"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny Fletcher's out of it."

It was always the way; he was ever too reluctant to dispossess a girl of a nearly won prize to be a success at the game. But he took up a position beside the pianist and watched with amused interest. It was really just as good fun as being a participant.

Gradually all were eliminated save the Southern Avenue boy and Louise. The music began again under Mrs. Martin's nimble fingers, and swelled in volume like the notes of a church organ. Then it dragged and paused just long enough to send Louise flying to the seat before it picked up the fateful melody. Suddenly, without hint of a finish in the throbbing, rapidly beating march, there came the end. Louise found herself standing with the high-wooden back toward her, while the Southern Avenue contestant yelled triumphantly from his throne.

"Shucks!" said John in disgust. "Why didn't he let her have it? I would."

Next came "A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket." The fun grew fast and furious. No standing aloof in a corner of the room for the boys now. They enjoyed themselves too well, as each, in turn, chased, or was chased by some nimble-footed maiden around the circle. There followed "Thimble, thimble, who's got the thimble," and then Mrs. Martin's even voice:

"Perhaps some boy will suggest a game."

The winner of "Musical chairs," emboldened by his triumph, called out, "Kiss the pillow!"

Little shrieks and cries of "Won't play!" arose from some of the girls. Others maintained a coy silence. Eventually the whole company joined; that is, all save John. He saw no fun in such pastime. What was the use of kneeling on a pillow and kissing, for example, homely Ella Black? Other boys might, if they wished. There was but one divinity worthy of his homage, and he would pay none of it to other maidens.

So he followed Mrs. Martin into the dining-room, to that lady's great, though secret, merriment, and helped her arrange the plates and the spoons and napkins for the refreshments which were to follow later. The shouts from the parlor rose louder and louder.

Then came a sudden silence. Mrs. Martin turned towards the hall. Surely they didn't need her assistance again! As she passed the doorway, cries of "Post-office," "let's play 'Post-office,'" broke forth, and she returned to the table with a satisfied smile. Evidently the members of the party were furnishing their own amusement with great success.

Louise, her curls bobbing excitedly, darted into the room and seized John by the arm.

"Come on," she begged, for she was afraid he wasn't enjoying himself in the lonely dining-room. "Come on, Johnny. Please!"

It was his lady who commanded, so he obeyed. They had drawn a green portiere across the curtain pole in the doorway until the little alcove with the bookcase was shut off from the larger room for all practical intents and purposes. Jimmy, the Southern Avenue boy, waxing more and more masterful, had appointed himself postmaster, and strutted beside the narrow opening which remained. And to hold that position in a game of "Post-office" is no slight thing. Not only is the postmaster the sole witness of all that transpires behind the secretive curtain, but he is privileged to turn over the exalted office to a temporary substitute and hale the lady of his heart forward, if he so desires.

There was no lack of mail. Hardly had the window been declared open than the postmaster's chum stepped up and, after a moment of whispered conversation, disappeared behind the portiere. Called the master of ceremonies in stentorian tones:

"Two packages and three letters for Martha Gill!"

Martha Gill shook her head. Cries of "Go ahead" arose from the boys, while the girls tittered at her embarrassment. At last she gathered up courage and darted past the sentinel. John stared in amazement. Two packages and three letters—two hugs and three kisses—what was there in that overdressed little doll to merit such favor?

Correspondence became fast and furious. Eventually the postmaster called John forward and whispered a name in his ear before he went into the alcove. His appointee, concealing his astonishment as best he could, called out, "Ella Black, Ella Black; four letters for Ella Black!" at the top of his lungs. But for that much-despised young lady to be so honored by the social lion of the evening was more than he could comprehend.

As the postmaster resumed his duties, a voice cried, "Johnny, it's your turn. You haven't sent any mail yet."

John flushed and shook his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat! 'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of mischief began that scornful chant:

C'ardy, c'ardy, custard, Eatin' bread an' mustard!

He clenched his fists. If it must be, he'd show them he was no coward! A moment later, as he stood tensely in the alcove, came the postmaster's cry of "One letter for Louise Martin," and the green curtain swung aside to admit her.



She returned from the sanctum composedly. He waited a moment that they might not reappear together, and came out with eyes shining and heart a-beat.

He had kissed her! He had kissed her!

The entrance of Mrs. Martin and the maid, the one bearing heaping dishes of ice cream, and the other, as he had unwittingly prophesied, a luscious, heavily-frosted chocolate cake, brought him down to more mundane thoughts with alacrity. Indeed, he devoted himself to his portion with such earnestness that he was able to finish and place his empty plate innocently under his chair, and wait until his plight caught the servant's eye.

"Why, haven't you had any, little boy?"

He shook his head mournfully.

"How did Mrs. Martin ever come to skip you? I'll bring you some right away!"

When she reappeared, he winked heartily at his amazed companions and settled to the second helping of ice cream.

At last the party came to an end, as all such joyous occasions must, and he found himself on the sidewalk, looking up once more at the now darkened parlor. Far up the street came the hooting and jeering of a gang—possibly his own—although the voices seemed older and strange, and the gate of the house next the apartment building had disappeared, leaving empty hinges as mute testimony that some band of witches had done their work thoroughly and well.

In response to his prolonged ring and joyous kicks on the home door, Mrs. Fletcher let him in. "Don't pound so hard, son," she cautioned. "We're not deaf."

"Might a' thought it was some Halloween gang if I didn't," he defended himself as he threw his hat on the nearest chair.

"Have a good time?" she queried.

"Did I?" The earnestness of his voice left little doubt as to his sentiments. "Did I? You just bet I did!"

The family always slept late on Sunday morning, but at that, John, worn out by the excitement of the preceding evening, stirred drowsily when his father appeared in the doorway.

"Come on, John; time to get up."

"Yes, dad," gazing at him with lackluster eyes. As Mr. Fletcher left, he turned his face promptly toward the wall and dropped off to sleep again.

"John!" It was his mother's voice this time.

"Uhu."

"Why didn't you get up when your father called you?"

"Aw, let me alone. I don't want any breakfast. Honest, I don't."

"Nonsense! You can take a nap in the afternoon if you want. Come on. I won't go down stairs until I see you up."

He might as well, then. Mrs. Fletcher was pretty well versed in his tricks, thanks to long years of experience, and there was little chance of further delay. So John sat up and dangled his legs over the side of the bed, while he rubbed his sleep-laden eyes with his fists.

"Need a wet washrag?"

No. He was wide awake now. He listened to her steps on the stairs, and to the opening of the front door as his father brought in the morning paper. Then he fingered one stocking abstractedly.

Half an hour later, prompted by Mrs. Fletcher's remonstrances, her husband came up and found the boy staring with unseeing eyes far over the railroad tracks into the park. In his hand was the same stocking which he had picked up so many minutes before.

At last he appeared in the dining-room, to find that his father and mother had eaten their meal. His hair was half brushed, and his face and neck untouched by cleansing water (hadn't they been soaped the night before?), but he set to work on the nearly cold breakfast with a will. He removed his empty grain saucer from the bread and butter plate and looked up suddenly.

"Mother," he said irresolutely.

"Yes, son?"

"Say, Mother—how old does a fellow have to be to get married, anyway?"

His father chortled with merriment. John flushed an embarrassed red. His mother restrained a smile as she answered:

"About twenty-one, dear, and lots of people wait until they're older. Why?"

"Nothing. Does it cost very much?"

"Cost much?" Mr. Fletcher dropped the Sunday paper to the floor and looked at his son and heir attentively. "Why, I should say it does. You ought to have at least a thousand dollars saved before you even think of marrying."

"John," cautioned Mrs. Fletcher reprovingly. "Don't torment the child."

"Let's see," went on her husband, unheeding. "You're ten now. If you want to marry by the time you're twenty-one, that means you'll have to earn about a hundred dollars a year from now on. Better begin right away."

"Raise my allowance, will you, dad?" came the unexpected retort. "I'm only getting a quarter a week now, and Sid DuPree's father gives him a whole dollar."

"Young man," was the grave reply. "If you want to support a family, you'll have to do it of your own accord. You and your mother keep me busy as it is."

"Give me a quarter, then," the boy persisted. "That's all I want. Please!"

His father dug into his pockets and brought out the desired coin. "The nest-egg for the second generation of Fletchers," he grinned. "Catch, son."

A few minutes later John disappeared in the direction of a little stationery and toy shop which lay some blocks to the north. But not a word could Mr. Fletcher draw from him as to the aim of the expedition. He returned with a mysterious package which he took up to his room and then sauntered out to Silvey's house.

A little later his mother, who had gone upstairs to dress herself for dinner, came down to the dining-room where John, senior, still sat reading.

"John," she said.

"Yes, dear?" with a hasty glance away from the news sheet.

"Do you know," her smile was tender, "there's a big, china pig bank up on that boy's bureau? I believe he's taken your words in earnest!"



CHAPTER VIII

WHEREIN HE RESOLVES TO GET MARRIED

The Thursday date for the game with the "Jeffersons" had been selected in early September, and there had been a tacit truce between the two factions as a result. For three afternoons of that first week in November, the "Tigers" sacrificed their games of tops and "Run, sheep, run" on the altar of the football god, and trooped over to the big lot as soon as school was dismissed. There, Silvey, self-appointed coach of the team, expounded the rudiments and the higher attributes of the sport as culled from a series of ten-cent hand books, and ran the team through signals and trick formations in a way that would have amused a university football coach.

Louise went down town with her mother, so the team was deprived of the support of its feminine rooter on the eventful afternoon. They met in front of Silvey's. John boasted the one addition made to the equipment of that first practice when he appeared with a second-hand pair of shin-guards which he had acquired from a boy at school in exchange for a dime and an agate shooter. Presently Sid appeared with the football, and they trooped towards the lot in a compact, determined little group.

As they climbed over the railroad fence on the opposite side of the tracks, the "Jeffersons," who were as badly equipped as their rivals, greeted them defiantly. There was a moment or so of conference between Silvey and the Shultz boy before they tossed for sides on the field. Then the teams lined up, kicked off, and sweated and toiled and wrangled through one half of the game without result. Towards the end of the second period, the heavier invaders began a slow march over the cinder-strewn ground toward their opponents' goal and victory.

Onward, onward, inch by inch, first down, five (this was the day of unreformed football), second, three, third, one yard to gain, while the "Tigers" shouted "Ho-o-old 'em! Ho-o-old 'em!" in desperation. On the ten-yard line, indicated by stakes driven in the ground at each side of the field, the lighter eleven braced for a last stand. As the "Jeffersons'" youthful quarter attempted to pass the ball, Silvey broke through and knocked the pigskin from his hands towards John, who grabbed it and ran to the other end of the field for the one and decisive touchdown of the game.

"Time," called Silvey, striving vainly to make himself heard above the exultant shouts. "Time, I tell you!" Captain Shultz of the "Jeffersons" drew out a watch, borrowed from a friend for the occasion, and compared it with the one in Bill's possession.

The game was over and the "Jeffersons" had lost.

The victors swaggered woodenly around by the ice cream soda shop and art stores to the home street. No cutting across the tracks for them now; this was a march of triumph! The vanquished trailed sulkily along, some twenty feet behind, giving vent now and then to cat-calls of defiance and disgruntled suggestions that the game would have ended differently if this or that member had played better. At the corner, Silvey turned.

"We licked you!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "We licked you! We licked you!"

Shultz raised his voice above the clamor of his team. "Just wait until we catch you alone. You'll be sorry!"

John shrugged his shoulders. "We'll all stick together coming home from school. And if they catch just one of us, why, we can maul them, too." For Shultz's declaration meant that the guerrilla warfare was in full swing again.

Sid's muscles stiffened and his back began to ache. Silvey owned a discolored spot over one eye where an opponent had tried to disable him during a tense moment of the game. John's shin was badly bruised, and Perry Alford had wrenched his ankle. The other members had minor hurts. Only Red Brown had, by some miracle, come through the battle unscathed.

"We won," said Silvey happily, as they stopped in front of his house. "Come on, now, all together!"

They broke into the "Tigers'" exultant war cry, which is very much the same as that of the football team to which you belonged as a boy:

Sis-boom-bah! Sis-boom-bah! "Tigers," "Tigers," Rah, rah, rah!

Then they left for their several homes, too worn out to do anything but rest.

Up in his room John threw himself on the bed with a sigh. His injured leg hurt terribly—but they'd won. Pity Louise had missed the defeat of the "Jeffersons." Why did women folks always have to go shopping, anyway? Only spent a lot of money on hats and other foolishness.

He turned over wearily and found the yellow pig bank leering at him from the bureau with hungry, malignant eyes. Where was that apportioned two dollars which he was to earn by the end of the week? Four days had already elapsed, and the beast's interior was as empty as it had been on the toy-shop shelf. Why had he bought those lemon drops on Monday? And the marbles and his rubber spear top? Was there anything left after the shin-guard purchase? He sat up on the edge of the bed and rummaged in his pockets. One lonely penny remained from his weekly allowance of a quarter.

He dropped the coin into the long slot and shook the pig disgustedly. Two dollars could never be earned by Saturday night. Not even if three lawns were to be cut, and a half-dozen errands run for the neighbors. He slammed the big china animal back on the bureau and went down to supper. The lonely copper had seemed to make the beast sound more hollow than ever as it rattled against the unglazed interior.

That night the wind veered to the south, and Friday proved to be mild and sunny, save for a touch of autumnal haze in the air. But not even this freakish return of summer could rouse him from the grumpy mood which held over from the night before.

He scanned the front yards on the street as he sulked along to school. How slowly grass grew in the fall! Not a lawn needed trimming, and as for freeing them from leaves, the nearly denuded boughs made such operations unnecessary. Coin of the realm seemed further away than ever.

In the afternoon, the haze thickened and hinted of rain. As he and Louise sauntered homeward, a drop of water spattered on her cheek. Another hit him on the nose, and it was but a short time before the cement sidewalks were covered with rapidly merging mosaics of a darker hue.

What luck! Dimes and even quarters, quickly and easily earned, were within his grasp. He left Louise at the apartment entrance and dashed into his own front hall in great excitement.

"I've got the umbrellas," he shouted, as he struggled into his raincoat. "I'm going out with them."

"Don't take my good one," Mrs. Fletcher cautioned. But he was beyond earshot, best umbrella and all, before the words were out of her mouth.

Down the water-glazed street he ran, its dust now laid by the refreshing, pounding torrent, past the barrier of the railroad ticket office, thanks to the friendly agent, and up the worn steps to the station platform. Other boys were there, each with two or three umbrellas, who viewed the newcomer with disfavor. Ere long, each suburban train from town would discharge its quota of daintily dressed shoppers, pallid office clerks and stenographers and prosperous business men. Not one of them would carry protection from the soaking rain, and competition between the juvenile vendors threatened to become acute.

A lean, light suburban engine pulled in amid a cloud of escaping steam and a hissing of airbrakes. John spied a tall slender woman in a car doorway arranging a paper over her hat, and raced along beside the platform until it came to a halt.

"Umbrella home, lady?"

She nodded. "To the hotel."

Behind her loomed a tall, slightly bowed, black-haired lawyer whom John had seen on the long, wooden veranda of that substitute for home more times than he could count on his ten fingers. He, too, took advantage of a rented shelter. Together the couple made their way down the dripping steps while John followed exultantly. Two at once—and the hotel but a scant block and a half away! At the broad entrance, they paused.

"How much do I owe you, little boy?" asked the lady, with a smile.

"Dime," was the laconic answer. Another train was due in ten minutes and there was no time to waste. She opened a dainty leather purse, while the lawyer paid his debt from a pocketful of small change. Twenty cents at once. That was luck. A moment later John was sprinting back at top speed.

No double fare the next time, but the helpless stenographer lived a street farther west, and each additional block meant another nickel according to the unwritten umbrella tariff.

"Fifteen cents, madam," he demanded.

She retreated discreetly to the shadow of the apartment hallway to dive into her stocking bank, while he watched two bedraggled sparrows on the sidewalk until she reappeared.

On his return, he found the trains running on the five-minute, rush-hour schedule. Each carried its revenue of small change for the eager, clamoring boys. Once, a gray-haired, kindly-eyed man gave John a quarter and would receive no change, and another time a friend of his mother's did likewise. But for the most part, ten- and fifteen-cent fees were his lot.

Rifts in the misty clouds to the west appeared, which hinted of an end to the rain. Nevertheless, he jingled the change in his pocket light-heartedly. He had made more in the brief eighty minutes than he could cutting the Langley's lawn, or by other juvenile chores which would consume a like time. And, if he were fortunate, there was still time for another customer before the storm ceased.

He found her. She was dressed in some rustling brown taffeta stuff and carried her hat in a carefully pinned page of newspaper. Her face was sunken and lined and rouged to lessen the ravages of age, and her hair was palpably mismatched. Moreover, instinct warned that his offer would be refused, for she was one of the tall, skinny folks. Nevertheless, he approached her.

"Umbrella home, lady? Can I take you home under an umbrella?"

He could. Instantly all criticism of her personal appearance vanished. True, she might be trying to keep up appearances like the old-maid teacher who scolded knowledge into the eighth-grade class, but she was willing to spend money for his benefit, and that made all the difference in the world.

Past the hotel they went, and down the five long, successive blocks of gray stone university buildings which flanked that side of the boulevard. John's spirits rose. His last was to be a quarter customer, at the least. Then they turned southward and dodged pools of water in the muddy street crossings and on the walks for another two squares. She halted at a grimy, run-down apartment building and closed the umbrella. Thirty-five cents! He opened his mouth to name the fee, but she interrupted him.

"Here's the umbrella, little boy." She stepped into the stuffy, badly-lighted hallway. "Thank you very much for taking me home."

Before he could say a word of protest, the weather-beaten oak door swung to in his face and the lady fled up the stairs.

When he had recovered from his surprise, he stamped angrily in after her. What should he do? He wanted that money. He didn't care if she had disappeared. He'd ring the bell and keep on ringing it until she answered or the batteries gave out. But which bell? The building was four-storied, with flats front and rear, and which of the cramped apartments did she occupy? And there were dozens of roomers' cards over the dusty speaking tubes. To find her was impossible. He had been tricked, and tricked nicely, and he might as well go back.

When he was a block from the station the rain changed to a sudden fine drizzle and halted. The umbrella business was ended for the afternoon. Nevertheless, he had been fairly successful. If that old maid had paid what was due him, the small change in his pocket would have totaled a dollar and thirty cents. But ninety-five cents wasn't bad, as it was.

He sauntered in from the dark street a few minutes later and stacked the dripping umbrellas in the rack in the hallway. Then he burst into the kitchen to tell his mother the news.

"What will you do with all that money, son?"

He blinked a moment at the brilliancy of the gas-light, and guessed he'd save most of it. At that Mrs. Fletcher smiled, and he grinned sheepishly back. She had probably guessed the secret. Mothers had uncanny ways of seeing right into fellows, and he might as well tell her now.

"Louise and I are going to be married when I'm twenty-one," he blurted. "I'm starting to save now, and she's going to get her mother to teach her how to cook beefsteaks and keep house."

Then he ducked from her amused kisses and ran up to his room. Down came the pig bank from the resting place on the bureau, and out on the white coverlet came the result of his work. Piece by piece the money disappeared in the narrow slot, until not even a nickel was left for lemon drops at the school store. Then he shook the porker with satisfaction. It didn't sound so empty now, and the hungry look seemed to have disappeared from the yellow china face. The eyes held an expression of sleepy content, if an insensate bit of china could do such a thing.

Ninety-six cents was a good start. But he'd have to hustle every minute of Saturday morning. The advent of autumn had so discouraged the growth of grass on the home street that he would have to invade Southern Avenue. Surely he could find some sort of a job on that long, well-groomed street.

After breakfast he sneaked off to drag the lawn-mower from its storage place in the basement. The rattle and bang of the iron frame against the area steps caught Mrs. Fletcher's alert ear. She raised the little side-pantry window and looked out as he lifted the implement up on the walk.

"John!"

"Yes, Mother?" A sheepish note crept into his voice. "Taking the mower out of the basement; that's all."

"Where are you going with it?"

Oh, nowhere in particular. He hoped to earn a little money; that was all.

"Is your room picked up?"

"No."

"And the front porch has to be hosed off for Sunday; never mind the neighbors until my work's finished, son."

Mothers must have forty-'leven pairs of ears to catch fellows the way they did. He stopped to argue with her, but she shook her head impatiently.

"That won't do a bit of good, John. You're just wasting time when you're talking this way."

She was right. And wasting time meant just so many minutes less in which to earn a dollar and four cents. He scampered upstairs and pitched the book which had lain under the bed since a certain clandestine night-reading session into the case. Next, his odds and ends of clothing and ties were thrown on the closet floor with a prayer that they might not be discovered before he made his escape. With his bureau top set hastily in order, he reported for duty below. Out with the hose-reel and up with the nozzle on the porch. A twist of the key, and the water spurted forth while his mother watched the procedure in amazement. He was taking five minutes for work which consumed twenty-five, ordinarily!

But when the water splashed against the sun-blistered clapboards of the veranda wall, his spurt of energy diminished. He adjusted the nozzle until the fine spray came from the hose and watched the miniature rainbow in the bright sunlight. An earnest spider was repairing a web up under the eaves in anticipation of coming storms, and John shifted back to the hard stream to dislodge the industrious spinner. The old cat trotted around from the back porch and made faces at a squirrel which had strayed from the park to enjoy the more munificent bounty which the kind-hearted housewives and children on the street offered. He shot the quarrel-quelling stream in their direction, and the pair scampered away to safety. As yet a good half of the porch was untouched by water, and he dropped the hose to the floor with the nozzle pointed toward the baseboard, while little rivulets trickled over the dust-strewn boards until they joined larger streams, just as the little black river lines in his school maps did.

There was a sudden, sharp tapping at the window which fronted the porch. Mrs. Fletcher's voice jerked him from the clouds of miniature geographical research to the realities of his task.

"John! Half an hour's gone already. Do get the hose reeled up!"

A few hasty strokes of the broom—his mother's best, taken unknown to her—obliterated all traces of the water systems, and the hard spray was splashed against the windows just long enough to splatter the sashes well. The dirtiest places on the steps met with a half-hearted scrub or two before he reeled up the hose. A moment later, with the rake over one shoulder, and the lawn mower trailing noisily behind him, he set off to find Silvey.

A noisy whistle in front of his chum's house brought no answer. An ear-splitting clamor of "Oh, Silvey-e-e-e; Oh, Silvey-e-e-e, come on out. Come on out!" brought his mother to the door.

"Bill's gone down town with his father," she said crossly. "Won't be back until dinner time."

Shucks; everything was going wrong. If Silvey wasn't on hand, he'd have to pitch in alone.

Around the corner he went, the mower still beating a noisy tattoo over the pavement, past the big new apartment building with flats which actually rented for a hundred dollars a month, and down to the long row of older houses, erected when land was cheap, and set far back from the walk; still on past foot after foot of trim grass plots, through a mud-puddle in the street which held more water than was good for the already rusty blades, and across to the opposite sidewalk before he found a prospect of employment.

He swung back the gate and tiptoed up the weathered steps. The window shades were down and the cobwebs hung thick on the porch railings and under the eaves. Yet the place was occupied, for he had noticed a homeless cat dragging an unsavory meal from a well-filled garbage pail at the side. He rang the bell once, twice, thrice, before the door opened.

"Want the lawn cut?" he asked of the wrinkled, tremulous dame who faced him.

She shook her head, angry at being disturbed. He walked down the walk mournfully.

It was clear that there was no revenue to be gained this day. So he turned toward the home street and dropped the mower into the area way just loudly enough to bring Mrs. Fletcher to the side window.

"That you, son? Run up to the corner and get some lamb chops, that's a good boy." She tossed him a half-dollar. "And get ready for dinner when you come back."

He set off thoughtfully, for the problem of earning still annoyed him. He hated to fall down on the newly made resolution the very first week. If it were only winter and a heavy snow falling! Then he'd make money quickly enough, but in late autumn—why folks wanted to walk to the corner for groceries themselves because the tang in the clear, snappy weather made the errand enjoyable!

As the door of the butcher shop closed behind him, he saw Shultz, leader of the "Jeffersons" and sworn enemy, tugging at a heavy suitcase as he struggled to keep pace with the athletic young lady to whom it belonged.

Why couldn't he do likewise? Three ten-cent suitcase jobs would bring his capital to a dollar and twenty-four cents, and that was better than nothing.

As soon as he had eaten, he left the house on the trot for the suburban station, where he had seen his football rival. He waited in front of the three iron turnstiles, now dancing up and down, now watching the ants in a hill which was forming between two paving blocks, and now scanning the thrice reread headlines of the papers on the unpainted news stand by the station entrance. A gentleman came with golf sticks bound for the park links; there came ladies innumerable who had been delayed on their shopping expedition—and still no sign of employment. Locals came and went, and expresses followed on twenty-minute runs until his memory failed in counting them, before a puffy, white-moustached gentleman in tweeds grunted a noisy passage down the platform steps.

"Satchel carried, sir?"

"How far is it to the hotel."

John explained. The traveler should have left the train at the station three blocks to the south. But it wasn't so very far, even at that. "Shall I carry it for you?" he concluded.

The man nodded jerkily and paused to light a cigarette. As they left, Shultz sauntered up and stood aghast at this invasion of his territory.

"Hey!" he ejaculated finally.

John held his course, grip in either hand. He was a little nervous, but his business rival dared not take revenge while his patron was with him. After that—well, he guessed he could take care of himself if that "tough"—a term of endearment used by the "Tigers"—bothered him.

A lapse of ten minutes found him fingering a quarter as he stood on the broad hotel steps. Would he go back, when such fees were in prospect? You bet. That dirty-faced kid had no mortgage on the place. He'd like to see any trouble between them. He would call out the "Tigers," he would!

Shultz was pacing up and down in front of the station when John came up. The expression on his face was far from pleasant, and the boy began to regret his fit of bravado. But shucks, that tough wouldn't dare do anything. He stopped at the turnstiles once more, and Shultz glared at him angrily.

"What you trying to do?"

John explained. He wanted to make a little pocket money.

"Well you can't here. G'wan home before I smash your face!"

"Won't," stubbornly. "Got just as much right as you here."

There was a pause. "Well are you going?" asked the "Jefferson's" captain.

"No!"

"I'll make you." He advanced, fists doubled. They circled around and around on the pavement, each looking for an opening through the other's guard. Suddenly the bigger boy lunged forward and his fist went true to the mark—John's nose. They sparred again, now feinting forward, now stepping backward, like two young turkey cocks. A tall, blue-clad, brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz raised the alarm.

"Cheese it, the cop!"

They broke for cover, each in the direction of home and parental protection, while the guardian of the peace stood and laughed at the fleeing figures.

Once well down the street, John pulled up, panting, and rubbed his nose. That kid had certainly hit it. The organ hurt like the mischief, and felt as if it were three sizes too big. He hoped it wouldn't be like that at school, Monday.

He heard a familiar voice, "Hello!"

He turned quickly. Louise, and at this, of all times!

"What you been doing?" She looked at his face curiously.

He forced a smile. "Fight, that's all."

"Did he hurt you much?"

"Only here." John pointed to the injured appendage and added, "Gee, you ought to see him. Black eye, and his lip's bleeding something fierce!" His lady must never know that he came out second best in the battle.

Suddenly he turned a-tremble from the reaction of his feelings. He wished his feminine playmate down town, over in the park, any place where she couldn't talk to him. He wanted to get home, to have mother's gentle hands lay cooling bandages on his nose, and his eyes began to fill with tears. For in spite of his air of defiance, he had been beaten and the knowledge stung him into a poignant longing for sympathy.

Louise, with the intuition of her sex, changed the subject.

"Look what I've got," she held a brown package at arm's length. "Sugar from the grocer's. Mother's going to teach me how to bake, this afternoon. Want to watch?"

He nodded gratefully and went with her to the flat where that memorable party had been held. In the airy kitchen, Mrs. Martin instructed Louise in the mysteries of mixing flour, spices, and molasses into that sticky mass which composes the dough for delicious, old-fashioned gingerbread. John stood at the young lady's side and watched dreamily. Just wait until he had that thousand dollars saved and could rent a kitchen of his own!

After the mixture was poured into the pan, the two children, spoons in hand, scraped the mixing dish of its residue of uncooked delicacy, and decided that the effort would prove a huge success.

"Wait until it's baked," said Louise, "and you can have a piece."

John was transported into a seventh heaven of ecstasy, and followed her into the parlor. They sat on the floor and played dominoes while the minutes flew past.

"That's five games for me," Louise broke out exultantly. John nodded and gazed listlessly around the room. On the bottom shelf of the magazine table was a red and black checkerboard.

"Let's play that," he pointed with one grimy finger.

Louise demurred. "I don't know how."

"I'll teach you," her victim said eagerly. So she did penance for her victories until Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway and smiled down at them.

"Come, kiddies. It's ready now."

They broke for the kitchen in a wild dash, leaving boards and men on the carpet as they had finished with them.

Half an hour later, John sauntered into the house, his hat cocked exultantly over one ear, and his mouth redolent of savory spices. He heard voices in the dining-room and stuck his head in between the portieres.

"That you, John?" asked his mother. "Where on earth have you been?"

"Up at Louise's." His spirits were too high to notice the admonitory note in her voice. "She baked a cake all by herself, and when it was done, I had a great big piece. And Mother," his voice rose proudly at the memory of that effort, "it was better'n any ginger cake you ever made in all your life!"

When he had placed his napkin in his ring and gone out on the front porch, Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband and her husband smiled back at her.

"The little imp," she murmured finally.

But it was the first foretaste of the time when another woman should dispossess her of her son's love, and she liked this touch in the childish comedy not at all.



CHAPTER IX

HE SAVES FOR "FOUR ROOMS FURNISHED COMPLETE"

The early Sunday church bells roused him to consciousness that the clear autumn sunlight was streaming in through the east window. The other members of the family were as yet not awake, so he stretched lazily and recalled, incident by incident, that blissful afternoon with Louise. How pretty she had looked when she had opened the oven door, and how delighted she had been when he had sampled and approved her first gingerbread! It almost atoned for the defeats at dominoes.

He rolled over. There stood the pig bank on the bureau, staring down at him with an air which said, plainly as if spoken, "John Fletcher, you're a failure. Two dollars was your goal for the week. There's but a dollar and twenty-nine cents in me. What are you going to do about it?"

Nor would it allow his conscience to rest during the hours which followed. Louise had accepted an invitation to feed the squirrels in the park that afternoon, so he begged a nickel from his father for peanuts and rushed in to his mirror to see if his face needed washing. There was the four-footed caricature to insinuate that he might better be thinking of means to increase his weekly income, instead of squandering money on fat, saucy park squirrels.

He was beginning to hate the bit of china. Why hadn't he purchased instead a mail-box bank that owned no such accusing eyes?

Not until after supper, when he threw himself on the bed to face, for the first time, the problem of earning a steady weekly income, did the yellow, glazed features cease to trouble him.

He stared thoughtfully at the flicker of the gas rays against the wavy markings in the ceiling paper for some minutes. How was a boy to earn money? What were the channels of revenue by which the "Jefferson Toughs," Shultz and his ilk, made pitiful contributions to the family war fund against the enemies of fuel, food, and clothing bills?

Shultz sold papers. Very well, John Fletcher would do likewise. If twenty papers were sold daily, a weekly revenue of forty-eight cents would come from that source. The allowance from his father would bring the amount up to, say, seventy-five cents. Could he hope for five errands a week from the neighbors? That would make a dollar and a quarter. But where, oh, where, was the other money to come from?

In any case, hard, persistent work, man's work, lay before him and it must be done in a man's way. No more tops, marbles, "Run, sheep, run," or even snow fights! The thousand dollars which meant a home was to be earned by his twenty-first birthday, and such trivialities might delay the achievement of that heart's desire.

The first test of the resolution came within the next twenty-four hours. As the pupils formed in line for the afternoon, he fingered a dime in his pocket repeatedly, for the coin represented the investment for his first newspaper venture. In the school yard Silvey darted up to him.

"Oh, John-e-e-e!"

"Yes," said John, not greatly enthusiastic over the hail.

"It's open practice at the university today. Red and me are going. It'll be the biggest game, next Saturday, and, Jiminy, you ought to watch the quarter-back kick! Come along?"

John shook his head regretfully. Too well he knew the joys which awaited them within the big enclosure with its towering bleachers. Hadn't he haunted the gate for just such opportunities, last year? Hadn't Bill and he discovered a hole in the fence and laid plans to see one of the early games by its aid? And hadn't an unfeeling freshman emptied a bucket of water as he had crawled half through the opening? But the dime in his pocket was a reminder of last week's procrastinating failure.

"Can't," said he finally.

"Why?"

"Got to work—sell papers."

Silvey stared, scarcely believing his ears. John scuffed the school walk with one sadly abused shoe.

"You see," he went on reflectively, "I've got to have a thousand dollars by the time I'm twenty-one."

"What for?"

"Get married."

"That girl again!" Bill ejaculated scornfully. "Aw, come on, Johnny. Just once won't hurt."

"No," retorted John firmly. "I've got to act like a man now. I haven't any more time for kid foolishness!"

"Kid foolishness!" repeated Silvey in awe-struck tones, as his chum turned and walked rapidly away, "kid foolishness! Gee!"

As for John, he was finding hidden sweets in the new vocation. Never had Silvey's eyes held such astounded respect as they had at that moment.

Shultz lived in a brown brick, ramshackle tenement diagonally opposite the apartments in which the gang had found shelter that day of the cucumber fight. Once, the flats had been advertised as being the utmost in modern conveniences, but that had been in the days when the park museum was glorified as an exposition building. Since then, a long succession of tenants had scented the dark, badly lighted corridors with a variety of garlicky odors, and the rentals had been lowered until only the most necessary repairs could be afforded to keep the building in order. So there the block stood, making a tawdry front with small, and often-remodeled stores, as it waited for one of the numerous small fires which were always starting to consume it.

Shultz was playing on the walk in front of the grimy main entrance. It was John's purpose to learn the hour of arrival for the newspaper wagon, and whatever other information on news vending the boy might be willing to give. His erstwhile enemy doubled both fists as he crossed the road.

"Want another bloody nose?"

John raised an open palm as a token of peace. "When's the wagon drive up?"

The ex-captain of the "Jefferson's" looked at him suspiciously. "What do you want to know for?"

"Sell papers. What do you s'pose?"

"Old man lost his job?" There could be but one motive for engaging in the paper business according to his simple mind.

John thought a moment. It was all very well to tell his chum of the cause for the sudden desire for money, but not this boy. The love affair would be all over school by morning recess. He nodded, taking the easiest way out of the dilemma.

"Had a fight with his boss," the would-be merchant invented boldly, throwing plausibility to the winds. "Came home last night, crying like everything. There isn't enough to eat, and we have to pay the gas bill, so I'm going to work."

All enmity vanished instantly. The pair were comrades in misfortune, and as such John was to be aided in every possible way.

"Joe'll be around in half an hour," Shultz explained generously. "Stay here with me and I'll tell him you're a new kid, and fix things up. How many are you going to buy?"

"Dime's worth."

"Think you can sell 'em all?"

"Easy."

Shultz studied him for a moment and decided that the novice had better learn the vicissitudes of the business through bitter experience. John wasn't the kind to take advice, anyway.

At last the green, one-horse cart pulled up by the delicatessen at the side of the old apartments. The boys crowded up to the wagon step. Shultz surrendered a nickel for his nightly quota of eight papers and pointed to his pupil.

"New kid, Joe."

"What's his name?"

"John."

"All right, John, how many?"

He reached up the dime and received a neat bundle of papers in return. The other boy left to make deliveries to established customers, while John dashed exultantly over to the railroad station. He was a real paper boy now. The news sheets under his arm proved that.

An incoming suburban train pulled in at the platform overhead. Steam hissed from the pistons, and the first few puffs of locomotive smoke arose as the engine got under way again. Then came the pound, pound, pound of a multitude of feet as the weary, scurrying passengers made the turnstiles click continuously. John opened his mouth to call his wares.

"Pa—a—"

A man with a red necktie glanced down at him. The rest of the word became inaudible. What was the matter with his voice, anyway? There was nothing to be ashamed of in selling papers. The policeman wouldn't arrest him. Again he forced a shout, and practiced until he could yell at the top of his lungs like an old hand at the game.

The last saffron tint of the autumn sun faded from the western sky. Lights appeared one by one in the windows of the flat buildings and glistened like jewels in the fast gathering dusk. The store windows on either side of the street cast brilliant reflections far across the macadam. The lamplighter, speeding from post to post on a bicycle, paused long enough to leave a flickering beacon on the corner, then sped away with his long torch over one shoulder. Trains came and went. Business men in well-tailored, immaculate suits walked briskly past. Weak arched clerks with home pressed trousers slouched wearily along. Chattering women innumerable scurried by on the walk. His dollar watch showed a quarter past six in the light from the ticket office window and John counted his papers.

Eleven on hand and five paltry coppers in his right trousers' pocket. Caught with an overstock! Not only had the prospective profits vanished, but a deficiency impended as well. He began to understand the cause of Shultz's question—and supper impended.

He snatched a moment under the light from the street lamp to glance at the funny sheet, for the excitement of the new occupation had prevented such amusement earlier in the afternoon. As he unfolded a copy, a glaring headline on the first page held his attention.

Again the turnstiles clicked, and again came the shifting crowd. But John Fletcher was not on the station corner to vend his wares. Instead, that small boy was legging it westward as fast as he could go. Past the school, past the row of dilapidated houses which lay beyond, past the plank-walled football grounds and the last of the gray stone, many-windowed university buildings, into the residence district which he had marked as his goal.

This section of the city was so far removed from the railroad station that the inhabitants made use of the slower street car lines to take them to and fro from work. Frank Smith, bookkeeper in a wholesale house, would be still on his way home, and this difference between the expensive fifteen-minute train service, and the fifty-five minutes of the more plebeian surface system was all that made his plan feasible. What would Mrs. Smith know of the day's news occurrences?

He waited until his panting grew less violent before he sauntered down the gas lit, unpretentious street, with a cry of,

"Extry paper! All about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-per here. Extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e, extre-e-e-e!"

Heads became silhouetted in numerous windows as their owners tried to catch his words.

"A-a-all about the big South Side murder! Extry pa-a-a-a-per!"

A door swung back, releasing a flood of light against the unkempt front lawn of a two-story cottage. John dashed up the shaky steps.

"Extry, lady? All about the big murder?"

She nodded and handed him a penny. The boy looked at it scornfully.

"Extras are a nickel!"

"But the paper's marked 'one cent.'"

"S'pose it would pay," his voice was as grave as a financier's, discussing a huge stock transfer, "to chase all over and miss supper, just to make three cents on eight papers? No, lady, price is a nickel. Always is."

He held out his hand. The woman capitulated and went back into the house for the stipulated coin.

The sale wiped out the deficit and made an even break on the venture, the worst to be feared. Selling extras which were not extras to people who thought they were was proving a most profitable undertaking. He resumed his stroll down the street.

"Extra-e-e-e paper here! South Side family murdered! Extry paper! Extry, extry, extre-e-e-e!"

Every fourth or fifth residence yielded its toll to the grewsome lure. At last but one newspaper remained. He redoubled his vocal efforts.

A woman, her arms full of grocery packages, stopped him and fumbled in her purse. Across the street, a whistle sounded. He dropped the nickel into his pocket, gave over the last of the troublesome sheets, and started for home. Again came the whistle. He made a trumpet of his hands and bellowed "Sold out" as he turned the corner. If he had only more copies! At least sixty could have been sold.

Nevertheless, fifty cents for the pig bank—a dime was to be reserved for the morrow's capital—wasn't bad. Surely the other dollar and a half could be saved by the end of the week. Earning a thousand dollars was as easy as rolling off a log.

John kissed his mother good-bye in high good humor, as he left for school in the morning. She watched him for a moment as he danced along the gusty, wind-swept street, and went in to sit by the parlor grate for a few moments. Hardly had she opened her magazine when the front door-bell rang, and the neighbor from across the way stood on the threshold, panting and very much excited.

"My dear Mrs. Fletcher," she shrilled in her acrid tones. "Do tell me all about it!"

Her hostess led her into the parlor and drew up a companion chair before the fire. "About what?" she asked.

"About Mr. Fletcher." The neighbor warmed her hands a moment before the dancing flames, while Mrs. Fletcher looked a mute inquiry.

"Mrs. Shultz, she's my washerwoman," went on the thin, nasal voice, "said this morning that John had told her little boy he had to sell papers because your husband had had trouble with his employer and had lost his position." She would have added further details as to the straits the Fletchers were supposed to be in, if something in that lady's manner had not prevented her.

"So I said to Mrs. Leland, next door," concluded the neighbor from across the way, "that I hoped things were not as bad as they seemed, and that I'd run right over to ask you."

"John told what?" asked that youngster's mother, now that the verbal torrent had halted.

The story was repeated. Mrs. Fletcher broke into relieved laughter. "I'll have to interview that son of mine when he gets home," she said as she leaned forward to explain matters.

But when John did appear, his mother was far more lenient with him than he had any right to expect. She was still too amused at the turn of affairs to be anything else.

Two weeks sped past. In spite of the success of that first paper venture, the lesson was not lost upon John, who recruited a dozen or so regular customers from among his mother's friends the next afternoon. Since then, thanks to persistent effort, the list had steadily grown until he was able to double his first day's order without danger of financial loss. The errands for the neighbors had not materialized to swell his income, nor had other umbrella days followed the first one. But indeed, the paper route occupied too much of his time to permit such side issues.

His minimum income was now at the respectable mark of a dollar and seventeen cents a week and still growing. At first, the thought that he was falling below the two dollar limit troubled him sorely until he remembered that everything must have a beginning. Just wait until a year from now; he'd make five dollars a week, he would!

"I'll bet you five thousand dollars that I do," he had told Silvey when that youngster scoffed at his plans as they walked to school, one bleak, overcast noon. Needless to say, Bill did not meet the wager. He wasn't accustomed to thinking in such large sums and, besides, John's manner was singularly convincing.

Louise, the business man scarcely saw at all, save to walk home with her from school now and then, or to take her on Sunday expeditions to the park. On one of the strolls, she told of further experiments in the science of cookery. "And mother says you can come up and watch, tomorrow."

He declined as diplomatically as possible. Nondelivery of the papers spelled failure for the new business. Would she mind?

Louise shook her head. Nevertheless, John felt that she was hurt. Hang it all, couldn't a girl understand? How was the thousand dollars which was to start them housekeeping to be earned if he loafed away his afternoons?

Mrs. Fletcher took him down town the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Already the holiday throngs were beginning to fill the noisy, grimy streets and passage, in them was both tedious and difficult for a small boy. Weary after the morning of tramping from store to store, they were returning to the railroad station when a display in a furniture store window caught his eye.

Rich plush hangings and an occasional picture gave the impression of the walls of a room. In the center, a shiny mahogany bed stood, with a dresser of like material and fragile, spindle-legged chairs grouped around it.

He tugged at his mother's hand to stop a moment. She obeyed indulgently, as his eyes became glued to the little sign in the foreground.

"Bedroom set. Adam style. Reduced to three hundred and sixty-five dollars."

He gasped. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars for a bed and a dresser and chairs which would break the first time a small boy plumped down on them! Then came the appalling thought: "How far would a thousand dollars last with such prices?"

All the speeding ride homeward, and after supper as he stretched out on the bed before undressing, he worried over this new and unexpected problem. If bedroom furniture alone cost that much and the pictures and carpet were still to be paid for, the total would at least be four hundred and fifty dollars. The parlor should cost even more, for chairs, a sofa, and a reading table were to be placed in it. As for the dining-room, he shrank from a consideration of that expense! And there were dishes and books and silverware! Two thousand dollars was the least he could expect his five furnished rooms to cost, and he had considered half that amount sufficient for all expenses. Newly married folks usually took honeymoon trips, too. He groaned. Would he ever earn enough to marry Louise?

Thanksgiving drew nearer. At school, on the Wednesday immediately preceding, the chosen few who were Miss Brown's personal aides, stayed after school at noon to decorate the room for the entertainment to be given at a quarter of two. Her desk was backed against the wall, and the cornstalks used by the drawing class as models for their efforts, were grouped against it to form a background for the impassioned actors. A supply of pumpkins, gourds, and other autumnal fruits of the earth, borrowed by the teacher from the grocer with whom her mother traded, gave still greater festivity to the room.

There was no need of roll call. Every child was there, for they were too much interested to absent themselves.

Miss Brown gave a brief history of the origin of the day. A little girl whose pink dress clashed violently with her red hair and freckled complexion, followed with a rendition of a doleful poem beginning:

Only a grain of corn, Mothur, Only a grain of corn.

Then the class sang one of the songs in the fourth-grade music book and settled back expectantly, for the feature piece of the afternoon.

Silvey and Red Brown dragged a long, green curtain along a wire which ran from one side of the room to the other, until the platform was hidden from the room's eager gaze. A scurry of gray calico came from the coat closet which served as the green room for the amateur actors. A boy, muffled mysteriously in a long cloak, followed. Miss Brown gave a last look to see that the stage was properly arranged, and the curtain was pulled back against the wall again.



It was Sid and Louise! He'd thrown aside the long cloak (insisted upon because he'd feel like a fool if the class saw him in costume while waiting for the play to begin), and stood forth in high, paper cuffs hiding his coat sleeves well up to his elbows, and a queerly shaped, high-buckled hat which threatened to slide down over his ears at any moment. Louise, in a Priscilla gray gown, waited for the pilgrim father to begin his lines. The class applauded wildly, for the spirit of make believe threw them back into those tempestuous early days along the Atlantic Coast.

John heard not a word of the scenes which followed. He was sorely disturbed. There was Sid on the platform with his beloved, waving his arms back and forth in fervid, pump-handle motions which Louise seemed to mind not a bit. Hang it all, that kid must be trying to cut him out! But he'd show him. Just wait until his thousand dollars was earned.

Then his calculations of that Saturday evening came back to throw an icy feeling into the pit of his stomach. What right had he to hope when housefurnishings were at such a figure?

Mrs. Fletcher set him to picking the pinfeathers from the turkey when he came in from his paper route that night. He turned to with a gusto, mindful of the culinary treats which were to come, and blissfully conscious of four long holidays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, in which he could sleep as late as he wanted—besides, he could see a little more of Louise. He didn't like the way she had acted on the platform. Perhaps he had been a little neglectful, but just wait a few years. Then he'd—but the thought of that costly furniture put an end to his dreams.

Thanksgiving morning he haunted the kitchen incessantly, dancing now to the little pantry to swing back the doors and feast his eyes on the huge mince pie which waited on the bottom shelf, and then back to the kitchen where he pestered his mother with innumerable questions until she drove him out into the snappy, late November air. He scampered up to Bill's house, where the two boys retired to the chilly seclusion of the shack and compared notes.

"We've got a fifteen-pound turkey," said John boastfully.

"That's nothing," Silvey dug scornfully into the hard dirt floor with his heel. "You ought to see ours. Twenty pounds, and my, such a big fellow! Cranberry sauce an' roast potatoes, an' squash to go with him. Umm-m-m."

"So've we," retorted John, undaunted by this itemized account. "Your turkey may be bigger'n ours, but it won't taste as good, for my ma (he'd forgotten his assertion regarding Louise) is the best cook in the whole world and there isn't anyone can beat her."

Certain empty pangs in nature's alarm clock brought him home half an hour early to inquire about dinner. He was most starved to death. Wouldn't mother hurry it up? Mother couldn't—expert cookery was not to be hurried. He'd better go out again for a while.

Instead, he carried the morning paper into the parlor and lounged in the big easy chair. The minutes slipped past as he devoured news items, the fiction supplement, and miraculous patent medicine announcements with amusing impartiality. He turned to an inner page and found a huge advertisement staring him in the face. At the top, floated a streamer with the legend, "You furnish the girl, we furnish the house!" Further down the page were furniture bargains innumerable, for sale on a plan of "One dollar down, seventy-five cents per week," and in the center, between heavy rules, was the announcement, "Four rooms, furnished complete, only ninety-five dollars!"

"John," called his father from the dining-room. "Come to dinner!"

He threw the paper from him in sudden exultation, and danced in to the dining-table. His eye took in each detail of the evenly browned national bird, the long, slender stalks of celery in the dainty china dish, the deep-red cranberry jelly, the appetizing roasted potatoes, and the golden squash, and he smiled happily.

"Jiminy, that looks good, Mother!" He plumped into his seat. "Hurry up, dad, I'm most ready to eat the house!"

But through his brain, as he attacked a third helping of turkey and its accessories, there still ran the exultant echo of "Four rooms, furnished complete, only ninety-five dollars!"

Thus did the day become a real Thanksgiving to him.



CHAPTER X

CONCERNS SANTA CLAUS MOSTLY

At early dusk of the Friday holiday, he scampered to a hiding place underneath a house porch while Sid DuPree, his face buried in his arms, stood against a tree trunk and counted "Five hundred by five" as rapidly as he could. But as the cry of "Coming" echoed between the closely built houses, John's conscience suddenly robbed him of all the pleasure in the game of "Hide and seek." An afternoon of suitcase jobs had been frittered away, and the paper wagon was due in another fifteen minutes. So he withdrew reluctantly to haunt the walk in front of the delicatessen store and wonder that the work upon which he had entered with such gusto was becoming so irksome.

A sharp, long-delayed touch of winter had crept into the air the night before, and set his toes to tingling as he drew his blue, knitted stocking cap further over his ears. He scampered along the petrified lawns on the paper route until the last news sheet was delivered, then blew lustily on his black mittens to warm his numbed fingers as he started for home. There, under the cheerful influence of the glowing parlor grate, he waited lazily until the last trace of tingling had left his hands, and spread a copy of the evening paper out on the carpet before him.



First he looked at the cartoon on the front page, and then at the grotesque drawings on the back sheet comic section. Those finished, he returned to the first page, where an account of a ghastly train wreck held him spellbound. Searching on an inner page for the rest of the narrative, he came across a department store's advertisement which banished all thoughts of mangled victims and splintered cars from his mind.

"Beginning tomorrow, Santa Claus will be in his little house in our greatly enlarged fifth-floor Toyland to greet each and all of his friends. See the animated bunnies and the blacksmith shop in the Brownie Village, and the wonderful display of toys of every description which Santa has gathered for the delight of the children." There followed enticing cuts of toys with even more alluring descriptions and, alas! oftentimes prohibitive prices.

Thanks to the paper business, the holiday season had crept up almost unnoticed. Santa was an exploded myth, these years, but the stereotyped cut of the jovial, fat-cheeked saint at the top of the page brought John a thrill of anticipation, nevertheless. Christmas was coming. What did he want?

After supper, he rummaged in the library until he found his mother's box of best stationery. He drew a few sheets and several envelopes from the neat container, and sat down at his father's big writing desk to begin his series of Christmas letters to certain responsive relatives. These favored ones heard from him regularly four times a year—before his birthday, before Christmas, and as soon after each of these feast days as his mother could force letters of acknowledgment from him. John dipped the pen too deeply into the inkwell, and wiped his finger tips dry on his trousers. Then he began,

"Dear Aunt Clara: I hope you are well. The weather is fine but getting cold. Christmas is coming so I thought I would write you. I want—"

He paused for reflection. Bill Silvey had been given a toy electric motor, last year. It was now in the juvenile scrap heap, thanks to an attempt to harness the bit of machinery to the powerful lighting current in Sid's house, but it had been delight indescribable to swing the little switch and watch the armature gain momentum until it hummed like a bee. So the first of his desires ran, "Motor, electric. Batteries, too."

Last year, Bill and he had built a shaky bob for use on the park toboggan, only to have a collision with a park water hydrant, used for flooding the field, and the remains of the sleds had gone to their respective family woodpiles. So down went, "Sled, coaster, with round runners."

The descriptive bit was to eliminate any possibility of getting a high, useless girl's sled, which would go to pieces in less than no time.

As he thought of each article he wrote, "Hockey skates. My old ones are rusted. A knife. Mine's lost." And last, but not least, "Books, lots of them."

That exhausted his list of needs. There were a thousand other things which he knew he wanted if he could only think of them, but the innumerable boyish desires which had arisen since his birthday in June had fled, and, try as he would, he could recall none of them. As a last desperate resort, he scrawled a concluding "Anything else useful," and signed it, "Your loving nephew, John."

Saturday, an errant breeze from the east veiled the clear starlight of the early evening as if by magic, and by morning had marshaled long, heavy rows of slate-hued clouds which drove over the city from the lake. The temperature, too, rose above the freezing point and gave the only boy in the Fletcher household a chance to bank the ever-hungry furnace, and shut off all draughts. He employed his respite in a blissful perusal of the double-page advertisements in the Sunday paper.

Toys, hundreds of them! The department stores vied with each other in the profusion of their offerings. Illustrations of "William Tell Banks—drop penny in bank and Tell shoots apple from son's head"—mechanical engines which sped around three-foot circles of track until any human engineer would become dizzy; sleds of every description from humble ones at fifty cents to long, elaborately enameled speed kings with spring-steel runners, and games in innumerable variety, made him read and reread the alluring pages until his eyes ached.

He sighed and looked up dreamily. The moisture-laden clouds from the east had borne out the newspaper forecast of "probably snow flurries," and he jumped to the window.

Heavy, feathery flakes were swirling earthward with the vagaries of the air currents. Here they eddied out from between the houses to disappear on the shining black macadam of the street and sidewalks, there they gave a momentary touch of white to the brown, frost-bitten lawns as a prophecy of that which was yet to come. In front of the Alfords', Silvey, Perry, and Sid, danced back and forth with shouts of laughter as they tried to catch the elusive bits of white. He would have joined them, but an ache in his stomach told that dinner was near, so he returned from his vantage point with a cry of "Mother! Mother! Mother! It's getting Christmasier every minute!"

Nor did the Spirit of the Holidays allow his interest to lessen during the days when the advertisements lost their fascination through monotonous repetition. As he and Bill ran home at noon one day, a quartette of men with bulging, gray denim bags on their shoulders, left big yellow envelopes on each and every house porch of the street. They were rigidly impartial in their work, and John dashed up the steps of that same vacant house which the boys had held that day with the pea shooters.

"Look!" he cried, drawing the gaudy pamphlet from the manila casing. "It's the Toy Book, Silvey!"

The Toy Book had been issued since time immemorial by one of the down town stores, and its yearly visit made it something of an institution among the juveniles of the street. On the cover, a red-coated, rosy-cheeked Saint Nick, with a toy-filled pack, was descending a snow-capped chimney while his reindeer cavorted in the background. On the back were rows of dainty pink, blue, and green clad dolls with flaxen ringlets and staring, china eyes—trash which interested John not at all. Why didn't they put engines and sleds and worth-while things there?

"Come on, Bill," he said suddenly. "Let's collect 'em."

They waited until the distributors were too far down the street to interfere, and sneaked up and down the house steps with careful thoroughness. As the bundles under the two boyish arms were becoming heavy, Mrs. Fletcher darted out by the lamppost in front of the house and beckoned to John vigorously. He left Bill with a show of regret, for the dozen odd copies under his arm were far less than he would have liked.

Louise sauntered home with him after school that day. As they passed Southern Avenue, the lady's gaze rested on a muddy object in the street gutter, and John stooped to pick it up. Torn, disfigured with innumerable heel marks and wagon wheels, the battered bundle of paper was all that remained of a Christmas booklet.

"Oh!" said Louise in surprise.

"Didn't you get one?"

She shook her head. Evidently other boys at her end of the street had emulated John and Bill.

"Tells all about toys," he volunteered. "I'll bring you one with the paper, if you want."

She thanked him and dropped the ruin regretfully. Those dolls on the back cover were so enticing.

"Aren't you glad Christmas is coming?" John asked. "Gee, I wish it was day after tomorrow."

Louise nodded.

"What do you want for Christmas?" he pursued.

She didn't know. "A doll—"

"A doll!" he interrupted in disgust. What did she want with dolls? They would be of no use when she had grown up.

"Yes, a doll," said Louise decidedly. John feigned placating approval. "And doll clothes," she went on, "and new hair ribbons and things for my dresses, and lots and lots of other presents. What do you want?"

He told her briefly. "But that isn't half," he concluded, as they loitered on the apartment steps. "I'm trying to think of the others all the time. Jiminy!" with a glance at his watch, "I'd better be going. I've got work to do."

But there were no interviews with prospective newspaper customers that afternoon. After John had started the parlor grate for his mother, he fell under the spell of one of the wonder-books and scanned page after page of the illustrations until Mrs. Fletcher interrupted him.

"Aren't you going to deliver your papers, son? It's a quarter of five now."

What a pest the paper route was getting to be, always demanding his attention just as he wanted to do something else. He rose to his feet and stretched both arms to take the cramps out of them, pitched the booklet into a corner of the hall, and dashed to the closet for his coat and mittens.

After the evening meal, John brought out another of his store of gaudy toy books and went into the parlor. His father, following a few moments later, looked down at the little figure on the carpet before the fire, and smiled.

"What is it, son?"

The boy raised his head, brown eyes a-dream with visions of automobiles, steam engines, and hook and ladder outfits.

"Looking at this," he explained.

Mr. Fletcher drew up the big, easy armchair which he liked so well, and lifted him into his lap. A moment later, the two heads, the old and the young, bent over the picture-laden pages.

"Look, daddy." John pointed to a locomotive with pedals and a seated cab for a youthful engineer. "I saw one, once. All red and shiny, with a black smokestack. And the bell really rings."

"But don't you think that's too much money for a toy?"

The boy nodded reluctantly. "Still, it's such lots of fun to just wish for things, even though you know you can't have them."

The strong arms tightened about him tenderly for a moment. As they relaxed, John turned the leaves back rapidly.

"Let's begin at the very beginning," he explained, then rapped the first page petulantly. "Nothing but dolls and dolls and more dolls," as a procession of things dear to the feminine heart passed by; "and doll bathtubs and dishes and other sissy things." He bent forward suddenly.

"That's better. A 'lectric railroad. Let's take your pencil." He marked an irregular cross beside the illustration. "And here come the sleds. Lots of them aren't so very 'spensive. And banks," he smiled. "I guess mine's big enough, isn't it, daddy?"

Mr. Fletcher joined in the smile. Indeed until he had seen that porker safe on his son's bureau, he had no idea that so large a china animal existed. The boy broke in on his thoughts excitedly.

"Punch and Judys!" His memory swept back to the raftered hall and Professor O'Reilley's performance. "They're such fun, and they don't cost very much. If I had one, I wouldn't spend any money on those shows, either."

His father chuckled at the bit of juvenile diplomacy. "You'd better make out your Christmas list for us before that pencil gets worn out making crosses, son."

He slid from the paternal knee and was off to the library in a trice. Mrs. Fletcher had overheard the finish of the conversation and smiled in on him before she joined her husband in reading the evening paper. Minutes passed.

"Most finished, son?" called Mr. Fletcher. "It's nearly bedtime, you know."

A grunt was the only response.

"Better add a few things you'll need around the flat when you and Louise are married!"

"John!" Mrs. Fletcher rattled her newspaper disapprovingly. "Do stop teasing that boy."

A few moments later, her son appeared in the doorway, yawning sleepily.

"It isn't ready yet," he said. "I'm going to bed now."

Late the following evening, Mrs. Fletcher opened her son's door to see if he slept soundly, and a scrap of paper fluttered from an anchoring pin to the floor. She picked it up. True to his peculiar custom, John had presented his Christmas needs in a manner which seemed more delicate than to ask in person for them. With a whimsical, sympathetic smile, she rejoined her husband in the big bedroom.

"Look what your joking did last night!" She handed him the slip of paper. He, too, chuckled tenderly, for the scrawl ran: "What I want for Chrismas: Pictures, pretty ones, Picture frames, Chairs, Plates for dinner, Knives, Spoons, Anything for a flat." A little space followed as if the author had hesitated before he had added in heavier writing that which told of a longing not to be denied, "Books, lots of them."

Christmas drew nearer. The delivery wagons from the down-town stores made more and more frequent stops at the Fletchers, to leave odd-shaped bundles in the hallway, bundles at which John would gaze longingly as if to pierce the outer wrappings and excelsior. Watching the packages arrive was half the fun of Christmas, anyway.

His own shopping list was small. He broached the subject of a gift for his father to Mrs. Fletcher. Would she buy it, the next time she went to town? "Then it'll be a surprise for dad." Likewise he approached Mr. Fletcher. "Then mother won't know I'm buying her a book," he explained. But he was uncertain what to order for Louise. He'd never made a present to a girl before.

The Friday before the great holiday, the papers upset his plans. The store of the Toy Book announced that "Santa Claus leaves tomorrow for his home at the North Pole. As a farewell inducement to the children of this city to visit him, he will give a splendid present to each and every girl or boy accompanied by an adult."

The North Pole part was all bosh. John knew that well, thanks to his present sophistication. But the lure of the present set him to thinking. Couldn't he—providing of course that maternal permission was given—go down town and do his shopping Saturday afternoon and wander around the different toy displays to his heart's content? But there was the paper route. Blame the nuisance, anyway!

He sprinted up to see Bill after supper. Would his chum make the deliveries if he gave him a list of the customers? John would be willing to pay a dime for the service.

Silvey assented gladly, for ten-cent pieces were scarcities among the small boy population just before Christmas, when the display of penny and five-cent novelties in the school store window proved so tempting. Thus the difficulty was solved.

Two o'clock the following day found John following the varied shopping crowd through the revolving doors of the biggest department store. Inside, the aisles were packed with a jostling, slowly moving throng. Fat, breathless hausfraus rubbed elbows with high-cheeked, almond-eyed Slav maidens, and tired office clerks took advantage of the half holiday to fill their shopping lists. Here, a well-dressed, clear-complexioned lady of leisure examined an expensive knickknack, there an Irish mother led her brood to the throng around the elevators that they might see Santa Claus. But they were all filled with a desire to buy, buy, buy, in the name of the Christmas Spirit, and buyers and department heads rubbed their hands gleefully as they watched the overworked clerks. John fought his way to the nearest floorman, a white-haired veteran of many such rush seasons.

"Where's the neckties?" he asked. That employee looked down at him wearily. "Next to the last aisle—to your right."

Past the silverware counter, past the women's gloves, past innumerable little booths with high-priced holiday trinkets, and past the fountain-pen display—at last the long, oval counter came in sight. Eager purchasers stood two and three deep around the spaces where goods were on display. Clerks hurried back and forth in response to the calls of the wrapping girls, and change carriers popped unceasingly from the pneumatic tubes. John plied his elbows vigorously and worked his way through the thickest of the crowd. Above him, hands grabbed feverishly at the tangled heap of ties on the counter top, while querulous voices requested instant attention from the sales force.

One of the four-in-hands dropped over the edge. The boy seized upon it, fingered it, and threw the bit of goods back in the heap. Poor stuff that, even at a quarter. His mother's frequent dissertations upon silk samples which she had brought home had taught him that much. He waved a frantic hand to attract attention until a tall, spectacled clerk took pity on him.

"Let's see a tie, a real one! Don't care if I have to pay a whole half-dollar for it!"

"What color?"

John's lower lip drooped. He hadn't noticed his father's taste in neckwear. "Red," he hazarded at last.

A crimson horror was thrust in front of him. Yellow cross-stripes clamored against the fiery background. The clerk twisted it deftly around his forefinger and, behold, it was made up as if in the paternal collar.

"Like it?"

John nodded and brought out a fifty-cent piece which he had forced from the pig bank that morning. A moment later, the wrapped holly box was given him, and he was off in the direction of the book department.

Still the crowds! They choked the aisles and carried him here and there at the mercy of their eddies. Now he was forced up against a wooden counter edge, now jammed against two fat women in rusty black who were buying devotional books for the edification of less pious friends. At last a sign, "Popular copyrights, fifty cents a volume," gave impetus to his hitherto haphazard course.

The poorly dressed salesgirl behind the counter smiled down at him in a manner which successive ten o'clock sessions had failed to eradicate. "What kind?" she asked.

His gaze wandered helplessly over the bewildering array of volumes.

"Here's something everyone's reading," she suggested, holding up an inane, pretty-girl covered book. He eyed it dubiously and pointed to a title which hinted of the West and of Indian fights.

"Give me that one," he said decisively. His own love affair had proven that heroes and heroines in every day life never have the easy sailing which a limited reading of popular novels had implied. Anyway, cowboy stories were the most exciting.

With the two packages wedged securely under his arm, he battled a way to the elevators. The family shopping was over and the real business of the day, a tour of the toy section and a present for Louise, called him.

"Fifth floor," droned the elevator man. "Toys, dolls, games, Christmas-tree ornaments."

His words became drowned in a sudden babel which made ordinary conversation impossible. A murmur of a thousand voices blended with the rattle of mechanical trains and the tooting of toy horns. Impatient salesmen called "Cash, cash, cash!" at the top of their lungs. Wails arose from hot, disgruntled infants. Now and then a large steam engine in operation at one counter corner, whistled shrilly when mischievous juvenile hands swung back the throttle.

At the far end of the floor, where the carpet and rug department had been shifted for the holiday season, a long line of people were waiting. Heavily clad, perspiring women shifted infants from one arm to the other as they walked patiently along. Poorly clad street loafers sought to idle away their time with a visit to Santa Claus. Tall, slim young women yanked their little brothers into place or besought small sisters to "Hush up, we're nearly there!" And up and down the whole line, a baker's dozen of streets gamins skirmished on the lookout for some adult to whom they might attach themselves for the time being.

Clearly that pointed the way to the little house and the fulfillment of the gift promise.

John worked himself cautiously along the line in spite of cries of, "Cheater, look at him!" from boys with maternal impediments to prevent like maneuvers. When the white, asbestos snow-covered house came in view, John halted discreetly, for, with the goal so near, he could not risk being thrown out of the line for cutting ahead of others.

Slowly the people moved forward until the interior of the room was visible through the little side window. At the far end of a wooden counter, a fat, red-coated Santa Claus passed trinket after trinket into eager juvenile hands, pausing now and then, as childish lips lisped requests for dolls, sleds, or other toys.

On the very threshold, a stocky store employee interposed a hand in front of John.

"Where's your folks?" he demanded.

The boy gasped. That condition of the distribution had been completely forgotten.

"Well?" pressed the inquisitor, a smile about his lips.

He gazed about desperately. Just leaving the room was a buxom German woman in black, with a hat covered with bobbing, blue-green plumes.

"There she is," he pointed. "That's my mother. I got separated from her."

The man removed his arm and chuckled. At least three other urchins had claimed relationship with that self-same lady.

Up to the old saint at last. His ruddy-cheeked mask was softened by perspiration, and there was a droop about his red-clad shoulders which expressed a wish that this, the last day of his sojourn in the city, were already over. John grabbed the cheap pencil box which was handed him. The guardian at the exit was crying, "Keep moving, keep moving," and the lethargic line in obedience carried John beyond the confines of the house to new wonders.

If the Brownie Village forced staid adults to pause and smile appreciatively at the whimsicalities of gnome life, the juveniles halted and dragged and impeded the progress of the procession as each new wonder confronted them.

White-furred little bunnies moved solemnly along at intervals over concealed runways, stopping now and then to bow to the amused audience. Winking, gray-bearded elves bobbed up from behind canvas rocks to wave diminutive hands before popping back to their shelters. One sun-bonneted fellow in patched overalls bent spasmodically over a little wooden wash tub on a hill. Further on, a perpetual clatter drew attention to the rustic forge where a brown-clad smith hammered lustily at a miniature horse shoe. At the end, stood a second brazen-lunged sentry, who like the other, implored the crowd to "Keep moving. Please keep moving."

Out by the toy counters, John found a dirty-faced street gamin in patched knee trousers confronting him. They eyed each other for a moment.

"Going 'round again?" asked John.

The boy nodded. "What'd he give you?"

John displayed his pencil box; the boy, a discordant reed whistle.

"Want to trade?" No sooner offered than accepted. What was the use of a school pencil box anyway?

Again they fell in with the Santa Claus line, hoping devoutly that the sentry would not recognize them. But on the third trip as they nodded toward an unkempt, brown-shawled Italian woman, the clerk bent over.

"Three times and out," he whispered as the boys' hearts went pitapat. "See?"

They saw, and went off in search of new pleasures. First they stopped at the mechanical train booth. When the operator of the miniature railroad was engaged, John's new found friend threw over a tiny switch and caused an unlooked for wreck on the line. A floorwalker pounced on them and ordered them away, so they sauntered down the aisle to a crowd which courted investigation.

"Kid lost," explained the street gamin, who possessed an uncanny trick of working his way through a throng. "They're taking him away now."

Along counter after counter, the boys wandered, past the dollar typewriter booth, through the doll carriage aisle, where a little girl tried to carry a vehicle away with her and made things momentarily exciting, and over by the electrical toys, the building blocks, and the sleds.

"Gee," said the dirty-faced boy as they stooped to examine a price tag, "My legs are 'most off me."

John examined his watch. Half past six! And he should have started for home an hour ago. Already his stomach clamored for something to eat. He invested a nickel in peanuts, and the pair devoured them ravenously. Then John wiped the last traces of salt from the corners of his mouth, said good-bye, and fled for the elevator. It would be nearly eight when he arrived and mother might be anxious over this trip—his first alone—to town.

He passed through the revolving doors for the second time that day and stopped short in the brilliantly lighted street. He'd forgotten about Louise! But perhaps some one would make a purchase for him later.

He passed a store with a red auction flag waving in the doorway. In the window was a tempting array of cheap jewelry, watches, and holiday goods. Surely there must be something that would be suitable for his lady.

The room was filled with tobacco smoke and the odor of unwashed humanity, for chilled vagrants helped to swell the throng which gathered around the raucous-voiced auctioneer. As John entered, that worthy lifted a glistening object in a green plush case high in the air that all might see it.

"This lady's watch has been asked for, gentlemen. Sixteen jewels in its movement and a solid gold-filled twenty-year case—and fit for any lady in the land to wear. Will somebody start bidding?"

John fumbled in his pocket and took inventory of the remains of the two dollars which had been filched from the pig bank. Presents for his mother and father had depleted the sum by half, peanuts had cost a nickel, and carfare, including the return trip, would account for another dime.

"How much am I offered, gentlemen," persisted the man behind the glass counter. "How much am I offered?"

There was no response. He passed the timepiece to a man in the front row and requested that he examine it carefully.

"Isn't it a beauty?" He raised the watch in the air again. "Now, will some one please bid?"

"Eighty-five cents," called John. Subdued laughter arose as the auctioneer bowed elaborately. "I thank you. This gentleman knows a good thing when he sees it. Eighty-five, eighty-five, a dollar and a half, a dollar and a half, two dollars, two dollars, two dollars—"

The boy lost interest in the proceedings. What was the use of wishing that you might give such a trinket to your lady love if you hadn't the money to pay for it?

There were books, but Louise was not over fond of reading; ash trays, atrocious Japanese vases with wart-like protuberances on their sides, and cut-glass dishes—each in its turn went to some fortunate, or unfortunate, who outbid John's modest offer.

At last the auctioneer rummaged among the conglomeration of articles on the counter below him and brought forth a little china dish.

"I have here," he began, "a hand-painted china vanity box. Think of it, gentlemen, these dainty violets are hand painted, and the top is solid gold-filled. Inside is a soft, dainty, powder puff. How much am I offered for this beautiful trinket. An ideal gift for wife, sister, or sweetheart. How much am I offered?"

A man in a far corner of the room bid a quarter. The auctioneer looked pained. "Only a quarter bid? Gentlemen, it's a shame. The time taken to decorate it was worth more than that. Only a quarter bid? That gentleman must be married. Is that all he thinks of his wife?"