary idol or not, he
+longed for possession of it, but he knew that although he moved heaven
+and earth to support a direct request for transfer, Miss Brown would
+never assign it to him. Many a past bitter experience had shown the most
+harmless desires to mask deep-laid juvenile plots, and she was
+singularly wary and distrustful. A way must be found to trick her into
+giving him the occupancy.
+
+He ate his meat and potatoes very quietly and thoughtfully that noon, a
+procedure so contrary to his usual actions that his mother asked him if
+he felt well. He nodded abstractedly, went upstairs to the big, sunny
+sewing room, searched the family needlecase for a long stiff darning
+needle and extracted several rubber bands from the red cardboard box on
+the library table. Then he sauntered off to wait in the school yard for
+assembly bell, with the air of a military strategist who has planned a
+well-laid campaign and is sanguine of success.
+
+The tramp of juvenile feet up the broad, school stairways grew steadily
+less until silence reigned in the big, empty corridors. Miss Brown sat
+down at her desk, drew out the black-covered record book from the
+right-hand drawer, and gave a few reassuring pats to her dark, orderly
+hair. Scurrying footsteps pounded up to the cloak room entrance. A
+moment later, Thomas Jackson, still panting and breathless, stumbled
+into his seat and mopped the beads of perspiration from his dark-skinned
+forehead with his coatsleeve. Then the tardy bell rang and Miss Brown
+began roll call.
+
+"Anna Boguslawsky," came her clear, even tones as the "B" names were
+reached. Hardly had Anna's timid "Here" reached her ears than a series
+of subdued cluckings came from some small boy's throat. She rapped for
+order and went on.
+
+"Edna Bowman."
+
+"Clu-wawk, clu-wawk," repeated the offender. Miss Brown laid her book
+down with a snap and glared at the class, which hesitated between
+ill-suppressed amusement and fear of teacher's wrath. She waited for one
+long, dragging moment and spoke crisply:
+
+"Children, you are no longer third-graders. Try to act as really
+grown-up boys and girls ought to."
+
+"Clu-wawk, clu-wawk," came the maddening repetition. She sprang to her
+feet.
+
+"That will be quite enough," she snapped. "If that boy makes that noise
+again he will be sent to the office and suspended for two weeks." During
+the awed silence which followed, she seated herself and took up the
+black-covered book with impressive deliberation. All went well until the
+"H's" were reached.
+
+"Albert Harrison," she called, "Albert!"
+
+[Illustration: _"Who shot that rubber band?"_]
+
+"School doctor sent him home this morning," volunteered the boy nearest
+Albert's empty desk.
+
+As Miss Brown's eyes sought the record book again, an unseen something
+whizzed through the air. Thomas Jackson jumped to his feet and rubbed a
+chocolate ear belligerently.
+
+"Who shot that rubber band? I'll fix him. Who done it? He's afraid to
+let me know."
+
+Miss Brown stepped down from the teacher's platform with an angry swish
+of her skirts, and took up a position half-way down the aisle where she
+had a better view of the class. John studied her carefully. The usually
+smiling lips were set in a thin, nervous line, and the hand which held
+the record book trembled ever so slightly. In an opposite corner of the
+room, two little girls giggled hysterically. The ring of pupils around
+him, true to the child's creed of no talebearing, glanced at school
+books or lesson papers with preternaturally grave faces. Discipline had
+been so badly broken that the class was at the stage where a dropped
+piece of chalk or a sneeze will provoke an outburst of laughter.
+
+John drew the needle from his coat lapel and wedged it carefully in the
+joint between his desk and the back of Olga's seat. A glance at Miss
+Brown found her watching Billy Silvey closely in the belief that he was
+the miscreant. The time for his crowning bit of persecution had arrived.
+
+Suddenly a nerve-wracking, ear-piercing vibration filled the room. Miss
+Brown's face went white with rage. John caught the tip of the needle
+with his fingernail and bent it back again.
+
+"T-a-a-ang." The class gasped at the sheer audacity of the deed. A ray
+of reflected light caught the teacher's eye, and she pounced upon the
+boy before he could remove the incriminating bit of steel.
+
+"John Fletcher," she screamed, as she stood beside him. "So it's you who
+have been causing all this trouble!"
+
+He admitted as much. Sober second thought would have counseled Miss
+Brown to make good her threat of a visit to the principal's office and
+consequent suspension, but an outraged sense of personal grievance
+clamored for redress. She gained control of herself with perceptible
+effort.
+
+"Take out your books," she ordered.
+
+He assembled his belongings on the top of his desk--geography, reader,
+arithmetic, composition book and speller--all too new to be as yet
+ink-scarred--a manila scratch pad, a ruled block of ink paper with a
+cover crudely illustrated during his many bored moments, and a sundry
+assortment of teeth-marked pencils and pens, and stood, a smiling,
+incorrigible offender, in the aisle, awaiting further orders.
+
+Miss Brown found that smile peculiarly irritating. "The first thing to
+happen to you," she told him sternly, "is that you'll have to stay after
+school an hour for the rest of the week. As for your back seat, I let
+you keep it only on promise of good behavior, and this is the way you've
+acted."
+
+The maddening grin reappeared. That seat behind the new little girl was
+the only vacant one in the room located at all near Miss Brown's desk.
+The prize was all but in his possession. She was going to--she had to--
+
+"And," went on the cold, inexorable voice, "as Louise is such a
+well-behaved little girl, I'm going to let her exchange with you.
+Louise, will you take out your books?"
+
+He drew one piteous, gasping breath. Every vestige of sunlight seemed to
+leave the room. Slowly he fumbled among his belongings as he gathered
+them into his arms and, half-way up the aisle, stood aside to let his
+divinity pass. Longingly his glance took in every detail of the silken
+curls, the curving lashes which half hid the brown eyes the rosy,
+petulant lips, and the unmistakably snub hose. Then he walked
+uncertainly to the seat which she had just vacated.
+
+A little later, Miss Brown looked up from a stack of composition papers
+which had been collected by the monitors, and found John's lower lip
+a-quiver. She was greatly puzzled, for boys did not usually take
+detentions after school so much to heart. But fifteen minutes before
+school ended for the day, she knew that his troubles had vanished, for
+he was gazing out of the window with such vacant earnestness that she
+felt called upon to reprove him again for daydreaming.
+
+He eluded the watchful eye of authority as the exit bell rang, and filed
+down stairs with the long line of pupils. Sid DuPree dashed past him as
+he stood in the school yard, with a cry of "Just wait until teacher
+fixes you for ducking." A friend called an enthusiastic invitation to
+play tops on the smooth street macadam. Silvey stopped to convey the
+important information that the "Tigers" were to hold their first fall
+football practice in the big lot that afternoon. John promised his
+appearance--later. Other and more important matters would claim his
+attention for the next half-hour.
+
+At last the new little girl came down the long walk leading from the
+school yard to the street and hippity-hopped over the cement sidewalk
+towards home, with school books swinging carelessly to and fro in her
+strap.
+
+He started after her with the unnecessary and therefore fascinating
+stealth of an Indian, for he meant to find out where she lived. As she
+left the cross street where the telephone exchange stood, her gait
+slackened to a walk--still eastward. Past the little block of stores
+which housed a struggling delicatessen, an ambitious, gilt-signed
+"elite" tailoring establishment, and a dingy, dirty-windowed little
+jewelry shop, across Southern Avenue where gray-eyed Harriette, that
+divinity of the preceding year, lived, and still no sign of a change in
+direction.
+
+Once she turned and looked backward. John fled, panic-stricken, to the
+shelter of the nearest store entrance; for you might be in love with a
+girl, you might be obsessed with a desire to find her residence that you
+might pass it occasionally and wonder in a dreamy sort of a way what she
+might be doing, but the girl herself must never know it. That would be
+contrary to every precept of the schoolboy code of ethics.
+
+At last she turned a corner--his home corner--where the drug store
+stood, and broke again into a hippity-hop down the shady, linden-lined
+street. With heart gloriously a-thump, he watched the door of the big
+apartment building at the end of the street close upon the little
+white-clad form, and he knew that the van load of furniture which had
+been carried in on the Friday preceding belonged to her parents. So he
+retraced his steps across the street with a dolorously cheerful whistle
+on his lips.
+
+Over the railroad tracks he went as usual to the big, weed-grown,
+rubbish-littered field north of the dairy farm, which served as baseball
+grounds, athletic field, and football gridiron, according to the season.
+There he found a baker's dozen of boys of his own age, who greeted him
+joyously.
+
+"Sid DuPree's gone to get his football," Silvey explained. "We'll be
+practicing in a minute."
+
+They were a ragged lot. Silvey boasted of a grimy, oft-patched pair of
+football pants, which were a relic of his brother's high-school career;
+Albert, the older Harrison boy, who did not seem very ill in spite of
+the physician's dismissal, owned half of an old football casing, which
+had been padded to make a head guard, and there was a scattering of
+sweaters among them. Sid DuPree, thanks to parental affluence, was the
+only boy who laid claim to a complete uniform, and presently he
+sauntered over the tracks in shining headgear, heavy jersey, padded knee
+trousers, and legs encased in shin-guards far too large for him. A new
+collegiate ball was tucked securely under one arm.
+
+"Here she is, fellows," he called, as he clambered into the field and
+sent the pigskin spinning erratically through the air. "Isn't she a
+peach?"
+
+Last year, their combats had been fought with a light, cheap, dollar
+toy, but here was one in their midst of the same weight, brand, and size
+as that which the big university team used, and which cost as much as,
+or more, than a new suit of clothes, according to the individual. They
+gathered around it, poking at the staunchly sewn seams and thumping the
+stony sides with a feeling akin to reverence.
+
+Presently Silvey produced a frayed, dog-eared treatise _How to Play
+Football_, which had survived two years of thumbing and tugging and
+lying on the attic floor between seasons, and proceeded to lay down the
+fundamental laws to the neophytes in the great American sport. Positions
+were tentatively assigned, and the squad raced over weeds and stones in
+an effort to master the rudimentary plays, while Silvey strutted and
+blustered and administered corrective lectures in a manner that was a
+ludicrous imitation of a certain high-school coach. Let John excel at
+baseball if he would; he was the master of the hour now, and he marched
+the boys back and forth until they panted and sweated and finally broke
+into vociferous protest. Thus the "Tigers," whose name that season was
+to spell certain defeat to similar ten-year-old teams, concluded their
+first football practice.
+
+[Illustration: _The "Tigers."_]
+
+John dropped behind to talk to the elder Harrison boy as the team
+sauntered noisily homeward. He wanted to learn the details of the
+accommodating illness. Albert chuckled.
+
+"Nothing the matter. Only the school doctor thought there was."
+
+That official was a recent acquisition to the school personnel whose
+duties, according to the school board's orders, were to "Make daily
+visits, morning and afternoon, to examine all cases of suspected
+illness, and prescribe, if poverty makes it necessary, that epidemics be
+safeguarded against."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked John.
+
+"Well, my throat felt funny and I told Miss Brown. She sent me up to the
+office to see him. 'Stay home a day, my boy, until we see if it gets
+worse,'" Albert quoted. "Was I glad?"
+
+So that was what the new school doctor did. Thumped you around and
+looked down your throat and prescribed a day's holiday as a cure. He
+wished he'd been Albert. He'd a' stayed on the pier all morning and
+hooked the big carp again. Some folks seemed to be born lucky, anyway.
+Couldn't he fall sick too, not badly enough to go to bed, but just
+nicely sick as Al was?
+
+He startled his parents at supper that evening by a sudden and seemingly
+morbid thirst for information about diseases.
+
+"Mother," he queried, between mouthfuls of bread and homemade marmalade,
+"what's measles and scarlet fever and diphtheria start out like?"
+
+His father chortled with amusement. Mother, after the manner of women,
+remembered his actions that noon and grew anxious.
+
+"You're not feeling sick, are you, dear?"
+
+He didn't feel exactly well. Could she tell him about any of the
+foregoing? Perhaps he had one of them.
+
+"Put that marmalade right down, then. It'll upset your stomach. Here,
+let me look at your tongue!"
+
+He demurred. Jam wouldn't hurt him. There was nothing really wrong,
+anyway. Only one of the boys at school had gone home with the measles
+and he was wondering what it was like. Then he subsided into silence.
+
+Late that evening, Mr. Fletcher found the library gas burning and
+discovered his son sitting beside the desk, his eyes glued to the
+portly, green-bound _Family Doctor_. Beside him on a pad were scribbled
+copious notes. Nor would he even hint, as his father ordered him to bed,
+what he wanted them for.
+
+[Illustration: Johnny and Louise]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HE PLAYS A TRICK ON THE DOCTOR
+
+
+In the morning, John sneaked from the table as soon as the last forkfull
+of fried potatoes had been devoured. When Mrs. Fletcher brought the
+breakfast plates out to the kitchen sink, she found him on tiptoe, with
+one hand fumbling among the spice tins and bottles in the top bureau
+drawer. He turned guiltily, and yawned to hide his embarrassment.
+
+"I was looking for a piece of cinnamon to chew," he explained. "Guess
+I'll be going to school now."
+
+His mother glanced at the alarm clock which ticked noisily in its place
+on the wall over the sink.
+
+"Only twenty-five minutes to nine, son. Isn't it a bit early?"
+
+He explained that he had to be up at school at first bell. A geography
+notebook had been left in his desk, and entries must be made in it
+before the class began. He was gathering his scattered belongings
+together in the hall when the maternal voice called him back to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Yes, Mother?" with his head in the doorway.
+
+"Will you ever learn to shut a drawer when you're through with it?"
+
+He shoved it back with a sulky bang. "Where's my hat?"
+
+"Did you look in the front hall?"
+
+"'Tain't on the floor by the big chair. That's where I most always leave
+it."
+
+"How about the closet hat rack?"
+
+A moment later, a surprised shout told that the lost had been found. The
+front door slammed noisily and he was off to school.
+
+The dishes were washed and dried, the plates and saucers stacked on the
+pantry shelves, the cups hung neatly on the appointed hooks in the
+cupboard, and the silver put away in the sideboard drawer. Then Mrs.
+Fletcher turned her attention to the tidying of the house. She made
+innumerable circles and criss-crosses with the carpet sweeper over the
+parlor rug, and was dusting the big rocker by the bay window when a
+chance glance up the street revealed two small figures playing far at
+one end of the strip of macadam. Her son, without doubt, was one of
+them. No one else wore a cap tilted back at quite so ridiculous an
+angle. The other stocky figure looked and acted like Bill Silvey.
+
+Why weren't they at school? Hookey? No, for truants never allowed
+themselves within sight of home and easy detection. And there was a
+certain brazen righteousness about their actions. At the big, green
+house, Silvey challenged John to a game of tag. A lamppost nearer, they
+ceased the mad, dodging chase and engaged in earnest conversation. A
+hundred yards from the Fletcher house, footsteps lagged to an
+astonishing degree and an air of lassitude overcame them that was
+inexplicable in view of recent activities. The boys mounted the front
+steps wearily. John pressed the bell as if the act consumed the last
+atom of strength in his arm.
+
+His mother swung back the door anxiously. "What on earth's the matter?"
+
+"School doctor sent me home," her son explained. "Think's I've got the
+measles."
+
+"Nonsense! Let me take a look at you." His eyes were reddened to an
+alarming degree, but there seemed little else the matter.
+
+"He did," John insisted. "Told me to stay home today to see if they got
+worse. Silvey and I are going fishing."
+
+"Fishing! And coming down with the measles?"
+
+He protested volubly. His head felt heavy and kind of funny, but he
+didn't think that lazying around on the pier would be harmful. The
+sunshine might do him good.
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher a second time and with increased
+emphasis. She turned to Silvey. "You can go home, Bill. John can't come
+out. He's going to stay in bed until he gets better."
+
+John trudged wearily up the interminable stairs to his little tan-walled
+room.
+
+Shucks, it was just his luck! Look at Al Harrison. He came home with a
+sore throat and was allowed to play football and fool around as he
+pleased, while he, John Fletcher, was ordered to bed because the school
+doctor feared measles.
+
+A fellow had returned from the pier with a string of perch a yard long
+dangling from his pole. "Fishing good? Say, kid, this ain't nothing to
+what some of 'em have caught!" And he was condemned to a day's
+imprisonment while they were biting that way. It was a shame, tyranny,
+oppression worse than the old slaves labored under in _Uncle Tom's
+Cabin_. He'd run away from home, he would. Perhaps his uncle would give
+him a job on the Michigan farm if he worked his way up there. Or else he
+could commit suicide. There was the long, shiny, carving knife in the
+kitchen table drawer. He'd just bet his mother would be sorry if he used
+it.
+
+Instead, he threw his clothes sulkily over the back of the wicker chair
+and, after some deliberation, drew a well-thumbed, red-covered book from
+his library shelves. Sherlock Holmes was a far better panacea for his
+troubles than the big carving knife.
+
+He had read and reread the tale until the episodes were known almost by
+heart, but still _The Sign of the Four_ held powerful sway over his
+imagination. Thaddeus Sholto lived again to tell his nervous, halting
+tale to the astute Baker Street detective. Tobey took the two eager
+sleuths through the episode of the trail which led to the creosote
+barrels. Holmes appeared and reappeared on his fruitless expeditions as
+the boy's eyes narrowed with excitement, and his figure straightened and
+his breathing quickened as he followed the police boat in the thrilling
+pursuit of Tonga and Jonathan Small on the tortuous, traffic-blocked
+Thames.
+
+He found himself reading the love passages with a sudden and sympathetic
+insight. No longer did he feel tempted to skim those pages hastily that
+he might resume the thread of the main and more engrossing plot. Didn't
+Louise live almost across the street from him? Wasn't his interest in
+her explained by that paragraph, "A wondrous and subtle thing is love,
+for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day--"
+
+"John!" His mother stood in the doorway, stern disapproval in her gaze.
+He looked at her blankly.
+
+"Put up that book this minute. Don't you know that reading is the worst
+thing possible for inflamed eyes?"
+
+The treasure was surrendered regretfully. His mother replaced it on the
+shelf.
+
+"Where's the key to your bookcase?" He shrugged his shoulders. "It
+doesn't matter. Mine fits your door, anyway."
+
+The squeak of the lock sounded the death knell to the one course of
+amusement that had lain open to him. His mother pulled down the window
+shades and stooped over in the darkened room to kiss him.
+
+"Sleep a little, son," she counseled. "Mother wants you to feel better
+in the morning."
+
+He undressed and threw himself into bed angrily. Even books were denied
+him. What was the fun in being sick, anyway, if a fellow's mother
+insisted on taking that sickness seriously. Why wasn't she as easy going
+as Mrs. DuPree who allowed that privileged youngster to stay up as late
+as he wanted and to indulge in other liberties not usually granted to a
+boy of ten?
+
+Sid and the class must be finishing arithmetic now. He wished he were
+there. Anything--even school--was better than staying in bed in a
+darkened room. Did Louise enjoy his back seat? Had she found the big wad
+of chewing gum he'd left on the bottom of the desk? Was Silvey having
+the same unfortunate time as he?
+
+The room was warm and close in spite of the open east exposure. He
+yawned dismally. A fly lighted on his nose. He brushed it away in drowsy
+irritation. In a moment his eyes closed.
+
+He was awakened by the buzz of the egg beater in a china bowl in the
+kitchen below him. Must be 'most dinner time. He felt hungry enough.
+What was his mother cooking? A fragrant hissing from the hot pan hinted
+of an omelet. Just let him sink his teeth into one. Wouldn't be long
+before he was ready for another.
+
+He roused himself and went into the hall.
+
+"Moth-a-ar," he called down the stairway.
+
+"Yes, John?"
+
+"I'm hu-u-ngry."
+
+"Lie still. I'll be up with your dinner in a few moments."
+
+He hoped it would be something good. Beefsteak and mashed potatoes and
+peas would be about right. Omelet would do, if there were enough. He
+could devour the house, he felt so ravenous.
+
+Shortly his mother appeared with the big brown tray, drew up a
+straight-backed chair to the bed, and lowered the feast to it before his
+expectant eyes.
+
+"Milk toast!" disgustedly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+[Illustration: _"Milk toast!"_]
+
+"That isn't enough for a fellow. Aren't there any potatoes or meat?"
+
+"They'd make your temperature rise," Mrs. Fletcher explained gently.
+"Perhaps, though, you can have some tomorrow, if you're better."
+
+He waited until she left the room and attacked the mushy stuff hungrily.
+Everything is grist which comes to a small boy's digestive mill, anyway,
+and the food wasn't really distasteful. Then he lay back and, for the
+first time in his active life, realized what a refined torture complete
+and enforced idleness can be.
+
+The shadows played incessantly on the brown wallpaper as the window
+curtains swung back and forth with the air currents and lightened and
+plunged his prison into oppressive twilight alternately. A fly made a
+complete toilette on the bed cover before his interested eyes, now
+brushing the gauzy wings, now twisting its head this way and that way,
+as if indulging in a form of calisthenics. He stretched forth a cautious
+hand to capture the insect, only to watch it buzz merrily away before
+his arm was in striking distance.
+
+A suburban train puffed noisily past and slowed down at the adjacent
+station. Only twenty minutes elapsed! And an afternoon of this awful
+monotony faced him.
+
+He blinked idly at the ceiling. This was Thursday. Played properly, his
+malady should be sufficient to keep him out of school on the morrow; but
+was the game worth the candle?
+
+John dressed himself hurriedly and bounced down the stairs. Mrs.
+Fletcher was in the parlor, glancing for a brief moment at a newly
+arrived magazine. He presented himself sheepishly.
+
+No, he didn't want to stay in bed. He felt all right--honest!
+
+She examined the invalid carefully. The inflammation had left his eyes
+and they were now as clear as her own. His skin felt cool to the touch,
+without a trace of fever, and his tongue was an even, healthy pink.
+
+"There doesn't seem much the matter with you now," she admitted. "It
+won't hurt you to stay up if you don't play too hard. There are lots and
+lots of things to do to help me."
+
+First, the potatoes were to be washed for tomorrow's dinner. He filled
+the dishpan full of water, dumped the sand-laden tubers in, and attacked
+them with a brush in vigorous relief at the change from deadening
+inactivity. Next, there were a hundred and one little errands to do
+about the house, for his mother began sewing on his negligee blouses,
+and the button-hole scissors, the missing "60" thread, and other mislaid
+implements must be found for her. Lastly, he announced that it might be
+well to go up to school and get the lessons for tomorrow.
+
+"Then I won't miss anything," he explained.
+
+Mrs. Fletcher nodded assent. "But come right back. I don't want you to
+be sick again."
+
+The afternoon passed without sign of John. At supper time, he approached
+the house warily. His face was flushed, his school clothes begrimed and
+rumpled, and a bruise on his right shin forced a perceptible limp as he
+walked. He had been practicing with the "Tigers," and the scrimmage had
+been most exciting. Silvey--who had not been put to bed--had bumped into
+Red Brown in a manner which the latter regarded as unnecessarily rough.
+There had been a fight between the two, while the other aspirants for
+positions on the team stood around and yelled "Fi-i-i-ight" at the top
+of their lungs.
+
+Yes, everyone seemed to be inside the Fletcher house. The outlook was
+reasonably safe. He tiptoed up on the porch and stretched out on the
+swinging lounge. There his mother found him feigning a deep and
+overwhelming sleep.
+
+"John!"
+
+Sleeping boys never wakened at the first summons. That wasn't natural.
+So he waited until a maternal hand shook him vigorously.
+
+"Yes, Mother?" With a doleful yawn.
+
+"Is this the way you come straight home from school?"
+
+He protested. There were some lessons to get from Miss Brown after,
+dismissal and that had delayed him. "And I've been here ever so long."
+
+"Nonsense!" she ejaculated. "Just look at the state of your clothing.
+You've been playing football. Come into the house this instant!"
+
+He obeyed meekly. The period of invalidism was over.
+
+But to the harassed school doctor, it seemed on the following morning
+that John Fletcher's case was but the beginning of a long and startling
+outbreak of illness in the school.
+
+Hardly had Miss Brown finished roll call before dark-haired Perry
+Alford, her brightest and most guileless scholar, waved his hand
+excitedly to attract attention. His eyes hurt terribly as teacher could
+see. Wouldn't it be well for him to go to the school physician? Miss
+Brown thought that it would.
+
+Room Ten's door closed upon the prospective invalid. But a few moments
+passed before towheaded, lethargic Olaf Johnson voiced his complaint.
+
+"Please, ma'm, my throat, it feels funny here." He placed a pudgy hand
+on each side of his jaw. "And this morning when I get up, my head feels
+hot."
+
+He, too, was sent to see the school physician.
+
+"Does your nose run?" asked the man of medicines when Perry finished the
+catalog of his ailments.
+
+Perry sneezed and admitted that it did.
+
+"Anything else wrong with you?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir;" then with a sudden glibness, "but I don't feel like
+doing much. Only loafing around--and my head feels queer."
+
+"Home," ordered the doctor, emphatically. "At least four days. Tell your
+mother you've a first-class case of measles developing."
+
+As Perry made his exit, Olaf appeared.
+
+"Another?" exclaimed the physician, as he exchanged a glance with the
+gray-haired principal. "Well, what's the matter with you?"
+
+Olaf elaborated upon the symptoms which he had described to Miss Brown.
+The young medic was puzzled.
+
+"There are aspects which are not quite consistent," he said to the
+principal, "but the soreness suggests mumps. Shall we send him home?"
+
+"As you think best," nodded Mr. Downer. Olaf went the way of the
+measles-smitten Perry.
+
+The doctor was picking up his hat and medicine case to leave when the
+office door opened again. Two more boys appeared.
+
+"Good heavens!" said he, as he sat down heavily. "Is it an epidemic?"
+
+The principal shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.
+
+"More mumps." He beckoned to the larger of the two boys. "Now it's your
+turn."
+
+The older urchin was sturdily built, with a deep coat of tan on his face
+that no city sun had ever bred.
+
+"What's wrong with you?"
+
+The situation was beginning to pall. The position of school doctor,
+newly created by the Board of Education at the close of the spring term,
+carried no munificent salary. The young practitioner had grasped at the
+opening because the routine work offered golden opportunities for
+acquiring a clientele among the parents of the various pupils. Now,
+almost at the outset, a whole morning had been consumed, and there was
+promise of a great deal more work in the future.
+
+There didn't seem to be anything seriously the matter with the boy. He
+felt bruised all over, that was all.
+
+"Where does it hurt the most?"
+
+"Around my back."
+
+"Here?" The doctor placed his hands firmly on either side of the
+patient's spine.
+
+"O-o-oh, don't!" he waited.
+
+The physician straightened up and regarded the pupil gravely.
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"My stomach feels queer and it hurts like the dickens every once in a
+while. I lost my breakfast, this morning, too!"
+
+A tense note crept into the inquisitor's voice. "Have you ever been
+vaccinated?"
+
+"No sir. We just moved to the city this summer."
+
+"Smallpox!" The principal turned a little pale.
+
+"Are you sure?" he asked.
+
+"The pain in the back and the vomiting are almost certain indications."
+He turned to the boy. "Tell your mother to notify the health department
+the very minute you get home. Your house must be quarantined
+immediately."
+
+Much more was said regarding precautions, and measures, and medicines,
+to which the patient listened stolidly. A disinterested observer might
+have said that he was waiting solely for the order to leave school.
+
+As the door closed, the authorities exchanged worried glances.
+
+"The health record of the school has always been remarkably good," began
+the principal.
+
+"But it's an epidemic," cut in the worried physician. "And what an
+epidemic. Four cases this morning, and two yesterday, ranging all the
+way from mumps to smallpox. Downer, the school ought to be closed and
+thoroughly disinfected."
+
+"Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that the cases are confined to one
+room, Ten, and that boys are the only victims?"
+
+"Did you ever hear of a germ carrier. A person who, through some source
+of exposure, carries germs here and there on his or her clothes, and is
+perfectly immune to them. That's what you must have in that room. As for
+your last question, merely a coincidence. The boys happened to be the
+most susceptible to exposure, that's all."
+
+A bell clanged noisily. Mr. Downer stood up and looked thoughtfully from
+his window upon the orderly lines of pupils that no sooner passed from
+the school threshold than they became a howling, shouting mass of
+seeming infant maniacs.
+
+"Seems to me," he said, "Miss Brown was telling about a girl named
+Margaret, Margaret Moran, whose mother took in washing for a living.
+Spoke of it as a great joke. Said the girl wore a new dress every day,
+sometimes too long, sometimes too short, but never a fit. An ingenious
+way to reduce one item of the present high cost of living. She might be
+the one," he admitted.
+
+"Always the way," his companion said sharply. "There are more epidemics
+and near epidemics started by these itinerant washerwomen than the
+medical journals can keep track of. They ought to be regulated."
+
+"At any rate," said the principal, "I think it would be wise to question
+her a little before steps are taken to close the school. She may be able
+to shed some light on matters."
+
+"As you wish." The physician shrugged his shoulders. "I'll be back, this
+afternoon, to help with the inquisition."
+
+Next to children, the gray-haired man loved flowers, and he had planted
+the barren strip of land adjoining the fence separating the school yard
+from the alley with cannas and elephant's ears. He was puttering among
+them, now seeking voracious parasites, now examining a leaf which hinted
+in its faded coloring of fast approaching frosts, when boys' voices
+coming from the alley, held his attention.
+
+"So you want a holiday?" John Fletcher was the speaker beyond doubt; and
+his case had been the forerunner of the epidemic.
+
+"Uhu."
+
+"Got your nickel?"
+
+"Show me how, first."
+
+A moment's silence. John was examining the seeker after advice.
+
+"Just want this afternoon?"
+
+The boy assented.
+
+"Better have the measles, then. That's only good for one day, 'cause you
+can't fake it much longer. The disease comes on too fast. Doctor's book
+says so. Now pay attention."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Just before you go to school, shake some red pepper into your hand and
+go into a small closet. Shut the door so's none of the stuff can get
+out, and blow on it. Stay there until your eyes begin to smart. You'll
+find they're all red. That's the first symptom. Now repeat what I told
+you."
+
+His pupil obeyed.
+
+"Let Miss Brown take a good look and she'll send you to the doctor right
+away. When you come into the office, give a little cough as if your
+throat hurt. Let's hear you."
+
+The urchin hacked vigorously.
+
+"No, no, not so loud! You couldn't do that if your throat hurt as much
+as you must pretend it does. Try again."
+
+This time, the effort satisfied even the teacher's critical ear.
+
+"Then, when the doctor asks what's the matter, tell him you don't
+exactly know; that your head feels sort of queer, and you were all hot
+when you woke up this morning. He'll say 'Measles' and order you 'home
+until the case develops,'" quoting the physician's words at his own
+dismissal. "Now give me the nickel."
+
+"Shucks, is that all?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That ain't worth no nickel."
+
+"Aren't you going to give me that nickel?" threateningly.
+
+"That ain't worth more'n a penny. How do I know whether it'll work?"
+
+"Perry Alford's worked, and so did mine, and Bill Silvey's, Olaf's,
+Carl's, and the country kid's."
+
+"The other kids aren't paying you no nickel."
+
+"They are, too. Ask Mickey and his brother, and the Shepherd kids.
+They're going to be sick this afternoon, and they've paid me."
+
+"I can go to Olaf," asserted the would-be dead-beat. "He'll tell me what
+you told him, and it'll only cost a penny."
+
+"He'd better not! I'll smash his face in if he does. _Are you going to
+give me that nickel?_"
+
+"Naw, I ain't."
+
+John clenched his fists belligerently. His debtor raised both arms in a
+posture of defense. The principal tiptoed noiselessly around the end of
+the fence. John sparred for an opening and his opponent spied the
+approaching figure.
+
+"Jiggers! Old man Downer!" he yelled. "Beat it quick!"
+
+John turned, only to meet the principal's firm grasp on his shoulder.
+
+"Come up to the office," said the quiet voice. "I want to have a talk
+with you."
+
+He led the way to the center doors, an entrance reserved for the use of
+such awe-inspiring mortals as the faculty, visiting school
+superintendents, and parents. Up the dingy wooden stairs, worn at either
+end by the innumerable shuffling feet which had passed over them, they
+went, and into the bleak little office.
+
+"Sit down," said Mr. Downer.
+
+John collapsed into an uncomfortable wooden chair and gazed about him.
+There were the same desk, the same window box, filled with geraniums and
+pansies, and the same dun wall that he had seen on previous visits,
+prompted by his various sins. There was only one change. Opposite him, a
+newly framed head of Washington looked down from the wall in cold
+disapproval of the culprit who, for once in his brief life, felt
+strangely small and subdued.
+
+There were no questions; the principal had heard too much from his
+vantage point beside the fence. So he talked on and on and on in even,
+severe tones, of notes mailed to parents, of suspension notices, of
+school board action, and of interviews with Mr. Fletcher, until John,
+staring, motionless, at a panel in the big oak desk, felt his lower lip
+quiver. Then the gray-haired man desisted.
+
+"But I hope none of these measures will be necessary, John," he
+concluded.
+
+"N-no, sir," came the scarcely audible response.
+
+Had the boy looked at the kindly face, he would have seen that the deep
+set eyes were a-twinkle with suppressed merriment, but he was too
+conscience-stricken to do anything but slink from the office to the
+school yard.
+
+There he found that the news of his downfall had been spread among the
+fast increasing throng of boys who scampered over the pavement in
+breakneck games of tag or made tops perform miraculous tricks as they
+waited for the school bell to ring. Not a few jeered at him. One or two
+little girls who were passing stuck out their tongues. Even Sid DuPree
+and Silvey and the rest of the "Tigers" had only derisive laughter.
+
+It was the first time in his life that he had been made to feel
+ridiculous and he liked it not at all. He felt strangely out of place
+and stood to one side of the yard, a scowl on his face, glaring at the
+throng of merrymakers. Anyway, the proceeds of his escapade were in his
+pockets; that was more money than any of the scoffers owned. He shook
+the coins consolingly.
+
+A boy darted past. "Y-a-a, Johnny will try to fool the doctor!"
+
+The scowl deepened, then vanished suddenly. "Hey!" he bellowed to an
+astonished group near him. "Come on, all of you, over to the school
+store."
+
+They filed, a perplexed, noisy throng, into the cramped room. The
+proprietress gasped. John swaggered forward.
+
+"Here," said he, with the air of a young millionaire throwing away
+twenty-dollar tips, "I want forty-five cents' worth of six-for-a-cent
+lemon drops. Give each of these kids two and save the rest for me, if
+there is any rest!"
+
+Then he strutted out, a veritable lord of creation. His pockets were
+empty, but little he cared. The clamor in the school store was as sweet
+music to his ears, for it meant that his status among his play-fellows
+was restored. His bump of conceit no longer ached. So he knew that the
+victory was worth the price and again he felt at peace with the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+IN WHICH A TERRIFIC BATTLE IS WAGED
+
+
+The following morning was clear and sun-shiny. Silvey, his trousers'
+pockets strangely distorted, sprinted down the street and halted on the
+cement walk in front of the Fletcher house.
+
+"Oh, John-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e!"
+
+John appeared at an upper window in answer to the ear-piercing call. He
+carried a dustrag in one hand, and an expression of extreme discontent
+was on his freckled face.
+
+"What you want?"
+
+"Come on out."
+
+"Can't." Disgruntled pessimism rang in his tones.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Got to tidy my room and dust the bookcase and hang up my clothes in the
+closet and cut the front grass. Mother says so."
+
+"Aw-w-w, shucks! Can't you get out of it?" His friend fumbled in one of
+his bulging pockets. "Look!"
+
+The laborer at household tasks stared with sudden interest. "Ji-miny,
+cukes! Where'd you get 'em?"
+
+"'Long the railroad tracks. Vines are loaded. Nice and ripe, too.
+Watch."
+
+He hurled the greeny, spiny oval against the window ledge where it burst
+with the peculiar "plop," which only a wild cucumber of a certain stage
+of juicy plumpness can make.
+
+"The fellows are going to have a big fight," Silvey continued--"Perry
+Alford and Sid and the Harrison kids and all the rest of the gang. Ask
+your mother can you leave the work until afternoon. Tease her _hard_."
+
+Cucumbers ripe so early? That was fine! But could he evade the Saturday
+tasks. He would try.
+
+As he descended the stairs, the elation left his face and his step grew
+heavy and lifeless. He was framing a plea for freedom and his manner
+must fit the occasion. Had you seen him, you might have thought that his
+best bamboo fishing pole had been broken, or that the key to his
+bookcase was in maternal possession as punishment for some misdeed. All
+boys are splendid professional mourners anyway, and John was by no means
+an exception to the rule.
+
+He halted in the dingy coat closet to listen. Through the closed kitchen
+door came his mother's voice uplifted in song.
+
+    Nita, Oh, Ju-a-a-nita,
+    Ala-a-s that we must part!
+
+He sighed deeply. Bitter experience had taught that never was moment so
+unpropitious for errands like the present as when that cheerful dirge
+filled the air. But the thought of the waiting Silvey nerved him. He
+turned the doorknob and coughed hesitantly. His mother looked up from
+the pan of apples on her lap and smiled. She knew that lagging step and
+drooping mouth of old.
+
+"Well, John?"
+
+Her son fidgeted from one foot to the other. Beginnings were always so
+difficult. At last he blurted out:
+
+"Mother! Bill's outside with a lot of cucumbers. Says the fellows are
+going to have a sham battle and wants me to come along."
+
+"Did you put your shoes away in the bag on the door and hang up your
+good knickerbockers and coat?"
+
+His eyes began to fill. "N-no," he admitted.
+
+"Well, you've been upstairs nearly an hour," Mrs. Fletcher went on
+inexorably. "I suppose your room is tidied and dusted anyway."
+
+"Not quite," reluctantly. If the truth were told, a new book from the
+public library had caught his eye as he was about to start, and time had
+flown as a consequence.
+
+His mother shook her head. "That's your regular Saturday work, John. It
+has to be finished before you can go out. You know that. And there's the
+lawn to be cut, and the porch to be hosed. You skipped them last week."
+
+"I'll do them this afternoon. Honest, I will." His lower lip began to
+tremble. Mrs. Fletcher struggled to hide a smile.
+
+"Tell Bill you'll be out later." She disregarded his offer of
+compromise. "Now run along, son. Teasing only wastes time. You could be
+half finished if you'd only worked."
+
+There was no mistaking the tone. It meant business in spite of the
+aggressive cheerfulness. He turned moodily and stamped out of the room.
+As the door closed, he found an outlet for the disappointment in half
+mumbled ejaculations.
+
+"Mean old thing. Never lets a fellow do what he wants. Just as well have
+let 'em go until afternoon. What's the use of tidying a room, anyway?
+Always gets dirty again."
+
+Half-way up the carpeted stairs, he tripped in his blind anger and
+bruised his knee. The pain was sufficient to make the tears--the easy
+flowing tears which had longed for an outlet from the start of the
+interview--stream from his eyes.
+
+In a trice, he turned, threw back the door, and fled to the haven of his
+mother's lap. His arms sought clumsily to encircle her neck. She dropped
+the pan of apples on the floor, and gathered him, a sobbing little
+bundle, into her comforting arms.
+
+"What is it, son?"
+
+"My knee." One uncertain hand indicated the injured spot.
+
+"Ah, son, son," she laughed softly with just a hint of a catch in her
+voice as she rubbed the injury gently, "is it only when you want
+something that you love me like this?"
+
+He shook his head and snuggled closer in vehement protest. They rocked
+to and fro for some moments. Gradually the sobbing ceased and he lay
+blissfully motionless until she looked down at him. Then he said
+sheepishly,
+
+"If I do the lawn now, can I leave the porch and my room until
+afternoon?"
+
+Mrs. Fletcher gave her son an amused shake. He sensed hope for his cause
+and began to weep anew.
+
+"Please!"
+
+His mother's smile broadened. "You little humbug," she said softly.
+
+John wanted to smile, too. She always said that when she was relenting.
+
+"Can I?" eagerly.
+
+"Well, make a good job of the front lawn and I'll see."
+
+He struggled to his feet and was on the front porch before the kitchen
+door had slammed behind him. Half-dried tears still streaked his face,
+but a smile shone through them like the sun after a summer shower.
+
+"Got to cut the front lawn," he said exuberantly, "but that won't take
+long. She says I can leave the rest of it."
+
+Silvey's face clouded. "They're waiting for us in the big lot."
+
+"Won't take long if you help me," John hinted gently. "You run the mower
+and I'll follow with the rake."
+
+He darted back into the house and down into the dark, badly ventilated
+basement. Silvey sauntered around to the side, just in time to hear him
+struggling with the rusty door bolt.
+
+They dragged the implements up the area steps and set to work grimly. No
+time to be spent in making erratic circles or decorative designs in the
+long grass now. Up and down, up and down, the mower whirred with
+methodical thoroughness until the little plot had been cut after a
+fashion.
+
+"Guess that'll do," said John as they bumped the tools down the rickety
+wooden steps and left them lying in the doorway.
+
+"Going to tell her you're finished?"
+
+Mrs. Fletcher's son shook his head vigorously. "S'pose I want to trim
+the edges with the shears? Come on. Beat you over the tracks!"
+
+The lot where the boys had held their first football practice was large
+and occupied more than half of the double city block on which the dairy
+farm was located. The far end was flanked by a row of red, ramshackle
+frame stores, occupied by photographers, art dealers, and a Greek ice
+cream soda shop. A little further in and along the railroad fence, dense
+weeds flourished, topping at times even the tallest of the boys. Nearer
+to the dairy, short, sparse grass struggled for existence under a
+profusion of tin cans, charred wood, and broken milk bottles. A
+considerable area had been cleared of these impediments, and formed the
+boys' athletic grounds. Near one corner stood a monster pile of barrels
+and boxes, collected some months past, for a bonfire; but the policeman
+on the beat had interfered with a threat of arrest for the whole tribe,
+and the giant conflagration had not taken place.
+
+The pair were greeted with shouts as they jumped down from the railroad
+fence.
+
+"What took you so long?" Sid DuPree asked.
+
+John explained. The members of the gang offered congratulations at the
+escape, or sympathized with him over the work yet to be done, according
+to their several viewpoints. The elder Harrison boy led the two to one
+side and pointed out a scant bushel basket of the green ammunition.
+Others explained the plans for the morning's fun.
+
+"Silvey 'n I'll be generals of the armies," said John, when the babel
+had diminished. Sid raised his voice in protest.
+
+"Give somebody else a chance. Let Red and me be it this time."
+
+Silvey shouted derisively. "'Member the time you got hit in the eye with
+a snowball? Went home, bawling 'Ma-m-a-a, Ma-m-a-a.' Fine general you'll
+make!"
+
+Sid brandished his fists with a show of braggadocio. "Want to fight
+about it?"
+
+"Na-a-w," came the sneering reply. "Don't fight with cowards."
+
+John turned upon the pair imperiously. "Silvey'n I'll be generals, just
+as I said. Cut out the quarreling. If you don't like it, you don't have
+to. Want to quit?"
+
+Sid mumbled a sulky denial and retreated to the outer edge of the little
+group. There he poured out his troubles to the elder Harrison boy. John
+and Bill were always bossing things; ought to let him lead once in a
+while; thought they were the earth, anyway.
+
+John shot him a keen glance and whirled upon Silvey.
+
+"First choose!" he shouted.
+
+"'Tain't fair," objected his rival. "I wasn't ready. Draw lots."
+
+Perry Alford plucked a half-dozen blades of grass of varying lengths and
+folded them carefully. Then he held one, tightly closed, chubby hand
+first to Bill and then to John. The leaders compared their prizes.
+Silvey gave an exultant yell and beckoned to a gawky, loosely jointed
+lad who stood a little apart from the rest of the gang.
+
+"Come on, Skinny! You're on my side."
+
+Skinny's long arms made him a welcome addition to any force and a
+warrior to be feared at all times. Occasionally he performed feats of
+marksmanship which not even the two redoubtable leaders could equal.
+
+The group of boys drew closer. Perry Alford lagged with seeming
+nonchalance, a step in the rear of his more eager play-fellows. Sid
+DuPree picked up a pebble and threw it unerringly toward a railroad
+fence post as John eyed him regretfully.
+
+If only that youngster had not such a reputation for quitting under
+fire, time and again during their many mimic battles! Then his glance
+fell upon Red Brown's impudent, freckled face and he smiled. Here was a
+warrior with a temperament to delight the leader of a forlorn hope.
+
+"Come on, Red!"
+
+Sid was promptly seized upon by the rival commander.
+
+"Perry Alford," said John.
+
+The remaining half-dozen mediocrities were divided without further ado.
+Then the two leaders stepped gravely to one side and discussed the rules
+for the approaching conflict, while the rank and file of the two armies,
+twelve strong, amused themselves by wrestling, throwing bits of stone
+and glass up on the railroad tracks, and engaging in impromptu games of
+tag.
+
+"Each fellow gets twenty cucumbers," concluded John. "That'll leave some
+for fun, later. If a man gets hit three times, he's a deader and has to
+quit. Side wins when the other fellows are killed, same as it was last
+year."
+
+Silvey nodded and beckoned to his clan. The Fletcherites were about to
+withdraw to the opposite side of the field when an unforeseen
+interruption occurred.
+
+"Wanta fight!" announced a tousled-headed, wash-suited five-year-old
+with determination.
+
+"Go on!" retorted Silvey incautiously as he looked down upon the
+petitioner from the lofty height of ten long years of life. "This game
+ain't for babies. It's for _men_. You'd get hit in the eye and go home
+to ma-ma in a minute. You can't play."
+
+The infant eyed him for a moment and threw himself on the ground in a
+fit of rage. "Wanta fight! Wanta fight! Wanta fight!" he wailed again
+and again.
+
+Bill turned to Skinny Mosher angrily. "What do you always bring that kid
+brother along for? He spoils all our fun. Ain't you got any sense?"
+
+"Sense?" replied that star marksman in injured tones. "You bet I've got
+sense. But what's a fellow to do when his ma says, 'Now, Leonard, take
+little brother along and see that those big, rough boys don't hurt
+him.'" Tone and mannerisms were in perfect imitation of Mrs. Mosher.
+
+"Give him some cucumbers and let him fool around. That'll keep him
+quiet," Red suggested.
+
+"Yes," retorted Silvey scornfully. "Then he'll mix in the fight and get
+hit and go home bawling, same as he did when we had the snow fort. Then
+his ma'll go around to our mas and tell 'em what rough games we play and
+how it's a wonder somebody hasn't lost an eye. We'll all get penny
+lectures and the fun'll be spoiled for a week. Oh, yes, let him fight!"
+
+John broke the gloomy silence which followed. "Here, kid, you can join
+both armies at once."
+
+The incubus ceased wailing and looked up eagerly. Silvey's and Skinny's
+faces bespoke perturbed amazement.
+
+"How----," interrupted Red Brown.
+
+"You can be a Red Crosser and look after the ones who get killed," John
+continued serenely. "Only you mustn't fight. Red Crossers never do. They
+just stay around the hospitals." He fumbled in a hip pocket for the bit
+of red school chalk which he used for marking hop-scotch squares on the
+sidewalks. "Come here and I'll put the cross on your arm. And," he
+offered as alluring alternative, "if you don't like that, I'll punch
+your face and send you home!"
+
+Like the one non-office holder of a certain short-lived boys' club who
+was given the specially created position of "Honorable Vice-President,"
+the Mosher infant was more than placated. As he galloped off astride an
+imaginary horse for a circuit of the field, the factions breathed a
+unanimous sigh of relief.
+
+"No fair firing until we say 'Ready,'" shouted the exultant diplomat, as
+he gathered his forces and led them toward their own territory.
+
+"Now," said he, when they reached the tall, straggling weeds, "how're we
+going to beat 'em?"
+
+Immediately a babel of suggestions ensued. Bill waited a few impatient
+minutes and executed a taunting, barbaric war dance to the center of the
+field. Carefully planned campaigns were not for him; his force boasted
+too many good marksmen.
+
+"'Fraid cats! 'Fraid cats!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs.
+"C'ardy, c'ardy custard, eatin' bread an' must-a-ard. Come on an' get
+beat. Come on an' get beat."
+
+John nodded at a suggestion of Red's and turned to the dancing figure.
+
+"Ready, ch-a-arge!" he shouted. Silvey retreated promptly to the shelter
+of his own army. Presently his four weakest marksmen advanced.
+
+"Wants to get us fighting," explained General Fletcher, as he restrained
+his impatient subordinates. "Then he and Skinny and Sid will pick us
+off. Come on--and remember."
+
+They advanced silently without wasting a cucumber. The elder Harrison
+boy who led the four skirmishers, ventured a shot to open the
+engagement. Silvey, Skinny, and Sid DuPree sauntered carelessly up.
+
+"Now!" shouted John.
+
+His little force split into two groups. Red, with Perry and two others,
+charged to the right of the advancing quartette, while the general's
+detachment dodged quickly past their left. Then at a signal, seven arms
+loosed a shower of missiles at the startled trio of leaders.
+
+A cucumber caught Skinny Mosher squarely below his ear. Another left a
+moist spot on one of Silvey's oft darned stockings. A third missile
+found another mark on the now bewildered Mosher. Red Brown advanced upon
+him.
+
+"Surrender!" he yelled.
+
+Mosher fished another cucumber from his trousers and fired squarely at
+his advancing enemy. That gentleman dodged, tripped upon a bit of
+debris, and fell over backwards with a "plop." As Skinny advanced
+incautiously to make sure of his victim, Red retired him with a glancing
+shot on his upraised hand.
+
+"You're a deader, you're a deader," he yelled as Mosher lifted his arm a
+second time. "John hit you and the little Harrison kid hit you, and now
+I did. That makes three times, and you're killed entirely."
+
+"Shucks," grunted the disgusted corpse. "Just as I was beginning to have
+some fun, too."
+
+The victor busied himself in removing bits of flattened cucumbers from
+his juice-soaked hip pockets. "Just wait until ma sees these pants," he
+said ruefully. "Hey, John, I'm going after more ammunition."
+
+The main conflict slackened. To lose a first lieutenant at the outset,
+and to have two more members of your army near death, is no slight
+matter. Silvey grew more and more disconcerted as the failure of his
+offensive became apparent.
+
+"Beat it," he yelled at last as a stray shot missed his shoulder by a
+scant inch. The survivors retreated to the shelter of the boxes and
+barrels, where they maintained a desultory fire.
+
+The advantage of the impromptu fort began to make itself felt. Missile
+after missile shot accurately out at the attackers and retaliation was
+well nigh impossible. John withdrew his forces just out of range.
+
+"We've got to do something," he said desperately. "Who's hit on our
+side?"
+
+Red pointed to a discolored nose and admitted "Twice." Perry Alford
+indicated a moist, dark circle on his wash blouse and a sticky lock of
+hair. Their leader looked grave.
+
+"Silvey's hit twice, and Skinny's dead, so that leaves them only five.
+But, Jiminy, Red, if you and Perry get hit, it's all up. And look where
+they are. Maybe I can get 'em to come out."
+
+He advanced a few paces toward the weathered heap of debris and broke
+into a time-honored taunt:
+
+    Silvey, th' bilvey,
+    Th' rik-stick-stilvey!
+
+To which the intrenched commander of the enemy replied,
+
+    Fletcher, oh, Fletcher,
+    Th' old fly catcher,
+
+and exposed just enough of his person to wriggle ten brazen fingers from
+the tip of his nose. John made a last, despairing attempt.
+
+"'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid-cat! 'Fraid of getting hi-i-t! Ya-a-h!"
+
+"Come on and hit me, then," came back the answer, which admitted of no
+retort save action.
+
+"We've got to chase 'em out someway." He turned desperately to Red. "You
+and Perry Alford sneak up behind that thick lot of weeds when we start
+yelling and dancing like everything. Then we'll charge and drive 'em
+around to your end. But don't let 'em hit you."
+
+In the meantime, the youngest member of the Mosher family had discovered
+that his position as "Red-Crosser" carried only a decoration on his
+sleeve, which admitted of no honor or excitement whatever. He crept up,
+unobserved by the excited Fletcherites, raided the cucumber basket of as
+many of the missiles as his little pockets would hold, and halted within
+easy distance to watch the attack on the fortress.
+
+Red and Perry sneaked stealthily to the weed-clump ambush while their
+comrades showered cucumbers on the sheltered foe recklessly.
+Occasionally the defenders replied with a shot whenever a good mark was
+presented, but for the most part, they seemed content to keep the box
+heap between them and their enemies and bide their time. Farther and
+farther away they edged in response to the flanking movement of the main
+division of John's army, until Red, deeming the moment opportune, fired.
+Perry Alford followed. Silvey, surprised by the sudden attack from the
+rear, turned and received a cucumber full upon his half-open lips.
+
+"Who did that?" he sputtered, as he dislodged the acrid fragments from
+his mouth.
+
+Red threw caution to the winds and danced exultantly out in the open.
+
+"You're a deader. You're a deader. I killed the general. I killed the
+general."
+
+Silvey advanced on him furiously. "I'll punch your face in, hitting me
+in the mouth that way."
+
+Brown was ever in ecstasy at the prospect of a fight. "Come on and do
+it," he retorted. "Didn't last football practice, did you?"
+
+Silvey doubled his fists. His opponent held his ground. The rank and
+file of the two armies dropped their cucumbers and gathered in a little
+semi-circle to watch the fight. The youngest Mosher boy crept up and
+balanced himself unsteadily on one foot. In his right hand he held a
+cucumber, and on his face shone set determination.
+
+"Wanta fight," he cried, as the combatants began the inevitable
+preliminary sparring. "_Goin'ta_ fight!"
+
+The next moment, a cucumber caught Silvey squarely in the eye. The
+latter turned, dug viciously in his pocket for ammunition, and fired a
+handful of cucumbers at his assailant without perceiving, in his blind
+rage, who it was. Yell after yell filled the air.
+
+"Now look what you've done," exclaimed Mosher miserably. "Just watch me
+catch it when he gets home."
+
+"Well," Silvey snapped, still angry as the others gathered around the
+infant, "I told him to keep out of the cucumber basket. What did he
+throw at me for?"
+
+The wails continued. Skinny bent anxiously over his brother. "Come,
+buddy," he coaxed. "You're not hurt badly."
+
+"W-a-a-a-h!" The boys began to feel alarmed.
+
+"Where did he hit you?"
+
+"W-a-a-a-h!"
+
+Silvey looked down remorsefully. "Here, kid, here's some cucumbers. You
+can hit me as hard as you want and get even."
+
+"W-a-a-a-h!"
+
+Once more, Mosher tried to assuage his brother's grief. "Look at the
+funny man who's coming over to see you. Don't let him find you crying."
+
+The "funny man" proved to be the school physician who was returning from
+a professional call. He dropped his medical case on the turf and stooped
+over the prostrate urchin, who promptly kicked him in the shins.
+
+The doctor drew back hastily. "What's the matter?" he queried.
+
+"Th-th bad boy hit me."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+A grimy, tear streaked hand pointed to Silvey. The medic turned to him.
+
+"Come here, boy," he said majestically.
+
+Instead, Silvey beat a hasty retreat to the railroad tracks. There, from
+the summit of the embankment, he heaped abuse on the inoffensive figure
+with the little black case.
+
+"Smarty, smarty, smart-e-e-e!" he shrilled. "Johnny made a monkey of
+you. Johnny made a monkey of you!"
+
+The ex-members of the armies snickered. Still the shouts continued. The
+doctor flushed a deep scarlet. To retreat in the face of the taunts
+seemed cowardly--to remain was rapidly becoming insufferable.
+
+"Tell your friend he'd better keep quiet," he said in futile anger.
+Silvey interpreted the gesture which accompanied the ultimatum.
+
+"Come on and make me quit," he chanted. "Johnny made a monkey of you and
+I can, to-o-o!"
+
+The physician grinned sheepishly and took a few swift strides after the
+dancing figure. Silvey waited until he was almost at the wire railroad
+fence, and retreated to one of the back yards on the opposite side of
+the embankment. As the doctor retraced his steps to the sidewalk, the
+boys gazed thoughtfully at the depleted supply of ammunition. John
+turned to Skinny Mosher.
+
+"Take that kid away before he gets us into more trouble. He's always
+spoiling our fun, anyway. What'll we do now."
+
+"Let's go over to the street and get chased," Perry Alford suggested, as
+Skinny started towards home with his sniffling, reluctant brother.
+
+They apportioned the last of the cucumbers and crossed the tracks in
+single file, pausing now to balance fantastically on the shining steel
+rails, and now to skip flat, smooth pebbles against the black, weathered
+girders which supported the block signals. As they reached the home
+precincts, a still-panting figure joined them.
+
+"Has he gone?"
+
+John nodded. "He was only bluffing. Might have known that. We're going
+over to the flats."
+
+"The flats" was the largest building on their home street. Built on the
+corner, in the shape of a huge, four-storied, red brick "C," it was
+really composed of a number of apartments with separate entrances with a
+common, cement-paved inside court on which the back porches fronted. The
+basements were given over to boiler rooms, laundry tubs, and storerooms,
+linked by long, twisting, badly lighted corridors which formed excellent
+hiding places for the boys in time of pursuit.
+
+The gang gathered noisily just off the corner and waited for victims. A
+gray-haired, poorly clad woman shuffled past. Sid raised his arm. Silvey
+whispered a protest. "That's old lady Allen. Has the rheumatism. Leave
+her alone."
+
+John broke into a gleeful chortle. "Look what's coming, fellows."
+
+The cause of his exultation was a callow youth of sixteen, whose father
+had met with a sudden wave of prosperity and was now trying to sell his
+rather modest home that he might move to a more exclusive neighborhood.
+The son was inclined to patronize old acquaintances and affected a
+multitude of expensive tailored clothes and a light cane. John eyed the
+gray, immaculately pressed suit appreciatively and let fly.
+
+The boy wheeled in surprise, then stooped to pick up his hat.
+
+"You fellows had better cut that out," he blustered, as he straightened
+the soft, felt brim.
+
+"Who's going to make us?" Silvey jeered, as his cucumber hit the neat
+lapel.
+
+"Just do that again. I'll show you."
+
+A volley of the juicy missiles greeted his words. He charged upon the
+boys, who fled to the haven of the darkest of the corridors and took
+refuge in an empty outer storeroom. There they barricaded themselves and
+awaited his coming.
+
+"Ya-a-ah," John taunted, as he heard heavy breathing through the door.
+"What'll you do now?"
+
+"Just wait until dinner time."
+
+"Not going to make us stay that long, are you? Please don't be mean."
+
+The elder boy deigned no reply. John raised the little window which
+fronted the street and grinned. One by one the gang climbed through the
+narrow opening to the sidewalk and left their vindictive enemy guarding
+the empty storeroom.
+
+Across the street from the flats stood the building which housed the
+corner drug store and "Neighborhood Hall," used according to season for
+high-school dances, minstrel shows, and fraternal meetings. They
+assembled at the entrance, which commanded an excellent view of all
+approaches leading from the flats, and awaited developments.
+
+A little girl rounded the corner with sundry grocer's packages in her
+arms. She noticed that the boys were gathered in the excited group,
+which always spelled danger to unescorted maidens, but held bravely on.
+As she passed, Silvey yelled exultantly. Perry Alford threw wildly and
+hit the ground by her feet. Red's missile caught one nervous, white
+little hand and made her drop a bag of eggs to the sidewalk. John raised
+his arm, then lowered it as if paralyzed.
+
+It was Louise!
+
+"Quit that fellows," he cried, seizing on the first excuse which came
+into his mind. "She's a little girl."
+
+Silvey looked at him in blank amazement. "What of it?" he ejaculated.
+"Ain't the first time you've made one cry."
+
+John's lips tightened. "Don't care if it isn't," he snapped. "Stop that,
+Sid, or I'll punch your face in."
+
+He threw his own cucumber into the gutter to show that his was a
+peaceful errand and walked hastily over to the sobbing figure.
+
+"They'll leave you alone," he assured her. "Let me pick up your eggs."
+
+They were smashed beyond all hope of salvage, but he gathered the
+fragments of shell, with as much of the dust-laden yolks as he could
+scrape up, and placed them gravely in the torn, soggy bag. Then he took
+the bread and the butter from her very gently and turned his back on the
+gang.
+
+"I'll carry them all for you," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let's go
+home now."
+
+She acquiesced silently. They strolled down the leafy walk. John's back
+tingled unpleasantly, for he expected a shower of missiles. Louise's
+weeping ceased, save for an occasional sniffle. At last Silvey roused
+himself from the amazed silence into which his chum's actions had thrown
+him, and seized upon the solution of the mystery.
+
+"Johnny an' Lou-i-ise! Johnny an' Lou-i-ise!"
+
+Louise flushed scarlet and bit her lip. John turned and stuck out his
+tongue defiantly. An awkward silence followed.
+
+"I'll punch that kid's head off when I catch him," he growled as the
+shouts continued. Louise looked up at him shyly.
+
+"I don't mind," she said.
+
+They halted in front of the three-story apartment where her parents
+lived. John shifted clumsily from one foot to the other, not knowing how
+to make a graceful adieu. The maiden came to his rescue with a
+parrot-like imitation of Mrs. Martin's formula for such occasions.
+
+"Thank you very much--and--I'm so glad to make your acquaintance."
+
+Though the words were ridiculously stilted, John turned with a song on
+his lips and skipped across to the home porch swing, where his mother
+found him a moment later, and made him come in and get washed for
+dinner.
+
+That afternoon he walked north to the branch library to turn in his book
+on which a six-cent fine impended. With the yellow card in his hand, he
+went over to the fiction section of the open shelves. No more Hentys, no
+more Optics. He was in love, and love stories he must have.
+
+Silvey, Perry Alford, and Red sauntered up just before supper to find
+out how the land lay. They found him stretched out on the porch swing
+with the latest acquisition from the library beside him.
+
+"Say, John," Silvey began nervously. He was afraid he had gone a little
+too far that morning.
+
+John raised dreamy eyes. What did he care about commonplace declarations
+of friendship such as Silvey was making? His head was a-riot with the
+thrilling words of the latest love passage between the hero and a
+heroine so perfect that her like never existed beyond the covers of a
+novel, and the interruption bored him.
+
+"So you see," Perry chimed in as Bill finished, "we didn't want you to
+be mad about it."
+
+John waved a magnanimous dismissal. "But don't do it again," he
+cautioned apathetically, "'cause--well--she's my girl. That's all."
+
+And again his eyes sought the alluring pages of the book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HE COMPOSES A LOVE MISSIVE
+
+
+Sunday afternoon, Mr. Fletcher took his son for a long stroll in the
+park. They joined the throng of people who promenaded up and down the
+broad cement walk along the beach, and watched the antics of the
+children with their transitory castles until this pleasure began to
+pall. Then they retraced their steps westward to the big island and
+explored the fascinating, winding paths along the shrubbery-covered
+shores. Everywhere were signs of autumn. A light carpet of half-dried
+leaves had already covered the ground. The song birds in the fast
+yellowing, graceful willows were supplanted by silent, migratory groups
+of somber juncos, who fled at their approach. Here and there, they
+surprised a squirrel adding another peanut to his well-buried winter
+cache. But a little later, a pair of lovers on a narrow peninsula bank
+separated awkwardly as the two sauntered up, and John laughed joyously.
+The spirit of summer was as yet far from dead.
+
+Still they wandered on as their fancy pleased them. Far to the south of
+the park, John collected an armful of cat-tails from a bit of marshland,
+and Mr. Fletcher pointed out to him a strange, spotted lizard, which
+scurried for shelter from the intruders. As they returned, they loitered
+by the green, verandaed club house to count the fast diminishing fleet
+of yachts, and joined an ironic audience who watched the struggles of
+two motorboat owners with their craft, and a pair of rickety wagon
+trucks. Sunset found them climbing the home steps to sink into the easy
+porch chairs and wait blissfully until Mrs. Fletcher announced that
+supper was ready.
+
+Now by all the laws of small boy nature, John's eyes should have closed
+that night five minutes after his head had touched the pillow. But then
+it was that the inexplicable happened. Louise forced a disturbing
+entrance into his thoughts with a strange insistency. Was she sleeping
+peacefully or was she thinking of her rescue from the mercies of the
+gang? Perhaps she had already forgotten him. Still, the boys hadn't.
+They would probably spread the details of the love affair all over the
+juvenile neighborhood. Would she walk with him if they did?
+
+The big clock in the hall of the house next door struck ten. He
+discovered that a wrinkle in the sheet chafed his back and smoothed it
+out half angrily.
+
+Why couldn't he go to sleep? Had Louise's mother been vexed at the
+broken eggs? How pretty the girl's long ringlets had looked as she stood
+on the sunlit corner that morning. Did she like to fish? An expedition
+for two could be arranged in spite of the late season. He'd bait her
+hook and take the fish off if she wished. Lunch could be prepared
+beforehand and they wouldn't have to worry about meal time.
+
+Again the timepiece next door chimed its message. He counted the
+strokes--seven--eight--nine--ten--_eleven_! Only twice before had he
+remained awake so late--once on a railroad trip, and once when Uncle
+Frank had come to visit them. He rubbed his clenched fists in his eyes
+and wondered if he dared light the gas to read. He could keep his
+geography near as an excuse if anyone discovered him. Then, hastened
+possibly by the soporific influence of that school book, sleep came at
+last.
+
+In the morning, John tried to analyze the causes for his mental rampage
+as he drew on one toe-frayed stocking. Now that his mother had roused
+him for the third and final time, he felt tired enough to sleep another
+three hours. What had been the matter?
+
+A love scene from that latest public library book flashed into his
+perplexed brain and he sighed contentedly. Had not Leander sacrificed
+long hours of precious slumber at the shrine of his beloved Philura? The
+inference in his own case was both obvious and satisfactory.
+
+To tell Louise of his infatuation seemed the next and most logical step.
+He lacked the courage for a verbal declaration; therefore the message
+must be in writing. But in what form? Letter writing to a girl was a
+novel experience, and he had a horror of parental laughter if he asked
+for advice.
+
+"John!" his mother called from the stairway. "Aren't you ever going to
+get dressed?"
+
+He pulled on his second stocking hastily, with a call of "Down in a
+minute, Mother."
+
+His grandmother's old _Complete Letter Writer_ was in the library
+bookcase. That ought to help him out of his predicament. Wasn't it the
+_Complete_----"
+
+"John!" came a second and more peremptory interruption of his thoughts.
+"Get down here this minute."
+
+He started, drew on his shoes, half-buttoned them, slipped into his
+blouse, with boyish disregard for such matters as bathing, and scampered
+down the stairs to the dining-room. After a hasty meal of oatmeal and
+potatoes, he fled to the seclusion of the library. A moment of nervous
+fumbling with the lock, a rapid turning of pages, and--
+
+"From a son at an educational institution, to his father, engaged in
+business at Boston, requesting--"
+
+But he didn't want to borrow money from Louise. "Honored Parent!" Why,
+"Honored Louise" would sound too ridiculous for anything.
+
+"From a merchant engaged in the hay and grain business in Baltimore, to
+a wholesale dealer in New York, complaining that--"
+
+Such prosaic details as hay and grain shortages were not for him. He
+wanted a love letter, an epistle that would breathe the fire of
+adoration in every line. Didn't the old book have any? The title said
+_Complete_--What was this?
+
+"From a young man--" He skipped the rest of the heading--such things
+didn't have much to do with the real contents anyway.
+
+"Beloved--"
+
+That sounded better.
+
+"When first I--"
+
+The door opened suddenly. Mrs. Fletcher gazed down at him in
+astonishment.
+
+"Haven't you gone to school yet? It's five minutes of nine, now. What on
+earth have you been doing?"
+
+The book dropped to the floor. A scant five minutes later, he stumbled
+breathlessly into the school room, only to find that roll call had been
+finished and that "B" class was holding its English recitation. Miss
+Brown frowned and made a mark in the record book on her desk, and went
+on with the class work. Out came his theme pad and pencil. The fifteen
+minute study period was his for the composition of that letter and he
+set to work.
+
+What did a fellow usually say to a girl, anyway? He'd never written one
+before. He twisted in his seat and caught a glimpse of the adored one's
+graceful curls, but even with this inspiration, ideas refused to come.
+
+"B" division closed its composition books and began to recite under Miss
+Brown's guidance,
+
+    And she, kissing back, could not know
+    That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,
+    Folded close under deepening snow.
+
+For two long weeks they had been memorizing "The First Snow-Fall," but
+were not as yet, letter-perfect in the verses. The teacher encouraged
+them. Twenty odd juvenile voices resumed the choppy, monotonous chant.
+John gripped his pencil with new life.
+
+Poetry! That was the only way to express your sentiments! Why hadn't he
+thought of it before? Once, in third grade, he had composed a
+masterpiece:
+
+    Think, think, what do you think?
+    A mouse ran under the kitchen sink.
+    The old maid chased it
+    With dustpan and broom
+    And kicked it and knocked it
+    Right out of the room.
+
+The slip of paper had been passed to a chum for appreciation, only to
+have Miss O'Rourke pounce upon the effort and read it to an uproarious
+class. His ears burned, even now, at that memory.
+
+But there would be no second disaster. He began on the ruled sheet
+boldly,
+
+"Beloved Louise!"
+
+Then came a pause. Oh for a first line! You couldn't start out with "I
+love you." That would make further words unnecessary. What did people
+usually put in poems? All about stars, and the warm south wind and
+roses. A fugitive bit of verse echoed in his brain. "The rose--" He had
+it now!
+
+    The rose is red,
+    The violet's blue,
+    This will tell you
+    I love you.
+
+To be sure, the bit of doggerel had been inscribed on a card sent him by
+Harriette in the third-grade valentine box, but Louise need never know
+the secret of its authorship. And it expressed his feelings with such a
+degree of nicety!
+
+He scrawled a huge, concluding "John," folded the paper complacently,
+and waved one hand to attract Miss Brown's attention.
+
+"Please, may I go over to the school store and buy a copy book?"
+
+"Are your lessons prepared for this afternoon?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+Consent was given. John rose, with the compact paper hidden in his right
+hand, and sauntered carelessly down the aisle. At his old desk, he
+paused with a fleeting glace at Louise as he dropped the note, and
+walked on into the hall. There he stopped to peer into the room through
+the half-closed door.
+
+Louise covered the note with one hand and drew it toward her slowly and
+with infinite caution. He watched her face breathlessly. Curiosity was
+succeeded by surprise and then by anger. A little toss of her curls, a
+glance at teacher, and she half turned toward the door. He could see
+that her face was scarlet. What was she going to do?
+
+Horror of horrors, she stuck out her tongue at him!
+
+The ways of girls were beyond his comprehension. There was no cause for
+offense in that note. He loved her. Why should she object to being told
+about it?
+
+He made his way moodily down the broad flight of stairs leading to the
+basement. There, in the big, dimly lighted, cement-floored playroom,
+where the children held forth on rainy days, he met a boy from another
+room, who was likewise in no hurry to return. They hailed each other in
+subdued tones.
+
+"Been down long?"
+
+"Oh, our teacher doesn't get mad unless you're gone half an hour. Want
+to play marbles?"
+
+John assented joyously. His friend chalked an irregular circle on the
+floor, and presently the room resounded with shouts of "H'ist," and "No
+fair dribblin'" until the grizzled school janitor sent them flying to
+their rooms under threat of a visit to the principal's office.
+
+At the doorway, he paused to summon his courage, for time had flown all
+too rapidly in the basement. Louise showed not a sign of recognition as
+he passed. Miss Brown broke the oppressive silence.
+
+"Where's the copy book, John?"
+
+His lower lip dropped in consternation. His excuse for leaving had been
+completely forgotten. "A quarter of an hour after school" was the
+sentence for the offense, and he opened his geography with a feeling of
+thankfulness that it had not been more.
+
+All about the brick-paved school yard, on the walk, and in the street
+gutters, were scattered oblongs of blue paper as he scampered from the
+deserted building at noon. The boy picked one of the handbills up and
+read with an odd thrill:
+
+     Professor T. J. O'Reilley's
+
+     PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW
+
+     _in_
+
+     Three Stupendous, Sidesplitting Parts
+
+     _at_
+
+     NEIGHBORHOOD HALL,
+
+     _Monday, October 4, at 4:15 p.m._
+
+
+     I
+
+     Punch and Judy. The old favorite as played before the Crowned Heads
+     of Europe. All the well-known characters, with added mirth
+     provoking innovations. Alone worth the price of admission.
+
+
+     II
+
+     Peck's Bad Boy and His Pal. Startling, amusing, and instructive
+     exhibition of ventriloquism by that amazing expert, Professor T. J.
+     O'Reilley. Hear the Bad Boy and his friend talk and joke as if they
+     were really alive. During this act Professor O'Reilley uses one of
+     his marvelous ventriloquial whistles and will explain its operation
+     to the audience.
+
+
+     III
+
+     Motion Pictures. Actual figures thrown on the screen that do
+     everything but talk. Thrilling display of the heroism of American
+     Soldiers during the Spanish-American War! See the landing of the
+     Regulars under fire! See men fall in actual battle before your very
+     eyes! Watch the charge up San Juan Hill--the thrilling infantry
+     skirmish!
+
+
+     _Followed by_
+
+     A Grand Distribution of Valuable Prizes! Glistening Ice Skates.
+     Rings, Dolls, Doll Carriages, and other Toys. In addition, every
+     man, woman, and child in the audience who does not win a gift, will
+     receive _absolutely free_, one of Professor O'Reilley's marvelous
+     ventriloquial whistles.
+
+
+     TWO HOURS OF AMUSING
+     AND INSTRUCTIVE ENTERTAINMENT!
+
+     _Admission only ten cents!_
+
+Could he go? Of course, for the necessary dime was always forthcoming
+from his mother when an itinerant showman rented the corner dance hall
+for a one day performance.
+
+On the corner of Southern Avenue, he overtook Bill, who had stopped to
+play tops with an acquaintance.
+
+"Going?" he asked, as his chum glanced at the blue slip in his hand.
+
+"Bet your life," said Silvey decidedly. "Did you see the rings the man
+showed in the school yard?"
+
+John reminded him of the fifteen minute detention. "Were they pretty?"
+
+"Pretty? They were just peaches--all gold and stones, and sparkled like
+everything."
+
+They parted at his front steps. John plodded thoughtfully homeward, for
+his brain buzzed with a new and daring possibility. Would Louise
+overlook the morning's fiasco and allow him to take her? He broached the
+matter of finances to Mrs. Fletcher.
+
+"But what do you want two dimes for? Tell Mother."
+
+No, he wouldn't. But he had to have the two coins. Mrs. Fletcher studied
+him curiously.
+
+"Is there some little girl you want to take?"
+
+An evasive silence followed her question. Nevertheless his brown eyes
+pleaded his cause so eloquently that one o'clock found him sitting on
+the front porch, jingling the money merrily in one hand.
+
+The day was crisp and sunny, with an invigorating breeze from the lake,
+which set the blood pulsing in his veins. Ordinarily, he would have
+scampered off to play with Bill and Perry Alford or Sid on the way to
+school, but not this time. He was waiting for some one.
+
+Shortly a dainty, pink pinafored figure with the familiar curly ringlets
+skipped past on the opposite side of the street. When she had gone
+perhaps fifty yards, John walked down the steps and followed not too
+rapidly. He must catch up quite as if by accident, for it would never do
+to have the meeting occur seemingly of his own volition.
+
+She saw him coming and halted at the corner drug store to gaze demurely
+at a window display of gaily tinned talcum powder. As the boy came up to
+her, a queer, choking sensation filled his throat.
+
+"'Lo," he gulped nervously. Not a sign of recognition. Evidently "Rose
+is red" still rankled.
+
+"'Lo," he persevered. She raised her chin ever so slightly. "Those kids
+won't throw any more cucumbers. I fixed 'em." Perhaps the memory of his
+protection that Saturday would pave the way to peace.
+
+"'Lo," she responded at last. They forsook the enticements of the drug
+window and walked on in embarrassed silence.
+
+"Had to stay after school this morning," he volunteered desperately.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Back to his folly again. What a dunce he was!
+
+"Why?" she asked again.
+
+"Oh, 'cause." Conversation dragged once more.
+
+What could he talk to her about? He knew nothing of dolls and keeping
+house and making clothes. And he didn't suppose she could tell "Run,
+sheep, run" from "Follow the leader," either. He fumbled in his pocket
+and brought out the folded blue circular with a show of nonchalance. She
+eyed it curiously.
+
+"Going?" he asked.
+
+She didn't know.
+
+"I've got two tickets," eagerly. "Want to come with me?" The school yard
+lay but a half-block ahead, so he went on hurriedly, "There's Silvey and
+the bunch. I've got to see 'em. Meet you on this corner after school."
+
+The truth of the matter was that not even his infatuation was equal to
+passing that mob of shouting, yelling urchins with a girl by his side.
+
+You might have guessed that something unusual was to occur, had you
+passed Neighborhood Hall that afternoon. By the green mail box on the
+corner, an envied seventh-grade boy, subsidized by an offer of free
+admission, passed out more blue cards like the one John had found, and
+advised that they be retained, for "Them's got programs on, and you'll
+need 'em." On the broad pavement, excited little groups of boys read and
+reread the announcements amid running choruses of approving comment. Now
+and then, a fussy, important matron bustled past with a four-or
+five-year-old following in her wake. Around the door, a baker's dozen of
+boys with shaggy hair and sadly worn clothes besought the more
+prosperous of the grown-ups, "Take us in, Mister [or "Missis" as the
+case might be], we ain't got no dime."
+
+Inside the great, raftered, brilliantly lighted hall were rows upon rows
+of collapsible chairs, which slid and scraped on the slippery dance
+floor as their owners took possession of them. John and Louise secured
+seats in the third row, center, where they commanded an excellent view
+of the tall, black cabinet where Punch and his family were soon to
+appear. Around them, a babel of noise and confusion held sway. The place
+was filling rapidly. Boys called to each other from opposite corners of
+the room. A not infrequent shout of surprised anger arose as a seated
+juvenile clattered to the floor through the agency of some
+mischief-maker in his rear. Eighth-grade patriarchs, retained by the
+same pay as the corner advance agent, darted here and there in the
+aisles, striving to preserve order amid a great show of authority. Up on
+the little balconies at each side groups of trouble-makers performed
+gymnastics on the railings and banisters at seeming peril of their lives
+until the colored janitor ordered them down. Every now and then, the
+wailing of a heated, irritable infant rose above the din, to be quieted
+more or less angrily by its mother.
+
+John looked at his watch. "Most time to start," he whispered.
+
+Indeed, the audience was beginning to grow restless. In the rear rows, a
+claque started a steady handclapping, and cat-calls and hisses from
+unmannerly boys became more and more frequent.
+
+Then entered upon the stage Professor T. J. O'Reilley amid a storm of
+relieved applause. The bosom of his stiff white shirt might have been a
+trifle soiled, the diamond glistening therein, palpably false, and the
+lapels of his full-dress coat, distressingly shiny, but to John and
+Louise, he seemed a very prince of successful entertainers. He bowed
+perfunctorily, issued a few words of admonition to the boisterous
+element in the audience, and disappeared in the long, black cabinet.
+
+Ensued a series of raps from somewhere in the folds of the cloth, and
+subdued cries of "Oh, dear, dear, dear! Judy, Judy, Judy! Where is she?"
+The familiar, hooked-nosed figure appeared on the little stage and John
+sighed in ecstasy. What mattered if Punch's complexion were sadly in
+need of renewal through his many quarrels--he was the same old Punch,
+and his audience greeted him as such. Judy followed.
+
+"He'll send her after the baby, now. You just see!" John whispered as
+the marionettes danced excitedly back and forth.
+
+"How do you know?" Louise's eyes were a-glisten.
+
+"Haven't you ever ever been to a Punch and Judy show before?" asked John
+in surprise.
+
+In one corner of the hall, a row of badly nourished colored children
+from the district just north of the "Jefferson Toughs," forgot the
+family struggle for three meals a day and rent money in their present
+bliss, grins appeared on the faces of the adults in the hall, and the
+rest of the audience swayed and shouted and giggled as Punch made away
+with first the baby, then friend wife, the policeman, the clown, and the
+judge, and hung their bodies over the edge of the stage in time-honored
+fashion.
+
+A prolonged groan came from the depths of the cabinet.
+
+"It's the devil," said John, squirming ecstatically on his hard chair.
+"There he is, in one corner where Punch can't see him."
+
+Punch lifted a victim from one side of the stage to the other.
+
+"That's one," he counted.
+
+The red-faced, lively little imp returned the corpse to its original
+resting place. Some minutes of this comedy followed.
+
+"Twenty-six," squawked the unsuspecting Punch in surprise, while the
+audience roared appreciatively. "Did I kill so many? Hello, who are
+you?"
+
+"I," came the preternaturally deep voice as Louise quaked at the
+make-belief reality of the scene, "am the devil!"
+
+"Now they'll fight," breathed John, watching intently. "It'll be the
+bulliest fight of all, and they'll throw each other down and hit each
+other over the head forty-'leven times. Then the devil'll win."
+
+But a puritanical mother had, on the tour preceding, written Professor
+O'Reilley, objecting to the devil's conquest of the unrepentant old
+reprobate, so that master of ventriloquism introduced a new character
+into the ancient tale, and the devil went the way of Punch's other
+victims.
+
+"H-m-m," puzzled John with wrinkled brow. "This isn't the same--What's
+that?"
+
+"Open," ordered Punch of the long, flat object which appeared beside the
+body of the devil.
+
+"It's an aggilator," shrilled Louise as the mystery disclosed two
+terrific rows of teeth and a long, red throat.
+
+"Shut," ordered Punch. The jaws closed with a snap.
+
+"Isn't it peachy?" whispered John.
+
+"Open," ordered Punch once more. Again the jaws swung slowly and
+impressively apart.
+
+"Close," repeated Punch, as he stooped dangerously near the yawning
+cavern.
+
+The jaws snapped within a thirty-second of an inch of the arch-villain's
+nose. Angered, Punch hit the beast with his little club, while the
+audience screamed in delight. Ensued a fight which changed rapidly to a
+pursuit back and forth over the bodies of Judy, the policeman, and the
+rest of the company. At last Punch tripped and the animal seized upon
+him and bore him, shrieking, below.
+
+"Is that all?" asked Louise, as the little curtain descended.
+
+"All?" John answered, as he glanced over the other delights promised by
+the blue advertisement. "All? Why it isn't but a third over!"
+
+Two assistants turned impromptu stage hands and shifted the Punch and
+Judy cabinet to the rear of the stage. The professor stooped over a
+battered trunk at the side, and brought out two life-sized dolls with
+huge, staring eyes, and swinging arms and legs. He sat down on a chair
+at the center of the platform.
+
+"These," he said as he balanced the manikins on his knees, "are my two
+little boys. They're usually very nice little fellows, but I'm afraid
+they've been shut up so long in that dark trunk that they're feeling a
+little angry. I'll have to see. Now [to the sandy-haired caricature on
+his right], tell the people what your name is. No? Then we'll have to
+ask your friend here. What's your name?"
+
+"Sambo," mouthed the black-faced marionette.
+
+"Gee!" whispered John, as he watched the professor's lips closely.
+"How's he do it?"
+
+"Now, tell all these nice little girls and boys how old you are."
+
+"T-ten."
+
+"Did you ever go to school?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Now tell that little girl with the pink hair ribbon who's sitting in
+the third row, what you learned yesterday."
+
+"Ya-ya-ya," interrupted the younger member of the Peck family.
+"Ya-ya-ya!"
+
+"Why, George," admonished the ventriloquist. "Aren't you ashamed of
+yourself, behaving in this way?"
+
+"No, I ain't," protested George incorrigibly. "Ya-ya-ya, blackface!"
+
+So it went for the space of a good half-hour. Pretty poor stuff, it may
+seem now, oh, you grown-ups who have lost the magic eyes of childhood,
+but snickers and shouts and giggles filled the hall while the dialogue
+lasted. Finally the lay figures waxed so disputatious that Professor
+O'Reilley consigned them to the darkness of the trunk from which they
+came.
+
+"Stay there until you behave yourselves," he scolded, as the groans grew
+more and more subdued in protest against the captivity.
+
+"Wish I could do that," said John. "Couldn't I get teacher mad, talking
+at her from the blackboard?"
+
+"Sh-sh," whispered Louise. "He's going to speak."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We have with us today for the
+first exhibition in this part of the city, the most wonderful invention
+of the glorious age in which you are living. After the hall is darkened,
+I shall go down to the table where that lantern stands and throw upon
+the screen actual moving pictures taken from real life. You will see the
+landing of our brave troops upon the rock-bound shores of Cuba. You will
+witness a thrilling battle with Spanish insurrectos [the professor was
+getting his history a little mixed, but that mattered not a whit to his
+audience], and brave men will fall before your eyes in the charge up San
+Joon hill. I need not state that these pictures have been secured at an
+almost fabulous cost, for Professor T. J. O'Reilley always makes it a
+point to give his patrons the best of everything, regardless of expense.
+The best of order must be kept while the hall is in darkness. Anyone
+creating a disturbance at that time will be instantly expelled."
+
+Thus did the professor conclude his introduction of the feature which,
+later, was to drive him and his kind out of business.
+
+A click, a sudden buzzing as if a giant swarm of bees were flying about
+in the center of the hall where the long, cylindrical gas tanks stood,
+and a six foot square of light flashed on the white curtain which had
+been lowered to the stage.
+
+The pictures flickered and jumped a great deal, and at times streaks on
+the old film gave the idea that the boat loads of infantry were
+approaching the shore in a torrent of rain, but the figures moved,
+nevertheless, and unslung rifles, and formed into companies.
+
+"The charge up the hill under fire," supplemented the operator. They had
+no titles for the motion pictures in those days.
+
+Amid a steady whirring, flashes of smoke appeared from the thickets
+overhanging the shore. A soldier threw up his arms, another pitched
+headlong into the sand, and the Americans swept up the slope in a charge
+which brooked no obstacles. Little girls handclapped vigorously, while
+the boys pounded on the floor with their feet and gave vent to weird
+whistles of enthusiasm.
+
+"And so San Joon was taken!"
+
+"The hill wasn't on the water that way," John interrupted excitedly.
+"I've got a book at home with maps and everything. Wasn't that way at
+all."
+
+"Let's pretend it was," Louise replied philosophically.
+
+The lights flashed on in the hall to dazzle the eyes of the audience. A
+chair squeaked. There was a sound of footsteps near the doorway.
+
+"Keep your seats," cautioned Professor O'Reilley as he jumped up on the
+stage. "The drawing for prizes will now take place. Ryan," to his
+assistant, "bring them out on the stage as I call for them."
+
+A babel arose. "Don't you wish you could win the skates, Jim?" "What'll
+you do if you get a ring?" "And there's dolls and doll carriages, too."
+
+The showman raised an arm as a signal for silence. "Will some boy step
+up to draw the tickets from the hat?"
+
+Four or five eager volunteers scrambled over the footlights. The
+professor selected the largest of them.
+
+"Number six-seventy-six!" John looked eagerly at the coupon which had
+been handed him at the door. "Number six-seventy-six! Who has it?"
+
+Harriette, the cast-off Harriette of last year, bobbed forward.
+
+"Ah," boomed the deep voice. "A little girl, and a nice one, too."
+Harriette stuck one finger in her mouth as she shifted sheepishly from
+foot to foot. "But the skates are boy's. Isn't that too bad? Now, little
+girl, do you think you will be satisfied with a nice, new dollar bill
+instead? Will that buy a good enough pair of skates?"
+
+"Jimmy!" John ejaculated enviously.
+
+"Number three-forty-four!" he continued, as his volunteer assistant drew
+out another slip. "And another little girl. Well, she gets this
+beautiful Brazilian pearl ring, set with wonderful, glistening
+rhinestones!"
+
+The fortunate maiden scurried back to her mother as fast as her stocky
+little legs could carry her.
+
+"Number seven-hundred-fifteen! Number seven-hundred-fifteen!"
+
+"Here!" shrieked John, as he nearly knocked the boy ahead of him over in
+an excited effort to get to the front. "That's me!" Was it another pair
+of skates, or a baseball bat, or the big, shining jack-knife which the
+boys had told about?
+
+"Number seven-fifteen is a boy, is it?" The professor's eyes twinkled.
+
+"Ye--s--sir," stammered John, nervously.
+
+"William," ordered the distributor of prizes as he half turned to the
+exit in the wings. "Bring out that doll carriage!"
+
+The house broke into vociferous mirth. Silvey, hailing him at the top of
+his lungs, counseled him to "Give it to her! Give it to her!" Sid
+DuPree's face grinned maliciously at him from the first row. Slowly he
+stumbled down the aisle with the despised toy bumping after him, and
+rejoined Louise.
+
+He scarcely heard the numbers of the other prize winners as they were
+called out. Nor did he pay attention to the professor's lecture on the
+operation of the famous whistle which had so amused the audience that
+afternoon.
+
+Someway or other, he found himself out on the street with Louise. About
+him, boys scampered home in the fast gathering dusk. One or two yelled
+taunts about the doll carriage, and John was tempted to throw the
+wicker-bodied pest into the street.
+
+Louise was silent. She wanted to offer consolation, for she felt that
+her escort was dangerously near tears over his humiliation, but she knew
+not how to begin. They sauntered along. John eyed the little piece of
+tape bound tin in the girl's hand with reawakening interest.
+
+"Would you like it?" she asked graciously.
+
+He murmured a husky "yes," and put the whistle in his mouth. After a few
+uncertain "J-u-u-dys," he trudged on again in silence.
+
+As they stopped in front of her apartment, John had an inspiration.
+
+"Say, Louise," he began awkwardly, "I don't want this doll carriage.
+Want it?"
+
+And though his words were ungracious, she caught the spirit which lay
+back of them and thanked him sweetly.
+
+Thereupon, John skipped happily homeward to make his parents miserable
+with divers attempts to imitate the noted T. J.'s Punch and Judy show.
+Two days later, he left the noise-maker lying on the floor by his bed,
+where Mrs. Fletcher confiscated it, and quiet reigned in the family
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN WHICH WE LEARN THE SECRET CODE OF THE "TIGERS"
+
+
+For over two weeks after Professor O'Reilley had gathered up his
+properties and gone in quest of juvenile dimes in other neighborhoods,
+John waited at the corner of the school yard for Louise, gravely added
+her books to his own under his arm, and walked slowly home with her. His
+roommates were at first loud in their jeers, but gradually the primitive
+jests grew less and less frequent until the daily meeting became a part
+of the unnoticed routine of the school.
+
+As for his friends, Silvey, after a few caustic remarks, forbore
+comment. Sid DuPree made the condescending admission that she wasn't
+half-bad after all. And the "Tigers" found it a distinct addition to
+their prestige to have a feminine rooter who danced around on the
+sidelines and exhorted them to even greater deeds of valor as they
+ground chance opponents into the cinders of the big lot.
+
+Then it was, one Friday afternoon, that Miss Brown stacked her record
+books neatly in a little pile at one corner of the desk, placed the
+unmarked homework papers in one of the drawers, and made an innocent
+announcement which roused thoughts lying dormant in each boy's brain to
+instant life.
+
+"Halloween is only a week from Saturday. I want each member of the class
+taking part in the exercises to have the lines learned perfectly. We'll
+rehearse Monday afternoon."
+
+The rest of the speech fell on deaf ears with John. Halloween but a
+short seven days away? Why, it seemed scarcely three mornings ago that
+he had started on the fishing trip which nearly landed the big carp. The
+gang should be a big one, this time. Silvey and Sid, the Harrison kids,
+Mosher, Perry, and Red Brown were certainties, to say nothing of smaller
+groups which might join on that final night. He drew three solitary
+pennies from his pocket, arranged them, heads up, in a row on the top of
+his desk, and stared at them until the bell rang for dismissal.
+
+With the coins in his hand, he swung back the door of the little school
+store, and hastened eagerly up to the proprietress. She greeted him with
+a smile, for the episode of the lemon drops was still fresh in her
+memory.
+
+"Pea shooters in yet?" he queried anxiously.
+
+They had arrived that very noon.
+
+"Is there wood on the ends to keep the tin from cutting your mouth?"
+
+She nodded. The door swung back again as Sid DuPree and Silvey stamped
+noisily in. It developed that they were on a similar errand, and
+presently Miss Thomas cut the cord around the big, blue bundle and gave
+them their weapons. The trio left in high spirits, puffing through the
+empty tubes, making imaginary shots at open windows, and blustering
+loudly about past performances, as they sauntered along. Silvey halted
+when the first of the grocery shops near the home corner was reached.
+
+"Got any peas at your house, Sid?"
+
+Sid shook his head. His family dined at a near-by hotel most of the
+time, and a reserve stock of any kind of food was a rarity. John
+mentioned a big jar of beans on his mother's pantry shelf.
+
+"They're no good," said Silvey scornfully. "Get stuck in the pea shooter
+and jam it all up. Got any money, Sid?"
+
+Sid had a penny. It was the day before the generous allowance from Mr.
+DuPree was due, and his finances verged upon bankruptcy. Silvey had
+another, and John contributed the remainder of his little hoard. That
+brought the total to four cents.
+
+"S'pose he'll sell us that little?" asked John, as they gazed at the
+tempting array of vegetables in the store window. They opened the door
+timidly. The rotund proprietor stepped forward as he stammered his
+request.
+
+"Of course!" He beamed on the trio good-naturedly. "What kind do you
+want, boys?"
+
+"Split's the cheapest," said Silvey thoughtfully.
+
+"But they don't go as far, and it's harder to hit anything with them."
+
+They ordered the more expensive projectiles and divided them equally
+before they left the store. At the corner, the pharmacy was bombarded
+persistently until the drug apprentice sprang through the doorway and
+sent the boys flying down the street.
+
+The pursuit slackened at last and the white coated youth turned to go
+back. Silvey halted to pant a defiant "Ya-a-a, ya-a-a. Can't catch us.
+Can't catch us."
+
+John pulled his chum's arm impatiently and pointed to the vacant house
+just three lots south of Silvey's home.
+
+"Look," he whispered, suddenly cautious. "Some one's forgotten to close
+the front door tight. We can lock it from the inside and go up to the
+attic. Nobody can get in to chase us, and we won't do a thing with our
+pea shooters, oh, no!"
+
+"Maybe the folks haven't left. You can't tell."
+
+"We can run, then. 'Sides, they won't do anything."
+
+They crossed the street and tiptoed up the dusty, rain-spotted veranda
+steps. John peered into the bleak, dirty parlor and reported the coast
+clear. Nevertheless, they hesitated on the very threshold.
+
+"You go first," said Sid to Silvey.
+
+"All right," Silvey nodded apathetically. He peered in at the window.
+"You don't think there's anyone inside, do you, fellows?"
+
+The trio listened intently. "Might be someone upstairs," suggested Sid.
+"Tramps or something."
+
+"Shucks," broke in John impatiently. "You're all 'fraid cats, that's
+what you are."
+
+"Go on in, yourself," Bill retorted quickly.
+
+He drew a nervous breath, and swung the door swiftly back, as if afraid
+that his courage would ooze away before he reached the stairway. Sid and
+Silvey followed very cautiously over the scratched hardwood floor.
+
+"Shall I shut the door?" asked Bill as he took hold of the knob.
+
+"N-no, we may have to run, yet."
+
+They explored the main floor. No one was in the library, no one in the
+narrow, badly lighted dining-room, and no one in the dingy kitchen. All
+seemed quiet upstairs. Silvey bolted the basement door that they might
+not be pursued from that quarter, and Sid, as they returned to the
+hallway, cut off the avenue of escape to the street. John led the way up
+the winding, uncarpeted stairs. Silvey followed close at his heels and
+DuPree lagged in the rear.
+
+"Boo-oo!" Sid shouted when they had ascended half the distance.
+
+John's pea shooter clattered to the landing. Silvey turned angrily on
+the miscreant, his face still pale from the fright.
+
+"I've a' mind to punch your nose for that! 'S'pose there was really
+somebody!"
+
+At last they reached their goal. Tales of wandering vagrants with lairs
+in the attics of vacant houses proved untrue in this instance, and John
+swung back the hinged window in the gable with a sigh of relief.
+
+"Jiminy!" he exclaimed as he looked down upon the bright, reassuring
+play of light and shadow on the lawn and macadam below. "Isn't this
+great?"
+
+The boys stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was
+impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber
+wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They
+concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of
+the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by
+the hair brush or corset steel method.
+
+The teamster, bewildered by the steady rain of missiles, could see no
+one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery
+boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected
+pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, was
+exempt from assault.
+
+The shadows of the house tops and the lindens spread across the street
+and shut off gradually the flood of sunlight through the attic window.
+The Mosher four-year-old trotted past, just out of range, on his way
+towards home and an early supper. John wasted a few ineffectual peas on
+a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof
+gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk
+of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side,
+whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his pea
+shooter.
+
+"Better leave him alone," Sid cautioned.
+
+"Can't do anything to us," John scoffed. "Doors are all locked. And
+how's he going to tell our mothers when he doesn't know who we are?"
+
+He filled his mouth anew, took aim with the long tin tube, and let fly.
+Bill seconded him nobly. The quarry halted, looked upwards, and received
+Sid's volley full in his face.
+
+"He's coming up the steps," yelled John, who was watching the effect of
+the attack. "Jiggers, fellows, he's coming up the steps."
+
+They turned to fly to safety. But where was a haven of refuge to be
+found? They could hear his angry footsteps tramping up and down on the
+porch.
+
+"Were those front windows locked?" Sid asked.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders miserably. An angry pounding echoed through
+the deserted hall and bare, cheerless rooms. They stole silently down to
+the second floor.
+
+"There's more closets to hide in, here," said John hopefully. He glanced
+from a rear window to the little pantry gable which stood but a story's
+height from the back yard. "If he gets in, we can climb out and drop. It
+won't hurt much."
+
+Their enemy tried the door again. Once a window rattled ominously. Sid's
+face regained a little of its color. "They were locked after all.
+Jiggers, there he is around the back!"
+
+They drew hastily away from the opening as a purple, distorted face
+glared up into theirs. A moment later, he was kicking at the back door.
+
+"That's bolted, too," said Silvey thankfully. "I guess we're safe."
+
+At last he left and went around to the front. They listened for a second
+attack from that quarter. Not a sound in the house, save the dripping of
+a leaky faucet in the bathroom.
+
+"Come on, fellows." John led the way to the stairs. "We'll open the back
+door and run like everything!"
+
+The rapidly deepening dusk cast weird shadows through the empty rooms as
+they tiptoed tensely to the first floor. Once Sid imagined that he saw
+the fat man hiding in a nook in the hall where the evening gloom lay
+deepest, and they raised eery echoes through the house in their
+panic-stricken flight back to the top of the stairway. Past the fearsome
+corner again, through the stuffy kitchen where a ray of gas-light from
+the next house fell upon the tall, cylindrical water boiler and gave
+them a second fright, and out into the blessed freedom of the back yard.
+There they broke for the railroad tracks and home.
+
+Mr. Fletcher had already arrived from the office, and was in the
+kitchen, talking, as Mrs. Fletcher prepared supper. That meant that it
+was long after six, and John was under strict orders to report upon his
+immediate arrival from school! But as he came in, still panting, the
+shining rod caught her eye, and his sin of omission was forgotten.
+
+"Pea shooter! Give it here, John. One night of Halloween pranks is
+enough, let alone a whole week of it."
+
+He surrendered the weapon reluctantly. "Now mind," she added as the bit
+of tin was dropped into the top drawer of the kitchen bureau, "you're
+not to buy another one, either."
+
+Mothers were peculiarly unsympathetic about premature pranks; take
+Fourth of July, no matter how many firecrackers a fellow owned, he had
+to sneak off to the big lot to light them if he wanted to celebrate on
+even the day before.
+
+So there was little left to do but look longingly forward to the great
+night. On Monday, as he dressed, John found himself repeating, "Only
+four more days." His last thought on Tuesday was, "That makes just
+three." Thursday afternoon at school, as he chanted a silent refrain,
+"Day after tomorrow's Halloween, day after tomorrow's Halloween," the
+boy in the seat just behind tapped him stealthily on the shoulder and
+passed over a bit of folded paper.
+
+He glanced up at Miss Brown. She was filling out the monthly report
+cards and was not likely to detect him, but he held the note underneath
+his desk as he opened it, nevertheless. It was from Silvey and ran in
+nearly illegible figures:
+
+    17-12-19-13. 14-22-22-7 26-7 7-19-22 8-19-26-24-16
+    26-21-7-22-9 8-24-19-12-12-15 7-12-23-26-2 26-15-15
+    7-19-22 7-18-20-22-9-8 7-19-22-9-22. 25-18-15-15.
+
+He ran his hand back of the untidy jumble of school books and pads and
+drew out an oft creased, finger marked sheet, the secret code of the
+"Tigers":
+
+     A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q R S
+    26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8
+
+    T U V W X Y Z
+    7 6 5 4 3 2 1
+
+He began deciphering the message with a concentration never meted out to
+his school work. Five minutes of effort resulted in:
+
+     John. Meet at the shack after school today all the Tigers there.
+     Bill.
+
+He caught Silvey's gaze upon him and nodded to show that he had received
+the note. The pair would have met on the way home from school, anyway,
+but what was the use of a secret code unless it was used at every
+possible opportunity?
+
+The shack was a rickety, frame affair, built during the long summer
+vacation when time hung heavy on the boys' hands, and the tribal desire
+for a stronghold waxed too strong to be denied. Three of the walls were
+formed of odd planks scavenged from neighboring woodpiles and fences,
+eked out, here and there, with a few pantry shelves taken from vacant
+houses. The fourth was nothing but the picket fence, but as Silvey
+expressed it when viewing their handiwork, "It doesn't rain much from
+the north, anyway." Door for the low entrance there was not, and the
+roof, whose shingles were purchased by an arduously earned half-dollar,
+became a veritable sieve when the raindrops were pounded through by a
+driving gale from the lake.
+
+The furnishings consisted of a chair, which had long since parted with
+its back, and a small, shaky desk which had in some way survived the
+interval between its Christmas presentation and the fall school term. In
+the one drawer were kept the original of the "Tigers'" secret code, a
+twenty-five cent rubber stamp outfit which had been used to print the
+set of membership rules, beginning, "I. No swearing," and two sadly
+battered, springless, and rusty revolvers. Where they had originated, no
+one could remember, but there they lay, unsuspected by parental
+authorities, to be used as a possible defense against the incursions of
+the "Jefferson Toughs," who ruled the district to the immediate north,
+or to be dragged forth, as in the present case, to lend an air of
+solemnity to the many plots hatched between the four cramped walls.
+
+Red Brown descended the side steps into the yard, in answer to the
+summons of the clan, and found John in his role of master-at-arms,
+strutting back and forth before the doorway. Silvey, as befitted the
+holder of the exalted office of president, was sitting inside on the
+crippled chair. John whipped the more formidable of the two weapons from
+his back pocket and pointed it at the breast of the intruder.
+
+"Halt!" Brown obeyed.
+
+"Who goes there?" The formula had been borrowed from a thrilling Civil
+War story.
+
+"Friend," came the prompt reply.
+
+"Advance, friend, and give the countersign."
+
+Red opened his mouth doubtfully, then hesitated.
+
+"Hurry up."
+
+"I've forgotten it."
+
+"Aw, think--_hard_."
+
+John jabbed the muzzle of the revolver into his ribs with a steadily
+increasing pressure. Brown thought--hard. Finally he broke out,
+
+"It's easy enough for you to remember. You made it up."
+
+Which was true, for the master-at-arms, who was also the secretary, had
+drafted the rules and was responsible for the initiation ceremonies and
+passwords of the organization.
+
+"Go on. I'll help you."
+
+"Can't," hopelessly. "It's clean out of my head."
+
+"Have to stay away from the meeting, then."
+
+"Aw, John, quit your fooling. It doesn't matter."
+
+"Here's the start. 'Oppy.'"
+
+"Oppy--"
+
+"What's the rest of it?"
+
+"'Nother 'Oppy,' wasn't there?"
+
+"No, it was 'Oppy-poppy--'"
+
+"'Oppy-poppy--'"
+
+"'Oppy-poppy-oppy-nox.' Let's hear you say it all."
+
+Red repeated it triumphantly.
+
+"Right. Pass friend to the meeting of the 'Tigers.'"
+
+All the other members had trouble with the tongue twister. Either they
+left out the distinguishing "p" in the third syllable, or forgot the
+final "oppy" and had to have their memories refreshed in much the same
+manner as that of the first arrival. This was precisely what John had
+intended. What was the use of being both secretary and master-at-arms of
+a club if you couldn't have some fun at the expense of your fellow
+members?
+
+Inside, Silvey's glance took in the prostrate figures of Sid, Red Brown,
+and Perry Alford, who were packed so closely together in the enclosure
+that they could scarcely move, then roamed listlessly past John with his
+insignia of office, out to the sunlit fence and railroad tracks. Red
+yawned wearily.
+
+"Hurry up and do something, Sil."
+
+"Where's Skinny?" asked the president.
+
+"Down town with Mrs. Mosher," Sid volunteered. "She wanted him to help
+her carry packages home."
+
+"Gee," commented Perry, sympathetically. "If I had her for a mother, I'd
+run away. Honest, I would!"
+
+"And the Harrison kids?"
+
+"Both sick in bed. Too many pork chops again."
+
+"Master-at-arms and secretary," Silvey raised his voice. "Come on in."
+
+John squatted in the doorway and gazed meaningly at his superior. They
+had walked home from school together that afternoon, and instructions
+upon the proper way of opening a meeting had been profuse. Silvey grew
+palpably nervous.
+
+"This here meeting," he blurted at last.
+
+"That isn't the way I told you." John shook the revolver in disapproval.
+"Meeting will now come to order."
+
+"Meeting will now come to order," Silvey repeated mechanically.
+"Secretary call the roll."
+
+John snapped his fingers in disgust. He had been so busy looking after
+Silvey's duties that he'd forgotten his own. There was an interchange of
+glances between the two before the president spoke up scornfully,
+
+"We'll have to let that go. Who'll be in the gang this year?"
+
+Each member present raised a hand. The two leaders in the affair beamed.
+Everything augured for a successful night of sport.
+
+"What'll we do?"
+
+"Let's go outside where there's room," Sid suggested. "My leg's gone to
+sleep."
+
+"Now," said John a few minutes later, as the five boys stretched
+themselves out on the soft grass beside the shack, "there's the garbage
+cans on the flats' back porches. They're never, taken in on Halloween."
+
+Silvey nodded. "'Member the chase the janitor gave us last year before
+we had half of 'em spilled?"
+
+"That was because we started at the bottom and worked up," explained the
+master strategist. "This time we'll begin at the top and spill 'em out
+as we go down. We'll be off before the janitor learns about it."
+
+Red chewed on a blade of grass thoughtfully. "Leave milk bottles alone
+this time. 'Specially old lady Boyer's."
+
+The members nodded approval. On the Halloween preceding, Sid had
+discovered a solitary container on a window near the flat entrance and
+dashed it to the cement walk amid exultant yells. Hardly had the noise
+subsided when a wrinkled, gray-haired head made a distracted appearance
+at the opening, with a cry of, "I want my milk! I want my milk!"
+Returning a moment later from panic-stricken flight, the full meaning of
+the act dawned upon the boys and remorse overcame them. A hasty search
+for coin of the realm, a moment of consultation, and Silvey, boosted
+high on his comrades' shoulders, had rapped on the window ledge. "It
+ain't much, ma'am, but it's all we got, and we didn't know the bottle
+was yours," he had murmured; and, all unwitting of the sardonic humor of
+the act, had passed in a check good for a drink at a near-by saloon.
+
+There were moments of reflective silence. "Isn't there something new we
+can do this year?" Silvey appealed to his fellow members. "Garbage cans
+and doormats and ringing electric bells are fun, but isn't there a trick
+we've never worked before?"
+
+"Get some grease and spread it over a porch before you ring the bell,"
+suggested Sid. "My big brother, who's away at college, used to do it.
+Told me so, himself."
+
+"I tried that once," Red broke in scornfully. "Nearly broke my back
+getting away. Besides the fellow never steps where he ought to."
+
+John spat with sudden deliberation at a chip of wood on the turf. "Who
+can get a lot of tomato cans without any holes in them?"
+
+Silvey mentioned a city dump just north of the park, where cans of all
+sizes and conditions were to be found. His chum nodded approvingly.
+
+"Sid, you and Perry go over there Saturday morning and bring back as
+many middling-sized ones as you can carry. You other fellows cut up
+pieces of string about as long as you are."
+
+"S'posing the trick don't work after all that trouble?" asked Sid
+irritably. John was always giving him jobs to do.
+
+"I'll bring a hose key Halloween night," went on John, ignoring the
+interruption. "We'll tie a string to a tin, fill it up with water from
+the hose pipe on the front lawn, and tie it to the doorknob. Door jerks
+open when the bell rings--you know how mad a fellow is then--and the
+water goes flying into the hall, ker-splash! Bet you that'll make some
+fun!"
+
+The others regarded the inventor in silent admiration. "How about the
+cop?" asked one of them finally.
+
+"Never got mad last year, did he? He's all right. Besides, he's too fat
+to run very fast."
+
+The back door in the Silvey home squeaked disturbingly as Mrs. Silvey
+appeared. A dusting cap was jammed determinedly over one eye, and in one
+hand was a broom.
+
+"Bill, you come in here right away. I want you to help me move the hall
+rug."
+
+Silvey drawled a response. "Jes' wait until we get through talking. It
+won't be a minute." He turned to the rest of the "Tigers." "Everybody
+got pea shooters?" They had, or would have before the eventful day
+arrived.
+
+"I bought a peachy false-face," Perry boasted in the lull of the
+conversation which followed. "You ought to see it; looks just like a
+circus clown."
+
+"Leave it at home," said John brusquely. "You can't see out of 'em when
+you're running away, and they get all sticky, anyway. They're for kids,
+not for fellows like us."
+
+"Bill!" scolded the maternal voice again. "Come in the house this
+minute, before I tell your pa on you when he gets home."
+
+There was that final note of exhausted patience in Mrs. Silvey's voice
+which commanded instant obedience. He rose with alacrity. As he mounted
+the steps, the boys still at liberty scampered away in the fast
+gathering dusk for a game of "Run, sheep, run," down the tracks and over
+the grass plots and back yards on the street.
+
+It was nearly six when John came panting into the kitchen.
+
+"What have you been doing, son?" asked his mother as she half turned
+from the gas stove to smile down at him.
+
+"Oh, talking about Halloween, and what we're going to do, and lots of
+things. It's going to be peachy."
+
+"Mind, you're not to destroy property or anything like that. Otherwise,
+you'll have to stay in the house Saturday night."
+
+He yawned with elaborate carelessness. "Just going to blow beans and
+ring doorbells, same as we did last year. Isn't it supper time? I'm
+hungry."
+
+"We'll eat as soon as your father gets home, son." She turned to give
+the creamed potatoes a stir lest they stick to the pan. "Oh, I nearly
+forgot! There's a letter at your place on the dining-room table. It came
+in the afternoon mail."
+
+"For me?" Surprise made his voice rise to a funny squeak. "Who from?"
+
+"A young lady, I think."
+
+He dashed into the dining-room and opened the envelope with clumsy
+fingers. On a diminutive sheet of note paper, decorated at the top with
+two laughing gnomes, ran an invitation copied from some older person's
+formula:
+
+"Miss Louise Martin requests the pleasure of Mr. John Fletcher's company
+at a Halloween party to be given at her home on Saturday, October 31st,
+from eight to ten o'clock."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HE GOES TO A HALLOWEEN PARTY
+
+
+Of course, he accepted. The temptation of a whole evening in the lady's
+company was too great. But no sooner had he dropped his reply in the
+corner mail box than he began to consider the cost.
+
+The doormats and porch furniture of the neighborhood would go unharmed
+for aught that he might do. No raids on the flats' garbage cans, no
+ringing of doorbells, or raining peas through open windows. And only
+through the vainglorious boasting of the gang on Sunday morning would he
+know of the success of his string-and-can trick. Shucks! He was out of
+it all.
+
+After breakfast, Mrs. Fletcher glanced at the clear sunlight on the
+house across the road and announced that John's Saturday tasks would be
+suspended in honor of the day. He raced up to the Silveys, and found the
+expedition for cans starting out under the leadership of his chum. Once
+in the park, the quartette broke into impromptu games of tag, dashing
+over the moist grass, or halting to puff lustily that they might watch
+their breaths in the clear, frosty air. Tiring of this as they came to
+the site of an old exposition bicycle race-track, they ran up and down
+the grass-covered sides until Perry reminded them that the morning would
+be over before they knew it, and started on a dogtrot for the goal.
+
+Cans there were in profusion, also a fascinating array of wreckage of
+other nature in this dump, which lay just north of the park. John picked
+up a suitable container.
+
+"Get 'em like this," he ordered Perry and Sid. "And be sure they don't
+leak."
+
+As the two walked obediently off, he prowled among the debris of his own
+accord. Silvey raised a shout from the water's edge.
+
+"Look-e-e." He held up a chair minus one leg and a back for John's
+admiring approval. "Won't this be great for the shack?"
+
+Sid and Perry turned and took a few steps toward Bill.
+
+"Say," ordered the president and his secretary in unison, "get busy with
+those cans. What do you suppose you came over here for?"
+
+A little later, John discovered a pair of warped, rusty bicycle wheels,
+and hastened over to Silvey with them.
+
+"Can't we make a peachy wagon with these if we find two more?" he said
+excitedly. "Bet you anything she'll go faster'n the fastest one on the
+street."
+
+Sid came up, his arms filled with tins. "That's enough," he blurted. "If
+you want any more, you can get 'em yourselves." He looked down sullenly
+at his rust-spotted waist. "Always the way. We do the work and you come
+along and boss."
+
+"Well," retorted John magnificently as Perry dropped his collection
+beside Sid's, "we didn't _have_ to come at all, did we?"
+
+They apportioned the rusty objects and the broken chair and wheels
+between them and sauntered slowly homewards. It was easily dinner time
+before the street was reached, and the party broke up as soon as the
+booty was deposited in the Silvey back yard. John lingered a moment to
+help Silvey carry the junk into the "Tigers'" club house.
+
+"Gee," Bill exclaimed as he gazed at the nondescript jumble, "I'll bet
+you it'll be a peachy time tonight."
+
+John nodded ecstatically. Then a lump caught in his throat and held him
+speechless for a moment. After all, he was out of the fun, and he hadn't
+the heart to tell his chum, either. He turned to leave.
+
+That afternoon the clan gathered again on the turf beside the shack and
+went over the evening's campaign. The new family in the large green
+house across the road still had a big swing suspended from the veranda
+ceiling. If they didn't remove it, the boys intended to. Sid DuPree
+reported that the gate on Otton's back fence could be lifted from its
+hinges very easily. It would be great fun to replace the bit of porch
+furniture with it. As for doormats, the preoccupied neighborhood doctor
+had left his out last Halloween, and could be depended on to do it
+again; also, there were the apartment entrances, each with a heavy
+rubber mat in front of the stone steps. As for the can-and-string trick,
+the frame dwelling where the fat little tailor lived was marked for the
+experiment, as were a half dozen others.
+
+"Gee," chuckled Silvey, "don't you wish it was dark now?"
+
+John fingered his pea shooter wistfully.
+
+At last the welcome dusk blotted out the long shadows on the railroad
+tracks and the "Tigers" filed stealthily out of the yard to commence the
+skirmishing before supper, which always came as a prelude to the more
+important evening campaign. They darted up and down steps, rang
+doorbells, and raised eery cat-calls which echoed between the houses,
+and pelted pedestrians to their hearts' content.
+
+Presently the door of the big green house swung open and threw a shaft
+of golden light across the leaf-strewn macadam, over against the Alford
+dwelling, which stood opposite. Four white-sheeted figures danced down
+the steps and paraded on the walk in front of the home lot, tooting
+horns and performing antics in a manner which no set of self-respecting
+ghosts ever dreamed of.
+
+"Her kids," John snapped scornfully. "'Member how she chased us out of
+the street last Saturday because we were making too much noise with our
+tops? Come on!"
+
+They divided silently into two parties. The one slipped across the road
+on tiptoe and hugged the shadows of the houses as they advanced, halting
+finally under the shelter of an adjacent porch. The other walked boldly
+some distance down the walk on the far side of the street, crossed over,
+also, and executed a similar maneuver.
+
+Suddenly a pea caught the biggest of the four apparitions on the nose
+and caused him to drop his horn to the sidewalk. As he stooped to pick
+it up, a volley sent his younger brothers and sister scurrying
+porchward, amid cries of "Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!" The "Tigers" yelled
+gleefully. John forgot himself so far as to dance incautiously into the
+path of light. Then from the shadows of the porch swing--that same swing
+which was to transport itself mysteriously far down the street in the
+evening--emerged the tall, angular figure which had driven them away
+that other Saturday.
+
+"Jiggers!" came the shout of warning.
+
+"John Fletcher!" That doughty leader retreated to the shelter of the
+shadows. "I'll telephone your mother this minute. Such a lot of bullies
+I've never seen before in my life!"
+
+The boys were in for it. Nevertheless, they listened to the prolonged
+tirade with suppressed amusement. Its conclusion was an order to the
+quartette to go down on the walk again.
+
+"They won't touch a hair of your heads now," she boasted unwisely.
+
+Again came the stinging volleys on the sheeted figures. A few of the
+peas flew by chance, or otherwise, in the direction of the protectress,
+herself.
+
+"Come into the house this minute," she called to her brood. "I'll fix
+'em."
+
+The door slammed angrily. Through a front window, the boys could see her
+at the telephone in the lighted hallway. They redoubled the bombardment
+of the house in defiance.
+
+Across the street a door creaked. Mrs. Alford's voice carried to where
+the excited little group stood.
+
+"Per-e-e-e, it's nearly seven. Supper is ready. Come in and get washed
+right away!"
+
+The "Tigers" gasped and dispersed quickly. Half-past six was the
+deadline for the evening meal with most of them, and parental scoldings
+were in order.
+
+"See you at eight," Silvey called as he turned north.
+
+John stopped short. Hang that party!
+
+"I w-won't be with the gang," he quavered.
+
+"What?" Bill could scarcely believe his ears. John explained haltingly.
+
+"That kid! I knew she'd make trouble."
+
+The murder was out; the worst was over with. But it would never do to
+let his chum think that he regretted the choice.
+
+"Oh, I don't know." John gathered courage and glibness as he went on.
+"Saw two ice cream freezers going in the back way this afternoon, and
+Jiminy, Silvey, her mother's some cook. Louise says [he hadn't laid eyes
+on that lady since Friday] she's just baked four chocolate layer cakes
+with nuts and candies in the frosting. And there's lots of other things.
+Now, don't you wish you were me?"
+
+Silvey shrugged his shoulders and admitted that the entertainment had
+its alluring side.
+
+"Chocolate cake," he repeated. "Just think, all you can eat."
+
+There was an envious silence.
+
+"Strawberry ice cream. Three helpings to a fellow; and I'll have more,
+'cause I wouldn't let you throw cucumbers at Louise."
+
+His chum's face grew wistful.
+
+"S'long," said John exuberantly. He had not only converted the scoffer,
+but he now found that the gang's plans for the evening no longer held a
+charm for him. What a peach of a time he would have at the Martins'!
+
+Mrs. Fletcher greeted him with a suppressed smile as he came in.
+
+"Mrs. Riley telephoned," she began reprovingly.
+
+"Old sorehead!" he exclaimed. "Didn't hurt 'em any."
+
+The maternal smile broadened. There was little sympathy between that
+quarrelsome lady and the other mothers of the street, anyway. "But you
+shouldn't torment little children like that, son. It isn't manly."
+
+John murmured a few sheepish words under his breath, and asked tactfully
+if supper were ready.
+
+"Not quite. Why?"
+
+"Have you forgotten the party?"
+
+She shook her head. "You'll find your blue serge suit all cleaned and
+waiting for you on your bed. But John, dear, do be a little more careful
+next time you eat candy. I had a terrible time with those spots."
+
+After supper, he ran up to his room. There lay the suit, true evidence
+of his mother's thoughtful kindness. As he drew off his school
+knickerbockers, he noticed that his stockings had sagged, small-boy
+fashion, and formed a little roll of cloth just above his shoe tops. He
+pulled them up. How on earth had all that mud gotten there? In a moment
+he was at the head of the stairs, shouting, "Mother, Mother,
+Moth-a-a-a-r! Where are some clean stockings?" and went off to her room
+in search of them. His boots, too, were dusty and scratched; how long
+was it since he had blackened them?
+
+A five-minute session with the shoe-shining outfit, heretofore despised
+as a useless nuisance, made them glisten as did the kitchen stove after
+that Saturday polishing task had been completed. Before him stood the
+washstand with its cold marble basin, the soap trays, washrags,
+toothbrushes, and other instruments of torture. He turned on the water
+and considered a moment as to just how far he should extend the
+waterline. Still, he was going to a party, her party, and his appearance
+must be beyond reproach. So he soaped his face vigorously and ran his
+wet hands around to the back of his neck. Then he surveyed as much of
+the result of his labors as he could see with a new satisfaction.
+
+He slipped into his little wash blouse hastily. The alarm clock
+indicated fifteen minutes of the hour and no time was to be lost. But
+which of his four ties should he wear? His blue one was wrinkled because
+it had lain beneath the bed for over a week before he had resurrected
+it. The tan-and-black striped one given him by his uncle was in equally
+bad condition. And Louise had said she hated green. After all, his
+brilliant crimson four-in-hand was the nicest. It contrasted with his
+dark suit the best, anyway.
+
+He presented himself a sheepishly smiling little figure with neatly
+parted hair, for his mother's inspection. She looked up with a smile.
+
+"If it isn't our little John! And so clean that I scarcely know him.
+Come here and let me look at your ears."
+
+They were immaculate! Mrs. Fletcher exchanged a glance of mock surprise
+with her husband. "It's the first time that's happened since he was old
+enough to wash himself."
+
+John, junior, seized his hat and slammed the door as he sprang down the
+front steps. Why did grown-ups always carry on so? There was nothing
+unusual in washing one's ears, was there?
+
+He stopped across the street from the building to watch for a moment.
+The Martin parlor on the second floor was ablaze with light.
+Occasionally an adult moved now and then within range of the windows as
+she shifted chairs to and fro. A boy from Southern Avenue, with whom he
+had a speaking acquaintance, walked up and into the entrance with an air
+of unnatural gravity. John could see him give his tie a twitch as he
+rang the front bell. A brougham drove up and a little girl encased in
+innumerable fluffy wraps was escorted up the steps by her mother. More
+girls followed from time to time. Some skipped merrily up to the door;
+others sauntered more slowly, tittering excitedly as they went along.
+John decided that it was time to go in.
+
+Up the heavily carpeted stairway, with its ornately panelled wainscoting
+and brown wallpaper, a half turn to the right, and the goal of the
+evening lay before him. The stout woman whom he had seen silhouetted in
+the window greeted him with a gracious smile.
+
+"So this is the John Fletcher of whom Louise is always talking!"
+
+A maid, subsidized for the evening, took his hat and coat away to some
+mysterious recess. Mrs. Martin led him into the parlor, lighted to a
+soft glow by deftly shaded electric bulbs.
+
+"Now let me introduce you," she said. "This is Martha Gill." He bowed
+awkwardly to the lady of the carriage. "And this, Ella Black." So it
+went, all down the smiling, giggling circle, as he promptly forgot each
+name in the presence of a new beauty.
+
+He joined the boys with a sigh of relief. They stood in an awkward group
+near the piano, and grinned and poked each other furtively in the ribs,
+and made mocking allusions to half-known juvenile love affairs until
+Mrs. Martin reentered with Louise.
+
+The little girl had never appeared so daintily bewitching to John; no,
+not even on that memorable first day at school. Her long, graceful curls
+were caught in a big, blue silk bow which matched her dress, and her
+eyes were a-dance with the excitement of her first party. She greeted
+the company with a shy, quick smile and sat down in the chair nearest
+her exultant worshiper. A constrained silence took possession of the
+little gathering again.
+
+If the children were to enjoy themselves at all, something must be done
+to put them at their ease. Mrs. Martin clapped her hands loudly.
+
+"Who likes 'Musical chairs'?" she asked.
+
+The little girls applauded vociferously. The boys, as became members of
+the more reserved sex, nodded condescendingly. While not as exciting as
+wrestling, or "Run, sheep, run," the game would pass the time away. In a
+moment they were sent flying to the different rooms in the flat after
+straight chairs of all sizes and descriptions, while Mrs. Martin
+supervised the formation of the long line which extended into the hall.
+
+"Now," said she, as she stepped over to the piano, "is there anyone who
+doesn't know how to play this game?"
+
+No fear of kill-joy amateurs with "Musical chairs." The children had
+become experts at the pastime through other parties innumerable. She
+seated herself at the instrument and ran her fingers over the keys.
+
+Slowly the procession started. Little girls lingered as long as possible
+by each inviting seat. Boys scurried past the chairs facing in the
+opposite direction, or slid around the treacherous ends lest they be
+caught. Still the waltz strains swung onward until they seemed eternal
+to the anxious players. Then a false note, another, a pause, and a wild
+scramble for safety. Bashful maidens sat on trousered knees and
+scrambled up after still vacant places. Other players squabbled for the
+possession of contested chairs. At last the babel died away, and another
+cry arose:
+
+"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Fletcher's out of it."
+
+It was always the way; he was ever too reluctant to dispossess a girl of
+a nearly won prize to be a success at the game. But he took up a
+position beside the pianist and watched with amused interest. It was
+really just as good fun as being a participant.
+
+Gradually all were eliminated save the Southern Avenue boy and Louise.
+The music began again under Mrs. Martin's nimble fingers, and swelled in
+volume like the notes of a church organ. Then it dragged and paused just
+long enough to send Louise flying to the seat before it picked up the
+fateful melody. Suddenly, without hint of a finish in the throbbing,
+rapidly beating march, there came the end. Louise found herself standing
+with the high-wooden back toward her, while the Southern Avenue
+contestant yelled triumphantly from his throne.
+
+"Shucks!" said John in disgust. "Why didn't he let her have it? I
+would."
+
+Next came "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket." The fun grew
+fast and furious. No standing aloof in a corner of the room for the boys
+now. They enjoyed themselves too well, as each, in turn, chased, or was
+chased by some nimble-footed maiden around the circle. There followed
+"Thimble, thimble, who's got the thimble," and then Mrs. Martin's even
+voice:
+
+"Perhaps some boy will suggest a game."
+
+The winner of "Musical chairs," emboldened by his triumph, called out,
+"Kiss the pillow!"
+
+Little shrieks and cries of "Won't play!" arose from some of the girls.
+Others maintained a coy silence. Eventually the whole company joined;
+that is, all save John. He saw no fun in such pastime. What was the use
+of kneeling on a pillow and kissing, for example, homely Ella Black?
+Other boys might, if they wished. There was but one divinity worthy of
+his homage, and he would pay none of it to other maidens.
+
+So he followed Mrs. Martin into the dining-room, to that lady's great,
+though secret, merriment, and helped her arrange the plates and the
+spoons and napkins for the refreshments which were to follow later. The
+shouts from the parlor rose louder and louder.
+
+Then came a sudden silence. Mrs. Martin turned towards the hall. Surely
+they didn't need her assistance again! As she passed the doorway, cries
+of "Post-office," "let's play 'Post-office,'" broke forth, and she
+returned to the table with a satisfied smile. Evidently the members of
+the party were furnishing their own amusement with great success.
+
+Louise, her curls bobbing excitedly, darted into the room and seized
+John by the arm.
+
+"Come on," she begged, for she was afraid he wasn't enjoying himself in
+the lonely dining-room. "Come on, Johnny. Please!"
+
+It was his lady who commanded, so he obeyed. They had drawn a green
+portiere across the curtain pole in the doorway until the little alcove
+with the bookcase was shut off from the larger room for all practical
+intents and purposes. Jimmy, the Southern Avenue boy, waxing more and
+more masterful, had appointed himself postmaster, and strutted beside
+the narrow opening which remained. And to hold that position in a game
+of "Post-office" is no slight thing. Not only is the postmaster the sole
+witness of all that transpires behind the secretive curtain, but he is
+privileged to turn over the exalted office to a temporary substitute and
+hale the lady of his heart forward, if he so desires.
+
+There was no lack of mail. Hardly had the window been declared open than
+the postmaster's chum stepped up and, after a moment of whispered
+conversation, disappeared behind the portiere. Called the master of
+ceremonies in stentorian tones:
+
+"Two packages and three letters for Martha Gill!"
+
+Martha Gill shook her head. Cries of "Go ahead" arose from the boys,
+while the girls tittered at her embarrassment. At last she gathered up
+courage and darted past the sentinel. John stared in amazement. Two
+packages and three letters--two hugs and three kisses--what was there in
+that overdressed little doll to merit such favor?
+
+Correspondence became fast and furious. Eventually the postmaster called
+John forward and whispered a name in his ear before he went into the
+alcove. His appointee, concealing his astonishment as best he could,
+called out, "Ella Black, Ella Black; four letters for Ella Black!" at
+the top of his lungs. But for that much-despised young lady to be so
+honored by the social lion of the evening was more than he could
+comprehend.
+
+As the postmaster resumed his duties, a voice cried, "Johnny, it's your
+turn. You haven't sent any mail yet."
+
+John flushed and shook his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat!
+'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of mischief began
+that scornful chant:
+
+    C'ardy, c'ardy, custard,
+    Eatin' bread an' mustard!
+
+He clenched his fists. If it must be, he'd show them he was no coward! A
+moment later, as he stood tensely in the alcove, came the postmaster's
+cry of "One letter for Louise Martin," and the green curtain swung aside
+to admit her.
+
+[Illustration: A second helping of ice cream.]
+
+She returned from the sanctum composedly. He waited a moment that they
+might not reappear together, and came out with eyes shining and heart
+a-beat.
+
+    He had kissed her!
+    He had kissed her!
+
+The entrance of Mrs. Martin and the maid, the one bearing heaping dishes
+of ice cream, and the other, as he had unwittingly prophesied, a
+luscious, heavily-frosted chocolate cake, brought him down to more
+mundane thoughts with alacrity. Indeed, he devoted himself to his
+portion with such earnestness that he was able to finish and place his
+empty plate innocently under his chair, and wait until his plight caught
+the servant's eye.
+
+"Why, haven't you had any, little boy?"
+
+He shook his head mournfully.
+
+"How did Mrs. Martin ever come to skip you? I'll bring you some right
+away!"
+
+When she reappeared, he winked heartily at his amazed companions and
+settled to the second helping of ice cream.
+
+At last the party came to an end, as all such joyous occasions must, and
+he found himself on the sidewalk, looking up once more at the now
+darkened parlor. Far up the street came the hooting and jeering of a
+gang--possibly his own--although the voices seemed older and strange,
+and the gate of the house next the apartment building had disappeared,
+leaving empty hinges as mute testimony that some band of witches had
+done their work thoroughly and well.
+
+In response to his prolonged ring and joyous kicks on the home door,
+Mrs. Fletcher let him in. "Don't pound so hard, son," she cautioned.
+"We're not deaf."
+
+"Might a' thought it was some Halloween gang if I didn't," he defended
+himself as he threw his hat on the nearest chair.
+
+"Have a good time?" she queried.
+
+"Did I?" The earnestness of his voice left little doubt as to his
+sentiments. "Did I? You just bet I did!"
+
+The family always slept late on Sunday morning, but at that, John, worn
+out by the excitement of the preceding evening, stirred drowsily when
+his father appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Come on, John; time to get up."
+
+"Yes, dad," gazing at him with lackluster eyes. As Mr. Fletcher left, he
+turned his face promptly toward the wall and dropped off to sleep again.
+
+"John!" It was his mother's voice this time.
+
+"Uhu."
+
+"Why didn't you get up when your father called you?"
+
+"Aw, let me alone. I don't want any breakfast. Honest, I don't."
+
+"Nonsense! You can take a nap in the afternoon if you want. Come on. I
+won't go down stairs until I see you up."
+
+He might as well, then. Mrs. Fletcher was pretty well versed in his
+tricks, thanks to long years of experience, and there was little chance
+of further delay. So John sat up and dangled his legs over the side of
+the bed, while he rubbed his sleep-laden eyes with his fists.
+
+"Need a wet washrag?"
+
+No. He was wide awake now. He listened to her steps on the stairs, and
+to the opening of the front door as his father brought in the morning
+paper. Then he fingered one stocking abstractedly.
+
+Half an hour later, prompted by Mrs. Fletcher's remonstrances, her
+husband came up and found the boy staring with unseeing eyes far over
+the railroad tracks into the park. In his hand was the same stocking
+which he had picked up so many minutes before.
+
+At last he appeared in the dining-room, to find that his father and
+mother had eaten their meal. His hair was half brushed, and his face and
+neck untouched by cleansing water (hadn't they been soaped the night
+before?), but he set to work on the nearly cold breakfast with a will.
+He removed his empty grain saucer from the bread and butter plate and
+looked up suddenly.
+
+"Mother," he said irresolutely.
+
+"Yes, son?"
+
+"Say, Mother--how old does a fellow have to be to get married, anyway?"
+
+His father chortled with merriment. John flushed an embarrassed red. His
+mother restrained a smile as she answered:
+
+"About twenty-one, dear, and lots of people wait until they're older.
+Why?"
+
+"Nothing. Does it cost very much?"
+
+"Cost much?" Mr. Fletcher dropped the Sunday paper to the floor and
+looked at his son and heir attentively. "Why, I should say it does. You
+ought to have at least a thousand dollars saved before you even _think_
+of marrying."
+
+"John," cautioned Mrs. Fletcher reprovingly. "Don't torment the child."
+
+"Let's see," went on her husband, unheeding. "You're ten now. If you
+want to marry by the time you're twenty-one, that means you'll have to
+earn about a hundred dollars a year from now on. Better begin right
+away."
+
+"Raise my allowance, will you, dad?" came the unexpected retort. "I'm
+only getting a quarter a week now, and Sid DuPree's father gives him a
+whole dollar."
+
+"Young man," was the grave reply. "If you want to support a family,
+you'll have to do it of your own accord. You and your mother keep me
+busy as it is."
+
+"Give me a quarter, then," the boy persisted. "That's all I want.
+Please!"
+
+His father dug into his pockets and brought out the desired coin. "The
+nest-egg for the second generation of Fletchers," he grinned. "Catch,
+son."
+
+A few minutes later John disappeared in the direction of a little
+stationery and toy shop which lay some blocks to the north. But not a
+word could Mr. Fletcher draw from him as to the aim of the expedition.
+He returned with a mysterious package which he took up to his room and
+then sauntered out to Silvey's house.
+
+A little later his mother, who had gone upstairs to dress herself for
+dinner, came down to the dining-room where John, senior, still sat
+reading.
+
+"John," she said.
+
+"Yes, dear?" with a hasty glance away from the news sheet.
+
+"Do you know," her smile was tender, "there's a big, china pig bank up
+on that boy's bureau? I believe he's taken your words in earnest!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEREIN HE RESOLVES TO GET MARRIED
+
+
+The Thursday date for the game with the "Jeffersons" had been selected
+in early September, and there had been a tacit truce between the two
+factions as a result. For three afternoons of that first week in
+November, the "Tigers" sacrificed their games of tops and "Run, sheep,
+run" on the altar of the football god, and trooped over to the big lot
+as soon as school was dismissed. There, Silvey, self-appointed coach of
+the team, expounded the rudiments and the higher attributes of the sport
+as culled from a series of ten-cent hand books, and ran the team through
+signals and trick formations in a way that would have amused a
+university football coach.
+
+Louise went down town with her mother, so the team was deprived of the
+support of its feminine rooter on the eventful afternoon. They met in
+front of Silvey's. John boasted the one addition made to the equipment
+of that first practice when he appeared with a second-hand pair of
+shin-guards which he had acquired from a boy at school in exchange for a
+dime and an agate shooter. Presently Sid appeared with the football, and
+they trooped towards the lot in a compact, determined little group.
+
+As they climbed over the railroad fence on the opposite side of the
+tracks, the "Jeffersons," who were as badly equipped as their rivals,
+greeted them defiantly. There was a moment or so of conference between
+Silvey and the Shultz boy before they tossed for sides on the field.
+Then the teams lined up, kicked off, and sweated and toiled and wrangled
+through one half of the game without result. Towards the end of the
+second period, the heavier invaders began a slow march over the
+cinder-strewn ground toward their opponents' goal and victory.
+
+Onward, onward, inch by inch, first down, five (this was the day of
+unreformed football), second, three, third, one yard to gain, while the
+"Tigers" shouted "Ho-o-old 'em! Ho-o-old 'em!" in desperation. On the
+ten-yard line, indicated by stakes driven in the ground at each side of
+the field, the lighter eleven braced for a last stand. As the
+"Jeffersons'" youthful quarter attempted to pass the ball, Silvey broke
+through and knocked the pigskin from his hands towards John, who grabbed
+it and ran to the other end of the field for the one and decisive
+touchdown of the game.
+
+"Time," called Silvey, striving vainly to make himself heard above the
+exultant shouts. "Time, I tell you!" Captain Shultz of the "Jeffersons"
+drew out a watch, borrowed from a friend for the occasion, and compared
+it with the one in Bill's possession.
+
+The game was over and the "Jeffersons" had lost.
+
+The victors swaggered woodenly around by the ice cream soda shop and art
+stores to the home street. No cutting across the tracks for them now;
+this was a march of triumph! The vanquished trailed sulkily along, some
+twenty feet behind, giving vent now and then to cat-calls of defiance
+and disgruntled suggestions that the game would have ended differently
+if this or that member had played better. At the corner, Silvey turned.
+
+"We licked you!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We licked you! We
+licked you!"
+
+Shultz raised his voice above the clamor of his team. "Just wait until
+we catch you alone. You'll be sorry!"
+
+John shrugged his shoulders. "We'll all stick together coming home from
+school. And if they catch just one of us, why, we can maul them, too."
+For Shultz's declaration meant that the guerrilla warfare was in full
+swing again.
+
+Sid's muscles stiffened and his back began to ache. Silvey owned a
+discolored spot over one eye where an opponent had tried to disable him
+during a tense moment of the game. John's shin was badly bruised, and
+Perry Alford had wrenched his ankle. The other members had minor hurts.
+Only Red Brown had, by some miracle, come through the battle unscathed.
+
+"We won," said Silvey happily, as they stopped in front of his house.
+"Come on, now, all together!"
+
+They broke into the "Tigers'" exultant war cry, which is very much the
+same as that of the football team to which you belonged as a boy:
+
+    Sis-boom-bah!
+    Sis-boom-bah!
+    "Tigers," "Tigers,"
+    Rah, rah, rah!
+
+Then they left for their several homes, too worn out to do anything but
+rest.
+
+Up in his room John threw himself on the bed with a sigh. His injured
+leg hurt terribly--but they'd won. Pity Louise had missed the defeat of
+the "Jeffersons." Why did women folks always have to go shopping,
+anyway? Only spent a lot of money on hats and other foolishness.
+
+He turned over wearily and found the yellow pig bank leering at him from
+the bureau with hungry, malignant eyes. Where was that apportioned two
+dollars which he was to earn by the end of the week? Four days had
+already elapsed, and the beast's interior was as empty as it had been on
+the toy-shop shelf. Why had he bought those lemon drops on Monday? And
+the marbles and his rubber spear top? Was there anything left after the
+shin-guard purchase? He sat up on the edge of the bed and rummaged in
+his pockets. One lonely penny remained from his weekly allowance of a
+quarter.
+
+He dropped the coin into the long slot and shook the pig disgustedly.
+Two dollars could never be earned by Saturday night. Not even if three
+lawns were to be cut, and a half-dozen errands run for the neighbors. He
+slammed the big china animal back on the bureau and went down to supper.
+The lonely copper had seemed to make the beast sound more hollow than
+ever as it rattled against the unglazed interior.
+
+That night the wind veered to the south, and Friday proved to be mild
+and sunny, save for a touch of autumnal haze in the air. But not even
+this freakish return of summer could rouse him from the grumpy mood
+which held over from the night before.
+
+He scanned the front yards on the street as he sulked along to school.
+How slowly grass grew in the fall! Not a lawn needed trimming, and as
+for freeing them from leaves, the nearly denuded boughs made such
+operations unnecessary. Coin of the realm seemed further away than ever.
+
+In the afternoon, the haze thickened and hinted of rain. As he and
+Louise sauntered homeward, a drop of water spattered on her cheek.
+Another hit him on the nose, and it was but a short time before the
+cement sidewalks were covered with rapidly merging mosaics of a darker
+hue.
+
+What luck! Dimes and even quarters, quickly and easily earned, were
+within his grasp. He left Louise at the apartment entrance and dashed
+into his own front hall in great excitement.
+
+"I've got the umbrellas," he shouted, as he struggled into his raincoat.
+"I'm going out with them."
+
+"Don't take my good one," Mrs. Fletcher cautioned. But he was beyond
+earshot, best umbrella and all, before the words were out of her mouth.
+
+Down the water-glazed street he ran, its dust now laid by the
+refreshing, pounding torrent, past the barrier of the railroad ticket
+office, thanks to the friendly agent, and up the worn steps to the
+station platform. Other boys were there, each with two or three
+umbrellas, who viewed the newcomer with disfavor. Ere long, each
+suburban train from town would discharge its quota of daintily dressed
+shoppers, pallid office clerks and stenographers and prosperous business
+men. Not one of them would carry protection from the soaking rain, and
+competition between the juvenile vendors threatened to become acute.
+
+A lean, light suburban engine pulled in amid a cloud of escaping steam
+and a hissing of airbrakes. John spied a tall slender woman in a car
+doorway arranging a paper over her hat, and raced along beside the
+platform until it came to a halt.
+
+"Umbrella home, lady?"
+
+She nodded. "To the hotel."
+
+Behind her loomed a tall, slightly bowed, black-haired lawyer whom John
+had seen on the long, wooden veranda of that substitute for home more
+times than he could count on his ten fingers. He, too, took advantage of
+a rented shelter. Together the couple made their way down the dripping
+steps while John followed exultantly. Two at once--and the hotel but a
+scant block and a half away! At the broad entrance, they paused.
+
+"How much do I owe you, little boy?" asked the lady, with a smile.
+
+"Dime," was the laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and
+there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the
+lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at
+once. That _was_ luck. A moment later John was sprinting back at top
+speed.
+
+No double fare the next time, but the helpless stenographer lived a
+street farther west, and each additional block meant another nickel
+according to the unwritten umbrella tariff.
+
+"Fifteen cents, madam," he demanded.
+
+She retreated discreetly to the shadow of the apartment hallway to dive
+into her stocking bank, while he watched two bedraggled sparrows on the
+sidewalk until she reappeared.
+
+On his return, he found the trains running on the five-minute, rush-hour
+schedule. Each carried its revenue of small change for the eager,
+clamoring boys. Once, a gray-haired, kindly-eyed man gave John a quarter
+and would receive no change, and another time a friend of his mother's
+did likewise. But for the most part, ten- and fifteen-cent fees were his
+lot.
+
+Rifts in the misty clouds to the west appeared, which hinted of an end
+to the rain. Nevertheless, he jingled the change in his pocket
+light-heartedly. He had made more in the brief eighty minutes than he
+could cutting the Langley's lawn, or by other juvenile chores which
+would consume a like time. And, if he were fortunate, there was still
+time for another customer before the storm ceased.
+
+He found her. She was dressed in some rustling brown taffeta stuff and
+carried her hat in a carefully pinned page of newspaper. Her face was
+sunken and lined and rouged to lessen the ravages of age, and her hair
+was palpably mismatched. Moreover, instinct warned that his offer would
+be refused, for she was one of the tall, skinny folks. Nevertheless, he
+approached her.
+
+"Umbrella home, lady? Can I take you home under an umbrella?"
+
+He could. Instantly all criticism of her personal appearance vanished.
+True, she might be trying to keep up appearances like the old-maid
+teacher who scolded knowledge into the eighth-grade class, but she was
+willing to spend money for his benefit, and that made all the difference
+in the world.
+
+Past the hotel they went, and down the five long, successive blocks of
+gray stone university buildings which flanked that side of the
+boulevard. John's spirits rose. His last was to be a quarter customer,
+at the least. Then they turned southward and dodged pools of water in
+the muddy street crossings and on the walks for another two squares. She
+halted at a grimy, run-down apartment building and closed the umbrella.
+Thirty-five cents! He opened his mouth to name the fee, but she
+interrupted him.
+
+"Here's the umbrella, little boy." She stepped into the stuffy,
+badly-lighted hallway. "Thank you very much for taking me home."
+
+Before he could say a word of protest, the weather-beaten oak door swung
+to in his face and the lady fled up the stairs.
+
+When he had recovered from his surprise, he stamped angrily in after
+her. What should he do? He wanted that money. He didn't care if she had
+disappeared. He'd ring the bell and keep on ringing it until she
+answered or the batteries gave out. But which bell? The building was
+four-storied, with flats front and rear, and which of the cramped
+apartments did she occupy? And there were dozens of roomers' cards over
+the dusty speaking tubes. To find her was impossible. He had been
+tricked, and tricked nicely, and he might as well go back.
+
+When he was a block from the station the rain changed to a sudden fine
+drizzle and halted. The umbrella business was ended for the afternoon.
+Nevertheless, he had been fairly successful. If that old maid had paid
+what was due him, the small change in his pocket would have totaled a
+dollar and thirty cents. But ninety-five cents wasn't bad, as it was.
+
+He sauntered in from the dark street a few minutes later and stacked the
+dripping umbrellas in the rack in the hallway. Then he burst into the
+kitchen to tell his mother the news.
+
+"What will you do with all that money, son?"
+
+He blinked a moment at the brilliancy of the gas-light, and guessed he'd
+save most of it. At that Mrs. Fletcher smiled, and he grinned sheepishly
+back. She had probably guessed the secret. Mothers had uncanny ways of
+seeing right into fellows, and he might as well tell her now.
+
+"Louise and I are going to be married when I'm twenty-one," he blurted.
+"I'm starting to save now, and she's going to get her mother to teach
+her how to cook beefsteaks and keep house."
+
+Then he ducked from her amused kisses and ran up to his room. Down came
+the pig bank from the resting place on the bureau, and out on the white
+coverlet came the result of his work. Piece by piece the money
+disappeared in the narrow slot, until not even a nickel was left for
+lemon drops at the school store. Then he shook the porker with
+satisfaction. It didn't sound so empty now, and the hungry look seemed
+to have disappeared from the yellow china face. The eyes held an
+expression of sleepy content, if an insensate bit of china could do such
+a thing.
+
+Ninety-six cents was a good start. But he'd have to hustle every minute
+of Saturday morning. The advent of autumn had so discouraged the growth
+of grass on the home street that he would have to invade Southern
+Avenue. Surely he could find some sort of a job on that long,
+well-groomed street.
+
+After breakfast he sneaked off to drag the lawn-mower from its storage
+place in the basement. The rattle and bang of the iron frame against the
+area steps caught Mrs. Fletcher's alert ear. She raised the little
+side-pantry window and looked out as he lifted the implement up on the
+walk.
+
+"John!"
+
+"Yes, Mother?" A sheepish note crept into his voice. "Taking the mower
+out of the basement; that's all."
+
+"Where are you going with it?"
+
+Oh, nowhere in particular. He hoped to earn a little money; that was
+all.
+
+"Is your room picked up?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And the front porch has to be hosed off for Sunday; never mind the
+neighbors until my work's finished, son."
+
+Mothers must have forty-'leven pairs of ears to catch fellows the way
+they did. He stopped to argue with her, but she shook her head
+impatiently.
+
+"That won't do a bit of good, John. You're just wasting time when you're
+talking this way."
+
+She was right. And wasting time meant just so many minutes less in which
+to earn a dollar and four cents. He scampered upstairs and pitched the
+book which had lain under the bed since a certain clandestine
+night-reading session into the case. Next, his odds and ends of clothing
+and ties were thrown on the closet floor with a prayer that they might
+not be discovered before he made his escape. With his bureau top set
+hastily in order, he reported for duty below. Out with the hose-reel and
+up with the nozzle on the porch. A twist of the key, and the water
+spurted forth while his mother watched the procedure in amazement. He
+was taking five minutes for work which consumed twenty-five, ordinarily!
+
+But when the water splashed against the sun-blistered clapboards of the
+veranda wall, his spurt of energy diminished. He adjusted the nozzle
+until the fine spray came from the hose and watched the miniature
+rainbow in the bright sunlight. An earnest spider was repairing a web up
+under the eaves in anticipation of coming storms, and John shifted back
+to the hard stream to dislodge the industrious spinner. The old cat
+trotted around from the back porch and made faces at a squirrel which
+had strayed from the park to enjoy the more munificent bounty which the
+kind-hearted housewives and children on the street offered. He shot the
+quarrel-quelling stream in their direction, and the pair scampered away
+to safety. As yet a good half of the porch was untouched by water, and
+he dropped the hose to the floor with the nozzle pointed toward the
+baseboard, while little rivulets trickled over the dust-strewn boards
+until they joined larger streams, just as the little black river lines
+in his school maps did.
+
+There was a sudden, sharp tapping at the window which fronted the porch.
+Mrs. Fletcher's voice jerked him from the clouds of miniature
+geographical research to the realities of his task.
+
+"John! Half an hour's gone already. Do get the hose reeled up!"
+
+A few hasty strokes of the broom--his mother's best, taken unknown to
+her--obliterated all traces of the water systems, and the hard spray was
+splashed against the windows just long enough to splatter the sashes
+well. The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or
+two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one
+shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to
+find Silvey.
+
+A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An
+ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on
+out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.
+
+"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be
+back until dinner time."
+
+Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have
+to pitch in alone.
+
+Around the corner he went, the mower still beating a noisy tattoo over
+the pavement, past the big new apartment building with flats which
+actually rented for a hundred dollars a month, and down to the long row
+of older houses, erected when land was cheap, and set far back from the
+walk; still on past foot after foot of trim grass plots, through a
+mud-puddle in the street which held more water than was good for the
+already rusty blades, and across to the opposite sidewalk before he
+found a prospect of employment.
+
+He swung back the gate and tiptoed up the weathered steps. The window
+shades were down and the cobwebs hung thick on the porch railings and
+under the eaves. Yet the place was occupied, for he had noticed a
+homeless cat dragging an unsavory meal from a well-filled garbage pail
+at the side. He rang the bell once, twice, thrice, before the door
+opened.
+
+"Want the lawn cut?" he asked of the wrinkled, tremulous dame who faced
+him.
+
+She shook her head, angry at being disturbed. He walked down the walk
+mournfully.
+
+It was clear that there was no revenue to be gained this day. So he
+turned toward the home street and dropped the mower into the area way
+just loudly enough to bring Mrs. Fletcher to the side window.
+
+"That you, son? Run up to the corner and get some lamb chops, that's a
+good boy." She tossed him a half-dollar. "And get ready for dinner when
+you come back."
+
+He set off thoughtfully, for the problem of earning still annoyed him.
+He hated to fall down on the newly made resolution the very first week.
+If it were only winter and a heavy snow falling! Then he'd make money
+quickly enough, but in late autumn--why folks wanted to walk to the
+corner for groceries themselves because the tang in the clear, snappy
+weather made the errand enjoyable!
+
+As the door of the butcher shop closed behind him, he saw Shultz, leader
+of the "Jeffersons" and sworn enemy, tugging at a heavy suitcase as he
+struggled to keep pace with the athletic young lady to whom it belonged.
+
+Why couldn't he do likewise? Three ten-cent suitcase jobs would bring
+his capital to a dollar and twenty-four cents, and that was better than
+nothing.
+
+As soon as he had eaten, he left the house on the trot for the suburban
+station, where he had seen his football rival. He waited in front of the
+three iron turnstiles, now dancing up and down, now watching the ants in
+a hill which was forming between two paving blocks, and now scanning the
+thrice reread headlines of the papers on the unpainted news stand by the
+station entrance. A gentleman came with golf sticks bound for the park
+links; there came ladies innumerable who had been delayed on their
+shopping expedition--and still no sign of employment. Locals came and
+went, and expresses followed on twenty-minute runs until his memory
+failed in counting them, before a puffy, white-moustached gentleman in
+tweeds grunted a noisy passage down the platform steps.
+
+"Satchel carried, sir?"
+
+"How far is it to the hotel."
+
+John explained. The traveler should have left the train at the station
+three blocks to the south. But it wasn't so very far, even at that.
+"Shall I carry it for you?" he concluded.
+
+The man nodded jerkily and paused to light a cigarette. As they left,
+Shultz sauntered up and stood aghast at this invasion of his territory.
+
+"Hey!" he ejaculated finally.
+
+John held his course, grip in either hand. He was a little nervous, but
+his business rival dared not take revenge while his patron was with him.
+After that--well, he guessed he could take care of himself if that
+"tough"--a term of endearment used by the "Tigers"--bothered him.
+
+A lapse of ten minutes found him fingering a quarter as he stood on the
+broad hotel steps. Would he go back, when such fees were in prospect?
+You bet. That dirty-faced kid had no mortgage on the place. He'd like to
+see any trouble between them. He would call out the "Tigers," he would!
+
+Shultz was pacing up and down in front of the station when John came up.
+The expression on his face was far from pleasant, and the boy began to
+regret his fit of bravado. But shucks, that tough wouldn't dare do
+anything. He stopped at the turnstiles once more, and Shultz glared at
+him angrily.
+
+"What you trying to do?"
+
+John explained. He wanted to make a little pocket money.
+
+"Well you can't here. G'wan home before I smash your face!"
+
+"Won't," stubbornly. "Got just as much right as you here."
+
+There was a pause. "Well are you going?" asked the "Jefferson's"
+captain.
+
+"No!"
+
+"I'll make you." He advanced, fists doubled. They circled around and
+around on the pavement, each looking for an opening through the other's
+guard. Suddenly the bigger boy lunged forward and his fist went true to
+the mark--John's nose. They sparred again, now feinting forward, now
+stepping backward, like two young turkey cocks. A tall, blue-clad,
+brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz raised the alarm.
+
+"Cheese it, the cop!"
+
+They broke for cover, each in the direction of home and parental
+protection, while the guardian of the peace stood and laughed at the
+fleeing figures.
+
+Once well down the street, John pulled up, panting, and rubbed his nose.
+That kid had certainly hit it. The organ hurt like the mischief, and
+felt as if it were three sizes too big. He hoped it wouldn't be like
+that at school, Monday.
+
+He heard a familiar voice, "Hello!"
+
+He turned quickly. Louise, and at this, of all times!
+
+"What you been doing?" She looked at his face curiously.
+
+He forced a smile. "Fight, that's all."
+
+"Did he hurt you much?"
+
+"Only here." John pointed to the injured appendage and added, "Gee, you
+ought to see him. Black eye, and his lip's bleeding something fierce!"
+His lady must never know that he came out second best in the battle.
+
+Suddenly he turned a-tremble from the reaction of his feelings. He
+wished his feminine playmate down town, over in the park, any place
+where she couldn't talk to him. He wanted to get home, to have mother's
+gentle hands lay cooling bandages on his nose, and his eyes began to
+fill with tears. For in spite of his air of defiance, he had been beaten
+and the knowledge stung him into a poignant longing for sympathy.
+
+Louise, with the intuition of her sex, changed the subject.
+
+"Look what I've got," she held a brown package at arm's length. "Sugar
+from the grocer's. Mother's going to teach me how to bake, this
+afternoon. Want to watch?"
+
+He nodded gratefully and went with her to the flat where that memorable
+party had been held. In the airy kitchen, Mrs. Martin instructed Louise
+in the mysteries of mixing flour, spices, and molasses into that sticky
+mass which composes the dough for delicious, old-fashioned gingerbread.
+John stood at the young lady's side and watched dreamily. Just wait
+until he had that thousand dollars saved and could rent a kitchen of his
+own!
+
+After the mixture was poured into the pan, the two children, spoons in
+hand, scraped the mixing dish of its residue of uncooked delicacy, and
+decided that the effort would prove a huge success.
+
+"Wait until it's baked," said Louise, "and you can have a piece."
+
+John was transported into a seventh heaven of ecstasy, and followed her
+into the parlor. They sat on the floor and played dominoes while the
+minutes flew past.
+
+"That's five games for me," Louise broke out exultantly. John nodded and
+gazed listlessly around the room. On the bottom shelf of the magazine
+table was a red and black checkerboard.
+
+"Let's play that," he pointed with one grimy finger.
+
+Louise demurred. "I don't know how."
+
+"I'll teach you," her victim said eagerly. So she did penance for her
+victories until Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway and smiled down at
+them.
+
+"Come, kiddies. It's ready now."
+
+They broke for the kitchen in a wild dash, leaving boards and men on the
+carpet as they had finished with them.
+
+Half an hour later, John sauntered into the house, his hat cocked
+exultantly over one ear, and his mouth redolent of savory spices. He
+heard voices in the dining-room and stuck his head in between the
+portieres.
+
+"That you, John?" asked his mother. "Where on earth have you been?"
+
+"Up at Louise's." His spirits were too high to notice the admonitory
+note in her voice. "She baked a cake all by herself, and when it was
+done, I had a great big piece. And Mother," his voice rose proudly at
+the memory of that effort, "it was better'n any ginger cake you ever
+made in all your life!"
+
+When he had placed his napkin in his ring and gone out on the front
+porch, Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband and her husband smiled back
+at her.
+
+"The little imp," she murmured finally.
+
+But it was the first foretaste of the time when another woman should
+dispossess her of her son's love, and she liked this touch in the
+childish comedy not at all.
+
+[Illustration: "16-31-4-7-82-6-21----"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HE SAVES FOR "FOUR ROOMS FURNISHED COMPLETE"
+
+
+The early Sunday church bells roused him to consciousness that the clear
+autumn sunlight was streaming in through the east window. The other
+members of the family were as yet not awake, so he stretched lazily and
+recalled, incident by incident, that blissful afternoon with Louise. How
+pretty she had looked when she had opened the oven door, and how
+delighted she had been when he had sampled and approved her first
+gingerbread! It almost atoned for the defeats at dominoes.
+
+He rolled over. There stood the pig bank on the bureau, staring down at
+him with an air which said, plainly as if spoken, "John Fletcher, you're
+a failure. Two dollars was your goal for the week. There's but a dollar
+and twenty-nine cents in me. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+Nor would it allow his conscience to rest during the hours which
+followed. Louise had accepted an invitation to feed the squirrels in the
+park that afternoon, so he begged a nickel from his father for peanuts
+and rushed in to his mirror to see if his face needed washing. There was
+the four-footed caricature to insinuate that he might better be thinking
+of means to increase his weekly income, instead of squandering money on
+fat, saucy park squirrels.
+
+He was beginning to hate the bit of china. Why hadn't he purchased
+instead a mail-box bank that owned no such accusing eyes?
+
+Not until after supper, when he threw himself on the bed to face, for
+the first time, the problem of earning a steady weekly income, did the
+yellow, glazed features cease to trouble him.
+
+He stared thoughtfully at the flicker of the gas rays against the wavy
+markings in the ceiling paper for some minutes. How was a boy to earn
+money? What were the channels of revenue by which the "Jefferson
+Toughs," Shultz and his ilk, made pitiful contributions to the family
+war fund against the enemies of fuel, food, and clothing bills?
+
+Shultz sold papers. Very well, John Fletcher would do likewise. If
+twenty papers were sold daily, a weekly revenue of forty-eight cents
+would come from that source. The allowance from his father would bring
+the amount up to, say, seventy-five cents. Could he hope for five
+errands a week from the neighbors? That would make a dollar and a
+quarter. But where, oh, where, was the other money to come from?
+
+In any case, hard, persistent work, man's work, lay before him and it
+must be done in a man's way. No more tops, marbles, "Run, sheep, run,"
+or even snow fights! The thousand dollars which meant a home was to be
+earned by his twenty-first birthday, and such trivialities might delay
+the achievement of that heart's desire.
+
+The first test of the resolution came within the next twenty-four hours.
+As the pupils formed in line for the afternoon, he fingered a dime in
+his pocket repeatedly, for the coin represented the investment for his
+first newspaper venture. In the school yard Silvey darted up to him.
+
+"Oh, John-e-e-e!"
+
+"Yes," said John, not greatly enthusiastic over the hail.
+
+"It's open practice at the university today. Red and me are going. It'll
+be the biggest game, next Saturday, and, Jiminy, you ought to watch the
+quarter-back kick! Come along?"
+
+John shook his head regretfully. Too well he knew the joys which awaited
+them within the big enclosure with its towering bleachers. Hadn't he
+haunted the gate for just such opportunities, last year? Hadn't Bill and
+he discovered a hole in the fence and laid plans to see one of the early
+games by its aid? And hadn't an unfeeling freshman emptied a bucket of
+water as he had crawled half through the opening? But the dime in his
+pocket was a reminder of last week's procrastinating failure.
+
+"Can't," said he finally.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Got to work--sell papers."
+
+Silvey stared, scarcely believing his ears. John scuffed the school walk
+with one sadly abused shoe.
+
+"You see," he went on reflectively, "I've got to have a thousand dollars
+by the time I'm twenty-one."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Get married."
+
+"That girl again!" Bill ejaculated scornfully. "Aw, come on, Johnny.
+Just once won't hurt."
+
+"No," retorted John firmly. "I've got to act like a man now. I haven't
+any more time for kid foolishness!"
+
+"Kid foolishness!" repeated Silvey in awe-struck tones, as his chum
+turned and walked rapidly away, "kid foolishness! Gee!"
+
+As for John, he was finding hidden sweets in the new vocation. Never had
+Silvey's eyes held such astounded respect as they had at that moment.
+
+Shultz lived in a brown brick, ramshackle tenement diagonally opposite
+the apartments in which the gang had found shelter that day of the
+cucumber fight. Once, the flats had been advertised as being the utmost
+in modern conveniences, but that had been in the days when the park
+museum was glorified as an exposition building. Since then, a long
+succession of tenants had scented the dark, badly lighted corridors with
+a variety of garlicky odors, and the rentals had been lowered until only
+the most necessary repairs could be afforded to keep the building in
+order. So there the block stood, making a tawdry front with small, and
+often-remodeled stores, as it waited for one of the numerous small fires
+which were always starting to consume it.
+
+Shultz was playing on the walk in front of the grimy main entrance. It
+was John's purpose to learn the hour of arrival for the newspaper wagon,
+and whatever other information on news vending the boy might be willing
+to give. His erstwhile enemy doubled both fists as he crossed the road.
+
+"Want another bloody nose?"
+
+John raised an open palm as a token of peace. "When's the wagon drive
+up?"
+
+The ex-captain of the "Jefferson's" looked at him suspiciously. "What do
+you want to know for?"
+
+"Sell papers. What do you s'pose?"
+
+"Old man lost his job?" There could be but one motive for engaging in
+the paper business according to his simple mind.
+
+John thought a moment. It was all very well to tell his chum of the
+cause for the sudden desire for money, but not this boy. The love affair
+would be all over school by morning recess. He nodded, taking the
+easiest way out of the dilemma.
+
+"Had a fight with his boss," the would-be merchant invented boldly,
+throwing plausibility to the winds. "Came home last night, crying like
+everything. There isn't enough to eat, and we have to pay the gas bill,
+so I'm going to work."
+
+All enmity vanished instantly. The pair were comrades in misfortune, and
+as such John was to be aided in every possible way.
+
+"Joe'll be around in half an hour," Shultz explained generously. "Stay
+here with me and I'll tell him you're a new kid, and fix things up. How
+many are you going to buy?"
+
+"Dime's worth."
+
+"Think you can sell 'em all?"
+
+"Easy."
+
+Shultz studied him for a moment and decided that the novice had better
+learn the vicissitudes of the business through bitter experience. John
+wasn't the kind to take advice, anyway.
+
+At last the green, one-horse cart pulled up by the delicatessen at the
+side of the old apartments. The boys crowded up to the wagon step.
+Shultz surrendered a nickel for his nightly quota of eight papers and
+pointed to his pupil.
+
+"New kid, Joe."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"John."
+
+"All right, John, how many?"
+
+He reached up the dime and received a neat bundle of papers in return.
+The other boy left to make deliveries to established customers, while
+John dashed exultantly over to the railroad station. He was a real paper
+boy now. The news sheets under his arm proved that.
+
+An incoming suburban train pulled in at the platform overhead. Steam
+hissed from the pistons, and the first few puffs of locomotive smoke
+arose as the engine got under way again. Then came the pound, pound,
+pound of a multitude of feet as the weary, scurrying passengers made the
+turnstiles click continuously. John opened his mouth to call his wares.
+
+"Pa--a--"
+
+A man with a red necktie glanced down at him. The rest of the word
+became inaudible. What was the matter with his voice, anyway? There was
+nothing to be ashamed of in selling papers. The policeman wouldn't
+arrest him. Again he forced a shout, and practiced until he could yell
+at the top of his lungs like an old hand at the game.
+
+The last saffron tint of the autumn sun faded from the western sky.
+Lights appeared one by one in the windows of the flat buildings and
+glistened like jewels in the fast gathering dusk. The store windows on
+either side of the street cast brilliant reflections far across the
+macadam. The lamplighter, speeding from post to post on a bicycle,
+paused long enough to leave a flickering beacon on the corner, then sped
+away with his long torch over one shoulder. Trains came and went.
+Business men in well-tailored, immaculate suits walked briskly past.
+Weak arched clerks with home pressed trousers slouched wearily along.
+Chattering women innumerable scurried by on the walk. His dollar watch
+showed a quarter past six in the light from the ticket office window and
+John counted his papers.
+
+Eleven on hand and five paltry coppers in his right trousers' pocket.
+Caught with an overstock! Not only had the prospective profits vanished,
+but a deficiency impended as well. He began to understand the cause of
+Shultz's question--and supper impended.
+
+He snatched a moment under the light from the street lamp to glance at
+the funny sheet, for the excitement of the new occupation had prevented
+such amusement earlier in the afternoon. As he unfolded a copy, a
+glaring headline on the first page held his attention.
+
+Again the turnstiles clicked, and again came the shifting crowd. But
+John Fletcher was not on the station corner to vend his wares. Instead,
+that small boy was legging it westward as fast as he could go. Past the
+school, past the row of dilapidated houses which lay beyond, past the
+plank-walled football grounds and the last of the gray stone,
+many-windowed university buildings, into the residence district which he
+had marked as his goal.
+
+This section of the city was so far removed from the railroad station
+that the inhabitants made use of the slower street car lines to take
+them to and fro from work. Frank Smith, bookkeeper in a wholesale house,
+would be still on his way home, and this difference between the
+expensive fifteen-minute train service, and the fifty-five minutes of
+the more plebeian surface system was all that made his plan feasible.
+What would Mrs. Smith know of the day's news occurrences?
+
+He waited until his panting grew less violent before he sauntered down
+the gas lit, unpretentious street, with a cry of,
+
+"Extry paper! All about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-per
+here. Extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e!"
+
+Heads became silhouetted in numerous windows as their owners tried to
+catch his words.
+
+"A-a-all about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-a-per!"
+
+A door swung back, releasing a flood of light against the unkempt front
+lawn of a two-story cottage. John dashed up the shaky steps.
+
+"Extry, lady? All about the big murder?"
+
+She nodded and handed him a penny. The boy looked at it scornfully.
+
+"Extras are a nickel!"
+
+"But the paper's marked 'one cent.'"
+
+"S'pose it would pay," his voice was as grave as a financier's,
+discussing a huge stock transfer, "to chase all over and miss supper,
+just to make three cents on eight papers? No, lady, price is a nickel.
+Always is."
+
+He held out his hand. The woman capitulated and went back into the house
+for the stipulated coin.
+
+The sale wiped out the deficit and made an even break on the venture,
+the worst to be feared. Selling extras which were not extras to people
+who thought they were was proving a most profitable undertaking. He
+resumed his stroll down the street.
+
+"Extra-e-e-e paper here! South Side family murdered! Extry paper! Extry,
+extry, extre-e-e-e!"
+
+Every fourth or fifth residence yielded its toll to the grewsome lure.
+At last but one newspaper remained. He redoubled his vocal efforts.
+
+A woman, her arms full of grocery packages, stopped him and fumbled in
+her purse. Across the street, a whistle sounded. He dropped the nickel
+into his pocket, gave over the last of the troublesome sheets, and
+started for home. Again came the whistle. He made a trumpet of his hands
+and bellowed "Sold out" as he turned the corner. If he had only more
+copies! At least sixty could have been sold.
+
+Nevertheless, fifty cents for the pig bank--a dime was to be reserved
+for the morrow's capital--wasn't bad. Surely the other dollar and a half
+could be saved by the end of the week. Earning a thousand dollars was as
+easy as rolling off a log.
+
+John kissed his mother good-bye in high good humor, as he left for
+school in the morning. She watched him for a moment as he danced along
+the gusty, wind-swept street, and went in to sit by the parlor grate for
+a few moments. Hardly had she opened her magazine when the front
+door-bell rang, and the neighbor from across the way stood on the
+threshold, panting and very much excited.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Fletcher," she shrilled in her acrid tones. "Do tell me
+all about it!"
+
+Her hostess led her into the parlor and drew up a companion chair before
+the fire. "About what?" she asked.
+
+"About Mr. Fletcher." The neighbor warmed her hands a moment before the
+dancing flames, while Mrs. Fletcher looked a mute inquiry.
+
+"Mrs. Shultz, she's my washerwoman," went on the thin, nasal voice,
+"said this morning that John had told her little boy he had to sell
+papers because your husband had had trouble with his employer and had
+lost his position." She would have added further details as to the
+straits the Fletchers were supposed to be in, if something in that
+lady's manner had not prevented her.
+
+"So I said to Mrs. Leland, next door," concluded the neighbor from
+across the way, "that I hoped things were not as bad as they seemed, and
+that I'd run right over to ask you."
+
+"John told _what_?" asked that youngster's mother, now that the verbal
+torrent had halted.
+
+The story was repeated. Mrs. Fletcher broke into relieved laughter.
+"I'll have to interview that son of mine when he gets home," she said as
+she leaned forward to explain matters.
+
+But when John did appear, his mother was far more lenient with him than
+he had any right to expect. She was still too amused at the turn of
+affairs to be anything else.
+
+Two weeks sped past. In spite of the success of that first paper
+venture, the lesson was not lost upon John, who recruited a dozen or so
+regular customers from among his mother's friends the next afternoon.
+Since then, thanks to persistent effort, the list had steadily grown
+until he was able to double his first day's order without danger of
+financial loss. The errands for the neighbors had not materialized to
+swell his income, nor had other umbrella days followed the first one.
+But indeed, the paper route occupied too much of his time to permit such
+side issues.
+
+His minimum income was now at the respectable mark of a dollar and
+seventeen cents a week and still growing. At first, the thought that he
+was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he
+remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year
+from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!
+
+"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when
+that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak,
+overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't
+accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner
+was singularly convincing.
+
+Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her
+from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the
+park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the
+science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch,
+tomorrow."
+
+He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers
+spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?
+
+Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang
+it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which
+was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his
+afternoons?
+
+Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
+Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy
+streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small
+boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were
+returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store
+window caught his eye.
+
+Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the
+walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a
+dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped
+around it.
+
+He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently,
+as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.
+
+"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to _three hundred and sixty-five
+dollars_."
+
+He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser
+and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on
+them! Then came the appalling thought: _"How far would a thousand
+dollars last with such prices?"_
+
+All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on
+the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected
+problem. If bedroom furniture _alone_ cost that much and the pictures
+and carpet were still to be paid for, the total would at least be four
+hundred and fifty dollars. The parlor should cost even more, for chairs,
+a sofa, and a reading table were to be placed in it. As for the
+dining-room, he shrank from a consideration of that expense! And there
+were dishes and books and silverware! Two thousand dollars was the least
+he could expect his five furnished rooms to cost, and he had considered
+half that amount sufficient for all expenses. Newly married folks
+usually took honeymoon trips, too. He groaned. Would he ever earn enough
+to marry Louise?
+
+Thanksgiving drew nearer. At school, on the Wednesday immediately
+preceding, the chosen few who were Miss Brown's personal aides, stayed
+after school at noon to decorate the room for the entertainment to be
+given at a quarter of two. Her desk was backed against the wall, and the
+cornstalks used by the drawing class as models for their efforts, were
+grouped against it to form a background for the impassioned actors. A
+supply of pumpkins, gourds, and other autumnal fruits of the earth,
+borrowed by the teacher from the grocer with whom her mother traded,
+gave still greater festivity to the room.
+
+There was no need of roll call. Every child was there, for they were too
+much interested to absent themselves.
+
+Miss Brown gave a brief history of the origin of the day. A little girl
+whose pink dress clashed violently with her red hair and freckled
+complexion, followed with a rendition of a doleful poem beginning:
+
+    Only a grain of corn, Moth_ur_,
+    Only a grain of corn.
+
+Then the class sang one of the songs in the fourth-grade music book and
+settled back expectantly, for the feature piece of the afternoon.
+
+Silvey and Red Brown dragged a long, green curtain along a wire which
+ran from one side of the room to the other, until the platform was
+hidden from the room's eager gaze. A scurry of gray calico came from the
+coat closet which served as the green room for the amateur actors. A
+boy, muffled mysteriously in a long cloak, followed. Miss Brown gave a
+last look to see that the stage was properly arranged, and the curtain
+was pulled back against the wall again.
+
+[Illustration: _It was Sid and Louise!_]
+
+It was Sid and Louise! He'd thrown aside the long cloak (insisted upon
+because he'd feel like a fool if the class saw him in costume while
+waiting for the play to begin), and stood forth in high, paper cuffs
+hiding his coat sleeves well up to his elbows, and a queerly shaped,
+high-buckled hat which threatened to slide down over his ears at any
+moment. Louise, in a Priscilla gray gown, waited for the pilgrim father
+to begin his lines. The class applauded wildly, for the spirit of make
+believe threw them back into those tempestuous early days along the
+Atlantic Coast.
+
+John heard not a word of the scenes which followed. He was sorely
+disturbed. There was Sid on the platform with his beloved, waving his
+arms back and forth in fervid, pump-handle motions which Louise seemed
+to mind not a bit. Hang it all, that kid must be trying to cut him out!
+But he'd show him. Just wait until his thousand dollars was earned.
+
+Then his calculations of that Saturday evening came back to throw an icy
+feeling into the pit of his stomach. What right had he to hope when
+housefurnishings were at such a figure?
+
+Mrs. Fletcher set him to picking the pinfeathers from the turkey when he
+came in from his paper route that night. He turned to with a gusto,
+mindful of the culinary treats which were to come, and blissfully
+conscious of four long holidays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
+in which he could sleep as late as he wanted--besides, he could see a
+little more of Louise. He didn't like the way she had acted on the
+platform. Perhaps he had been a little neglectful, but just wait a few
+years. Then he'd--but the thought of that costly furniture put an end to
+his dreams.
+
+Thanksgiving morning he haunted the kitchen incessantly, dancing now to
+the little pantry to swing back the doors and feast his eyes on the huge
+mince pie which waited on the bottom shelf, and then back to the kitchen
+where he pestered his mother with innumerable questions until she drove
+him out into the snappy, late November air. He scampered up to Bill's
+house, where the two boys retired to the chilly seclusion of the shack
+and compared notes.
+
+"We've got a fifteen-pound turkey," said John boastfully.
+
+"That's nothing," Silvey dug scornfully into the hard dirt floor with
+his heel. "You ought to see ours. Twenty pounds, and my, such a big
+fellow! Cranberry sauce an' roast potatoes, an' squash to go with him.
+Umm-m-m."
+
+"So've we," retorted John, undaunted by this itemized account. "Your
+turkey may be bigger'n ours, but it won't taste as good, for my ma (he'd
+forgotten his assertion regarding Louise) is the best cook in the whole
+world and there isn't anyone can beat her."
+
+Certain empty pangs in nature's alarm clock brought him home half an
+hour early to inquire about dinner. He was most starved to death.
+Wouldn't mother hurry it up? Mother couldn't--expert cookery was not to
+be hurried. He'd better go out again for a while.
+
+Instead, he carried the morning paper into the parlor and lounged in the
+big easy chair. The minutes slipped past as he devoured news items, the
+fiction supplement, and miraculous patent medicine announcements with
+amusing impartiality. He turned to an inner page and found a huge
+advertisement staring him in the face. At the top, floated a streamer
+with the legend, "You furnish the girl, we furnish the house!" Further
+down the page were furniture bargains innumerable, for sale on a plan of
+"One dollar down, seventy-five cents per week," and in the center,
+between heavy rules, was the announcement, "Four rooms, furnished
+complete, only ninety-five dollars!"
+
+"John," called his father from the dining-room. "Come to dinner!"
+
+He threw the paper from him in sudden exultation, and danced in to the
+dining-table. His eye took in each detail of the evenly browned national
+bird, the long, slender stalks of celery in the dainty china dish, the
+deep-red cranberry jelly, the appetizing roasted potatoes, and the
+golden squash, and he smiled happily.
+
+"Jiminy, that looks good, Mother!" He plumped into his seat. "Hurry up,
+dad, I'm most ready to eat the house!"
+
+But through his brain, as he attacked a third helping of turkey and its
+accessories, there still ran the exultant echo of "Four rooms, furnished
+complete, only ninety-five dollars!"
+
+Thus did the day become a real Thanksgiving to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CONCERNS SANTA CLAUS MOSTLY
+
+
+At early dusk of the Friday holiday, he scampered to a hiding place
+underneath a house porch while Sid DuPree, his face buried in his arms,
+stood against a tree trunk and counted "Five hundred by five" as rapidly
+as he could. But as the cry of "Coming" echoed between the closely built
+houses, John's conscience suddenly robbed him of all the pleasure in the
+game of "Hide and seek." An afternoon of suitcase jobs had been
+frittered away, and the paper wagon was due in another fifteen minutes.
+So he withdrew reluctantly to haunt the walk in front of the
+delicatessen store and wonder that the work upon which he had entered
+with such gusto was becoming so irksome.
+
+A sharp, long-delayed touch of winter had crept into the air the night
+before, and set his toes to tingling as he drew his blue, knitted
+stocking cap further over his ears. He scampered along the petrified
+lawns on the paper route until the last news sheet was delivered, then
+blew lustily on his black mittens to warm his numbed fingers as he
+started for home. There, under the cheerful influence of the glowing
+parlor grate, he waited lazily until the last trace of tingling had left
+his hands, and spread a copy of the evening paper out on the carpet
+before him.
+
+[Illustration: _Christmas dreams._]
+
+First he looked at the cartoon on the front page, and then at the
+grotesque drawings on the back sheet comic section. Those finished, he
+returned to the first page, where an account of a ghastly train wreck
+held him spellbound. Searching on an inner page for the rest of the
+narrative, he came across a department store's advertisement which
+banished all thoughts of mangled victims and splintered cars from his
+mind.
+
+"Beginning tomorrow, Santa Claus will be in his little house in our
+greatly enlarged fifth-floor Toyland to greet each and all of his
+friends. See the animated bunnies and the blacksmith shop in the Brownie
+Village, and the wonderful display of toys of every description which
+Santa has gathered for the delight of the children." There followed
+enticing cuts of toys with even more alluring descriptions and, alas!
+oftentimes prohibitive prices.
+
+Thanks to the paper business, the holiday season had crept up almost
+unnoticed. Santa was an exploded myth, these years, but the stereotyped
+cut of the jovial, fat-cheeked saint at the top of the page brought John
+a thrill of anticipation, nevertheless. Christmas was coming. What did
+he want?
+
+After supper, he rummaged in the library until he found his mother's box
+of best stationery. He drew a few sheets and several envelopes from the
+neat container, and sat down at his father's big writing desk to begin
+his series of Christmas letters to certain responsive relatives. These
+favored ones heard from him regularly four times a year--before his
+birthday, before Christmas, and as soon after each of these feast days
+as his mother could force letters of acknowledgment from him. John
+dipped the pen too deeply into the inkwell, and wiped his finger tips
+dry on his trousers. Then he began,
+
+"Dear Aunt Clara: I hope you are well. The weather is fine but getting
+cold. Christmas is coming so I thought I would write you. I want--"
+
+He paused for reflection. Bill Silvey had been given a toy electric
+motor, last year. It was now in the juvenile scrap heap, thanks to an
+attempt to harness the bit of machinery to the powerful lighting current
+in Sid's house, but it had been delight indescribable to swing the
+little switch and watch the armature gain momentum until it hummed like
+a bee. So the first of his desires ran, "Motor, electric. Batteries,
+too."
+
+Last year, Bill and he had built a shaky bob for use on the park
+toboggan, only to have a collision with a park water hydrant, used for
+flooding the field, and the remains of the sleds had gone to their
+respective family woodpiles. So down went, "Sled, coaster, with round
+runners."
+
+The descriptive bit was to eliminate any possibility of getting a high,
+useless girl's sled, which would go to pieces in less than no time.
+
+As he thought of each article he wrote, "Hockey skates. My old ones are
+rusted. A knife. Mine's lost." And last, but not least, "Books, lots of
+them."
+
+That exhausted his list of needs. There were a thousand other things
+which he knew he wanted if he could only think of them, but the
+innumerable boyish desires which had arisen since his birthday in June
+had fled, and, try as he would, he could recall none of them. As a last
+desperate resort, he scrawled a concluding "Anything else useful," and
+signed it, "Your loving nephew, John."
+
+Saturday, an errant breeze from the east veiled the clear starlight of
+the early evening as if by magic, and by morning had marshaled long,
+heavy rows of slate-hued clouds which drove over the city from the lake.
+The temperature, too, rose above the freezing point and gave the only
+boy in the Fletcher household a chance to bank the ever-hungry furnace,
+and shut off all draughts. He employed his respite in a blissful perusal
+of the double-page advertisements in the Sunday paper.
+
+Toys, hundreds of them! The department stores vied with each other in
+the profusion of their offerings. Illustrations of "William Tell
+Banks--drop penny in bank and Tell shoots apple from son's
+head"--mechanical engines which sped around three-foot circles of track
+until any human engineer would become dizzy; sleds of every description
+from humble ones at fifty cents to long, elaborately enameled speed
+kings with spring-steel runners, and games in innumerable variety, made
+him read and reread the alluring pages until his eyes ached.
+
+He sighed and looked up dreamily. The moisture-laden clouds from the
+east had borne out the newspaper forecast of "probably snow flurries,"
+and he jumped to the window.
+
+Heavy, feathery flakes were swirling earthward with the vagaries of the
+air currents. Here they eddied out from between the houses to disappear
+on the shining black macadam of the street and sidewalks, there they
+gave a momentary touch of white to the brown, frost-bitten lawns as a
+prophecy of that which was yet to come. In front of the Alfords',
+Silvey, Perry, and Sid, danced back and forth with shouts of laughter as
+they tried to catch the elusive bits of white. He would have joined
+them, but an ache in his stomach told that dinner was near, so he
+returned from his vantage point with a cry of "Mother! Mother! Mother!
+It's getting Christmasier every minute!"
+
+Nor did the Spirit of the Holidays allow his interest to lessen during
+the days when the advertisements lost their fascination through
+monotonous repetition. As he and Bill ran home at noon one day, a
+quartette of men with bulging, gray denim bags on their shoulders, left
+big yellow envelopes on each and every house porch of the street. They
+were rigidly impartial in their work, and John dashed up the steps of
+that same vacant house which the boys had held that day with the pea
+shooters.
+
+"Look!" he cried, drawing the gaudy pamphlet from the manila casing.
+"It's the _Toy Book_, Silvey!"
+
+The _Toy Book_ had been issued since time immemorial by one of the down
+town stores, and its yearly visit made it something of an institution
+among the juveniles of the street. On the cover, a red-coated,
+rosy-cheeked Saint Nick, with a toy-filled pack, was descending a
+snow-capped chimney while his reindeer cavorted in the background. On
+the back were rows of dainty pink, blue, and green clad dolls with
+flaxen ringlets and staring, china eyes--trash which interested John not
+at all. Why didn't they put engines and sleds and worth-while things
+there?
+
+"Come on, Bill," he said suddenly. "Let's collect 'em."
+
+They waited until the distributors were too far down the street to
+interfere, and sneaked up and down the house steps with careful
+thoroughness. As the bundles under the two boyish arms were becoming
+heavy, Mrs. Fletcher darted out by the lamppost in front of the house
+and beckoned to John vigorously. He left Bill with a show of regret, for
+the dozen odd copies under his arm were far less than he would have
+liked.
+
+Louise sauntered home with him after school that day. As they passed
+Southern Avenue, the lady's gaze rested on a muddy object in the street
+gutter, and John stooped to pick it up. Torn, disfigured with
+innumerable heel marks and wagon wheels, the battered bundle of paper
+was all that remained of a Christmas booklet.
+
+"Oh!" said Louise in surprise.
+
+"Didn't you get one?"
+
+She shook her head. Evidently other boys at her end of the street had
+emulated John and Bill.
+
+"Tells all about toys," he volunteered. "I'll bring you one with the
+paper, if you want."
+
+She thanked him and dropped the ruin regretfully. Those dolls on the
+back cover were so enticing.
+
+"Aren't you glad Christmas is coming?" John asked. "Gee, I wish it was
+day after tomorrow."
+
+Louise nodded.
+
+"What do you want for Christmas?" he pursued.
+
+She didn't know. "A doll--"
+
+"A doll!" he interrupted in disgust. What did she want with dolls? They
+would be of no use when she had grown up.
+
+"Yes, a doll," said Louise decidedly. John feigned placating approval.
+"And doll clothes," she went on, "and new hair ribbons and things for my
+dresses, and lots and lots of other presents. What do you want?"
+
+He told her briefly. "But that isn't half," he concluded, as they
+loitered on the apartment steps. "I'm trying to think of the others all
+the time. Jiminy!" with a glance at his watch, "I'd better be going.
+I've got work to do."
+
+But there were no interviews with prospective newspaper customers that
+afternoon. After John had started the parlor grate for his mother, he
+fell under the spell of one of the wonder-books and scanned page after
+page of the illustrations until Mrs. Fletcher interrupted him.
+
+"Aren't you going to deliver your papers, son? It's a quarter of five
+now."
+
+What a pest the paper route was getting to be, always demanding his
+attention just as he wanted to do something else. He rose to his feet
+and stretched both arms to take the cramps out of them, pitched the
+booklet into a corner of the hall, and dashed to the closet for his coat
+and mittens.
+
+After the evening meal, John brought out another of his store of gaudy
+toy books and went into the parlor. His father, following a few moments
+later, looked down at the little figure on the carpet before the fire,
+and smiled.
+
+"What is it, son?"
+
+The boy raised his head, brown eyes a-dream with visions of automobiles,
+steam engines, and hook and ladder outfits.
+
+"Looking at this," he explained.
+
+Mr. Fletcher drew up the big, easy armchair which he liked so well, and
+lifted him into his lap. A moment later, the two heads, the old and the
+young, bent over the picture-laden pages.
+
+"Look, daddy." John pointed to a locomotive with pedals and a seated cab
+for a youthful engineer. "I saw one, once. All red and shiny, with a
+black smokestack. And the bell really rings."
+
+"But don't you think that's too much money for a toy?"
+
+The boy nodded reluctantly. "Still, it's such lots of fun to just _wish_
+for things, even though you know you can't have them."
+
+The strong arms tightened about him tenderly for a moment. As they
+relaxed, John turned the leaves back rapidly.
+
+"Let's begin at the very beginning," he explained, then rapped the first
+page petulantly. "Nothing but dolls and dolls and more dolls," as a
+procession of things dear to the feminine heart passed by; "and doll
+bathtubs and dishes and other sissy things." He bent forward suddenly.
+
+"That's better. A 'lectric railroad. Let's take your pencil." He marked
+an irregular cross beside the illustration. "And here come the sleds.
+Lots of them aren't so very 'spensive. And banks," he smiled. "I guess
+mine's big enough, isn't it, daddy?"
+
+Mr. Fletcher joined in the smile. Indeed until he had seen that porker
+safe on his son's bureau, he had no idea that so large a china animal
+existed. The boy broke in on his thoughts excitedly.
+
+"Punch and Judys!" His memory swept back to the raftered hall and
+Professor O'Reilley's performance. "They're such fun, and they don't
+cost very much. If I had one, I wouldn't spend any money on those shows,
+either."
+
+His father chuckled at the bit of juvenile diplomacy. "You'd better make
+out your Christmas list for us before that pencil gets worn out making
+crosses, son."
+
+He slid from the paternal knee and was off to the library in a trice.
+Mrs. Fletcher had overheard the finish of the conversation and smiled in
+on him before she joined her husband in reading the evening paper.
+Minutes passed.
+
+"Most finished, son?" called Mr. Fletcher. "It's nearly bedtime, you
+know."
+
+A grunt was the only response.
+
+"Better add a few things you'll need around the flat when you and Louise
+are married!"
+
+"John!" Mrs. Fletcher rattled her newspaper disapprovingly. "Do stop
+teasing that boy."
+
+A few moments later, her son appeared in the doorway, yawning sleepily.
+
+"It isn't ready yet," he said. "I'm going to bed now."
+
+Late the following evening, Mrs. Fletcher opened her son's door to see
+if he slept soundly, and a scrap of paper fluttered from an anchoring
+pin to the floor. She picked it up. True to his peculiar custom, John
+had presented his Christmas needs in a manner which seemed more delicate
+than to ask in person for them. With a whimsical, sympathetic smile, she
+rejoined her husband in the big bedroom.
+
+"Look what your joking did last night!" She handed him the slip of
+paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for
+Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for
+dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as
+if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier writing that
+which told of a longing not to be denied, "Books, lots of them."
+
+Christmas drew nearer. The delivery wagons from the down-town stores
+made more and more frequent stops at the Fletchers, to leave odd-shaped
+bundles in the hallway, bundles at which John would gaze longingly as if
+to pierce the outer wrappings and excelsior. Watching the packages
+arrive was half the fun of Christmas, anyway.
+
+His own shopping list was small. He broached the subject of a gift for
+his father to Mrs. Fletcher. Would she buy it, the next time she went to
+town? "Then it'll be a surprise for dad." Likewise he approached Mr.
+Fletcher. "Then mother won't know I'm buying her a book," he explained.
+But he was uncertain what to order for Louise. He'd never made a present
+to a girl before.
+
+The Friday before the great holiday, the papers upset his plans. The
+store of the _Toy Book_ announced that "Santa Claus leaves tomorrow for
+his home at the North Pole. As a farewell inducement to the children of
+this city to visit him, he will give a splendid present to each and
+every girl or boy accompanied by an adult."
+
+The North Pole part was all bosh. John knew that well, thanks to his
+present sophistication. But the lure of the present set him to thinking.
+Couldn't he--providing of course that maternal permission was given--go
+down town and do his shopping Saturday afternoon and wander around the
+different toy displays to his heart's content? But there was the paper
+route. Blame the nuisance, anyway!
+
+He sprinted up to see Bill after supper. Would his chum make the
+deliveries if he gave him a list of the customers? John would be willing
+to pay a dime for the service.
+
+Silvey assented gladly, for ten-cent pieces were scarcities among the
+small boy population just before Christmas, when the display of penny
+and five-cent novelties in the school store window proved so tempting.
+Thus the difficulty was solved.
+
+Two o'clock the following day found John following the varied shopping
+crowd through the revolving doors of the biggest department store.
+Inside, the aisles were packed with a jostling, slowly moving throng.
+Fat, breathless hausfraus rubbed elbows with high-cheeked, almond-eyed
+Slav maidens, and tired office clerks took advantage of the half holiday
+to fill their shopping lists. Here, a well-dressed, clear-complexioned
+lady of leisure examined an expensive knickknack, there an Irish mother
+led her brood to the throng around the elevators that they might see
+Santa Claus. But they were all filled with a desire to buy, buy, buy, in
+the name of the Christmas Spirit, and buyers and department heads rubbed
+their hands gleefully as they watched the overworked clerks. John fought
+his way to the nearest floorman, a white-haired veteran of many such
+rush seasons.
+
+"Where's the neckties?" he asked. That employee looked down at him
+wearily. "Next to the last aisle--to your right."
+
+Past the silverware counter, past the women's gloves, past innumerable
+little booths with high-priced holiday trinkets, and past the
+fountain-pen display--at last the long, oval counter came in sight.
+Eager purchasers stood two and three deep around the spaces where goods
+were on display. Clerks hurried back and forth in response to the calls
+of the wrapping girls, and change carriers popped unceasingly from the
+pneumatic tubes. John plied his elbows vigorously and worked his way
+through the thickest of the crowd. Above him, hands grabbed feverishly
+at the tangled heap of ties on the counter top, while querulous voices
+requested instant attention from the sales force.
+
+One of the four-in-hands dropped over the edge. The boy seized upon it,
+fingered it, and threw the bit of goods back in the heap. Poor stuff
+that, even at a quarter. His mother's frequent dissertations upon silk
+samples which she had brought home had taught him that much. He waved a
+frantic hand to attract attention until a tall, spectacled clerk took
+pity on him.
+
+"Let's see a tie, a real one! Don't care if I have to pay a whole
+half-dollar for it!"
+
+"What color?"
+
+John's lower lip drooped. He hadn't noticed his father's taste in
+neckwear. "Red," he hazarded at last.
+
+A crimson horror was thrust in front of him. Yellow cross-stripes
+clamored against the fiery background. The clerk twisted it deftly
+around his forefinger and, behold, it was made up as if in the paternal
+collar.
+
+"Like it?"
+
+John nodded and brought out a fifty-cent piece which he had forced from
+the pig bank that morning. A moment later, the wrapped holly box was
+given him, and he was off in the direction of the book department.
+
+Still the crowds! They choked the aisles and carried him here and there
+at the mercy of their eddies. Now he was forced up against a wooden
+counter edge, now jammed against two fat women in rusty black who were
+buying devotional books for the edification of less pious friends. At
+last a sign, "Popular copyrights, fifty cents a volume," gave impetus to
+his hitherto haphazard course.
+
+The poorly dressed salesgirl behind the counter smiled down at him in a
+manner which successive ten o'clock sessions had failed to eradicate.
+"What kind?" she asked.
+
+His gaze wandered helplessly over the bewildering array of volumes.
+
+"Here's something everyone's reading," she suggested, holding up an
+inane, pretty-girl covered book. He eyed it dubiously and pointed to a
+title which hinted of the West and of Indian fights.
+
+"Give me that one," he said decisively. His own love affair had proven
+that heroes and heroines in every day life never have the easy sailing
+which a limited reading of popular novels had implied. Anyway, cowboy
+stories were the most exciting.
+
+With the two packages wedged securely under his arm, he battled a way to
+the elevators. The family shopping was over and the real business of the
+day, a tour of the toy section and a present for Louise, called him.
+
+"Fifth floor," droned the elevator man. "Toys, dolls, games,
+Christmas-tree ornaments."
+
+His words became drowned in a sudden babel which made ordinary
+conversation impossible. A murmur of a thousand voices blended with the
+rattle of mechanical trains and the tooting of toy horns. Impatient
+salesmen called "Cash, cash, cash!" at the top of their lungs. Wails
+arose from hot, disgruntled infants. Now and then a large steam engine
+in operation at one counter corner, whistled shrilly when mischievous
+juvenile hands swung back the throttle.
+
+At the far end of the floor, where the carpet and rug department had
+been shifted for the holiday season, a long line of people were waiting.
+Heavily clad, perspiring women shifted infants from one arm to the other
+as they walked patiently along. Poorly clad street loafers sought to
+idle away their time with a visit to Santa Claus. Tall, slim young women
+yanked their little brothers into place or besought small sisters to
+"Hush up, we're nearly there!" And up and down the whole line, a baker's
+dozen of streets gamins skirmished on the lookout for some adult to whom
+they might attach themselves for the time being.
+
+Clearly that pointed the way to the little house and the fulfillment of
+the gift promise.
+
+John worked himself cautiously along the line in spite of cries of,
+"Cheater, look at him!" from boys with maternal impediments to prevent
+like maneuvers. When the white, asbestos snow-covered house came in
+view, John halted discreetly, for, with the goal so near, he could not
+risk being thrown out of the line for cutting ahead of others.
+
+Slowly the people moved forward until the interior of the room was
+visible through the little side window. At the far end of a wooden
+counter, a fat, red-coated Santa Claus passed trinket after trinket into
+eager juvenile hands, pausing now and then, as childish lips lisped
+requests for dolls, sleds, or other toys.
+
+On the very threshold, a stocky store employee interposed a hand in
+front of John.
+
+"Where's your folks?" he demanded.
+
+The boy gasped. That condition of the distribution had been completely
+forgotten.
+
+"Well?" pressed the inquisitor, a smile about his lips.
+
+He gazed about desperately. Just leaving the room was a buxom German
+woman in black, with a hat covered with bobbing, blue-green plumes.
+
+"There she is," he pointed. "That's my mother. I got separated from
+her."
+
+The man removed his arm and chuckled. At least three other urchins had
+claimed relationship with that self-same lady.
+
+Up to the old saint at last. His ruddy-cheeked mask was softened by
+perspiration, and there was a droop about his red-clad shoulders which
+expressed a wish that this, the last day of his sojourn in the city,
+were already over. John grabbed the cheap pencil box which was handed
+him. The guardian at the exit was crying, "Keep moving, keep moving,"
+and the lethargic line in obedience carried John beyond the confines of
+the house to new wonders.
+
+If the Brownie Village forced staid adults to pause and smile
+appreciatively at the whimsicalities of gnome life, the juveniles halted
+and dragged and impeded the progress of the procession as each new
+wonder confronted them.
+
+White-furred little bunnies moved solemnly along at intervals over
+concealed runways, stopping now and then to bow to the amused audience.
+Winking, gray-bearded elves bobbed up from behind canvas rocks to wave
+diminutive hands before popping back to their shelters. One sun-bonneted
+fellow in patched overalls bent spasmodically over a little wooden wash
+tub on a hill. Further on, a perpetual clatter drew attention to the
+rustic forge where a brown-clad smith hammered lustily at a miniature
+horse shoe. At the end, stood a second brazen-lunged sentry, who like
+the other, implored the crowd to "Keep moving. Please keep moving."
+
+Out by the toy counters, John found a dirty-faced street gamin in
+patched knee trousers confronting him. They eyed each other for a
+moment.
+
+"Going 'round again?" asked John.
+
+The boy nodded. "What'd he give you?"
+
+John displayed his pencil box; the boy, a discordant reed whistle.
+
+"Want to trade?" No sooner offered than accepted. What was the use of a
+school pencil box anyway?
+
+Again they fell in with the Santa Claus line, hoping devoutly that the
+sentry would not recognize them. But on the third trip as they nodded
+toward an unkempt, brown-shawled Italian woman, the clerk bent over.
+
+"Three times and _out_," he whispered as the boys' hearts went pitapat.
+"See?"
+
+They saw, and went off in search of new pleasures. First they stopped at
+the mechanical train booth. When the operator of the miniature railroad
+was engaged, John's new found friend threw over a tiny switch and caused
+an unlooked for wreck on the line. A floorwalker pounced on them and
+ordered them away, so they sauntered down the aisle to a crowd which
+courted investigation.
+
+"Kid lost," explained the street gamin, who possessed an uncanny trick
+of working his way through a throng. "They're taking him away now."
+
+Along counter after counter, the boys wandered, past the dollar
+typewriter booth, through the doll carriage aisle, where a little girl
+tried to carry a vehicle away with her and made things momentarily
+exciting, and over by the electrical toys, the building blocks, and the
+sleds.
+
+"Gee," said the dirty-faced boy as they stooped to examine a price tag,
+"My legs are 'most off me."
+
+John examined his watch. Half past six! And he should have started for
+home an hour ago. Already his stomach clamored for something to eat. He
+invested a nickel in peanuts, and the pair devoured them ravenously.
+Then John wiped the last traces of salt from the corners of his mouth,
+said good-bye, and fled for the elevator. It would be nearly eight when
+he arrived and mother might be anxious over this trip--his first
+alone--to town.
+
+He passed through the revolving doors for the second time that day and
+stopped short in the brilliantly lighted street. He'd forgotten about
+Louise! But perhaps some one would make a purchase for him later.
+
+He passed a store with a red auction flag waving in the doorway. In the
+window was a tempting array of cheap jewelry, watches, and holiday
+goods. Surely there must be something that would be suitable for his
+lady.
+
+The room was filled with tobacco smoke and the odor of unwashed
+humanity, for chilled vagrants helped to swell the throng which gathered
+around the raucous-voiced auctioneer. As John entered, that worthy
+lifted a glistening object in a green plush case high in the air that
+all might see it.
+
+"This lady's watch has been asked for, gentlemen. Sixteen jewels in its
+movement and a solid gold-filled twenty-year case--and fit for any lady
+in the land to wear. Will somebody start bidding?"
+
+John fumbled in his pocket and took inventory of the remains of the two
+dollars which had been filched from the pig bank. Presents for his
+mother and father had depleted the sum by half, peanuts had cost a
+nickel, and carfare, including the return trip, would account for
+another dime.
+
+"How much am I offered, gentlemen," persisted the man behind the glass
+counter. "How much am I offered?"
+
+There was no response. He passed the timepiece to a man in the front row
+and requested that he examine it carefully.
+
+"Isn't it a beauty?" He raised the watch in the air again. "Now, will
+some one please bid?"
+
+"Eighty-five cents," called John. Subdued laughter arose as the
+auctioneer bowed elaborately. "I thank you. This gentleman knows a good
+thing when he sees it. Eighty-five, eighty-five, a dollar and a half, a
+dollar and a half, two dollars, two dollars, two dollars--"
+
+The boy lost interest in the proceedings. What was the use of wishing
+that you might give such a trinket to your lady love if you hadn't the
+money to pay for it?
+
+There were books, but Louise was not over fond of reading; ash trays,
+atrocious Japanese vases with wart-like protuberances on their sides,
+and cut-glass dishes--each in its turn went to some fortunate, or
+unfortunate, who outbid John's modest offer.
+
+At last the auctioneer rummaged among the conglomeration of articles on
+the counter below him and brought forth a little china dish.
+
+"I have here," he began, "a hand-painted china vanity box. Think of it,
+gentlemen, these dainty violets are hand painted, and the top is solid
+gold-filled. Inside is a soft, dainty, powder puff. How much am I
+offered for this beautiful trinket. An ideal gift for wife, sister, or
+sweetheart. How much am I offered?"
+
+A man in a far corner of the room bid a quarter. The auctioneer looked
+pained. "Only a quarter bid? Gentlemen, it's a shame. The time taken to
+decorate it was worth more than that. Only a quarter bid? That gentleman
+must be married. Is that all he thinks of his wife?"
+
+The gathering tittered derisively. Came a bid of forty cents as a reward
+for his efforts.
+
+"Forty cents," the droning voice went on. "Forty cents--forty--forty,
+fifty cents, I thank you--fifty cents, fifty cents, fifty-five,
+fifty-five, going at fifty-five, fifty-five, better than nothing,
+fifty-five--"
+
+"EIGHTY-FIVE!" shouted John.
+
+"Sold," concluded the auctioneer. "Sold to our friend here at
+eighty-five cents. Will the lucky purchaser step up to the cashier?"
+
+With the precious package safely in his pocket, the boy darted for the
+car line. Another hour had elapsed, and he dreaded the "penny lecture"
+which must be awaiting him on his arrival.
+
+But inside the street car, though the air was stifling, and large,
+heedless grown-ups crushed him with each jolt of the uneven roadbed, his
+spirits rose buoyantly.
+
+His holiday shopping was concluded. Christmas was less than a week away,
+and he had a vision of a beautifully hand-painted vanity box with a
+glistening solid gold-filled top greeting him from Louise's chiffonier
+when his thousand dollars had been achieved and the age of twenty-one
+reached which allowed him the independence of marriage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HE HAS A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS
+
+
+Christmas Eve! Home to a six-o'clock supper after the daily paper
+distribution was finished, and then to bed, "'Cause going to bed early
+makes Christmas come sooner, Mother!"
+
+On the back porch, the tree, a big, bushy-branched fir, lay waiting to
+be carried into the front hall. The lower floor was filled with
+mysterious packages, so disguised by bulky wrappings that their contents
+could not even be surmised, and all over the house, from the attic where
+the tree decorations were stored, to the holly-trimmed parlor hovered an
+air of holiday expectancy.
+
+He loved that thrill, did John. Earlier, the possibilities which Santa's
+visit held furnished it to him, for who was to know which of the many
+needs that personage would see fit to satisfy? And the very Christmas
+after he had exposed the old fellow as a delightful, kindly fraud, he
+had sheepishly asked his parents to decorate the tree and arrange the
+gifts as before, "'Cause being surprised is the best part of Christmas."
+
+That night when he had caught Santa! The memory of it brought a
+retrospective smile to his lips, in spite of the shivers which the
+chilled bed sheets sent through his warm little body. Awakened by a
+noise below, he had drawn the old bathrobe about him as protection from
+the frosty air, and tiptoed into the dark hallway. Well around the stair
+landing, a scene met his eyes!
+
+There stood the tree, wedged firmly into the soapbox support with flat
+irons around the base for ballast. In one corner of the room, a Noah's
+ark, which later came to an untimely end on a mud-puddle cruise, had
+spilled its assortment of cardboard animals out on the carpet. Near the
+doorway lay a red fireman's suit, and in the dining-room, bending over
+the candy-filled cornucopias on the table were his father and mother.
+
+"W-where's Santa Claus?" he had stammered, not grasping the situation at
+first. A sharp, gasping breath of surprise came from his mother as his
+father broke into chagrined laughter.
+
+"I guess you've found him, son," had been the reply. And that was the
+end of Santa Claus.
+
+A few moments later, a long, empty freight train rattled cityward
+unnoticed, as John's regular breathing told off, faithfully as any
+timepiece, the fast lessening minutes which stood between him and
+Christmas Day.
+
+He wakened with a start. The late, gray dawn of winter was peering in
+between the window shades and the sashes, casting hesitant shadows about
+the room. He rubbed his eyes sleepily for a moment, then, remembering,
+sprang to his feet and opened the blinds.
+
+A dun railroad embankment lay before him, with lighter streaks which
+told where the shining rails lay. Over on the boulevards, the arc lights
+twinkled sleepily, their long night vigil nearly finished. The barren
+tree tops which skirted the park, made a lace work against the frosty,
+winter's sky, and here and there, chance rays of light threw piles of
+rubbish in the big lot into unlovely relief. The same kindly, grimy,
+disorderly neighborhood of the day before and the year before, and yet
+the spirit of Christmas cast a halo over the whole and beautified it in
+the boy's eyes.
+
+"It's Christmas, it's Christmas," he repeated over and over again as he
+drew on his clothes.
+
+Then for a tiptoed scamper down the stairs for a view of the surprises
+which were awaiting him in the hall below.
+
+A scent of pine, reminiscent of the sweet-scented Michigan forests, made
+him sniff eagerly. There towered the tree on the spot where its
+predecessors had stood in front of the fireplace, so tall that the tip
+barely missed the ceiling. Gleaming spheres caught the light from the
+stair window in brilliant contrast with the dark, needled depths.
+Cornucopias, candy laden, weighted the boughs. Sugar chains made
+symmetrical festoons of beads as they looped down from the upper
+branches, and innumerable candles stood stiffly in their holders,
+waiting for the taper in his father's hand to bring them to life.
+
+Underneath the tree lay his presents. Not so many, perhaps, oh, sons of
+richer parents, as you may have had, but John's eyes grew wider and
+wider with delight as each object greeted him.
+
+There lay the sled, long, low and scarlet, not as ornate as the
+expensive "Black Beauty," for which he had longed, but quite as
+serviceable. At the terminal of a railway system which encircled the
+tree base, stood a queer, foreign mechanical engine, with an abbreviated
+passenger car, and on a corner of the sheet which was to protect the
+carpet from candle drip, was a dry battery and diminutive electric
+motor. Then there were books--Optics, The Rover Boys, and others of
+their ilk--which would furnish recreation for months to come, regardless
+of his rapid reading.
+
+Of course he turned the switch and listened to the hum of the little
+motor until the battery threatened to be exhausted; of course the
+railway was put into immediate and repeated operation, regardless of the
+noise which might awaken his parents. And he stood up, at least three
+times, sled pressed tightly against his chest, and made imaginary dashes
+down the park toboggan, outspeeding even the long bobsleds as the ice
+flew beneath him. Then he glanced at the title pages of the books again
+and even read a page or two from each opening chapter that he might know
+which would have the honor of being chosen for first consumption by his
+hungry mind. Finally, he stretched out on his back beneath the tree and
+gazed upward, watching each glistening detail in utter content.
+
+Voices upstairs told John that his parents had wakened at last. Up the
+winding flight as fast as his little legs could carry him, and into the
+big south room with a cry of, "Oh, Mother! Mother! Daddy! it's just
+fine!"
+
+"Happy, son?" asked his mother as he snuggled down beside her on the
+bed.
+
+He nodded. Happy? Who wouldn't be with all those treasures in his
+possession? Mr. Fletcher chuckled.
+
+"There's a box on your mother's bureau which we forgot to put under the
+tree," he said. "You can open it here if you wish."
+
+The boy was up and back in a trice, this time to his father's bed, where
+he sat and tugged at the pink string fastenings until a set of doll's
+dishes came in sight.
+
+"That's in answer to that list of yours," he was told. "Think those will
+do for your flat, son?"
+
+"Louise'll like 'em," he smiled unabashed. "I'll give 'em to her with my
+other present."
+
+More chuckles, more smiles, and more laughter. What matter if all else
+in the world went wrong, if the Spirit of Christmas reigned supreme in
+that family for the day?
+
+"What did you see in the parlor, John?" asked his father.
+
+"Something in the parlor?" The boy was on his feet again. "Where?"
+
+"Wait a minute until I get my bathrobe and I'll go with you."
+
+A little later, the two descended the stairway, hand in hand. John's
+gaze followed his father's pointing finger as they stood on the parlor
+threshold. In front of the dead grate, was a three foot, denim-covered,
+cabinet. From the square opening at the top hung half a dozen or so of
+limp, dangling figures.
+
+"Punch and Judy!" John could scarcely believe his eyes. "Oh, Daddy!
+Daddy!"
+
+In a moment, Punch was on his right hand and Judy on his left as he
+wiggled his fingers back and forth to see if they worked as did the
+showman's at Neighborhood Hall. Judy bobbed up on the stage as his
+father beamed down at him.
+
+"Mr. Punch, Mr. Punch," she called. But her voice had neither the range
+nor the strength which Judy demanded to be successful, and he drew the
+marionettes off his fingers.
+
+"Here," he said to his father, "you work 'em. Mine don't act right."
+
+Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher stretched himself out on the floor behind
+the little cabinet. John shifted to the front and watched eagerly with
+his head resting on his hands.
+
+What a Punch and Judy show it was that ensued! Mr. Fletcher, drawing on
+his fertile imagination, invented a new set of domestic quarrels for the
+unhappy couple, brought in a doctor and a clown, (two lifelike dolls
+which supplemented the original, limited performers), and kept John
+shrieking with laughter until the ruddy-faced little devil brought the
+performance to a close in the time-honored way. Subdued laughter in the
+doorway made them both look up with a start. There stood Mrs. Fletcher,
+fully dressed, with a smile on her face.
+
+"John senior," she ordered with mock severity, "go upstairs and dress
+yourself for breakfast immediately. I do believe you're the biggest boy
+of the two in spite of your age."
+
+After the morning meal had been eaten, John devoured the contents of a
+candy-filled cornucopia from the tree, and drew on his stocking cap,
+coat, and mittens. Louise's presents were to be delivered, and that was
+a matter which brooked no unseemly delay.
+
+Mrs. Martin's sister answered his ring at the apartment.
+
+"Louise home?" he inquired eagerly.
+
+Her aunt explained that Louise had gone out of town with her mother for
+a three-day Christmas visit.
+
+"She'll be back, the day after tomorrow," she consoled him.
+
+So he left the presents in her charge with instructions to give them to
+his lady on the very moment of her arrival, and scampered down the
+carpeted stairway again.
+
+Sid DuPree met him in front of his house. John surveyed him warily.
+
+"'Lo!"
+
+"'Lo!"
+
+"What'd your folks give you?"
+
+"Oh, lots of things. What'd you get?"
+
+Sid stopped a moment to recount his various gifts, lest one of them be
+omitted in the effort to impress his neighbor.
+
+"'Nother football," he boasted. "Cost five dollars, it did."
+
+"I got a railway with forty-'leven pieces of track."
+
+"My uncle sent me a peachy pair of boxing gloves," Sid continued.
+
+"Just wait till you see what my uncle sends me. Always comes in the
+mail, it does, but it hasn't come yet. Besides, I got a new sled."
+
+"And I've got a punching bag."
+
+"But you ought to see my 'lectric motor," retorted John, still
+undaunted. "You just wait till you see the toys I make for it to run."
+
+Sid had saved his last and most cherished possession until the last. "My
+mother, she gave me a real gun, a Winchester. It'll shoot across the
+lake, it shoots so far. I'm going hunting with it on the ranch, next
+summer."
+
+"That's all right." John was not in the least nonplussed. "But the cops
+won't let you shoot it in the city, and you've got to wait until spring
+comes before you can use it. I can go home and have all sorts of fun
+with _all_ my things, _now_."
+
+Silvey and Perry sauntered up.
+
+"'Lo!" came the inevitable greeting.
+
+"'Lo!" came the inevitable reply.
+
+"What did you get for Christmas?" asked Perry.
+
+John allied himself instantly with Sid in the effort to outboast the new
+arrivals.
+
+"Sid's got a sure enough gun," he said impressively. "Bigger'n I am."
+
+"And John's got an electric motor," chimed in Sid as John finished.
+"He's going to hitch it on his his new sled with a pair of oars, and go
+rowing over the snow when snow comes. My, but it's strong!"
+
+"We've got a Christmas tree," spoke up Silvey.
+
+"So've we," said John.
+
+"So've we," Perry added.
+
+"But mine's bigger'n any of yours," Bill insisted. "It's so big, we most
+had to cut a hole in the ceiling to set it up. And wide? It's so wide I
+can hardly get in the room with it."
+
+"'Tain't," exclaimed John incredulously. "Nothing can be bigger'n ours."
+
+"Come and see," was Silvey's unanswerable retort. So the quartette
+trooped up the street to "come and see."
+
+On their way, they passed the postman, struggling under his load of
+Christmas packages. Not only was his leather sack packed to overflowing
+with mail, but a little cart which he dragged behind him on the walk
+also held its quota of letters and gifts.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" the boys called to him. He was a genial soul, not in
+the least like the evil-tempered crank who had held the route the year
+before.
+
+He smiled back at them, for he had just been given a seventh necktie
+which a family had decided was too hideous to be worn by the original
+recipient, and was in high spirits.
+
+"Any mail for us?" came the chorus of inquiry.
+
+He fingered the mail in his sack. "Here you are, young Fletcher! Catch!"
+
+"From my aunt," announced John proudly as he looked at the postmark.
+"She always sends me jim-dandy things for Christmas." He ripped the
+protecting envelope away and stared in amazement at the two
+white-crocheted squares in his hand.
+
+"Washrags, washrags!" jeered the boys. For once, Aunt Clara had followed
+the haphazard suggestion at the end of his letter and had sent something
+useful.
+
+[Illustration: _"Washrags, washrags."_]
+
+He jammed the offending gifts into his pocket, and sought to change the
+subject.
+
+"Come on, Silvey, let's see that big tree of yours." So they stamped up
+the Silvey front steps and into the house.
+
+"There," said Bill, pointing proudly at the family fir.
+
+John gave one disgusted glance. "That? Why that's set on a little table!
+Wouldn't come near the ceiling if it was on the floor. Come down to my
+house and I'll show you a _real_ tree."
+
+They left the Silvey house noisily.
+
+"Beat you down to John's," Perry shouted as they stood on the front
+walk. Away they went, puffing like little steam engines, in the cold
+air. A moment later, they stood admiringly in the Fletcher hall.
+
+"Now, isn't our tree bigger'n yours?"
+
+Silvey admitted that it was, thus adding the final restoring touches to
+John's complacency. Then they staged an impromptu Punch and Judy show
+and played with the other toys until Mrs. Fletcher, beaming in spite of
+perspiration, came into the room.
+
+"The turkey's most done, John, so the boys had better go home now. They
+can come back at five to see the tree lighted, if they wish."
+
+Would they care to? You just bet they would!
+
+The front door slammed behind them, and John went out to the kitchen to
+nibble at bits of celery, sample the cranberry sauce, and in other ways
+annoy his busy mother until she turned on him despairingly.
+
+"For heaven's sake, John, go into the parlor and read one of your new
+books until dinner's ready if you can't be quiet."
+
+By five in the afternoon, he was so thoroughly surfeited with the
+season's delights, that he had barely enough energy to stand in the
+window and peer into the lighted area around the street lamp as he
+watched for his guests; for to bountiful helpings of turkey, potatoes,
+cranberry sauce, dressing, and a quarter of one of his mother's
+delicious plum puddings had been added cornucopia after cornucopia of
+candy, until his stomach, for once in his life, caused misgivings as to
+its food capacity.
+
+Perry Alford came punctual to the minute, and shortly thereafter Red
+Brown, Sid DuPree, Silvey, and Skinny Mosher. Mrs. Fletcher had made use
+of her telephone to make the gathering a little more of a party for John
+than he had anticipated.
+
+Another display of the presents followed, while his father and mother
+stood in the parlor doorway and beamed down upon the youngsters. When
+the excitement had died away somewhat, Silvey spoke up.
+
+"Let's have a Punch and Judy show now, fellows."
+
+"Come on, dad," added John. "You can do it best."
+
+So for the second time that day, the room formed the theater for that
+ancient, comic tragedy. But as the devil popped up on the shaky little
+stage to make an end to Punch, there came a cry of protest from the
+audience who were squatting breathlessly on the floor.
+
+"Oh, not yet, not yet. Please, not yet."
+
+So Punch triumphed in his fight with the little red-faced imp, and the
+play went forward through a new and altogether delightful chapter of the
+Punch family's existence. Amid the laughter which followed its
+conclusion, John disappeared silently and came back into the room with a
+box of tapers.
+
+"Now, daddy, light the tree."
+
+Nothing loath, Mr. Fletcher obeyed. Candle after candle on the tinselled
+branches sprang into life until the fir stood in a flickering blaze of
+glory while the boys stood back and watched with a feeling akin to awe
+at the beauty of it. At a propitious moment, he reached carefully
+between the waving lights and brought out snap crackers and little tin
+horns from the branches. There was one of a kind for each excited guest.
+
+"Wish there were girls," said Perry to Red, as they tugged at their
+respective ends of a snapper. "Then it's more fun. They always act
+'fraid cat, and scream when it goes off." He unrolled the little
+cylinder of paper which had been concealed in the foil wrapping. "My
+hat's pink. What's yours?"
+
+Cornucopias came next, four to a boy. They donned their hats, and
+munched candy after candy silently while the candles burned low. At last
+Mr. Fletcher clapped his hands.
+
+"Form in line and march into the dining-room and back by the tree, five
+times, and blow hard as you can on your horns!"
+
+The procession started. Passers-by on the sidewalk stopped and looked in
+through the lighted window to see the cause of the disturbance. A flame
+sputtered as it burned perilously near a resinous twig.
+
+"Halt!" called Mr. Fletcher. "Everybody blow!"
+
+The lower flames vanished two and three at a time. Those higher up
+followed more slowly. At last but one flickering beacon at the top of
+the tree remained to defy all the boys' efforts. John's father watched
+in amusement, then gathered him up in his arms.
+
+"Now, hard!" And the last candle went out.
+
+Mrs. Fletcher suggested "Hot potatoes," and the minutes sped joyously
+past until the telephone rang.
+
+"Tell Perry to come home for supper," was the message. That youngster
+slipped on his overcoat sulkily.
+
+"Wish'd there wasn't any old telephones," he snapped as he opened the
+door.
+
+His departure was a signal for a lull in the festivities. Mrs. DuPree
+sent a servant over for Sid, and the other boys followed shortly,
+leaving the family to watch in the darkness beside the parlor grate.
+Mrs. Fletcher broke the silence.
+
+"It's been a beautiful Christmas," she said softly. "A beautiful
+Christmas."
+
+John nodded contentedly from his father's knee. Again, the only sound to
+be heard in the room was the soft whick-whicker of the burning coal as
+the flames licked the chimney breast, or the occasional rustle of
+falling ash. Suddenly footsteps pounded up on the porch and the bell
+rang loudly. John opened the door, and Silvey came panting into the
+hallway with skates in one eager hand.
+
+"Come on over to the lagoon with me," he shouted breathlessly. John
+looked at his mother.
+
+"How about your supper?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. Hadn't he eaten enough candy for
+a dozen suppers? "Please let me go, Mother," he concluded. "Please. It's
+Christmas!"
+
+There was no resisting such a plea. He flew upstairs to resurrect his
+last year's skates from the attic, and was back in a moment for his
+mittens and stocking cap. The door slammed as the two dogtrotted it down
+the street. At the corner, John slackened speed.
+
+"Are you sure there's skating, Bill?" he asked. Never, so far back as he
+could remember, had the ice been in condition for the sport by December.
+
+Silvey nodded emphatically. "Saw six fellows go by the house with skates
+on their shoulders. So I asked 'em."
+
+They left the park gravel path, now flanked on either side by leafless
+shrubbery, and struck out over the hard macadam of the road. As they
+reached the board walk leading to the warming house on the boat landing,
+John strained his eyes eagerly ahead.
+
+"There is, oh, there is," he cried as the long tile roof by the boat
+house came in sight. "I can see 'em."
+
+They spurted and pulled up at the skating house doors. A moment later
+they were in the crowded, brightly lighted interior. Directly beneath
+the apex of the roof, ran a lunch counter which divided the place into a
+section for men, and another for women, escorted or not, as the case
+might be. Long, wooden benches ran along each wall, all filled with a
+constantly shifting occupancy. John seized the first available seat and
+drew on his skates. A stamping on the hacked, wooden floor to make sure
+that the steel runners were locked firmly, a wobbly interval as he
+stepped out and sought control of his ankles, a momentary pause on the
+steps, and he was out on the ice, with Silvey following. They executed a
+few maneuvers and sat down on the boat landing.
+
+"Ice is great," said Bill, as he tightened a skate strap. "Doesn't it
+feel funny, though?"
+
+John nodded and stood up again. "Beat you around the island," he
+challenged.
+
+No sooner said than they were off. Silvey's new skates cut the ice
+cleanly at every stroke, while his chum's duller pair skidded and slid
+now and then as he gained headway. Along the narrowing, west pond, past
+helpless beginners whose efforts not to appear ridiculous made them
+doubly so, past staid business men, past arm-linked couples from the
+university dormitories, and out on the thirty-foot path of scraped ice
+which encircled the island. There Silvey slowed up.
+
+"Getting bumpy," he cautioned. "Watch out!"
+
+The warning came too late. John's skate sank to his shoe sole in a crack
+and sent him sprawling. He stood up shakily and rubbed a bruised knee.
+
+"First fall, first fall," yelled Bill as he turned back. "Hurt much?"
+
+John shook his head and started off again bravely. They got into the
+swing of it as they swept under the second island bridge and out on the
+last lap of the course. Faster and faster their legs flew over the ice
+as they dodged cracks with more certainty. Skater after skater was left
+behind, often by a hair's-breadth margin of safety which evoked
+half-heard protests as they skimmed on.
+
+"Almost there," shouted Bill as he increased his efforts to the utmost.
+
+"Tie," yelled John as he shot over and grabbed an arch of the northern
+bridge to stop his momentum. "Look at the crowd. What's happened?"
+
+They skated slowly over and around until they found a thin space in the
+human circle which allowed them a view of proceedings.
+
+"Fancy skaters," whispered Bill. "Look at him write his name on the
+ice."
+
+"And the medals on his sweater. Gee, don't you wish you were him?"
+
+A voice broke in on them.
+
+"Scatter there, scatter." The policeman forced his way to the center.
+"You're blocking the way to the skating house. Keep moving!"
+
+In obedience to the majesty of the law, the boys skated off and found a
+secluded, smooth bit of ice nearer shore. There, John tried to cut a
+shaky "J" on the ice and fell over backwards. Shortly afterward, Silvey
+met with a similar fate, and the boys looked at each other despondently.
+Both pairs of ankles were aching badly from the unaccustomed exercise,
+but neither wanted to admit it. Silvey loosened one of his skate straps.
+
+"Got your watch, John?"
+
+It showed a quarter past nine. "Our mothers'll be waiting for us," he
+said. Thus a way to honorable retreat was found.
+
+They stamped stiffly back to the warming house and took off their
+skates. John held his numbed fingers as near to the glowing coal stove
+in the center of the room as he dared, while Bill studied the
+age-stained menu over the lunch counter.
+
+"My treat," he said, as he drew a bright half-dollar from his pocket.
+"What'll you have?"
+
+John ordered his favorite, mince pie; his host, a cut of half-baked
+apple. They washed the food down with a glass of cider apiece, and
+stumbled out on the board walk toward home.
+
+"Feel's funny, walking after you've had skates on," John commented as
+they trudged along the dark path. Silvey spoke up, "Say, John."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You know Sid DuPree?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Well, he's trying to cut you out with Louise. Saw her in the corner
+drug store with him, drinking ice cream sodas."
+
+John's foot caught in a piece of loosened turf at the edge of the gravel
+walk. Otherwise, he gave no sign that he had heard.
+
+"Aren't mad because I told you, are you?"
+
+"No."
+
+His paper route had kept him too busy to give the attention due her, but
+if Louise were inclined to succumb to the blandishments of ten-cent
+sodas at a drug store, he was glad to know it. Such incidents might
+result in disaster for the great plan if allowed to run unhindered.
+
+"Feel's like a thaw," said Bill, trying to rouse his chum from the
+revery into which his announcement had plunged him.
+
+Again John nodded. Indeed there was a curious softness in the air.
+Perhaps the promise of a long skating season was to prove false after
+all. But he must see Louise, the very moment of her return. Then Sid had
+better watch out.
+
+He was at his front steps before he realized it.
+
+"Good night," called Silvey, as he turned for home.
+
+"Good night," replied John a trifle wearily. And with the same feeling
+of morose taciturnity, a strange mood on this of all nights, he
+undressed and crept into bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN WHICH THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE DOES NOT RUN SMOOTHLY
+
+
+But the softness in the Christmas air did not presage a thaw. When Mrs.
+Fletcher closed the windows in her son's room the following morning, and
+laid her hand on his motionless shoulder, she awakened him with a
+greeting of, "Come, son, look out and see what's happened."
+
+Snow! A veil of fine, driving flakes scurried groundward with each gust
+of wind from the lake and half hid the passenger-laden suburban trains,
+and the ramshackle dairy buildings across the tracks. Already the
+cinder-laden railroad embankment was covered with a white mantle, too
+new as yet to be anything but spotless, which in places had drifted
+across the rows of rails. Along the street, each smoke-tinged roof and
+window ledge had a share of the rapidly deepening coverlet which sped
+from the leaden clouds to mask the gray, unlovely earth.
+
+John drew on his knickerbockers hurriedly. No time for a peep at one of
+his new books now. Not only was the snow a thing of beauty, but it
+offered certain revenue if he and Bill appeared with their shovels
+before competition became too keen. So he appeared in the dining-room
+with surprising promptness.
+
+"Sick, John?" asked his mother with gentle sarcasm, as he sat down to
+breakfast.
+
+He shook his head as he gulped down spoonful after spoonful of the
+steaming oatmeal. Now and then he glanced out of the window at the walks
+and porches of the street. They were still untouched, but there was need
+of haste.
+
+"Never mind the potatoes, Mother," he said, as he hurried to the coat
+closet for his wraps. "I'm going shovelling."
+
+He ran down into the basement and was out and down the street with the
+wooden shovel over his shoulder before Mrs. Fletcher realized that he
+had escaped. She hailed him back.
+
+"How about our walk, son?" she asked, as she stood in the doorway.
+
+He shook his head in protest. "I don't get paid for that. Bill and I'll
+do it when we get through."
+
+"Not much!" There was decision in his mother's tones. "That means it
+won't be cleaned before noon."
+
+"Aw-w-w, Mother!"
+
+The door closed and put a stop to further parleying. He stood by the
+lamppost, undecided as to which course to pursue. Should he walk boldly
+off and take the consequences, or was discretion the better part of
+valor after all? Still, when a fellow's mother wanted something done, it
+was useless to try to evade the task, and he was just beginning to
+realize it.
+
+He set to work. Before long the cheerful scraping of the wooden shovel
+against the pavement restored his good humor. His face became flushed,
+and he stopped a moment to pull his stocking cap back from his hot
+forehead, for the exercise was making his blood circulate rapidly. The
+long walk which led to the back door could be skipped, and the porch
+railings left snow-capped as they were, for his aim was to fulfill the
+barest letter of his orders before Mrs. Fletcher looked out of the
+window.
+
+Five minutes later, he knocked the snow from his shovel, and sneaked up
+the street, slipping now and then as his feet struck concealed ice on
+the walk, and once he fell sideways into a soft drift. As he walked up
+the Silvey steps, a snowball hit him on the leg, and another sped past
+his nose. He turned to find Bill on the lawn with a snowball in one
+hand.
+
+"Surrender," came the call.
+
+John dropped his shovel to the floor and seized a handful of snow.
+
+"Going to fight or get snow jobs with me?" he asked, as he pounded the
+mass into an uneven sphere.
+
+For an answer, his chum dropped his missile and ran around to the back
+yard, to reappear with his own shovel. He pointed down the street. Two
+members of the unemployed were making the snow fly at the DuPree's with
+an earnestness which boded ill for their youthful competitors.
+
+"Let's try Southern Avenue," said John. "Perhaps there won't be anyone
+there."
+
+No sooner said than done. But as they rounded the corner, they found
+that three of the "Jeffersons" had organized an expedition of their own
+and were cleaning the walk and porch of the house nearest the corner.
+Their leader motioned to Bill.
+
+"Go on back home, or we'll smash your faces in."
+
+John promptly stuck out his tongue. "They can't fight," he said
+scornfully, "and two of 'em are 'fraid cats. Let's try the big yellow
+house, Bill."
+
+With a glance back at the foe, they ran up the steps and rang the bell
+persistently until a becapped, flustered servant opened the door.
+
+"Ask the missis if she wants the walk cleaned?" said Silvey, who usually
+handled the negotiations for work.
+
+Scraps of conversation floated down to the boys from the upper regions
+whence the girl had disappeared with the message. Presently she came to
+the head of the stairs and called down to them, "How much you want?"
+
+Bill made a mental inventory of the appearance of the grounds as the
+boys had approached the house. "Quarter," he said promptly.
+
+"Missis, she say 'all right,'" said the maid.
+
+The boys stamped out of the hallway and set to work with a will. Silvey
+began at one end of the broad veranda floor, while John made the snow
+fly from the railings and porch posts. Next came the steps, and the walk
+leading down the lawn.
+
+"This won't take long," said John optimistically.
+
+He stooped to fix a shoelace which had become untied. Silvey yielded to
+temptation and gave him a shove into the heaped snow, to have him rise
+angrily and dig the half-thawed slush from between his neck and collar.
+Then he sprang at his partner and they went sprawling again, but this
+time, Bill was the underdog. The two boys struggled for a while until
+John sat heavily on his foe's stomach, and pinioned the resistant arms
+with his knees. Then the fun began. "Going to be good?"
+
+Silvey looked desperately up at the handful of snow held high above his
+head.
+
+[Illustration: _"Going to be good?"_]
+
+"Look, here, Fletch--don't you wash my face, don't you--"
+
+"Going to be good?" asked John again.
+
+His answer was a wrench for freedom. Thud, came a soft mass down on
+Bill's nose and open mouth. He spluttered and rolled over desperately,
+trying to throw John from his vantage point. The front door creaked, and
+an alien voice called,
+
+"What's the matter, you boys? Ain't you ever going to get finished?"
+
+They rose sheepishly to find the servant smiling down at them from the
+doorway.
+
+"Missis says, 'hurry up,'" she cautioned them.
+
+Silvey picked up his shovel and began to make the snow fly
+industriously. Presently the fit of ardor wore off, and he stared
+thoughtfully at the long stretch of walk which still remained between
+the front porch and the back yard.
+
+"How much did I say we'd do this for?" he asked.
+
+"Quarter," said John, as he leaned on his shovel handle.
+
+"Wished I'd made it thirty-five cents!"
+
+Foot by foot, they cleared a path well around by the side of the house.
+The milkman, the butcher, and the gas inspector had each left heavy
+footmarks which were difficult to remove and made progress slow. At the
+rear steps, a huge drift met their gaze, and Silvey stretched his aching
+arms.
+
+"What'd we say we'd do this for?" he asked again.
+
+"Quarter."
+
+"Wished I'd said _half a dollar_. There's a walk on the other side,
+too."
+
+No skylarking now. Their muscles ached too much from the exercise to
+waste their energy in other channels. When the cut through the drift had
+been made, and the back porch and basement walk freed of the covering,
+Bill leaned his shovel against a clothes-line post, and surveyed the
+result of their labors malevolently.
+
+"Next time we do this, John," he snapped emphatically, "we'll charge a
+whole dollar!"
+
+But the mischief had been done. By the time they had been paid the
+well-earned quarter, not a house near them offered prospect of
+employment. And at the far end of the street, the "Jeffersons" were
+making a last reconnoissance before deserting the neighborhood for more
+fruitful fields of labor.
+
+"Now see what you did when you shoved me into the snow," said John
+ruefully.
+
+"Well, you didn't have to wash my face," retorted Bill. Secretly he was
+not sorry that the work was at an end. "Get your new sled and we'll go
+hitching. Beat you over to our street."
+
+They dashed up the nearest private walk into a residential back yard,
+and dropped their shovels over the back fence. John wedged one foot
+between a telegraph pole and a picket, and drew himself up.
+
+"Come on, Sil."
+
+Silvey braced himself for the spring. A rear window in the house creaked
+open and a woman's head appeared.
+
+"What are you boys doing?" called the shrill voice. They dropped over
+into the other yard, and John started to run.
+
+"She's in curl papers," said Bill. "She won't chase us. Let's fix her."
+
+"I'll call the police if you go through again," she persisted as the
+boys filled their hands with snow. John gave a few finishing pats to his
+missile.
+
+"How'd you like to have her for a mother?" he asked his chum, as he drew
+his arm back for the assault.
+
+A projectile broke against the window sash and showered snow fragments
+upon the untidy hair. A second went a serene way through the opening and
+dissolved in a blot of hissing water on the kitchen stove. The frame
+slammed to with a violence which threatened destruction to the window
+glass, and John grabbed his shovel with an exultant yell.
+
+"Now run like the dickens!"
+
+They parted at the Silveys'. John continued on a dogtrot towards home,
+and a moment later was pestering Mrs. Fletcher at her work in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Where's some rope, Mother?"
+
+She looked from the pile of napkins on the ironing board. "What do you
+want it for, son?"
+
+"My sled."
+
+She walked over to a box behind the kitchen gas range and drew out a
+three-foot length. "Will this do?"
+
+"No. Got to be lots longer than that."
+
+"You're not going hitching, are you?"
+
+He shook his head dubiously.
+
+"Now, John! There have been little boys killed because wagons ran over
+them when their ropes broke and they couldn't get out of the way!"
+
+He evaded his mother's eye and sneaked from the house. Silvey was
+waiting for him impatiently on the front walk.
+
+"Where's the line?" he asked.
+
+"Can't go," complained John. "She won't let me."
+
+"Aw, come on. We'll go over to Southern Avenue and she won't know a
+thing about it. I'll get you a rope from our house."
+
+His feeble scruples vanished. A five-minute stop at the Silveys sufficed
+to make the necessary alterations in John's equipment. Bill brought out
+his own sled, and they started for the corner. In front of the grocery
+store, they found Pete, the wagon boy, placing the last of the noon
+orders in his cart.
+
+"Give us a hitch," they begged.
+
+He nodded a cheery consent. "But hurry. These have got to be delivered
+in time for dinner."
+
+The boys ran the ropes rapidly around the rear axle and jumped on the
+sleds. A shout, a sudden jerk, and they were off, swinging around the
+corner on Southern Avenue with a momentum which shot them far to one
+side. John drew a breath of relief, for it was his first experience at
+the sport. Bill looked up from between the sled runners and grinned.
+
+Along they sped. The smooth steel slid easily now over the closely
+packed snow in the wagon ruts, now over bumps which forced involuntary
+grunts from between their lips. As the horse increased his pace they
+tightened their grasp on the sled hand-holes.
+
+"Whoa," shouted Pete. The wagon stopped abruptly as he reached back into
+the body for a package, and the sleds shot under the wagon almost up to
+the horse's hoofs, before the boys could find a holding place in the
+hard snow for their toes.
+
+John dragged his sled out, and lay back on it while he waited for Pete
+to reappear. The sun had pierced the heavy clouds, and dazzled the eyes
+of the neighborhood with glistening reflections on the white, unsullied
+lawns and doorsteps. On the more exposed portions of the closely packed
+house roofs, the melting snow formed long, dagger-like icicles which
+hung from the eaves, or clustered thickly around drain pipes and
+gutters. The heel-packed lumps which had defied the efforts of the
+wooden shovels to remove them from the cement walks showed dark,
+water-marked edges under the influence of the warming rays. Near him in
+the street, a flock of hungry sparrows fought boldly over a bit of
+vegetable which had fallen from a passing fruit vender's cart, and in
+the clear, dancing air was a touch of elixir which set his pulses to
+throbbing.
+
+"Yes," he said, although Silvey had asked no question, "it's just
+peachy."
+
+"Isn't it?" acquiesced Bill. "And your mother's afraid you'll get hurt,
+doing it."
+
+The smile vanished. What if Mrs. Fletcher should find out! The joys of
+the sport, sweeter through their illegality, were not sufficient to
+prevent a sinking sensation in his stomach at the thought of such a
+catastrophe.
+
+There came a scurry of footsteps on the walk close by him, another
+caution from Pete and his sled rope tightened again. They drove from one
+street to another, working ever westward until the gray-stone,
+red-roofed buildings of the university were behind them. When but a
+package of steak, bread, or a similar trifle was to be delivered, John
+or Bill dashed around to the back porch or through a basement flat
+areaway, while the driver sat and smoked in state on his seat. Thus the
+arrangement was of mutual benefit to the parties concerned.
+
+At last they halted before a dingy, eight-flat apartment building. Pete
+carried the last, and heaviest, consignment of edibles in to its owner
+and returned, a moment later, to stand on the curbing with a kindly
+smile on his heavy-featured face.
+
+"Now, boys," he said, as he drew his cap down over his ears and forehead
+until the peak nearly met his black, bushy brows, "hang on tight, and
+I'll give you a real ride back."
+
+A flick at the ribs of the fat, easy-going horse, and the two sleds were
+flying homeward. The depressions and hoof marks in the snow flew between
+the runners at a speed which dizzied their owners. Bits of ice,
+dislodged by the horse's hoofs, flew up and struck the boys' faces
+stinging blows. Past the university buildings, past the school which now
+stood empty and deserted because of the Christmas holidays, past
+impatient pedestrians on the street corners, and over to Southern Avenue
+where Pete turned in abruptly to the alley entrance of the grocery
+store. Silvey screamed a warning as his sled, running straight ahead,
+felt the tug of the tow rope, and skidded in a wide circle over the
+rough, uneven snow. John tried to save himself from a similar fate, but
+he had delayed too long. Straight for a huge snow bank, the two sleds
+headed, struck the curbing, and capsized with their owners underneath.
+
+John rose shakily with an uncertain smile on his lips. His chum dug some
+snow from his ears and ran forward to unhitch the sleds. The grocer's
+clock showed a quarter after twelve, so they started for the home
+street. As they parted, John held up a detaining hand.
+
+"That quarter," he explained. "Come on back to the drug store and get it
+changed. I want to put my share in the pig bank."
+
+Silvey drew off one moist mitten, and fumbled in his trouser's pockets
+with a perplexed frown. Neither was it in his coat, nor in his blouse.
+Where had it been left?
+
+"S'pose we lost it when we took that spill?"
+
+There was another fruitless search before the boys went back to the
+grocery corner. There, they raked the snow bank over and over, levelled
+and reheaped it, and levelled it again before their ardor cooled. At
+last they were convinced that the coin was hopelessly lost. John turned
+away moodily.
+
+"Come on," he said. "I'll be getting scolded if I don't get home for
+dinner." It was hard to lose the proceeds of a morning's work in such a
+manner.
+
+Mrs. Fletcher was waiting for him when he came into the hallway,
+stamping his feet lustily to free them from the last lingering traces of
+snow.
+
+"Where's the brush, Mother?" he asked, as he shook his coat. She brought
+him the implement and watched him keenly.
+
+"Didn't I forbid you to go hitching, this morning?"
+
+"Who told you?" he asked naively, taken aback at the sudden accusation.
+Mothers had the most mysterious ways of discovering things.
+
+She smiled in spite of herself. "I asked the little Mosher boy where you
+were and he said he'd seen you riding off behind Anderson's grocery
+wagon. What do you think I ought to do to such a disobedient little
+boy?"
+
+He didn't know. But he wished that he might lay hands on that kid
+brother of Skinny's. He'd teach him a thing or two about holding his
+tongue.
+
+"You're getting too big to spank," she commented as he stood silently
+before her. He nodded a cheerful assent to this.
+
+"So I think you'd better stay in the house this afternoon."
+
+"A-w-w-w, Mother!"
+
+She went into the dining-room where the table had been set for the
+noonday meal for two, and heaped his plate with potatoes and gravy,
+while he stood looking miserably out of the window.
+
+The sun's rays were melting the surface of the snow and turning it a
+dirty gray. Up the street, Perry Alford was winging snowballs at a
+black, leafless trunk opposite his house. That meant good packing, and
+snow fights, snow men, and a baker's dozen of other exciting amusements.
+
+To be gated on such an afternoon!
+
+"Come, son!" said Mrs. Fletcher, as he turned away with quivering lip,
+and drew his chair to the table. "Be a man. Mother's right about it,
+isn't she?"
+
+He admitted that her sentence was but justice, and attacked the dinner
+with an appetite which no sorrow could diminish. Then he tramped slowly
+up to his room and threw himself down on his bed with a book to while
+away the weary stretch of afternoon confronting him.
+
+Straightway the centuries rolled back, and the present day sorrows were
+forgotten. The times of the good king Alfred held sway as he followed
+the exploits of the hero against his Danish enemies with breathless
+interest. Again and again did the young earldorman's well-drilled band
+sally forth from its stronghold to attack larger bodies of the foe, and
+again and again did the boy on the bed wish that he was living in those
+soul-stirring times. Then came the building of the _Dragon_, for war
+must be waged on the sea as well as by land, and a call of, "Oh,
+John-e-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e-e!"
+
+He stood up regretfully. One of his legs was cramped from lying
+motionless so long, and he limped into the front room. Silvey was below
+on the water-streaked walk.
+
+"Come on out!"
+
+"Can't. She found out about my hitching this morning."
+
+"Aw-w-w, come on. The fellows are building a snow fort in the big lot,
+and pretty soon, we're going to have a big fight." He reached down,
+scooped up a handful of the moist snow, and patted it easily into a
+small, hard ball. "Look, packing's fine. Go down and tease her!"
+
+John shook his head. Mother was inexorable on such occasions, and never
+had there been a time on record, no matter what the weeping or wailing,
+when a gating had been lifted. So he would meet his punishment without
+further ado.
+
+Silvey went disconsolately back towards home, and the prisoner returned
+to his room and stared from the window which overlooked the railroad
+tracks. Presently he turned away and rummaged in the bureau in the big
+south room until he found his mother's opera glasses. A moment or so of
+adjustment, and he smiled contentedly. If he could not be a participant,
+he would at least witness the battle.
+
+The construction of the fort was well under way. Long, erratic paths in
+the snow showed where the three big balls had been rolled which formed
+the most exposed wall. They were almost as tall as the boys, themselves,
+and even now Sid and Red Brown and Perry Alford were digging their heels
+into the slippery footing as they moved a fourth to its proper place.
+Mosher, bent almost double, was rolling a new and rapidly increasing
+sphere over the soft snow. The walls completed, the gang devoted
+themselves to filling in the crevices, smoothing the surface, and to
+testing the weak places in the fortress. A few busy minutes were spent
+in making ammunition, then Sid, his longing for leadership gratified at
+last, led his army behind the "U" shaped protection. Bill beckoned his
+followers out of range, and missiles began to fly. John laid the glasses
+down wistfully.
+
+Shucks! watching only made him want to join worse than ever. The book
+was better than that!
+
+Dusk came at last, and liberation. As he was returning from the
+newspaper route, the sight of a familiar figure, in the lighted circle
+of a street lamp, made him cross over. It was Louise.
+
+"'Lo."
+
+"'Lo."
+
+John paused. It was a difficult thing to lead up to her faithlessness
+tactfully. She broke the silence.
+
+"Those dishes were dear. But, oh, John, I liked the powder puff jar the
+best of all!" Which was the truth, for the fact that he thought her old
+enough for such feminine weapons was a soul-satisfying compliment.
+
+He murmured a perfunctory acknowledgment. "Louise, what's this I've been
+hearing about you and Sid drinking sodas together at the drug store?"
+
+She stood speechless, thinking of a defense.
+
+"It's got to quit. Do you hear?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I have sodas with him?" his lady broke out vindictively.
+"You never take me anywhere."
+
+Didn't she understand that all of his playtime was taken up with earning
+money for her? "But we can go skating tonight," he concluded
+pacifically.
+
+"That isn't spending money on me. And Sid does, lots and lots of times."
+
+The words hurt. He'd show her that two could play at that game, even if
+the funds were to be drawn from the pig bank.
+
+"I'll tell you," he shot back recklessly. "We'll go to the theater a
+week from Saturday. Isn't that better than sodas?" He watched her
+anxiously for she was most dear to his suddenly constant heart.
+
+She assented eagerly. Nevertheless, it was plain that she still thirsted
+after the drug store flesh pots. He must interview Sid in the morning,
+for that catch in her voice was far from reassuring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HE CRUSHES AND HUMILIATES A RIVAL
+
+
+Sid, with new skates glistening at his side, was bound for the park
+lagoon when John ran across the street and stopped him.
+
+"Come along?" asked Sid amicably. John shook his head.
+
+"I want to talk to you," said he. "Bill says you're trying to cut me out
+with Louise. It's got to stop."
+
+"What's he know about it?" asked the culprit defiantly.
+
+"And Louise told me you'd taken her up to the drug store."
+
+Sid shrugged his shoulders. "Guess I've a right to. What have you got to
+say about it?"
+
+"Well," said John slowly, "She's my girl--"
+
+Sid sneered.
+
+"And we're going to get married on the money from the paper route when I
+grow up and--"
+
+"Pooh!" Sid laughed unpleasantly. "Go ahead and save your money. I don't
+care. I'm spending mine--on her--and you can't stop me either."
+
+Money, money, money! All he was hearing these days was about spending,
+not saving it, and Sid's words, as had his lady's, riled him not a
+little.
+
+"I'm going to take her out, too," he shot back. "Won't be a cheap thing
+like sodas, either. We're going to the theater, we are, and then she'll
+promise not to speak to you any more. If she won't, I'll punch your face
+in, first time I catch you."
+
+"Theater!" said Sid, so impressed that the concluding threat passed
+unheeded.
+
+"Going to buy the tickets, this afternoon," John boasted. "Main floor
+seats at the 'Home'--_seventy-five cents each!_ Don't you wish you were
+going?"
+
+Sid's skates slipped from his shoulder into the snow. He picked them up
+and looked at John uncertainly.
+
+"That'll cost a lot of money, won't it?" he asked.
+
+"Most two dollars," magnificently.
+
+"Let's take her together, then. I'll pay half the carfare and the
+seats."
+
+John thought a moment. The plan possessed certain advantages. He would
+be able to observe how Louise acted with Sid, for one; and if he didn't
+consent, that persistent rival would take her later, anyway, which would
+be a thousand times worse. Besides, the prospect of two hard-earned
+dollars being frittered away for an evening's entertainment had been far
+from pleasing.
+
+"The tickets are for a week from Saturday," he said slowly. "Want me to
+get you one?"
+
+Sid nodded and dug into his pocket for a handful of Christmas change. He
+passed over a dollar and twelve cents to John, and left for the lagoon.
+
+Half a dozen times as the street car bounced westward over the uneven
+track, John decided to tell Sid that, after all, the entertainment was
+for but two. He would probably spoil all the fun, anyway, and then the
+evening would be a total failure. He was still undecided when he stepped
+up to the tawdry box office with its photographs of local theatrical
+stars.
+
+"How many?" asked the man at the little window.
+
+John drew out a coin from his pocket. Heads, Sid joined them; tails, he
+should be Louise's sole escort. Heads it was. The fates had willed it;
+let the outcome be for good or ill.
+
+When he told of the arrangement at the family supper table, that
+evening, his parents choked.
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Fletcher, his voice still shaking with laughter,
+"that you'll sit, one on each side of the lady, and glare because she
+took the last piece of candy from the other fellow's box."
+
+Candy? Why, of course. The heroine of each of the novels he had read,
+was always receiving toothsome dainties and showers of roses from her
+many admirers. But he couldn't afford both methods of expressing his
+devotion, and candy alone would have to do. This taking your best girl
+to a show promised to be far more expensive than he had thought.
+
+Need it be said that his shoes were veritable ebony mirrors, that
+eventful evening? Or that his ears were clean, even to the very recesses
+under the lobes? And when such a thing occurs, you may be sure that
+Solomon in all his glory was arrayed no more immaculately than that
+small boy.
+
+He presented himself promptly at the door of the Martin flat at
+half-past seven. Louise was in her room while Mrs. Martin added the
+finishing touches to the party dress which she was wearing in honor of
+the occasion, so he shoved the two-pound box of dipped caramels, ordered
+in spite of paternal objections, into his overcoat pocket and sat down
+in the big parlor rocker to wait.
+
+Shortly thereafter, Sid appeared with a tissue-wrapped bouquet of roses
+in his hand. "For Louise," he told Mrs. Martin.
+
+John glared at him stolidly, and regretted his choice of candy. It would
+have taken a little of that confident smile away, if his rival had found
+himself antedated by a gift of a similar nature.
+
+A quarter of an hour later found them bouncing along over the same car
+line which John had used on the ticket quest. The conveyance was poorly
+heated, but the children were too excited to notice the cold. Louise was
+wearing two of the roses on her frock, and Sid was in high spirits
+accordingly.
+
+"Ever been out West, Louise?" he asked with a side glance at John. The
+lady shook her head.
+
+"I was, all last vacation--real ranch, real cowboys. Used to take pony
+rides every day."
+
+John sketched a caricature on the frosty window pane and sulked in
+silence. Why didn't his folks make enough money to take him on such
+summer jaunts? Then he wouldn't have to sit like a dummy and listen to
+his rival out-talk him with the one girl he cared anything about.
+
+"And walk?" continued Sid, secure in his romancing, now that he knew
+that neither of his auditors had been beyond the Mississippi. "Why, the
+air's so fine that you can walk ever so far without feeling tired.
+Breakfast at the ranch was at seven, and once, I walked twenty miles
+just to get up an appetite for it."
+
+"That's nothing," John snapped moodily. "I walked thirty miles before
+breakfast, once, too. It was right here in the city."
+
+"What?" gasped Sid, scarcely believing his ears.
+
+"Yes," assented John cheerfully. "It was in the afternoon before, but
+that didn't make any difference. It was before breakfast, wastn't it?"
+
+Louise giggled. Sid kicked against the wicker seat cushion in front of
+him and was silent. John rubbed a clear spot on the frost-etched car
+window and peered into the outer darkness.
+
+"Next block's ours," he grinned, still elated at the success of his
+thrust. "Come on, Louise."
+
+They scrambled wildly for the door. Sid was the first in the street and
+helped the lady down from the high car-step, while John drew the tickets
+from his coat pocket and led the way to the brilliantly lighted theater
+lobby. Louise's eyes glistened with excitement as the trio stopped to
+look at the posters beside the doorway.
+
+"Martha, the Milliner's Girl," Sid read slowly from the huge letters at
+the top of the bulletin board.
+
+"Peach of a show," John commented, as they walked past the line of
+people waiting their turn at the box office. "Six folks killed, and
+shooting and everything. I asked the man when I bought the seats."
+
+A uniformed usher led them impressively to their places and presented
+them with programs. John stooped over his fiancee and helped her off
+with her coat as he leered at Sid. That gentleman leaned easily back in
+the upholstered theater chair.
+
+"Nice seats," he remarked with a touch of condescension. "A little near
+the stage [the words had been Mrs. DuPree's, once upon a time], but
+they'll do."
+
+"I like 'em," John snapped angrily. Louise acquiesced. Sid scowled and
+fell back upon the wild and woolly West as a means of maintaining the
+conversational upper hand.
+
+"Once I went hunting, last summer"--he began. John glanced at his watch.
+Ten minutes before the performance would begin; ten long, dragging
+minutes of Sid's talk about a place of which he knew nothing. Why had he
+brought his voluble rival along?--"hunting for bear," continued the
+narrator. "Lots of fun, Louise. One of the cowboys took me with him 'way
+up a mountain. We went into a big, dark forest with palms--"
+
+"Palms don't grow out West," John interrupted savagely.
+
+"Yes, they do."
+
+"Geogerfy says they don't."
+
+"This was a part the geogerfies don't know anything about," serenely.
+"Ever been out there?"
+
+"No," reluctantly.
+
+"Then keep quiet. _I have._ Well, there were the palms and--"
+
+Was there to be no respite from the steady flow? John suddenly
+remembered the candy, and reached for his overcoat.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Louise, as the white, pink-stringed box was brought
+forth. Sid stopped, obviously disconcerted. John unwrapped the dainties
+and threw the paper on the floor.
+
+"Have some?" he asked as he lifted the cover.
+
+The lady's lips closed over a chocolate-covered caramel. Sid's did
+likewise. John helped himself to a third and leaned back happily. At
+last a way of silencing his adversary had been found.
+
+[Illustration: _Silencing his adversary._]
+
+Conversation was temporarily impossible, so the trio gazed eagerly
+around them. Just ahead, sat a shop girl in a shabby best dress, with a
+head of blonde, mismatched hair, and beside her, her escort, an Irish
+mechanic, who shifted his head from time to time as the unaccustomed
+collar scraped his neck. Across the aisle was a family of towheaded
+Swedes, the father self-conscious in his carefully pressed black suit;
+the mother, watchful of her two mischievous, blue-eyed urchins. Young
+gallants of the neighborhood filled the boxes at either side of the
+auditorium, taking this, the most expensive, means of proving their
+devotion to their lady loves. In the rear of the theater were the first
+and second balconies, occupied by voluble men and women of all ages and
+nationalities. Ahead, hung the stage curtain, decorated with staring
+advertisements, "Lamson, the neighborhood undertaker," "Trade at the
+corner grocery. Vegetables always at the lowest market prices,"
+"Snider's drug store, prescriptions, choice candies, and camera
+supplies," and the like. From somewhere in the heights came a sharp
+"rap-rap-rap," which echoed even to the more forward rows on the main
+floor.
+
+"Gallery," explained John. "Fellow knocks on the back of one of the
+benches to make the boys behave." His jaws resumed the burden of
+reducing that persistent caramel to a swallowable state.
+
+The orchestra of five filed solemnly in through the little door beneath
+the stage and took their accustomed places. A dart, propelled by an
+urchin of the upper regions who evidently had no fear of the monitor's
+stick, sailed serenely downward and found a resting place in a blonde
+lock of the salesgirl's hair. The footlights flashed on, and the
+musicians struck up a lilting, popular air, as Sid cleared his throat.
+
+"Then the cowboy--" he began.
+
+"Have another?" interrupted John, extending the box of tenacious
+goodies.
+
+"Sh-h," whispered Louise. "There goes the curtain."
+
+Why Martha had selected the hapless vocation of milliner's apprentice,
+John could not understand. For it was in Madame's little millinery shop
+in New York that Mordaunt Merrilac, gentleman by appearance, and leader
+of a desperate band of counterfeiters, met and became infatuated with
+the heroine. This he revealed in a soliloquy punctuated by frequent
+tugging at his black mustache, and strode majestically to the rear of
+the long, gloomy basement in which the first act was laid. There he
+joined three overalled mechanics in shirtsleeves, who puttered gingerly
+about a table on which were mysterious vats and a brightly glowing
+electric crucible.
+
+"Is all in readiness?" growled Mordaunt.
+
+"Aye, master."
+
+"Into the acid vat with the plate, then." He drew out a jewelled watch
+and studied the dial with knitted brows. "Ten long minutes before we
+know of our success."
+
+A muffled scream, long-drawn and filled with terror, broke in upon the
+silence which followed. Louise, Sid, and John leaned anxiously forward
+on the very edges of their seats.
+
+"What's that?" gasped the tallest of the workmen.
+
+"'Tis nothing," sneered the villain. "Come, Ralph, draw out the die."
+
+The group gathered anxiously around the bit of metal. Mordaunt
+scrutinized it carefully, and strode swiftly over to an opposite corner
+of the stage where an ancient letterpress stood. Running an inked roller
+over the surface of the etching, he placed it on the bed of the press,
+revolved the wheel rapidly in one direction, reversed, and drew forth a
+slip of white paper.
+
+"The face of a twenty-dollar bill to perfection," he exclaimed as he
+examined the dark oblong at one end. "Men, you may go."
+
+Thus was the intricate process of counterfeiting depicted, and the
+audience, as audiences did in Shakespeare's time when a sign represented
+a forest or a tree or a mountain, allowed its imagination to make the
+thing seem plausible.
+
+Mordaunt raised his voice. "Dolores!" he called, once, twice, thrice.
+
+A tall, lithe creature in dark, clinging robes, with the black hair of
+all villains and villainesses, responded.
+
+"Yes, brother?" she whined from the head of the basement stairway.
+
+"Bring me Martha."
+
+The ogre had commanded, therefore the maiden was flung down the steps
+before him--slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful
+sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's throat, willy-nilly.
+
+"Let me go, oh, please let me go!" she wailed. Louise's lower lip
+trembled sympathetically. Such a tender slip of a heroine to be at the
+mercy of such an unscrupulous monster!
+
+"Still stubborn, Martha?" Mordaunt snarled.
+
+The girl drew herself up proudly. Only her heaving bosom told of the
+physical struggle which had forced her into the basement den. John could
+not help marvelling at her recuperative powers.
+
+"Still," she murmured with flashing eye.
+
+"Think it over well," the black mustachioed one persisted. "Am I so
+odious? Marriage with me means riches, girl, riches. And I would be kind
+to you."
+
+She shook her head vehemently. "Never, never, never would I marry a man
+who lives as you. Though you beat me, though you torture me [Louise's
+eyes welled in spite of herself], never can you force me into such
+wedlock."
+
+Hasty footsteps sounded at the head of the stairway. Ralph, the etcher,
+dashed down into the room.
+
+"The police!" he shrieked. "They are about to raid us!"
+
+Merrilac muttered a curse. "Take her away," he growled to his sister of
+the clinging robes. "Take her to your home by the secret passage." He
+pressed a button and a panel in the wall swung back. "Ralph and I must
+remain to destroy the die! Quick, on your life, be quick!"
+
+Would the police come in time? Nay, John and Sid and Louise, not yet.
+That would have ended the play in the first act. Dolores dragged the
+heroine away with her. Mordaunt swung the panel back into place and ran
+over to the table where the counterfeiting apparatus lay.
+
+"Look you to your automatics!" he shouted. "And up with the trapdoor,
+Ralph. The acid vats must be hidden."
+
+But the police were upon them as he spoke. Revolvers cracked. Jack
+Harkness, blonde, curly haired, and of magnificent physique, let his
+firearm drop as he clapped his hand to a suddenly nerveless right arm.
+
+"I'm wounded," he bellowed, "but after them! Let not that arch villain
+escape!"
+
+A bluecoat sprang forward, halted, and fell flat on his face. Ralph, a
+heroic sacrifice in spite of his guilt, intercepted a bullet meant for
+Mordaunt. Then the master counterfeiter, realizing that his cause was
+hopeless, raised a hand as a token of surrender, and advanced slowly to
+receive the waiting handcuffs. As the policeman raised his hands to slip
+them on, he dashed suddenly past to the stairway, and slammed the door
+behind him. A key squeaked in its little-used lock, and the
+representatives of the law stared at each other for one dazed, dragging
+moment.
+
+Suddenly Harkness flung his muscular form against the door again and
+again until it broke from its hinges. As his subordinates dashed up the
+stairway in futile pursuit, he dallied in the bullet-marked room that he
+might walk to the center of the stage and wave his unwounded arm
+melodramatically.
+
+"I will rescue her," he vowed solemnly. "I will rescue my little Martha
+though the chase leads to the burning, sand-strewn deserts of Africa!"
+
+There was tumultuous applause and the curtain. Louise leaned back in her
+seat with shining eyes. John drew a deep breath.
+
+"Isn't it just peachy?"
+
+Sid DuPree nodded. "Makes me think of the way the cowboys used to shoot
+off their revolvers on the ranch."
+
+"Have another candy," suggested John promptly. Again was the flow of
+reminiscences successfully checked.
+
+But the author of "Martha, the Milliner's Girl," was too considerate of
+the welfare of his hero to lead him on an expensive trip to Africa; for
+that worthy, as are all such stage beings, was poor and otherwise
+honest. So the second act revealed a richly furnished room in Dolores'
+apartment, not many miles away from the scene of act one. Martha threw
+herself on the luxuriously upholstered lounge in a paroxysm of sobs.
+Dolores entered, still clothed in dark, clinging robes. Entered also
+Mordaunt Merrilac, as beetling of brow as ever. Perfervid conversation
+ensued between the trio in which little Martha tearfully ordered the
+villain to release her.
+
+"My detention here will avail you naught, Mordaunt Merrilac," she
+quavered. "In spite of all you can do, some day, my hero, Jack Harkness,
+will find this den and rescue me!" Prolonged handclapping came from the
+more genteel portion of the audience, mingled with cheers and cat-calls
+from the gallery.
+
+The villain laughed sardonically. "Still you hope for rescue by him?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then wait." He pressed a convenient button. Through the heavily
+curtained doorway, closely guarded by the two remaining members of the
+gang, walked Jack Harkness.
+
+"Gee!" gasped John, consternation-struck by this new development. It was
+evident that the same stupidity which had allowed Merrilac to make his
+escape in the first act, had led this singularly wooden-headed hero into
+that villain's trap.
+
+"So, my proud beauty," hissed Mordaunt, "you expect this man to save
+you? 'Tis futile. At twelve, tonight, we shall plunge him into the
+Hudson River, and you, Martha, shall see him die!"
+
+Whereupon Martha gave a piercing shriek, swooned, and the curtain fell.
+
+"Crickets!" sighed John, as a prodigious bumping behind the lowered
+curtain told of scenery that was being shifted, "I wish they'd hurry
+up." Louise nodded silently, while the box of carmels lay neglected on
+her lap; and for once during the evening, Sid could find no parallel for
+such thrilling events in the scenes of his last vacation trip.
+
+Almost before they realized it, the curtain rose again and revealed the
+hut on the Hudson. In one corner of the dismal interior stood Jack
+Harkness, bound, but appropriately defiant. In the other, on the floor
+lay the weak, sobbing little heap that was Martha. In the center stalked
+a triumphant Mordaunt with his two confederates.
+
+"Jack Harkness," he hissed, "your time has come. Men, throw back the
+trapdoor." Ah, those ever-present trapdoors!
+
+He walked over to the opening. "The Hudson runs muddy tonight," he
+murmured, as a shudder ran through the audience, "and very cold. 'Tis
+well. Drag forth the prisoner and loose his bonds."
+
+He stooped to jerk Martha to her feet. The rude door at the rear sprang
+open, and the police burst in upon the scene. The two counterfeiters
+sought for an escape, and Jack, sudden strength returning to his
+immobile limbs, sprang upon the startled Mordaunt. A terrific struggle
+ensued, and a tender scene between the two lovers as the police dragged
+their three captives from the stage.
+
+"At last, little Martha," Harkness murmured as he looked down at her.
+
+"At last," she murmured, gazing shyly into his face. Then came a long,
+passionate kiss--and the curtain.
+
+Sid sprang to his feet and helped Louise on with her coat, but John,
+stumbling after them up the aisle and out on the crowded street, neither
+noticed nor cared. The play triangle of two men and a maid seemed
+strangely analogous to his own love affairs. Sid was Mordaunt Merrilac,
+Louise was little Martha, and he was the heroic Jack Harkness. Neither
+counterfeiters nor police would participate, but that did not diminish
+the tenseness of the situation, nevertheless. He was roused from his
+revery by Sid's voice as they came to the street car corner.
+
+"Here's a drug store, Louise. Let's go in and have a soda."
+
+Dreaming again, and Sid had stolen another march on him! He trailed
+sulkily in and the trio sat down in the little wire-backed chairs before
+a round, shiny table. The drug clerk came forward ceremoniously and
+stood beside them.
+
+"My treat," said Sid grandly. "What'll you have, Louise?"
+
+She wasn't certain. A feeling of dull resentment took possession of
+John. If Sid was going to act this way, he'd make it as costly an affair
+as possible.
+
+"Chop-suey sundae," he announced, after a hasty glance at the printed
+menu.
+
+"What?" stammered Sid. Such a delicacy cost a whole quarter, the most
+expensive treat that the soda fountain purveyed.
+
+"Yes," said John calmly. "Better take one, too, Louise," he added
+maliciously. "They taste just peachy."
+
+She accepted his suggestion gratefully.
+
+"Give me a glass of water," ordered Sid weakly. It is an awful thing to
+possess soda liabilities of fifty cents when you have but three dimes
+and two nickels in your pocket.
+
+John sensed his rival's predicament and smiled. Slowly, with manifest
+enjoyment in every mouthful, he devoured the tempting, frozen treat.
+Then he leaned back in his chair contentedly and waited for Louise to
+finish. The white-coated soda clerk approached the table for payment,
+and the terror which crept into Sid's face was strangely like that on
+Mordaunt's when the police had broken into the river hut. He drew out
+his inadequate supply of small change and looked at it blankly.
+
+"Come, boys," prompted the man of syrups and sodawater, "I can't wait
+all day."
+
+"I haven't enough money," whispered Sid at last.
+
+John turned, a hint of the stage hero's mannerisms in his dramatic
+gesture. "What? Invite us for a treat and then can't pay for it? You're
+a fine one, Sid." He drew a half-dollar from his own pocket and flung it
+down on the table. "Never mind him," he turned to Louise. "I'll pay your
+car fare home!"
+
+And with the crushed and humiliated Sid following them miserably, he led
+the way from the drug store to the waiting car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+HE BUYS VALENTINES
+
+
+Sid made one more effort to cope with Miss Martin's suddenly aggressive
+fiance. John came upon the couple one late, crisp January afternoon, as
+he was leaving for the paper route. Louise did her best to appear
+nonchalant as he picked his way carefully across the slippery,
+wagon-rutted road, and Sid, after a longing glance toward the iron fence
+which surrounded the home lot, decided to brazen matters out.
+
+"'Nother chop-suey sundae?" John sneered as he eyed his rival
+scornfully.
+
+"'Tain't fair, always talking about that," blurted Sid. "How'd I know
+the money I'd need when I left home?"
+
+John deemed the excuse unworthy of notice, and turned to Louise.
+
+"What's he want this time?"
+
+"Go skating with him," she replied after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Then ask you to have a treat in the warming house, and let you pay for
+it 'cause he didn't bring enough money. I'll teach you to skate--tonight
+if your mother'll let you. Silvey said the ice was fine yesterday, and
+everything'll be peachy. Want to come?"
+
+What maiden wouldn't? John glanced at his watch. The paper wagon was due
+in five minutes.
+
+"I've got to run," he said hastily. "See you tonight!" He left on the
+dogtrot for the corner.
+
+His school books eyed him reproachfully as he hunted for his skate
+straps after supper. An arithmetic test impended, and he had a
+composition to write. Nevertheless, he disregarded both tasks serenely
+and called for his lady. With her skates swinging with his over one
+shoulder, they started for the park.
+
+"Ever been skating before?" he asked casually as he took hold of her arm
+that she might pass a slippery bit of walk in safety.
+
+Louise shook her head. "Once a mud puddle froze in front of the house
+where I used to live, and I got a broom and tried. That's all."
+
+Then, for an instant, John regretted the invitation. To teach an
+absolute novice, no matter what the age, to skate with a passable degree
+of security is no light task. But his hesitation vanished, ten minutes
+later, when he fastened her skates on and helped her through the doorway
+of the warming house. It is no unpleasant thing for a small boy's best
+girl to cling to his arm as did his when they walked, oh so cautiously,
+down the skate-chopped steps from the boat landing.
+
+As they stepped out on the slippery ice, Louise made a last, despairing
+grab for the step rail.
+
+"You go on and skate, Johnny," she pleaded. "I'll just stay here for a
+while."
+
+[Illustration: _"Shooting the duck."_]
+
+Nothing loath, he sped off in and out among the swiftly moving, ever
+changing throng of people. In a moment he shot back to a less crowded
+space near her, where he "shot the duck," balanced himself first on one
+foot and then on the other, and finally came to an abrupt halt, leaving
+a trail of ice shavings in his wake.
+
+"My!" said Louise as he stood beside her, panting a little. "I wish I
+could do those things."
+
+He beamed. "They're easy. Hang on to my arm and I'll show you. Now, step
+out with me. One-two, one-two, one-two."
+
+Her ankles bent over until they touched the ice, and her breath came in
+quick, nervous gasps. Nevertheless, she followed bravely over a scant
+ten feet of the rink.
+
+"Isn't that easy?"
+
+She nodded with an assurance which she was far from feeling. "My skate
+strap hurts. The right one. Loosen it, John."
+
+He knelt to make the necessary alteration. As he stood up, one of his
+lady's feet started off on an unauthorized expedition, and she grabbed
+him by the arm with a fervency which nearly proved disastrous.
+
+"Don't start again just yet," she begged. "I'm tired."
+
+As they stood there, a pounding, scurrying figure in black, Red Brown,
+sped past at top speed. Silvey followed closely, noted the situation,
+and slowed up.
+
+"Leave her in the skating house and come on," he called. "Red's got it
+and we're having heaps of fun."
+
+Skinny Mosher and Perry Alford came, both in pursuit of the fleet-footed
+Brown. Sid DuPree, puffing audibly, stopped just out of reach, glad of
+any pretext to halt long enough to catch his breath.
+
+"Let's see her skate," he sneered, knowing that Louise dared not release
+her escort for pursuit. "You're a fine teacher, you are. Don't you wish
+you were with us?"
+
+John's eyes followed him longingly as he skated off. The temptation of
+Silvey's invitation was great, and with any other maiden, would have
+proved fatal. But the lure of the rosy dream for the future was still
+strong. He freed himself gently from her grasp, and was two yards away
+before she realized what he had done.
+
+"There," he said with satisfaction. "I knew you could stand up. Now,
+skate to me."
+
+"Aw-w-w, Johnny, come on back. I'm going to fall!"
+
+"No you're not," said John decisively. "Try and you'll see."
+
+Louise essayed one ineffectual stroke and stood helpless. "I t-think
+you're just horrid," she whimpered.
+
+He grew a trifle impatient. "You'll never learn that way." Why were
+girls always so afraid to try things, anyway?
+
+She made another halting attempt, reached forward to catch him, and felt
+herself slipping, then straightened up, leaned too far backwards, and
+her feet shot suddenly out from under her. Pupil and teacher crashed to
+the ice. John was the first to recover himself, although the unexpected
+fall had been a severe one. He stooped over his lady in spite of
+strangely shaky knees, and found her sobbing, partly from nervous shock
+and partly from mortification.
+
+"Hurt, Louise?" She sat up angrily and dug her mittened hands into her
+eyes. He caught a murmur of "Horrid old thing!" and she began to sob.
+The boy knelt and removed her skates gently.
+
+"Come," he suggested wisely. "We'll go into the warming house and have
+something to eat. Then you'll feel better. Catch hold of my hand. One,
+two, three! Up you come."
+
+They sat down on one of the gray, wooden benches which lined the big
+room. Louise studied the dingy sign on the post by the counter.
+
+"Aren't mad, are you?" he asked anxiously. "I didn't do it on purpose."
+
+The easy tears had dried and she shook her head cheerfully.
+
+"Give me some apple pie," she began. Thus peace was concluded.
+
+When she had drained the last drop of cider from the glass and dropped
+the pasteboard pie plate on the floor, John kicked it under the seat
+with his heel and leaned over to her.
+
+"Take some more," he urged. "I'm not Sid DuPree."
+
+Since the disastrous one in late December, there had been two
+exceedingly prosperous snowfalls to supplement the newspaper revenue,
+and he had plundered the pig bank for funds for the evening with a clear
+conscience.
+
+Again Louise eyed the placard. Coffee was for grown-ups, and strictly
+forbidden at home; therefore she would sample a cup of it. "And a
+red-hot sandwich and some more apple pie, Johnny."
+
+When she had finished, they started for home. Their feet were still
+unaccustomed to the difference between walking and skating and they
+stumbled now and then along the path. As they came to the road, John
+looked down at her anxiously.
+
+"Have a good time?"
+
+"It was peachy."
+
+"Aren't you glad you didn't go with Sid?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Have enough to eat?"
+
+She assented heavily. Strange how the taste of that forbidden coffee
+lingered in her mouth.
+
+In the morning as Miss Brown called the roll, John gave a quick glance
+backward along the aisle. His lady was absent. The strangely assorted
+meal had been too much for her.
+
+But attacks of indigestion rarely last more than a day, and this one
+proved no hindrance to the series of tri-weekly skating parties, minus
+refreshments, in which the pair participated. After two weeks of
+laborious lessons, Louise found that she was able to take a few sure
+strokes without gulping and calling for masculine aid. The first trip
+around the rough ice about the island followed, sure test of a
+beginner's prowess, and, behold! the youthful mentor found the lessons
+no longer irksome.
+
+As they sauntered home, skates clashing merrily at every step over the
+arc-lit snow of the park driveway, one starlit February night, Louise
+broke into a sudden delighted giggle.
+
+"Day after tomorrow's Lincoln's birthday. Aren't you glad?"
+
+Glad? Was ever a schoolboy sorry for an added day of freedom?
+
+"Two days after that's St. Valentine's day. We'll have a box up at
+school then. What kind of valentines do you like best?" he quizzed in
+return. "Paper hearts and things with lots of lace on them, or celluloid
+ones in boxes?"
+
+Louise hesitated for a moment.
+
+"I like," she said finally, "any kind of valentines, but best I like
+lots and lots of them--more'n anyone else in the room gets. Last year I
+was third, and in second grade a girl got one more valentine than I did.
+It was only a comic, but that gave her nine, and I had eight. This year
+I want to be first!"
+
+It was no small honor which the girl craved. To lead in the valentine
+distribution is to be acknowledged the belle of the room until the June
+examinations break up the little, pupil cliques and send their members
+to the different higher-grade rooms. John resolved that her wish should
+be fulfilled, but that achievement lay at the end of a path beset with
+pitfalls. Let rumor make the rounds that he purposed stuffing the box,
+and others would play at the same game. Witness a girl in an early
+grade, the homeliest of the room, who begged a dollar from her father
+and filled the box to overflowing with a hundred penny valentines
+addressed to herself.
+
+He left for his paper route half an hour earlier, that Lincoln's
+birthday afternoon, and turned abruptly westward as he reached the
+corner where the wagon drove up with his nightly bundle. He halted a
+moment in front of the school store. In the window was the usual display
+of rubber balls, penny trinkets, and magazines, and beyond them, he
+could see the deserted interior. As he had foreseen, the holiday had
+brought the usual lack of juvenile trade, and investment in the
+valentine market could be made without fear.
+
+He swung the door back. The trip bell rang noisily, and tall, angular
+Miss Thomas came out from the suite of little rooms in the rear.
+
+"Valentines," said he briefly. She reached a shallow box containing a
+dozen or so of the little printed love missives to the glassy-topped
+counter, where he pawed them over with one half-washed hand.
+
+"I want more than these!"
+
+The look of boredom, bred by long months of finicky penny purchasers,
+vanished. She stooped for one of the packets of fresh stock on the lower
+shelf. As he broke it open, she readjusted her heavy-rimmed spectacles,
+and watched his actions with amusement.
+
+Hearts of cardboard with crudely pierced edges of blue forget-me-nots,
+little square folders bearing pictures of doves, a cottage, an old mill,
+or a bit of idealistic scenery--he sorted them all. Each appropriate
+sentiment on the inner leaf, "To one I love," "To my true love," and the
+like, was read and approved before he shoved the packet away from him.
+
+"Let's see your two-penny ones."
+
+Gorgeously laced, these, with cut-outs in the center to reveal
+butterflies, arrow-pierced hearts, or Dresden Shepherdesses. He selected
+three of the gaudy creations.
+
+"The nickel ones--in boxes."
+
+Thus did he aspire to brilliantly-colored celluloid for the crowning
+jewel of the St. Valentine's sacrifice. He handed the assortment to Miss
+Thomas with a sheepish grin.
+
+"Envelopes for them, too. How much?"
+
+She counted them with gaunt, practiced fingers.
+
+"Sixteen penny ones, three two-centers, and one at five. Do you want one
+or two-cent envelopes?"
+
+He gazed at the assortment of paper containers. Monstrosities of hearts,
+cupids, and entwining fretwork were embossed on each, but save for the
+intricacy of design, there was little difference between them. He
+indicated his choice.
+
+"Forty-three cents," said Miss Thomas.
+
+John paid the sum without a tremor and dashed for the door. The
+selection had taken longer than he had planned and he was afraid he
+would miss the paper wagon.
+
+That evening was passed in addressing the envelopes at his father's
+library desk. Five of them were scrawled in a heavy backhand, with the
+aid of his mother's broad, stub pen, and five more in his normal
+handwriting. He finished the others in a variety of huge pothooks with
+blackly crossed "T's" and dotted "I's," and viewed the result of his
+labors with great satisfaction. Louise would never guess that they had
+come from the same donor.
+
+Their despatch to the valentine box was the next thing to trouble him.
+If he deposited so large a number of love tokens in one, or even two
+installments, it would certainly attract attention. He took Silvey into
+his confidence.
+
+"Why don't you want Louise to know where they came from?" asked his chum
+thoughtfully.
+
+"'Cause getting the most valentines in the room won't be half the fun if
+she knows I sent 'em all."
+
+"Give 'em to me," said Silvey. "I'll put half in, myself, and Red can
+take the rest."
+
+Promptly at two-thirty, that Fourteenth of February, Miss Brown brought
+the recitations to a close and laid her little, black record book in the
+desk drawer, then drew the big, slotted cardboard box toward her and
+smiled down at the expectant pupils.
+
+"I'll ask you to keep as quiet as possible," she requested. "Otherwise,
+we may disturb some of the grown-up, eighth-grade classes who are too
+old for these things."
+
+No need of any such caution. The children were quiet as the proverbial
+mice as they waited for the first name to be called.
+
+"John Fletcher."
+
+He stumbled to his feet in amazement. Had Louise sent him a valentine?
+As he opened the envelope, a gaudy caricature of a gentleman with
+reddened nose, paste-diamond pin, and flowered vest met his eyes.
+Underneath was a bit of doggerel elaborating certain traits ascribed to
+"The Rounder." He twisted suddenly in his seat and surprised a smile of
+exultation on Sid's face.
+
+Just wait until school was over. He'd fix him for that.
+
+"Olga," called Miss Brown with a smile, some moments later.
+
+Flaxen-haired Olga simpered up to receive her missive. The excited buzz
+of conversation which arose claimed John's attention.
+
+"That makes eight for her."
+
+"But Louise has nine!"
+
+Names of several girls who were popular only in the eyes of their
+youthful swains followed. The teacher shuffled the remaining valentines
+hastily.
+
+"Four more for Olga, and three for Louise."
+
+John turned anxiously and encountered a look of placid satisfaction on
+Olaf's stolid face; that same Olaf who had offered to sell his symptom
+list for a fifth of the market price.
+
+"Louise Martin, two more."
+
+"_Six_ for Olga!"
+
+John leaned tensely forward. He had sent but an even twenty of the gaudy
+trinkets, and this sudden influx of rival valentines threatened
+dangerously to pass that number. More envelopes were passed out. From
+behind him, he caught the excited whisperings of two girls.
+
+"Louise has twenty!"
+
+"And Olga, twenty-one!"
+
+Miss Brown stooped to turn a broad box right side up on her desk.
+
+"The last valentine," she concluded. "Here you are, Louise."
+
+Had Sid sent that? He'd smash his face in if he had. The unexpected
+addition had saved the day for his sweetheart, but that kid had no
+business butting in, anyway! Miss Brown watched the buzzing groups of
+pupils.
+
+"There's just fifteen minutes left before dismissal," she said
+considerately. "You may spend it in looking at each other's valentines
+if you wish."
+
+The pupils crowded back to his lady's seat, while he stood on a chair
+near the wall and craned his neck to see the vision of celluloid and
+pink and blue ribbon which had come in that last box. She examined the
+wrappings again, but no identifying mark could be found. As John stepped
+down, Sid DuPree tried to edge past him, and found his way blocked
+immediately. Louise looked up at her youthful fiance.
+
+"Oh, Johnny, Johnny," she smiled delightedly.
+
+"I sent--" began Sid from behind his shoulder. Then was John filled with
+sudden wrath. He would squelch this persistent rival once and for all.
+
+"You sent it?" he sneered.
+
+"I did," DuPree replied. Louise watched the two eagerly.
+
+"Why that cost all of a quarter. And kids who asks folks to have sundaes
+and then can't pay for them, don't spend that much for valentines.
+Cheapskates never do!"
+
+Sid scowled. Before he could make suitable reply, Miss Brown rapped for
+order and he had to go back to his seat. There, as he squirmed in his
+seat while waiting for the dismissal bell, he caught John looking at him
+and stuck out his tongue as a manifestation of his scorn. But that
+gentleman only grinned. Wrongfully or no, he knew that the credit for
+the twenty-five cent valentine had been given to him, and he was content
+to let matters rest as they were.
+
+Valentine's day past, Washington's birthday was the one festive oasis
+left for the children in the desert of school days. Though the cold
+weather held marvelously well, little by little the thermometer beside
+the drug store's door showed rising-temperature levels as John stopped
+to look at it on the way to school. The long, northern shadows which the
+houses and apartments cast against the soot-grayed snow were shortening
+rapidly, and his paper route, so long patrolled in entire or
+semi-darkness, was now completed just as dusk set in.
+
+Then Miss Brown reached back in her desk drawer for a certain packet of
+narrow manila envelopes, that last February afternoon, and brought to a
+certain small boy who occupied the seat just in front of her desk,
+sudden realization that March was upon the class.
+
+"Please have them signed and returned by Monday," she told the pupils as
+she distributed them.
+
+John drew the white, finger-marked card from the ragged envelope, and
+his face went first white and then scarlet as his eye followed the long
+column of marks. Accusing memories of lessons half done or postponed
+with a hope that teacher wouldn't call on him, of a skating party with
+Louise when a geography map should have been outlined, and of arithmetic
+papers hurriedly done in the half-hour "B" class recitation period, to
+be returned with a heavily penciled "20" or "30" across their surfaces,
+arose to annoy him. His teacher spoke again.
+
+"There are one or two boys and girls in the 'A' class who will have to
+do better next month," John fancied that she was looking squarely at
+him, "or they'll be sent down into the 'B' division."
+
+That wasn't the worst of the matter. He had to take that testimonial of
+disgrace _home_ to be signed, and duly commented upon, by his mother.
+
+The card reposed safely in his pocket over Saturday, while he pondered
+now and then upon the least painful method of breaking the news to her.
+Sunday passed. On Monday morning, as he stood up from the breakfast
+table, he broke out,
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"Yes, son?"
+
+His courage vanished, and he was unable to go any further.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"N-nothing. It was a peachy breakfast." He kissed her nervously and went
+into the hall for his coat.
+
+"I forgot to bring it," he told Miss Brown that morning school session.
+At noon, he had the same excuse.
+
+"Well, if it isn't here tomorrow morning, I'll send you home after it,"
+that sophisticated supervisor of juveniles replied. And with this
+uncomfortable fact ever in his mind, he set out on the afternoon journey
+with the newspapers.
+
+The weather seemed to have shaped itself for his mood. A curious, raw
+dampness had crept into the still air, and overhead was a level, sullen
+expanse of gray vapor. Locomotive smoke showed that the light breeze had
+shifted suddenly to the south, and there was an indefinable attitude of
+expectancy about, as if the big city with its varied expanse of
+buildings and vacant lots and snow-filled parks was waiting for
+something. As he stamped up the front porch steps and kicked the snow
+from his shoe soles, a fine, almost invisible drizzle began.
+
+Blame that report card, anyway. Perhaps if he presented it with the
+"hundred" spelling paper that very day, his mother wouldn't be too
+severe with him. He'd try that experiment in the morning, anyway.
+
+But upon waking, he stared from his window in delight at the spectacle
+which the capricious weather had formed for him. The rain had increased
+as the night passed, and had frozen upon the chilled trees and house
+roofs. The linden on the Fletcher lawn was coated with fairy lace work,
+and the denuded lilac bush across the way shone black through its glassy
+covering. The long expanse of dark, cement walk which flanked each side
+of the snowy road was coated with ice and made walking for pedestrians a
+matter of some danger. As he jerked his tie into position, Perry Alford
+shot past on his skates, and he hurried down to breakfast. He'd have a
+little of that sport before school, himself.
+
+But as he rose joyously from the table, he stopped short. There was that
+report card; and he knew that his plans were shattered. Mrs. Fletcher's
+remarks upon his many deficiencies would consume every minute of the
+time before school.
+
+"My report," he said briefly. She looked at it.
+
+"John!"
+
+He gazed out of the window in a forlorn effort to appear unconcerned.
+
+"Reading, 'F'," quoted Mrs. Fletcher, "and last month it was 'G'."
+
+He drew out his watch and set the big hand forward ten minutes. If he
+used a little strategy, he could at least shorten the lecture by that
+amount of time.
+
+"Arithmetic, 'P'," she went on. "And geography, 'P'. And you told me you
+had all your lessons done when I gave you permission to go skating those
+evenings. I'm very much displeased with you."
+
+He grew desperate. When Mrs. Fletcher began to talk about being
+displeased and grieved, there was trouble ahead. He drew a much-chewed
+pencil from his coat pocket and handed it to her.
+
+"Hurry and sign, Mother," he begged. "It's school time."
+
+She scribbled a reluctant signature at the bottom and looked at it
+thoughtfully. "I'll keep this to show to your father this evening."
+
+"I've had it three days already," he blurted. "It's got to go back
+today."
+
+He snatched the card from her hand, showed his watch as she protested,
+and fled for his coat. Once at the corner, he stopped running and
+smiled. The escape had been fairly easy and with a minimum of fuss, and
+he was immeasurably light-hearted, now that the report card bugaboo was
+off his mind.
+
+At Southern Avenue, he caught up with Sid, Silvey, and Perry Alford.
+Bits of ice dropped from the trees to the walk as they sauntered along,
+and water dripped from the icicles on the eaves of the apartments and
+stores as the morning rise in temperature began to take effect.
+
+"Feel's as if it's going to thaw," said Silvey as they came to a very
+slippery stretch of walk. So the quartette slid up and down on the ice
+as long after the second assembly bell as they dared, and with the fear
+of tardiness upon them, dashed for the school yard.
+
+His pocket was empty, and his conscience clear, and the morning session
+passed swiftly for John. At noon, as the long lines filed into the
+school yard to freedom, he looked about him with delight.
+
+The winter's deposit of snow was melting into little rivulets which
+trickled merrily along wagon ruts until they came to the street drains.
+First-graders stopped to splash soggy snowballs into a huge puddle which
+had collected in the street just beyond the alley, and the
+drip-drip-drip of the water, from the trees and buildings to the wet,
+glistening sidewalks was as music to his ears. He broke into a run
+toward home from pure exuberance of feelings, and halted now and then to
+fill his lungs with the sunlit, pregnant air which the south wind had
+brought.
+
+The thought of the continuation of the "penny lecture" which was waiting
+failed to dampen his spirits, even though it threatened curtailment of
+his evenings with Louise. For if the skating parties were over, spring
+with its marbles, tops, and kindred delights had arrived and all sorrow
+fled before it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SPRING BRINGS BASEBALL
+
+
+Little by little the snow disappeared. During the first days of the
+thaw, lethargic city employees chopped paths through the melting ice to
+the street drains. Bare edges of the cement walks appeared in places,
+and at night the puddles and pools in the street hollows bore a thin,
+frozen covering. As the month passed, the crystals became more and more
+rare, and green areas of grass appeared on the more exposed portions of
+the neighborhood lawns. The children turned from their sport of sailing
+sticks and improvised boats down the trickling, artificial brooklets to
+take part in games of "Run, sheep, run" and "Hide-and-seek" over the
+rapidly softening turf. A pelting, refreshing rain from the south drove
+away the last soot-stained vestiges of the snow lying in the protecting
+shadows between the houses, and presto, Miss Thomas' little store
+displayed a window stock of agates, catseyes, and common clay marbles to
+tempt pennies from boyish pockets.
+
+Then, after school, during recess, and for long minutes before the
+afternoon session, the alley which flanked the school yard was marked
+with rings of varying dimensions. The air resounded with cries of, "No
+hudgins," "H'ist," "Your shot," or "You dribbled," as the players
+contested for prizes of five- and six-for-a-cent clay marbles.
+Occasionally two of the big eighth-grade boys would draw a six-foot
+circle in the earth and play for "K'nicks, dime ones," and the game
+would bring a crowd, three deep, from the neighboring players to applaud
+or gasp at each shot.
+
+Even John, man of business that he was, could not resist the temptation.
+The last traces of that autumnal scorn toward "such foolishness"
+vanished as he became the owner of two shooters and a pocketful of the
+more common marbles.
+
+The clan spirit among the different boyish cliques at school revived
+again. Skinny Mosher, who had hugged the warm house during the coldest
+days of the winter, caught suddenly up with John and Silvey as they
+frolicked home for dinner, and brought the news that a "Jefferson Tough"
+had threatened to punch his face in, with no provocation whatsoever. The
+long-discussed secret code took a new lease on life, and cipher messages
+passed to the various corners of room ten with a frequency which drove
+Miss Brown nearly to distraction.
+
+That early April afternoon saw the reunion of the "Tigers" in the Silvey
+back yard. They viewed the dilapidated, weather-beaten club house with
+reawakened interest. Quoth John,
+
+"It's awful dirty where the snow worked in through the fence. Let's fix
+her up." Down into the basement went Bill at the words, and reappeared
+with an old broom, a hammer, and some nails.
+
+"A lot of the boards are loose," he said, as the boys grabbed the
+implements.
+
+Sid stood around and offered voluble suggestions, but the others fell to
+work with a will. At the end of a half-hour the dirt floor was brushed
+free of debris with a thoroughness never attained on maternal cleaning
+assignments, and the little desk was dragged from its winter shelter of
+the house to occupy the customary position of state.
+
+Red Brown stretched out on the springy, alluring sod near the building.
+John and Sid, Skinny and Silvey, followed his example.
+
+"Isn't this great?" the red-haired one asked blissfully. Sid reverted to
+the cause for the summons of the clan.
+
+"How about the 'Jeffersons'?" he asked.
+
+Babel reigned instantly. Silvey was for picking them off, one by one.
+Red counseled a sudden descent in force upon the home haunts of the
+enemy. A rear window in the Silvey house creaked upward, and a feminine
+voice pierced the sun-filled air.
+
+"Land's sakes, Bill Silvey, get off that wet ground this minute. You'll
+catch your death of cold lying there this early in April."
+
+The boy sprang to his feet, while his friends grinned sympathetically.
+
+"And you, John Fletcher," Mrs. Silvey went on, "you needn't laugh. Your
+mother won't like it a bit better, if I telephone her. She'll call you
+home in a minute!"
+
+They all rose at this. Truly, modern electrical inventions widen the
+maternal scope of authority.
+
+"Shucks!" said Skinny, as he brushed some dead grass from his coat. "Now
+she's spoiled it all. What'll we do?"
+
+John tossed his battered cap high in the air in a sudden access of
+spirits. "One for scrub," he shouted. "First raps for the first game of
+scrub. Go home and get your league ball and bat, Sid. I'll bring my
+first baseman's glove. Silvey'll find his catcher's mitt. Beat you home!
+Beat you home!"
+
+They were off. Down the cement sidewalk they darted, their quick breaths
+showing ever so slightly in the crisp air. John stamped up the steps and
+into the front hall.
+
+"Mother!" he called. "Mother!"
+
+"Yes, son?" came the voice from the big second floor sewing room.
+
+"Where's my baseball glove?" He kicked against the bottom step of the
+stairway impatiently.
+
+"Did you wipe your feet when you came in?" came the disconcerting
+inquiry. "I don't want the carpets all over mud."
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"Go back and wipe them right away. Then come up and tell me what you
+want."
+
+He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the
+porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the
+basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.
+
+"Now, what is it?"
+
+"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know
+where it is?"
+
+"Where did you leave it?"
+
+"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother
+picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.
+
+"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the
+one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"
+
+He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's,
+and I've got to get it _quick_!"
+
+Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet
+shelf, the other day."
+
+A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The
+door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son
+dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.
+
+When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad
+property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.
+
+"Here's your bases," he called as he heaved the objects into the yard
+with a recklessness which threatened destruction to the turf. "Johnny
+was first at bat, wasn't he?"
+
+They took their positions in the order of the numbers which they had
+called earlier. Silvey stood behind the home plate, Sid DuPree was in
+the pitcher's box, Red played first base, and Skinny Mosher stood near
+the fence to cover the outfield, second, and third as best he could. Sid
+ground the ball into the heel of his heavily padded mitt, as he had seen
+professional pitchers do, bent forward, and threw the ball over Silvey's
+head against the back wall of the house. "Ya-ah," taunted John as the
+catcher scrambled for the ball. "'Fraid to put 'em near me. 'Fraid to
+put 'em near me."
+
+Again a window creaked, and again a maternal voice showed that attention
+had been drawn to the "Tigers" latest recreation.
+
+"What _are_ you boys trying to do?" fretfully. "Don't you know this
+house has windows in it?"
+
+"Go easy," cautioned Bill in an undertone. "Remember, Sid, you haven't
+thrown a ball since last summer. I don't want any 'penny lectures'
+'cause you smashed some glass."
+
+Sid drew his arm back for the second time. John leaned forward, caught
+the slowly moving ball with the full force of the bat, and tore for
+first base.
+
+"Over the fence is out, over the fence is out," came the chorus.
+"Silvey's turn next."
+
+The ex-batsman took up the position near the fence in disgust. Skinny
+moved forward to the pitcher's box, and Sid replaced Bill as catcher.
+The muscles of Skinny's long, thin arms tightened as he grasped the ball
+for his first pitch of the season.
+
+Suddenly the subdued afternoon babel of the city was dwarfed by a
+humming of factory whistles, some long drawn and of deep bass, others
+quicker and higher pitched, rising and dying away in succession as they
+were supplanted by the distance-mellowed notes of other establishments
+with lagging time clocks. Dismay robbed John's face of the grin of a
+moment before.
+
+"Five o'clock," he cried as he threw the baseball glove into the
+quickening grass. "Jiminy, kids, and the paper wagon comes at ten of!"
+
+Inquiry at the little dingy-windowed delicatessen and milk depot
+confirmed his fears. The cart had arrived on time, and his customers
+would expect their news sheets that evening.
+
+What a pest the business was growing to be. It wasn't half-bad in winter
+when the afternoons were short, but now that spring had arrived, there
+were so many delightful demands on a boy's time. He counted the coins in
+his pocket, and made a mental calculation of the number of papers
+actually needed.
+
+"Give me all you've got," he demanded of the astonished delicatessen
+proprietor. That thin-haired, shaky-fingered gentleman counted the
+papers on the black news stand.
+
+"There's one for ol' Miss Anderson, an' one for--"
+
+"Never mind them," John broke in excitedly. "Give me all your papers!
+You've got to!"
+
+At that, the number was pitifully inadequate for his demands. He
+retraced his steps to the corner and hurried over to the suburban
+railroad station. There, the leader of the "Jefferson Toughs" was trying
+to dispose of the last of his wares.
+
+"Let's have 'em all," said John. His rival gazed at him in amazement.
+
+"Quit your kiddin'," he ejaculated finally.
+
+"Honest 'n truth," John assured him. "Missed the paper wagon, and I've
+got to fix my customers, somehow."
+
+Next, he ran westward to the little school store to beg Miss Thomas to
+disappoint her steady patrons for just this once. The search led him far
+beyond the university buildings and the gray-stone flat which had marked
+the limits of their hitching trip in February, down to the business
+street with its rattling surface cars which lay a full mile west of
+John's home. He returned by a side street, four blocks to the north,
+stopping at the numerous little stationery and notion shops on the way.
+Even with that, certain staid and substantial customers were horrified
+to find that the yellowest of yellow newspapers had supplanted their
+conservative favorite, that evening.
+
+He came home tired and footsore, and went wearily to bed after a
+half-eaten supper. The business which he had built up so zestfully in
+the autumn had enfettered him, and was shaping his leisure moments like
+an inexorable machine, and the realization of it gave him moodily
+thoughtful moments during the remainder of the week.
+
+Sunday, blessedly work free, was warm and sun-shiny. As soon as he had
+eaten dinner, he grabbed his battered cap from the hall chair and
+started for the door.
+
+"Going for a walk," he explained to Mrs. Fletcher as she looked up from
+the Sunday paper.
+
+"Louise going with you?"
+
+"Not much! Silvey'n me are going on a real walk. We don't want to feed
+squirrels on an afternoon like this."
+
+It was as if the entire city's population had turned out to welcome the
+arrival of spring. The street leading from the car terminal was thronged
+with a constantly moving procession bound for the park. White-faced
+stenographers and anaemic clerks came from the dingy boarding-house
+districts to the north. Stockily built mechanics swaggered along with
+their simpering, gaudily dressed lady loves. Here and there were entire
+families of substantial Germans and Swedes, and occasionally, swarthy
+Italians and beady-eyed, voluble Jews. Sooner or later, they all lost
+themselves in the winding gravel paths of the park, or made their way to
+the broad walk along the lake front, where the air was filled with their
+polyglot babel.
+
+"Isn't it peachy?" asked John as the boys passed the long, parallel rows
+of poplars which marked the edge of the park. "Come on, Bill. Let's go
+to the island."
+
+The path led them by the boat landing. All traces of the warming house
+which had sheltered so many numbed skaters during the winter had been
+removed. In its stead, were piled rows upon rows of yellow,
+flat-bottomed boats, one on top of another, with boards separating them.
+
+"Look!" John pointed them out. "That means summer's coming soon, and
+fishing, and school vacation." On the island, they found two severely
+dressed, angular students from the university who stood beneath a small
+brown bird in the branch of a budding maple. As he sunned himself
+happily, the taller of the two consulted a book which she held in one
+hand in a manner vaguely suggestive of Miss Brown and school
+recitations.
+
+"It is a little smaller than Wilson's thrush, Maria," she admitted.
+"Still----"
+
+John chuckled; "Nothing but a sparrow." He brushed past a bench on which
+was squatted a be-shawled, unwashed, immigrant grandmother. "Come on
+down this little path, Bill. Perhaps we can find some birds if we look."
+
+But the season was still a little too early for the arrival of the
+robins, the yellowhammers, and the elusive kinglets and thrushes from
+the southland. Though the boys stalked in and out the winding,
+bush-beset trail, their search startled only nervous-tailed squirrels
+and dozens of the feathered gamins which had so sorely puzzled the two
+schoolmams. But the dandelions were poking their green shoots through
+the deposit of snow-packed autumn leaves, and the moss on the tree
+trunks lightened the somber gray of the bark. In one inlet of the
+lagoon, John caught a gleam in the water which was not a ripple
+reflection of the sun's rays.
+
+"Sunfish," he whispered to Bill.
+
+A bungling pair of grown-ups crashed down the path and drove the wary
+feeders to cover in deeper water. The boys waited a few futile minutes
+for their return, then dashed noisily over the wooden south bridge, past
+the golf links with its dense mass of patiently waiting enthusiasts, and
+down the gently sloping road to the stone bridge which marked the
+entrance to the yacht harbor.
+
+There, where the black, bobbing buoys marked the moorings of the summer
+fleet of skiffs and schooners, of noisy little open motorboats, and
+long, heavily powered gasoline cruisers, Silvey found an empty bottle on
+the graveled shore. John looked at it reflectively.
+
+"Got some paper?"
+
+Bill found an old spelling sheet in his pocket. John tore off the
+cleanest end and, with the curving side of the bottle for a writing
+board, scribbled a laborious note.
+
+"Lat 57, Long 64," he began, remembering the inevitable heading of the
+missives in sea-faring novels. "Nancy Lee sank this date, August 3,
+1872. All hands lost but me. Frank Smith."
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+He worked the note down the narrow glass neck and plugged it with a bit
+of driftwood. "Maybe somebody, 'way across the lake, will find this," he
+explained, as he threw the receptacle far out on the water. "Then
+they'll think a ship's sunk."
+
+"What's 'lat' and 'long'?" asked Silvey, as they watched it bobbing up
+and down with the ripples.
+
+"The checkerboard lines on the geography maps," his chum answered
+evasively, as they retraced their steps northward.
+
+At the macadam road they hesitated. On the other side lay the smaller
+golf course, which offered excellent amusement because of its many
+enthusiastic novices at the sport, and the lure of an occasional
+shrubbery-hidden ball which might be found by keen eyes. Ahead,
+stretched the lake and the broad walk, thronged with laughing, friendly
+humanity.
+
+"Let's go the beach way," said John suddenly. Indeed, no spring jaunt
+could be complete without a stroll over the clinging, weather-beaten
+sand.
+
+They halted first at the long pier, and walked out to the end to catch
+the invigorating freshness of the water-kissed south wind. There, a
+persistent fisherman, the first of that season's nimrod tribe, leaned
+against the life-preserver post.
+
+John leaned cautiously over to see if captive perch were floating back
+and forth. Only ruffled water met his gaze.
+
+"Biting any?" he asked.
+
+The fisherman shook his head. "A mite early, I guess."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," John encouraged. "Come on, Sil, let's sit down and
+watch. Maybe he'll catch something soon."
+
+So the boys dangled their feet over the edge of the pier until the
+lengthening shadows told that it was time to leave for home. They rose
+regretfully and resumed the saunter along the broad walk with its many,
+occupied benches. Down on the sand, children hazarded spring colds as
+they fashioned hills and castles by the lake. Further along, an ardent
+youth serenely disregarded photographic rules and pointed his kodak at a
+group of laughing girls who stood between him and the setting sun. As
+the boys left the park, they passed a group of gray-suited ball players,
+which had been using one of the park diamonds near the golf links. John
+watched them a minute.
+
+"Most time for our team to get together again," he said.
+
+Silvey nodded. "Sid was talking about it after the game of scrub the
+other day. Wants to be captain this year."
+
+John laughed scornfully. As Silvey well knew, he, himself, intended to
+be re-elected to that important office. "Let's go home by the big lot
+and see what it's like," he suggested.
+
+A few minutes later they clambered over the shaky fence which separated
+the field from the sidewalk and neighboring dairy pasturage. Silvey dug
+his foot into the yielding turf, which had formed the scene of that
+football scrimmage between the "Jeffersons" and the "Tigers."
+
+"'Most dry enough to play on," he observed.
+
+John nodded. The flat, white stone which had been used for a home plate
+during the summer had been removed as a hindrance to the gridiron sport,
+and the base lines which had been worn into the turf by frequent boyish
+footsteps, were almost obliterated by the winter's debris and the rank,
+quickening grass. Not an inspiring view by any means, yet John gazed
+upon it in dreamy satisfaction.
+
+"Let's make 'er a _real_ home grounds," he said suddenly. "Soon as it
+gets drier, we'll bring our rakes over and get this stuff out of the
+way;" he kicked a rusty tin can to one side. "Then we'll cut the grass
+and make cinder base lines, and everything'll be just peachy."
+
+Silvey beamed, enthralled as usual by John's fertile imagination.
+
+"Then," went on John, as he retraced his steps to the walk, "we'll get
+some lumber from new flat buildings and put up a grand stand and call it
+'The Tigers' Baseball Park.'"
+
+They halted some minutes later in front of the Silvey house. John's
+watch told of at least a quarter of an hour before supper time, and they
+perched themselves on the top step to talk of fishing, of the May
+vacation of a week which would soon be upon them, of the leaky roof in
+the shack, and lastly of the baseball team.
+
+"Joe Menard's folks had to move," said Silvey, as he thought over the
+roster of last year's organization.
+
+"We'll get a pitcher somewhere," said John, a trifle impatiently, as he
+changed the subject. "So Sid wants to be captain, does he?"
+
+Silvey smiled, as does an adult listening to the vagaries of a child.
+"You know him as well as I do."
+
+"But who'll vote for him? There's Red and Skinny and you and me and
+Perry and the Harrison kids, all don't like him. If it wasn't for that
+baseball and bat, and those gloves of his, he couldn't a' played with us
+last year."
+
+Silvey shrugged his shoulders. "He's going around school, saying that
+he's going to be captain of the 'Tigers' this year."
+
+"You're president of the club, aren't you?" said John, thoughtfully.
+
+His chum nodded.
+
+"I'll go around and see all the fellows. Any of 'em who won't vote for
+me, you tell 'em they'll be dropped from the club. We'll have a meeting
+when everything's fixed, and Mr. Sid DuPree won't think himself so
+smart."
+
+Never was precinct canvassed more thoroughly by a municipal candidate
+than was the membership of the "Tigers" by the two boys during the week
+which followed. John dropped the usual walk home with Louise, one day,
+that he might talk to Skinny Mosher, and hung around the school yard
+another noon, that he might reassure himself of Brown's loyalty. With a
+clear majority of six assured over Sid's lone vote, code notices were
+sent back and forth between the different members until Miss Brown
+threatened to send the responsible parties to the principal's office.
+
+With victory certain, John raced across the school yard and caught up
+with a certain maiden whom he had neglected sorely of late.
+
+"We're going to have a ball team election tomorrow," he explained, as he
+took possession of her school books. "I've been awfully busy."
+
+"I know," she replied absently. "Sid told me. Says he's going to be
+captain."
+
+"Guess not!" John was too pleased with the surprise prepared for his
+rival to realize the revelation in her words. "Smarty DuPree hasn't much
+show when six of the fellows are going to vote for me."
+
+Conversation lagged. Miss Martin was nervously alert lest she encounter
+a friendly greeting from Sid while her escort was with her, and John
+became absorbed in the affairs of the morrow. Strangely enough, he
+experienced a feeling of relief when he left her at the apartment
+building and was able to race back to the shack where Silvey was
+waiting.
+
+There the two planned and boasted of combats to take place under his
+leadership on the renovated baseball field, until a warning conscience
+reminded John that it was nearing paper time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MORE ABOUT "THE GREATEST GAME IN THE WORLD"
+
+
+One by one, the boys filed in through the Silvey gateway, to squat
+outside the club-house entrance until their roster was complete. Bill
+glanced nervously at Sid and cleared his throat.
+
+"It's baseball time," he began abruptly. "And we've got to elect our
+captain and manager. Any--" he paused and looked at John.
+
+"Nom'nations?" said the latter promptly.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Sid tightened his grasp on a handful of
+the fresh, green turf. John looked meaningly at Red Brown, who spoke up
+as he had been instructed.
+
+"I nom'nate John Fletcher. He was captain last year 'n he ought to be
+this."
+
+"Any one else?" asked Silvey.
+
+"I want to be captain," said Sid, curtly.
+
+"Can't nom'nate yourself," ruled the president. "Somebody's got to do it
+for you."
+
+"Somebody's got to second it, too," supplemented John.
+
+Sid gazed helplessly about. Truly this newly made maze of parliamentary
+law was bewildering. "Nobody's seconded John's," he said at last.
+
+"Second John's nom'nation," said Skinny Mosher promptly.
+
+"All those in favor of John as captain--"
+
+Sid sprang to his feet. "Wait a minute," he snapped. "You fellows think
+you're smart, but let me tell you something. I said I was going to be
+captain, and I am."
+
+"You!" sneered John. "Why, you lost the game with Room Six's team 'cause
+you couldn't stop an easy grounder. Let it roll between your legs, you
+did."
+
+"Don't care," was the stubborn reply. "I'm going to be captain. Whose
+league ball did the team use last year?"
+
+"Yours," admitted Silvey, reluctantly.
+
+"And the two bats, the second baseman's glove, and two fielders' mitts
+were mine, too, weren't they? Didn't my dad buy 'em for me? Well, go
+ahead and have Johnny for your old captain if you want. But if I can't
+run the team, the team can't use my things!"
+
+There was an astounded silence. Those astute politicians, John and Bill,
+had never dreamed of such a barefaced threat. They sat looking blankly
+at him, while Red Brown laughed disagreeably.
+
+"And you're the kid who went home crying 'cause you were hit on the shin
+with a baseball. Fine captain, you'll make."
+
+"Captain and the gloves, or you play without 'em," came the arrogant
+ultimatum. "Which do you want?"
+
+He could see by the thoughtful faces around him that his words were not
+without effect. Last year, the team had owned a reputation for being
+blessed with proper equipment, and to go back to the cheap, undersized
+balls, and scantily padded private mitts would be no small privation.
+John sighed wearily.
+
+"Guess you can be captain if you want to," he said, finally.
+
+A reluctantly assenting chorus sanctioned his consent. Bill broached the
+subject of the baseball park improvements, and Sid shook his head
+emphatically. The idea was his rival's and therefore to be fought.
+
+"The park diamonds are lots better," he argued. "Take us all year to fix
+the lot up."
+
+"But it'd be our own," Red broke in enthusiastically. "Think of playing
+the 'Jeffersons' on the 'Tigers' Home Grounds.' 'Tain't every team could
+say that, could it?" Which was the truth, for the vacant lots of the
+neighborhood were being rapidly supplanted by flat buildings and room
+for boyish playgrounds was becoming more and more scarce.
+
+Sid considered the matter a moment. Certainly it would add to the
+team's, and his, prestige.
+
+"Well, maybe," he said, with seeming reluctance that his change of front
+might not seem too obvious. "Let's go over and see what the place is
+like."
+
+"First across the tracks," shouted Red, as he sprang to his feet. In a
+moment, the whole tribe was up and after him, climbing the wire railroad
+fence with a vigor which threatened destruction to the meshes. They
+scampered across the expanse of cinders and rails, broken here and there
+by a struggling bit of plant life, and scrambled out on the untidy
+field.
+
+The broken glass and old milk-bottle tops from the dairy had crept
+further out from the low, tar-paper building during the winter. Boards
+from the boxes and barrels which had formed the fortress for the
+cucumber fight were scattered to the four corners of the field, and the
+sparse, fresh grass blades sprang up to sunlight and life through the
+dead, gray-brown vegetation of the preceding autumn. Neither trace of
+baseball diamond nor football gridiron could be found. Yet the "Tigers"
+purposed to make the place the talk of the juvenile population and they
+turned to their captain for advice.
+
+"Oh, fix 'er up someway," said that gentleman vaguely. John glared at
+him in futile anger.
+
+"Get the rubbish out of the way, first," he broke out.
+
+Sid shrugged his shoulders. "John'll tell you what to do. I'm captain,
+but so long as the park's fixed up, I don't care who does it."
+
+"Get your rake, Bill, and you, too, Skinny. I'll go after ours. Rest of
+you kids pick up the tin cans and wood and things while we're gone. Come
+on, fellows. Beat you over the tracks."
+
+John dropped his rake over the fence on his return, and glanced at his
+watch as a precaution. It was nearly five! Blame the paper business
+anyway! Never did he start some important project but what time flew so
+swiftly that he had to leave just when things were getting interesting.
+He called an explanatory "paper time!" to his team mates, turned his
+implement over to Red, and left for the little delicatessen store.
+
+All the next Monday afternoon the boys labored while their captain stood
+around with his hands in his pockets and watched condescendingly. John
+picked up Bill on his return from the paper route, and went over to the
+lot to inspect the carefully combed playing area. The broken glass,
+rain-soaked paper caps, sticks, boards, and dead grass had been
+carefully assembled in conical heaps near the railroad fence, and he
+beamed his approval.
+
+"It's going to be peachy, Silvey," he broke out.
+
+"Yes, and Sid'll say he did it," his chum commented bitterly.
+
+"What do we care? We'll put the home plate here," he indicated a spot
+some fifty feet north of the dairy buildings. "Then the sun won't get in
+our eyes. I'll borrow dad's big tapeline to measure off the other bases,
+and the grand stand can go here. It'll be big enough to hold 'most fifty
+people!"
+
+Silvey listened in amazement. He could run a football team as
+quarter-back to perfection, or break through the opposing line time and
+again, as he had done last autumn, but this fertile foresight was
+something beyond his comprehension.
+
+"You talk as if you see it," he said finally.
+
+"Why, I do." John dismissed the matter as worthy of no further comment.
+"But before we do any of these things, we've got to cut the grass and
+see where the bumps in the ground are."
+
+For two afternoons the whirr of lawnmowers was heard over the "Tigers'
+Home Grounds." When the many hollows and hummocks in the uneven turf
+came to light, the youthful construction boss ordered that shovels be
+brought, and another day passed in transporting dirt and leveling the
+obstructions off. Pail after pail of water was carried from the dairy
+buildings to wet down and harden the new, loose earth, and it was
+Saturday morning before the distances between the various bases and the
+pitcher's box could be measured off.
+
+"We'll start filling in the paths with cinders now," said John, as
+Silvey drove a peg into the ground to mark the location of the home
+plate.
+
+"Won't they hurt when you slide on them?" drawled Perry Alford.
+
+"But there's nothing else to use, is there?"
+
+"They're starting a flat building next old lady Meeker's on Southern
+Avenue," the boy suggested. "Why not get sand from there?"
+
+John shot him a glance of approval and called to the team members.
+"Everybody get a pail and meet at Silvey's," he concluded, as they
+started for the railroad tracks.
+
+"I'll sit here and watch the tools," said Sid, brazenly.
+
+"Aren't you going to work at all?" broke out Silvey impatiently.
+
+"Don't have to," was the unperturbed reply. "I'm the captain."
+
+They left their nominal leader to do as he desired and scattered to
+commandeer the various family buckets and fiber pails. Skinny, who lived
+farthest from the Silvey's, came up at last with his utensil, and they
+set off, single file, past Neighborhood Hall and the corner grocery
+stores, and around to quiet, sedate Southern Avenue, beating a crude
+marching rhythm on the tins as they went. At the sight of the ten-foot
+sandhill which the excavations for the apartments had formed, John broke
+into a run.
+
+"Beat you there!" he shouted.
+
+Away they went after him, pell-mell, and dashed up the yielding sides to
+bury their pails deep in the golden particles. Silvey braced himself,
+tugged his load free, and staggered along the walk for perhaps thirty
+feet. John caught up with him and also halted for a rest.
+
+At last they started again, but it was no light-hearted, carefree,
+return trip for the "Tigers." The sand-filled buckets weighed too much
+to be used as drums, and they retraced their steps slowly, dropping them
+every few minutes to ease their aching wrists. In front of Neighborhood
+Hall, Skinny found a blister on one of his hands.
+
+"Think we'll ever get back?" he asked, despairingly.
+
+"It isn't so far now," John encouraged him. "We've only got to go
+another block before we turn. Then it's a half-block down to the hole in
+the fence. Come on. I'll stump you to carry yours as far as the railroad
+tracks."
+
+Thus by making it a matter of athletic prowess the boys carried their
+loads to the destination. But the little heaps on the dusty earth looked
+pitifully insignificant. Skinny borrowed a pin and lanced the white
+protuberance at the base of his second finger.
+
+"Jiminy," he mourned, as he squeezed the water out. "It's going to be an
+awful lot of work, fellows."
+
+They raked the sand level along the path from the plate to first base.
+Not by the wildest stretch of imagination could they seem to reach even
+a quarter of the distance, and protruding grass blades showed that the
+covering was far too scanty.
+
+"Where's your wagon, John?" asked Red Brown suddenly.
+
+"Busted," said John, reproachfully. "Have you forgotten?"
+
+During the summer preceding, a fever of wagon building had seized the
+boys. Every spare wheel and tricycle frame in the block had been
+requisitioned for the construction of a half-dozen little vehicles which
+suddenly appeared to scud down the sidewalks and over the smooth macadam
+street. There had been discussions and disputes as to speed, and John's
+wagon, a long, well-oiled affair with a coat of red, discarded house
+paint on its framework, had come to grief in a collision with Brown's,
+one sunny afternoon. Even Silvey, the optimist, who had furnished the
+motive power, had looked at the wreckage in well-founded despair.
+
+"Where's yours?" Red turned abruptly to the Harrison boys.
+
+"In the basement."
+
+Skinny Mosher's, too, was still in existence. All the rest of the
+morning and afternoon, the two wagons ran merrily toward the Southern
+Avenue sand hill, or creaked slowly and laboriously back to the "Tigers'
+Home Grounds," with such good effect that but a scant ten feet of path
+remained to be filled in when John's paper route called him.
+
+Silvey and he sauntered over that evening after supper to make the final
+inspection of the work.
+
+"Just like the park diamonds, isn't it?" he asked, as Silvey stretched a
+pair of weary arms.
+
+"And Sid said he was glad he thought of it. And we worked like
+everything while he stood around!"
+
+John scarcely heard him as he stood, eyes a-dream, looking over the
+even, carefully raked turf. "The grand stand comes next, Bill. Do you
+think we ought to tear down the shack for lumber?"
+
+Bill demurred. That shaky building occupied too great a place of
+importance in the boys' lives to justify such a sacrifice. Surely there
+were enough new buildings being erected in the neighborhood without
+that.
+
+Sid made an announcement on the following Monday which made the
+postponement of that last bit of construction work imperative.
+
+"Saw the captain of the 'Jeffersons,'" he beamed as the little group
+gathered about him on the baseball diamond. "We're going to play 'em
+this Saturday."
+
+"What?" John exploded. Sid nodded his head.
+
+"They've got the best team around," Silvey broke out. "And they've been
+practicing in the park ever since the snow melted. How can we lick 'em
+now?"
+
+Sid shrugged his shoulders aggravatingly.
+
+"Haven't you any brains at all?" John stormed.
+
+"I'm captain," Sid snapped back at the insurgents. "I'm running this
+team. If you don't like it, you can quit!"
+
+The voice of Skinny Mosher, the peacemaker, broke in: "Aw, kids, never
+mind. 'Tain't so bad as it looks. Let's start practicing now, and maybe
+we can beat 'em anyway."
+
+It was excellent advice, and the boys scampered over the tracks for
+home, to return singly and in pairs with their baseball paraphernalia.
+John took up his old position at first, and Silvey donned his catcher's
+mitt to receive and return imaginary balls thrown by the other players.
+Red Brown and Perry Alford stationed themselves at second and shortstop
+respectively, while the Harrison boys stood around and waited until duty
+should call them to the outfield.
+
+"Where's Skinny and Sid?" asked John as he glanced around.
+
+"There's Mosher, now," exclaimed Silvey, as a tall and diminutive figure
+made their way down the railroad embankment. "Kid brother with him as
+usual."
+
+"Had to bring him," the unfortunate elder boy exclaimed when he reached
+the diamond. "Ma wouldn't let me come unless I did."
+
+They accepted the affliction resignedly. "He can watch," said Silvey.
+"Come on, John. Toss up your little ball while we're waiting."
+
+Accordingly, the first baseman brought out a lopsided ten-cent ball and
+threw it toward third. Skinny Mosher dropped the sphere as if it were a
+hot coal.
+
+"Go easy," he cautioned. "Sid hasn't brought my glove yet."
+
+The elder Harrison boy who aspired to fill Joe Menard's place, ran over
+to the pitcher's box, and the tossing was resumed. From third to first,
+second to pitcher, and then to Silvey, and back again. Muscles became
+limbered and arms more certain of their mark. Skinny misgauged a swift
+throw from John and caught the ball on the tip of his fingers.
+
+"Jiminy!" he yelled. "What you think you're doing?"
+
+"Butter fingers, butter fingers!" came the taunting reply.
+
+"Don't care. I'm going to wait for my glove. Here's Sid now."
+
+The team turned as one man and stared in astonishment. Their captain had
+delayed his return to don his new baseball suit, and from the spikes on
+his shoes to the visor of his red-trimmed cap, he was a perfect
+miniature of a professional player. Even John was unable to restrain an
+envious stare at the natty flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and the
+maroon and white stockings.
+
+"Cost eight dollars, it did," Sid announced, as he acknowledged the
+unconscious homage with a satisfied smile. "Dad gave it to me 'cause I
+was captain. Here's the gloves and the ball and the bat. Let's start
+practice."
+
+They ran back to their positions. Sid, bat in hand, stood by the plate,
+tossed the league ball high in the air, and knocked the sphere easily
+toward third base. Skinny, with the confidence engendered by a
+well-padded hand, scooped the ball with surprising accuracy and returned
+it. Again Sid repeated the process.
+
+Red pranced impatiently up and down on the sand path. "Give me one this
+time," he begged. "Don't send 'em all to Skinny."
+
+The captain of the "Tigers" nodded and hit the descending ball with all
+his force a little too far for Red to reach. A quick glance showed the
+impending catastrophe.
+
+"Hey, kid, get out of the way," he yelled. The warning came too late.
+The ball skimmed over the grass, struck a hummock which had been
+overlooked by the builders of the diamond, and ricochetted upward into
+the hapless Mosher youngster's stomach.
+
+Yells filled the air. Skinny, unwilling slave, stooped over his
+prostrate brother. "Hurt much?" he queried anxiously. John glanced at
+his watch in boredom, for such occurrences had lost their novelty long
+months ago.
+
+"Paper time," he called, as he made for the tracks. A last glance back
+before the dairy buildings cut off the view, showed the wailing infant
+trudging sturdily toward the walk. Every line of his figure indicated
+maddened determination to tell his mother on the whole team.
+
+Tuesday and Wednesday sped past. It became more and more apparent that a
+substitute for Joe Menard must be found if the "Tigers" were to have
+even a fighting chance of holding their own with the ancient enemy. Time
+and again Haldane Harrison took his place to whip a few slightly curving
+balls down to the critical Silvey, only to realize that his knowledge of
+the art was sadly deficient. They all had a try at it, eventually, while
+Sid stood by with a sarcastic grin on his face and watched their futile
+efforts.
+
+The next noon, John walked home with Louise, a custom sadly broken since
+the baseball season had begun, and passed a stockily built lad who was
+bouncing a baseball against the side of a house but a few doors from the
+Martin's apartment. On the way back, he stopped to watch. The newcomer
+returned his stare with equal interest.
+
+"'Lo," said John, as he walked nearer.
+
+"'Lo," said the boy with an ingratiating smile.
+
+"My name's John Fletcher."
+
+"Mine's Francis Yager," spoken with equal curtness.
+
+"Live here?" asked the first baseman of the "Tigers." The boy admitted
+that such was the case. "There's my house," explained John, pointing
+with an inkstained finger.
+
+There was an awkward silence. Francis bounced his ball against the side
+of the house a few times.
+
+"Ever play baseball?" asked John, as the boy made a difficult catch of
+an erratic return from a drain pipe. The newcomer turned, his face
+lighted with interest.
+
+"Just bet you!" he beamed. "Back home we had a team and I played--"
+
+"Pitcher?" asked John, breathlessly. The new boy nodded. Truly the fates
+were proving kind to the "Tigers" that day.
+
+"What can you throw?"
+
+"An 'in,' and an 'out,' and a 'slow ball.'" The expert paused in the
+summary of his attainments. "Last year, I was just getting so's I could
+pitch a drop. But it didn't work very well."
+
+Dinner, maternal lectures, all were forgotten as John poured out the
+tale of the "Tigers'" woes to his new friend. Arm in arm, they made
+their way up to Silvey's house. That catcher tried out the new recruit,
+while John watched eagerly, and pronounced him all and more than he had
+claimed for himself.
+
+"We'll fix the 'Jeffersons' now," John shouted confidently. "You can
+hold 'em, Francis, old boy."
+
+He marched the new member over the tracks to the ball grounds, that
+afternoon, and introduced him to the delighted team. Sid heard Silvey's
+tale of the pitcher's prowess with ill-disguised resentment.
+
+"He can play in the outfield," he said shortly. "I'm going to do it
+myself."
+
+"You!" shrieked John.
+
+"Yes, me!"
+
+"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball. Pitch! Only
+reason we let you play at all last year was because--" He checked
+himself suddenly. Sid only smiled.
+
+"I'm captain," he replied, as John finished. "I'm running this team. I'm
+going to pitch, and if you don't like it, you can quit." He walked over
+to the position, leaving a dazed and resentful first baseman behind him.
+
+That evening, John returned from the paper route to eat supper
+listlessly and skip up to Silvey's as soon as he had finished. The team,
+his team which he had built up with such care last year, was going to
+the dogs, and he craved sympathy from Bill about it.
+
+"He's crazy," his chum sighed when John's outburst had slackened. "You
+should a' seen him when you'd gone for the papers, today. First he threw
+over my head, and then to one side, 'most out of my reach. He hit the
+ground twice before he could throw a fast one over the plate, and
+Francis laughed at him. 'Well,' says Sid, 'I guess I can learn before
+Saturday. I've got a book at home that tells all about it.'"
+
+"Maybe--" said John, thoughtfully.
+
+"Maybe what?"
+
+"Maybe the 'Jeffersons' 'll make so many runs in the first inning that
+he'll have to quit. Then Francis can play, and perhaps we can catch up
+with them."
+
+"But he won't let Francis learn my signals," Silvey complained. "Says
+he's captain and we've got to do just what he says."
+
+"Get Francis to come down to your yard tomorrow noon," John counseled,
+as he stood up and stretched himself. "Teach him then."
+
+Thus it came about that, unknown to Sid, two small figures rehearsed for
+a good hour, such intricacies as "Two fingers against the glove means a
+swift one," "when I pound like this, it means an 'out,'" and "this means
+an 'in'" until Francis became letter-perfect in them.
+
+That Friday afternoon, the "Tigers" gathered for the final practice
+before the first and most important game of the season. Silvey knocked
+grounders innumerable to the different members of the infield who
+handled them with uncanny dexterity, or sent long flies out to the
+waiting players until he grew tired and Sid supplanted him. Red Brown
+and one or two of the fleeter spirits of the team raced from base to
+base, practicing a little trick of sliding which Red had noticed at a
+park baseball game, and Sid took his position as pitcher for a few
+minutes' erratic practice with Silvey. John left them for the night,
+wavering between confidence and despair as to the result of the morrow.
+Everything had gone marvelously well with the exception of Sid.
+
+"If he quits early," Silvey consoled him as they sat on the Fletcher
+front steps just before bed time, "we'll win after all."
+
+"We'll have to," said John, stubbornly, as he rose in answer to his
+mother's call. "So-long, Bill."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HE'S "THROUGH WITH GIRLS"
+
+
+Nine o'clock in the morning saw the "Tigers" assembled in front of the
+Silvey home. Sid wore his elaborate outfit; Bill, the ragged football
+trousers which had done duty in the autumn, and John sported a battered
+cap. Other uniforms among them there were not, but the team made a brave
+showing, nevertheless, as it trooped lustily toward the corner. No
+scampering across the railroad embankment this time for the members. A
+baseball game demanded a more ceremonious arrival on the grounds. They
+neared the viaduct and Red and Perry Alford began a tattoo on the cement
+walk with the baseball bats. The other players broke into that
+time-honored refrain,
+
+    Hip! Hip!
+    I had a good job
+    And I quit.
+    My name is Sam
+    And I don't give a--[pause]
+    Hippetty hippetty, hip!
+
+With the corner and adult ears left behind them, Sid, in a spirit of
+bravado, filled in the tabooed expletive and aroused the awed admiration
+of his subordinates.
+
+Past the long, low, red art shops they swaggered, keeping perfect time
+to the chant as they rounded the corner. John who was a little ahead of
+the others, broke into a sharp cry of dismay.
+
+"Look! _Our grounds!_"
+
+The consternation which was on his face spread to theirs. The shaky,
+weather-beaten fence by the sidewalk had been torn down before their
+arrival. At intervals, load after load of building stone rumbled over
+hastily formed paths of heavy planks. Further in, on the field, from the
+home-plate northward over the painstakingly levelled earth, harnessed
+horses sweated and tugged at the traces as scoop after scoop bit into
+the turf and came up filled with dirt to be emptied against the railroad
+tracks.
+
+"Flats," gasped Silvey, as they drew nearer. John said nothing, but his
+lower lip trembled as the last trace of the beautifully sanded base
+lines disappeared under the excavators' devastating hands.
+
+"'Tis a pity," said the kindly Irishman, who noted their approach, "but
+it has to be, I guess, kids. Yis, the other team went home, fifteen
+minutes ago. Said they didn't guess there'd be a game today."
+
+They stopped in dazed bewilderment to watch the progress of the
+foundation work. At last, John, sick at heart, slunk away. He wanted to
+be home, away from everyone until he could get control of his feelings.
+As he came down the street with his baseball glove dangling aimlessly in
+one hand, he stumbled over the Mosher youngster who was intent upon some
+childish pursuit in the dust of the gutter.
+
+"Get out of the way," he stormed angrily. To vent his disappointment
+upon even so small an offender was a relief. The infant smiled
+maliciously.
+
+"Johnny an' Louise, Johnny an' Louise," he chanted, reviving the cry of
+the autumn before.
+
+"Well, what about it," demanded John belligerently.
+
+"Louise had a soda with Sid. Saw her, saw her!"
+
+"When?" Had Louise, too, forsaken him in this hour of grief?
+
+"Yesterday. Sidney an' Louise, Sidney an' Louise," came the taunting
+revision.
+
+John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the
+Halloween party--the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated
+in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since
+that time--clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back
+and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball
+gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his
+girl.
+
+The appearance of that gentleman around the corner put a stop to his
+meditations. John waited until he sauntered unsuspectingly up to him.
+
+"Say, Sid!"
+
+"Yes?" A note in the voice put the captain of the "Tigers" on his guard.
+
+"What's this I hear about Louise?"
+
+"N-nothing."
+
+"Been drinking sodas with her again, have you?"
+
+"Who told you?" Sid made a futile effort to edge past the inquisitor.
+
+"Never mind who. Promise not to do it any more or I'll--" He clenched
+one fist and drew it back threateningly.
+
+"Guess I won't," retorted Sid with sudden spirit. "Guess I've got as
+much right to drink sodas with her as anybody. Who's going to stop me?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+"You," scornfully.
+
+At this moment, the very cause of the dissension came skipping along
+with the inevitable package from the grocery under one arm. Feminine
+intuition told her that trouble was lurking in the air, and she would
+have passed but John held up a detaining hand.
+
+"Louise, you've been drinking sodas with Sid again."
+
+"Haven't either," in the same breath came the admission, "who told you?"
+
+John gave her a searching glance. "Tell this _guy_," he said with
+infinite scorn, "that you won't have anything more to do with him. Tell
+him you're my girl, Louise," he added incautiously.
+
+The lady's head went back to a warning angle.
+
+"Go on!" John ordered.
+
+"Guess I won't!" she snapped, angered by his persistence. "Guess I
+won't!" she repeated angrily. "'Cause I'm not anybody's girl. So there!"
+With nose held regally in the air and knees strangely jointless, she
+walked away from the pair.
+
+"Ya-a-a-h," jeered Sid incautiously.
+
+John drove out, full strength, with his right fist upon his adversary's
+nose. Sid stepped back in dismay. It wasn't fair, punching without the
+preliminary tilt of words and wary skirmishing. Again John set upon him
+and he turned, dodged behind a tree, and fled for home. Down the street
+they tore at top speed. Inch by inch, the space between the two
+diminished as they passed the Alfords, the Harrisons, and finally
+arrived at the DuPree iron gate.
+
+"Ma-a-a-a!" yelled Sid, as he struggled with the handle. "Come quick,
+come quick."
+
+The gate suddenly yielded. Sid sprang inside, up the front steps, and
+into the hallway. There he turned, locked the screen door, and stuck out
+his tongue at his adversary.
+
+"Ya-a-a-a!" he taunted.
+
+John contemplated an attack upon the flimsy screening, but a remnant of
+wisdom withheld him.
+
+    Fletcher,
+    The Fletcher,
+    The old fly-catcher!
+
+came the cry from the porch.
+
+"Think you're smart," John glared. "Just dare you to come down here!
+Just dare you to!"
+
+"The old fly-catcher" continued. John opened his lips for a reply in
+kind.
+
+    Sid DuPree
+    Went out on a spree
+    And never got back
+    'Til half-past three.
+
+The hero of the verse was struck suddenly dumb by this display of
+poetical ability. Again John repeated his latest composition. He was
+beginning to enjoy himself immensely. At the third repetition of the
+adventures of Sid, a window creaked noisily up.
+
+"John Fletcher," came the harsh voice from the upper window. "You're a
+nasty little boy, and if you don't leave Sidney alone, I'll telephone
+your mother."
+
+"Ya-a-a-ah," jeered Sid in an undertone. John looked and longed.
+
+"Go on," urged Mrs. DuPree. "The telephone's right here in the hallway."
+
+He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and crossed over
+to his own porch. Once up in his room, he threw himself on the bed, and
+as the excitement of the chase wore off began to realize the extent of
+the morning's losses.
+
+The athletic field upon which they had labored so long and carefully,
+was torn to pieces--gone forever. Worse than that, Louise wasn't his
+girl any more. She'd said so herself. No more samples of cookery, no
+more confidential little walks to and from school, no more
+squirrel-feeding excursions. And the glorious dream of the future was as
+completely demolished as the "Tigers' Home Grounds." There could be no
+thousand dollars and a home when he reached his majority now.
+
+He lay staring at the pattern in the ceiling paper, sobbing ever so
+little now and then, for some minutes, then wrenched himself miserably
+over on his side.
+
+There he found that horrid old bank staring him in the face, that same
+pig bank which stood a grinning monument to his industry of the past
+months. But what good was the paper route now? or where the pleasure in
+dropping his weekly income into that long, narrow slot? Louise wasn't
+his girl any more. She'd said so, herself.
+
+In a sudden fit of spite, he sprang up and seized the heavy, sneering
+bit of pottery in both hands. The next moment, it crashed to the floor
+and pennies, nickels, dimes, and even half-dollars rolled out on the
+carpet or mingled with the shattered bits of china. He stood astounded
+at the number for a moment, then gathered them up on his bed, and took
+careful count.
+
+Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents? He could scarcely believe
+his eyes.
+
+Then he lay back, not quite so grief-stricken, and stared thoughtfully
+into space until Mrs. Fletcher called him for dinner.
+
+[Illustration: _"Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents."_]
+
+At the table, that evening, he was unusually quiet. As he finished his
+last slice of bread and butter, he looked up at his father.
+
+"Dad, if a fellow earns a lot of money, all by himself, he can spend it
+any way he wants, can't he?"
+
+Mr. Fletcher nodded. "Why, son?"
+
+"I was just wondering. That's all."
+
+A week later, Louise was sitting on the street curbing in front of her
+apartment building, when a crimson-clad baseball warrior on a new
+bicycle sped over the macadam and came to a sudden halt beside her. She
+raised her eyes in astonished recognition. It was her late fiance.
+
+"'Lo."
+
+"'Lo."
+
+"Like my new wheel?"
+
+"Uhu."
+
+"Bought it out of the money I was saving so's we could get married. Cost
+me twenty-one dollars, and it's got puncture-proof tires and a real
+coaster brake. Just watch me ride it!"
+
+He sped off, rode free for a moment, threw the brake on and came to a
+sudden stop, then cut a figure eight over the paving. The clear spring
+sun made miniature rainbows in the shining, rapidly revolving spokes,
+and an early robin warbled his approval of the performance from his seat
+in a linden's top.
+
+"I can ride without touching the handles, too," he boasted, as he guided
+the wheel back to her. "Isn't it peachy?"
+
+She nodded. The long, curving bars bore a suggestion of possible rides
+on this beautiful steel-and-rubber creation, if their quarrel could be
+healed, and she held out a tentative olive branch.
+
+"Want to play jacks?"
+
+John shook his head. "Going over to the park baseball diamond with the
+'Tigers.' We're going to play the 'Jeffersons,' this afternoon."
+
+"But your paper route?"
+
+He laughed joyously. "Sold it to the newspaper man. He gave me three
+dollars and twenty-five cents for the customers."
+
+"Oh!" There was a pause.
+
+"Like my baseball suit?" he asked.
+
+She gazed at the flaming horror and nodded enthusiastically.
+
+"You ought to see me run that team!"
+
+"You?" she exclaimed. "Why, I thought Sid was captain."
+
+"He _was_," with zestful emphasis on the verb. "But I bought nine
+baseball dollar uniforms and a lot of gloves and two bats, and a real
+league ball out of my money, so the kids fired Sid and elected me. He
+isn't even on the team any more."
+
+"O-o-oh!" Truly John was becoming an important figure in the juvenile
+world.
+
+"And I've got a dollar and thirteen cents left for candy and peanuts,"
+he concluded.
+
+Louise studied the confident, freckled face before her, the sparkling
+bicycle with its glossy saddle and acetylene lamp, the heavily padded
+baseball glove on the nickeled handle bars, and then their owner again.
+She took the last remnant of her pride and stamped it under foot in a
+wave of regret.
+
+"John," she said, shyly.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I won't have anything more to do with Sid."
+
+The captain of the "Tigers" only laughed. "You can go with Sid all you
+want, and drink all the sodas he'll pay for. I don't care, because--" he
+leaned his weight forward on the pedals and started for the park so
+suddenly that she barely caught his parting words, "I'm through with
+girls. I'm going to be a bachelor!"
+
+
+
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