Nine o'clock in the morning saw the "Tigers" assembled in front of the Silvey home. Sid wore his elaborate outfit; Bill, the ragged football trousers which had done duty in the autumn, and John sported a battered cap. Other uniforms among them there were not, but the team made a brave showing, nevertheless, as it trooped lustily toward the corner. No scampering across the railroad embankment this time for the members. A baseball game demanded a more ceremonious arrival on the grounds. They neared the viaduct and Red and Perry Alford began a tattoo on the cement walk with the baseball bats. The other players broke into that time-honored refrain,

With the corner and adult ears left behind them, Sid, in a spirit of bravado, filled in the tabooed expletive and aroused the awed admiration of his subordinates.

Past the long, low, red art shops they swaggered, keeping perfect time to the chant as they rounded the corner. John who was a little ahead of the others, broke into a sharp cry of dismay.

"Look! Our grounds!"

The consternation which was on his face spread to theirs. The shaky, weather-beaten fence by the sidewalk had been torn down before their arrival. At intervals, load after load of building stone rumbled over hastily formed paths of heavy planks. Further in, on the field, from the home-plate northward over the painstakingly levelled earth, harnessed horses sweated and tugged at the traces as scoop after scoop bit into the turf and came up filled with dirt to be emptied against the railroad tracks.

"Flats," gasped Silvey, as they drew nearer. John said nothing, but his lower lip trembled as the last trace of the beautifully sanded base lines disappeared under the excavators' devastating hands.

"'Tis a pity," said the kindly Irishman, who noted their approach, "but it has to be, I guess, kids. Yis, the other team went home, fifteen minutes ago. Said they didn't guess there'd be a game today."

They stopped in dazed bewilderment to watch the progress of the foundation work. At last, John, sick at heart, slunk away. He wanted to be home, away from everyone until he could get control of his feelings. As he came down the street with his baseball glove dangling aimlessly in one hand, he stumbled over the Mosher youngster who was intent upon some childish pursuit in the dust of the gutter.

"Get out of the way," he stormed angrily. To vent his disappointment upon even so small an offender was a relief. The infant smiled maliciously.

"Johnny an' Louise, Johnny an' Louise," he chanted, reviving the cry of the autumn before.

"Well, what about it," demanded John belligerently.

"Louise had a soda with Sid. Saw her, saw her!"

"When?" Had Louise, too, forsaken him in this hour of grief?

"Yesterday. Sidney an' Louise, Sidney an' Louise," came the taunting revision.

John's face set. All the wrongs which Sid had perpetrated since the Halloween party—the earlier sodas, the persistence which had culminated in the theater affair, the baseball election, and his arrogance since that time—clamored for revenge. He'd get even, he would. He'd go back and punch Sid's face in, and muss that new suit, and throw his baseball gloves up on a house roof. Then Mr. Sid would quit monkeying with his girl.

The appearance of that gentleman around the corner put a stop to his meditations. John waited until he sauntered unsuspectingly up to him.

"Say, Sid!"

"Yes?" A note in the voice put the captain of the "Tigers" on his guard.

"What's this I hear about Louise?"

"N-nothing."

"Been drinking sodas with her again, have you?"

"Who told you?" Sid made a futile effort to edge past the inquisitor.

"Never mind who. Promise not to do it any more or I'll—" He clenched one fist and drew it back threateningly.

"Guess I won't," retorted Sid with sudden spirit. "Guess I've got as much right to drink sodas with her as anybody. Who's going to stop me?"

"I am!"

"You," scornfully.

At this moment, the very cause of the dissension came skipping along with the inevitable package from the grocery under one arm. Feminine intuition told her that trouble was lurking in the air, and she would have passed but John held up a detaining hand.

"Louise, you've been drinking sodas with Sid again."

"Haven't either," in the same breath came the admission, "who told you?"

John gave her a searching glance. "Tell this guy," he said with infinite scorn, "that you won't have anything more to do with him. Tell him you're my girl, Louise," he added incautiously.

The lady's head went back to a warning angle.

"Go on!" John ordered.

"Guess I won't!" she snapped, angered by his persistence. "Guess I won't!" she repeated angrily. "'Cause I'm not anybody's girl. So there!" With nose held regally in the air and knees strangely jointless, she walked away from the pair.

"Ya-a-a-h," jeered Sid incautiously.

John drove out, full strength, with his right fist upon his adversary's nose. Sid stepped back in dismay. It wasn't fair, punching without the preliminary tilt of words and wary skirmishing. Again John set upon him and he turned, dodged behind a tree, and fled for home. Down the street they tore at top speed. Inch by inch, the space between the two diminished as they passed the Alfords, the Harrisons, and finally arrived at the DuPree iron gate.

"Ma-a-a-a!" yelled Sid, as he struggled with the handle. "Come quick, come quick."

The gate suddenly yielded. Sid sprang inside, up the front steps, and into the hallway. There he turned, locked the screen door, and stuck out his tongue at his adversary.

"Ya-a-a-a!" he taunted.

John contemplated an attack upon the flimsy screening, but a remnant of wisdom withheld him.

came the cry from the porch.

"Think you're smart," John glared. "Just dare you to come down here! Just dare you to!"

"The old fly-catcher" continued. John opened his lips for a reply in kind.

The hero of the verse was struck suddenly dumb by this display of poetical ability. Again John repeated his latest composition. He was beginning to enjoy himself immensely. At the third repetition of the adventures of Sid, a window creaked noisily up.

"John Fletcher," came the harsh voice from the upper window. "You're a nasty little boy, and if you don't leave Sidney alone, I'll telephone your mother."

"Ya-a-a-ah," jeered Sid in an undertone. John looked and longed.

"Go on," urged Mrs. DuPree. "The telephone's right here in the hallway."

He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and crossed over to his own porch. Once up in his room, he threw himself on the bed, and as the excitement of the chase wore off began to realize the extent of the morning's losses.

The athletic field upon which they had labored so long and carefully, was torn to pieces—gone forever. Worse than that, Louise wasn't his girl any more. She'd said so herself. No more samples of cookery, no more confidential little walks to and from school, no more squirrel-feeding excursions. And the glorious dream of the future was as completely demolished as the "Tigers' Home Grounds." There could be no thousand dollars and a home when he reached his majority now.

He lay staring at the pattern in the ceiling paper, sobbing ever so little now and then, for some minutes, then wrenched himself miserably over on his side.

There he found that horrid old bank staring him in the face, that same pig bank which stood a grinning monument to his industry of the past months. But what good was the paper route now? or where the pleasure in dropping his weekly income into that long, narrow slot? Louise wasn't his girl any more. She'd said so, herself.

In a sudden fit of spite, he sprang up and seized the heavy, sneering bit of pottery in both hands. The next moment, it crashed to the floor and pennies, nickels, dimes, and even half-dollars rolled out on the carpet or mingled with the shattered bits of china. He stood astounded at the number for a moment, then gathered them up on his bed, and took careful count.

Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents? He could scarcely believe his eyes.

Then he lay back, not quite so grief-stricken, and stared thoughtfully into space until Mrs. Fletcher called him for dinner.

"Thirty-eight dollars and fifty-three cents."

At the table, that evening, he was unusually quiet. As he finished his last slice of bread and butter, he looked up at his father.

"Dad, if a fellow earns a lot of money, all by himself, he can spend it any way he wants, can't he?"

Mr. Fletcher nodded. "Why, son?"

"I was just wondering. That's all."

A week later, Louise was sitting on the street curbing in front of her apartment building, when a crimson-clad baseball warrior on a new bicycle sped over the macadam and came to a sudden halt beside her. She raised her eyes in astonished recognition. It was her late fiancÉ.

"'Lo."

"'Lo."

"Like my new wheel?"

"Uhu."

"Bought it out of the money I was saving so's we could get married. Cost me twenty-one dollars, and it's got puncture-proof tires and a real coaster brake. Just watch me ride it!"

He sped off, rode free for a moment, threw the brake on and came to a sudden stop, then cut a figure eight over the paving. The clear spring sun made miniature rainbows in the shining, rapidly revolving spokes, and an early robin warbled his approval of the performance from his seat in a linden's top.

"I can ride without touching the handles, too," he boasted, as he guided the wheel back to her. "Isn't it peachy?"

She nodded. The long, curving bars bore a suggestion of possible rides on this beautiful steel-and-rubber creation, if their quarrel could be healed, and she held out a tentative olive branch.

"Want to play jacks?"

John shook his head. "Going over to the park baseball diamond with the 'Tigers.' We're going to play the 'Jeffersons,' this afternoon."

"But your paper route?"

He laughed joyously. "Sold it to the newspaper man. He gave me three dollars and twenty-five cents for the customers."

"Oh!" There was a pause.

"Like my baseball suit?" he asked.

She gazed at the flaming horror and nodded enthusiastically.

"You ought to see me run that team!"

"You?" she exclaimed. "Why, I thought Sid was captain."

"He was," with zestful emphasis on the verb. "But I bought nine baseball dollar uniforms and a lot of gloves and two bats, and a real league ball out of my money, so the kids fired Sid and elected me. He isn't even on the team any more."

"O-o-oh!" Truly John was becoming an important figure in the juvenile world.

"And I've got a dollar and thirteen cents left for candy and peanuts," he concluded.

Louise studied the confident, freckled face before her, the sparkling bicycle with its glossy saddle and acetylene lamp, the heavily padded baseball glove on the nickeled handle bars, and then their owner again. She took the last remnant of her pride and stamped it under foot in a wave of regret.

"John," she said, shyly.

"Yes?"

"I won't have anything more to do with Sid."

The captain of the "Tigers" only laughed. "You can go with Sid all you want, and drink all the sodas he'll pay for. I don't care, because—" he leaned his weight forward on the pedals and started for the park so suddenly that she barely caught his parting words, "I'm through with girls. I'm going to be a bachelor!"