"Third down, four yards to gain " The referee trotted out of the scrimmage line and blew his whistle; the Hillton quarter-back crouched again behind the big center; the other backs scurried to their places as though for a kick. "9--6--12 " called quarter huskily. "Get through " shrieked the St. Eustace captain. "Block this kick " "4--8 "

A boy in a blue serge suit sat on the second tier of seats of an otherwise empty grand-stand and, with his straw hat pulled well over his eyes, watched the progress of a horse-drawn mower about a field. The horse was a big, well-fed chestnut, and as he walked slowly along he bobbed his head rhythmically. In the seat of the mower perched a thin little man in a pair of blue overalls and a shirt which had also been blue at one time, but which was now faded almost white. A broad-brimmed straw hat of the sort affected by farmers, protected his head from the noonday sun.

"Hold up " Coach Robey, coatless, vestless, hatless, his old flannel trousers held up as by a miracle with the aid of a leather strap scarcely deserving the name of belt, pushed his way through the first squad players. The Brimfield Head Coach was a wiry, medium-sized man of about thirty, with a deeply-tanned face from which sharp blue eyes looked out under whitish lashes that were a shade lighter than his eyebrows and two shades lighter than his sandy hair. As the afternoon was excessively hot, even for the twenty-first day of September and in proximity to Long Island Sound, Mr. George...

Hilltop School closed its fall term with just ninety-five students; it opened again two weeks later, on the third of January, with ninety-six; and thereby hangs this tale.

"Dad, what does 'Mens sana in corpore sano' mean?" Mr. Edwards slightly lowered his Sunday paper and over the top of it frowned abstractedly at the boy on the window-seat. "Eh?" he asked. "What was that?" "'Mens sana in corpore sano, ' sir." "Oh " Mr. Edwards blinked through his reading glasses and rustled the paper. Finally, "For a boy who has studied as much Latin as you have," he said disapprovingly, "the question is extraordinary, to say the least. I'd advise you to-hm-find your dictionary, Steve." And Mr. Edwards again retired from sight.

"She's a pu-pu-pu-pu-- " "Quite so, Tommy," said Dan soothingly, "but don't excite yourself." "--pu-pu-peach " "Oh, all right " laughed Nelson. "I thought you were trying to call her a puppy. What do you think of her, Bob?" "Best ever," answered Bob promptly and quietly. They were standing, the four of them-"to say nothing of the dog," which in this case was a wide-awake wire-haired terrier-on the edge of a wharf overlooking a small slip in which, in spite of the fact that it was the last week in June and many of the winter tenants had been hauled out and placed in commission, a dozen or more...

When Gordon Merrick neared the corner of Troutman Street he slowed down his bicycle and finally drew in at the curb, putting out a foot to hold himself in the saddle while he deliberated. So deep in thought was he that when the yellow watering cart trundled up, the driver half asleep under the blue and white umbrella, he never knew of it until the sprinkler had drenched him from foot to knee. The driver awoke at that moment and, looking back, saw Gordon

Two men were sitting beside a camp-fire at Saddle Pass, a shallow notch in the lower end of the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern Colorado. Although it was the middle of June and summer had come to the valleys below, up here in the mountains the evenings were still chill, and the warmth of the crackling fire felt grateful to tired bodies. Daylight yet held, although it was fast deepening toward dusk. The sun had been gone some little time behind the purple grandeur of Sierra Blanca, but eastward the snowy tips of the Spanish Peaks were still flushed with the afterglow.

"Jail," said the boy in the gray flannels. "School," pronounced the boy in the blue serge. "Bet you " "No, sir, you owe me ten cents now. You didn't pay up the last time." "It's wrong to bet for money, Ned." The other set down the suitcase he was carrying and scoffed. "Yes, when you lose," he observed, with deep sarcasm. "That's thirty-five cents you owe me. You bet in Chicago that-"

"How's craps, Country?" "Shut up, Bart he may hear you." "What if he does, ninny? I want him to. Say, Spinach " "Do you suppose he's going to try and play football, Bart?" "Not he. He's looking for a rake. Thinks this is a hayfield, Wall." The speakers were lying on the turf back of the north goal on the campus at Hillton Academy. The elder and larger of the two was a rather coarse-looking youth of seventeen. His name was Bartlett Cloud, shortened by his acquaintances to "Bart" for the sake of that brevity beloved of the schoolboy. His companion, Wallace Clausen, was a handsome though rather...