had threatened to punch his face in, with no provocation whatsoever. The long-discussed secret code took a new lease on life, and cipher messages pa.s.sed to the various corners of room ten with a frequency which drove Miss Brown nearly to distraction.

That early April afternoon saw the reunion of the "Tigers" in the Silvey back yard. They viewed the dilapidated, weather-beaten club house with reawakened interest. Quoth John,

"It's awful dirty where the snow worked in through the fence. Let's fix her up." Down into the bas.e.m.e.nt went Bill at the words, and reappeared with an old broom, a hammer, and some nails.

"A lot of the boards are loose," he said, as the boys grabbed the implements.

Sid stood around and offered voluble suggestions, but the others fell to work with a will. At the end of a half-hour the dirt floor was brushed free of debris with a thoroughness never attained on maternal cleaning a.s.signments, and the little desk was dragged from its winter shelter of the house to occupy the customary position of state.

Red Brown stretched out on the springy, alluring sod near the building.

John and Sid, Skinny and Silvey, followed his example.

"Isn't this great?" the red-haired one asked blissfully. Sid reverted to the cause for the summons of the clan.

"How about the 'Jeffersons'?" he asked.

Babel reigned instantly. Silvey was for picking them off, one by one.

Red counseled a sudden descent in force upon the home haunts of the enemy. A rear window in the Silvey house creaked upward, and a feminine voice pierced the sun-filled air.

"Land's sakes, Bill Silvey, get off that wet ground this minute. You'll catch your death of cold lying there this early in April."

The boy sprang to his feet, while his friends grinned sympathetically.

"And you, John Fletcher," Mrs. Silvey went on, "you needn't laugh. Your mother won't like it a bit better, if I telephone her. She'll call you home in a minute!"

They all rose at this. Truly, modern electrical inventions widen the maternal scope of authority.

"Shucks!" said Skinny, as he brushed some dead gra.s.s from his coat. "Now she's spoiled it all. What'll we do?"

John tossed his battered cap high in the air in a sudden access of spirits. "One for scrub," he shouted. "First raps for the first game of scrub. Go home and get your league ball and bat, Sid. I'll bring my first baseman's glove. Silvey'll find his catcher's mitt. Beat you home!

Beat you home!"

They were off. Down the cement sidewalk they darted, their quick breaths showing ever so slightly in the crisp air. John stamped up the steps and into the front hall.

"Mother!" he called. "Mother!"

"Yes, son?" came the voice from the big second floor sewing room.

"Where's my baseball glove?" He kicked against the bottom step of the stairway impatiently.

"Did you wipe your feet when you came in?" came the disconcerting inquiry. "I don't want the carpets all over mud."

"Y-yes."

"Go back and wipe them right away. Then come up and tell me what you want."

He gave his offending shoes a half-rub against the fiber mat on the porch, and was up by her side in another moment. She looked up from the basket of ragged stockings she was sorting.

"Now, what is it?"

"My first baseman's glove. The one dad gave me for my birthday. Know where it is?"

"Where did you leave it?"

"Why, don't you know?" His surprise was genuine. Usually his mother picked up his boyish belongings and stored them in a place of safety.

"Is that the glove which laid in the coat closet all last November? the one that I kept telling you to put away before it became lost?"

He nodded. "Please tell me, Mother. The boys are all down at Silvey's, and I've got to get it _quick_!"

Mrs. Fletcher yielded with a smile. "Seems to me I saw it on your closet shelf, the other day."

A moment later, a shout told that her memory had served her rightly. The door slammed, eager feet sprang down the wooden porch steps, and her son dogtrotted north toward his chum's, as fast as his legs could carry him.

When he arrived, Silvey scaled the stout wire fence on the railroad property, and hunted three white stones of fair and flat proportions.

"Here's your bases," he called as he heaved the objects into the yard with a recklessness which threatened destruction to the turf. "Johnny was first at bat, wasn't he?"

They took their positions in the order of the numbers which they had called earlier. Silvey stood behind the home plate, Sid DuPree was in the pitcher's box, Red played first base, and Skinny Mosher stood near the fence to cover the outfield, second, and third as best he could. Sid ground the ball into the heel of his heavily padded mitt, as he had seen professional pitchers do, bent forward, and threw the ball over Silvey's head against the back wall of the house. "Ya-ah," taunted John as the catcher scrambled for the ball. "'Fraid to put 'em near me. 'Fraid to put 'em near me."

Again a window creaked, and again a maternal voice showed that attention had been drawn to the "Tigers" latest recreation.

"What _are_ you boys trying to do?" fretfully. "Don't you know this house has windows in it?"

"Go easy," cautioned Bill in an undertone. "Remember, Sid, you haven't thrown a ball since last summer. I don't want any 'penny lectures'

'cause you smashed some gla.s.s."

Sid drew his arm back for the second time. John leaned forward, caught the slowly moving ball with the full force of the bat, and tore for first base.

"Over the fence is out, over the fence is out," came the chorus.

"Silvey's turn next."

The ex-batsman took up the position near the fence in disgust. Skinny moved forward to the pitcher's box, and Sid replaced Bill as catcher.

The muscles of Skinny's long, thin arms tightened as he grasped the ball for his first pitch of the season.

Suddenly the subdued afternoon babel of the city was dwarfed by a humming of factory whistles, some long drawn and of deep ba.s.s, others quicker and higher pitched, rising and dying away in succession as they were supplanted by the distance-mellowed notes of other establishments with lagging time clocks. Dismay robbed John's face of the grin of a moment before.

"Five o'clock," he cried as he threw the baseball glove into the quickening gra.s.s. "Jiminy, kids, and the paper wagon comes at ten of!"

Inquiry at the little dingy-windowed delicatessen and milk depot confirmed his fears. The cart had arrived on time, and his customers would expect their news sheets that evening.

What a pest the business was growing to be. It wasn't half-bad in winter when the afternoons were short, but now that spring had arrived, there were so many delightful demands on a boy's time. He counted the coins in his pocket, and made a mental calculation of the number of papers actually needed.

"Give me all you've got," he demanded of the astonished delicatessen proprietor. That thin-haired, shaky-fingered gentleman counted the papers on the black news stand.

"There's one for ol' Miss Anderson, an' one for--"

"Never mind them," John broke in excitedly. "Give me all your papers!

You've got to!"