"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: