"Now what does he mean by that?" asked Biscuit.

"He means they can't nobody play on this here court till his work is done," interpreted Gizzard.

"Well, you don't catch me doin' any of his work!" cried Stucky. "I got enough of my own!"

"Me neither—" began Biscuit, when Gizzard interrupted.

"Listen here!" he shouted. "Quit your beefin' and listen here a minute! I got a scheme!"

"If it's a scheme for us to do his work you needn't tell it!" returned Biscuit. "I've done more work this mornin' than he does in a week—"

But Gizzard brushed him ungently aside. "Dry up! Dry up! Cut out the noise and listen a minute! Three people can't play any decent tennis! We gotta have four if we want to play the game! It wouldn't take us five minutes to clean up his work—and it's his court, anyway!"

Biscuit yielded ungraciously. He grumbled all the way to the front lawn, and then suddenly became embued with enthusiasm, and took upon himself the honor of informing Sube that they were at his service.

Sube was apparently not expecting anything of the sort. "Do you fellows mean that you're go'n' to help me with my work?" he asked incredulously.

"Sure thing!" cried Biscuit cheerfully. "You don't s'pose we want to be playin' tennis out there while you're workin', do you? And besides, the court belongs to you!"

"Say!—You're good scouts, all right!" Sube exclaimed with unguarded admiration.

"What-all you got t'do?" inquired Gizzard.

"Well, you give this ol' mower a few shoves, Giz, and I'll show the other fellers what to do," responded Sube genially.

Gizzard seized the handles of the lawn-mower and assiduously applied himself to the task of depilating the lawn, while Stucky retired to the garden and began on hands and knees to thin the blushing beets to five inches, putting the thinnings into a basket for greens.

Biscuit followed Sube about whining repeatedly:

"What am I go'n'ta do? Sube, what am I go'n'ta do?"

"I don't know as you can do the only job that's left," Sube taunted with a triumphant gleam at the immaculate knickerbockers. "It's pretty pa'tic'lar work."

"I'll bet y'u I can do it! What is it?" cried the unsuspecting Biscuit. "Show it to me! I'll eat it alive!"

"Did you ever sprout any potatoes?" inquired Sube as he led the way to the cellar.

"No; but I'll bet y'u I can do it!"

"Well, we'll see about that," was Sube's dubious-sounding answer as he guided Biscuit towards the potato bin.

"Gee, but it's dark in here," whined Biscuit.

Sube stopped short. "Look here!" he warned. "If it's too dark for you down here in this cool cellar, you go on outdoors, and I'll do these p'tates myself—or let one of the other fellers do 'em."

"Oh, no!" Biscuit hastened to assure him. "It ain't dark at all any more. It jus' seemed so at first. I can see fine now."

"Well, all right then," muttered Sube. "But if you're goin' to back out, I want to know it 'fore you begin."

"No, sir! I ain't go'n'ta back out," Biscuit asserted resolutely.

Sube picked up a potato from which several long white sprouts were dangling. "You jus' give 'em a simple twist of the wrist," he explained coÖrdinating the action with the words, "and there you are!" He held up the beardless tuber for Biscuit's inspection. "Now, do you s'pose you can do that?" he asked.

"Of course I can," Biscuit replied disdainfully. "It's jus' like wipin' dishes; and I've wiped my mother's dishes ever since I was big enough to walk!"

This burst of confidence was destined to come back to plague Biscuit, although at the time of its utterance Sube appeared not to have heard it.

"Let's see you do a few," was all he said.

Biscuit was a little awkward, but he managed to denude a large potato of its foliage and handed it to Sube for approval. Sube examined it very carefully.

"That's pretty fair," he admitted; "but you must clean 'em off good. Chuck 'em in there," he added as he tossed the potato into a bushel basket.

"How many you got to do?" inquired Biscuit, plunging briskly into his task.

"Six bushels," replied Sube, with anticipation of the day when he would be called upon to sprout potatoes on his own account. "And when the basket's full dump it over there in the corner. As soon as you get the six bushels done you come out and help Stucky with the beets. It's awful hot out there in the sun." And Sube withdrew, leaving Biscuit in sole possession of the musty cellar.

On returning to the lawn Sube found Gizzard busy with the clippers. "What! Got her all cut!" he cried delightedly.

"You bet y'u!" replied Gizzard. "And I'm pretty near through with the clippin', too."

"Well, I'll put the ol' mower away and stick up the net. Chuck the clippers in the barn as you go by. Dad always gets sore if we don't put the tools away."

He had just finished stretching the net when Stucky walked out on the court.

"You're not done already!" beamed Sube.

"You know it!" was Stucky's self-important reply.

"What did you do with the greens?"

"Give 'em to Annie."

"Stucky, you're a brick church!"

"Where's Biscuit?" asked Gizzard who at that moment came panting up.

"Down cellar sproutin' p'tates," replied Sube. "But I had him leave the new ball outside. I was afraid he'd get it dirty."

"Wisht he'd hurry up," said Stucky. "We wanta get to playin'. Don't you s'pose he's done?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to bother him right in the middle of a bushel," Sube remonstrated. "Let's have a little three-hander while we're waitin'. I'll stand the two of you."

The little three-hander had become almost a set, and, strange to say, Biscuit had been entirely forgotten when his mother, accompanied by a slight, sallow gentleman in a black suit, drew up by the side of the street in a surrey from the livery.

"Boys!" she called.

The game stopped. There was momentary confusion among the players. Sube slipped the new ball into his pocket and carelessly kicked his sweater over a pair of shoes and stockings lying beside the court, before he appeared to be able to locate the speaker. When at last his eyes encountered Mrs. Westfall's, he snatched off his cap with elaborate gusto and sang out politely:

"Good morning, M's Westfall! Did you call us?"

"Yes," she replied sharply. "Where's Karl?"

"Ma'am?"

"Is Karl here?"

"Oh! No, ma'am."

"I gave him permission to come here and play tennis!" she cried with visible irritation. "Hasn't he been here?"

"No, ma'am. We ain't seen him this mornin'."

Mrs. Westfall was annoyed. "He's going driving with us!" she informed them. "Do you know where he is?"

"No, ma'am! He hasn't been around here!"

At that moment a movement at the rear of the house and in the immediate neighborhood of the cellar door caught Mrs. Westfall's eye. An animated mass of dirt and potato sprouts that might by some stretch of the imagination have been taken for a human being, emerged and paused to regard itself. For a moment it brushed desperately at the place where trousers might have been expected to hang had it been a male member of the human family. A cloud of stifling dust arose; and out of the midst of the cloud came a wail of distress that Mrs. Westfall recognized as the voice of her missing son.

Her astonishment gave way to annoyance, quickly followed by a surge of red anger. She handed the reins to her escort and leaped from the surrey with the agility of a tigress.

Sube involuntarily fell back a few steps muttering: "Why! That must be him! I wonder where he's been!"

But he need have no fear, for this was his day. He was immune from disaster of any kind. The enraged woman rushed past him, and seizing Biscuit by the nape of the neck, hauled him over her knee and repeatedly applied to his person a large red hand, utterly regardless of the nebulous masses of dust that arose at each stroke.

At first Biscuit put up a terrified resistance, attempting desperately to get a hearing for his plea of justification; but when the blows began to rain down on him he gave himself up to such solace as the human voice affords.

He cried; then he bawled; and as the chastisement proceeded he bellowed lustily. It was not so much the physical pain, nor the anguish of outraged innocence, although he felt both keenly, as it was the burning disgrace of being chastised in the presence of his fellows.

But his lamentations had little effect on his mother. She ceased her ministrations only when her strength was spent.

"There!" she gasped with her final blow. "You—dirty—boy!!—Look at your bare feet!"

Biscuit looked at them. They were indeed bare, and very, very dirty.

"You know you are forbidden to go barefooted!" she charged with a gesture that seemed to indicate that she contemplated a renewal of the assault. "And look at your beautiful new trousers! They're ruined!!"

Biscuit glanced down at them, at the same time keeping up a defensive blubbering.

"You deceived me!" she continued the arraignment. "You told me you wanted to come here and play tennis!—And you never came near here!—When I stop for you I find the other boys playing like little gentlemen, while you are off by yourself getting into—Goodness knows what!—Go home, you dirty boy, as fast as ever you can get there! I'll finish with you in private!"

The thing was beyond Biscuit; it was too much for him. The harm was done. It was too late for explanations. He made no attempt to reply, but limped, still blubbering, in the direction of his shoes, the coarse turf torturing his tender feet.

Mrs. Westfall followed menacingly at a little distance with further animadversions, when suddenly she remembered her guest, whose presence she had entirely overlooked in the stress of her emotions. She did not doubt that he was looking on with mortification and horror; and, accordingly, with such moderation of her angry voice as she could command, she added:

"Go home, you wicked boy, and pray to God to forgive you."

As the Westfall family withdrew, practical Sube whispered to his companions, "If Biscuit's on to his job he'll put on an extra pair of pants before he does any prayin'."