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 “The punishing will not help you for next time,” she said, “unless
you see just where the fault was. When did the going wrong begin?”
Johnny was silent for a few moments; then he said,—
“I think it began when I said to myself that you didn’t know about
boys because you were a lady. Then, when I found I had my half
dollar in my pocket, and heard the music, that seemed to make it all
right,—I made myself believe that if papa had been at home, he
would have let me go,—only I didn’t really and truly believe it, for he
never does let me do things that you don’t.
“But, mamma, don’t you think it would be a splendid thing if there
really were thinkephones? Something like telephones, you know,
only for thinks instead of words? You see, if you and I had one, you
would always be able to stop me when I was going to do anything
bad! I had such a queer dream last night, when my head hurt so; I
thought somebody had really and truly invented thinkephones, and I
was hearing everybody think, and some of the people that I had
liked ever so much were thinking such disagreeable things that I did
not like them any more, and they heard me think that, and then
they didn’t like me any more, and things were getting into a most
dreadful mess when you came in and cut the wires, and then the
dream stopped, and I went into a nice quiet sleep.”
“So you see,” said his mother, smiling at this remarkable dream,
“that if anybody ever should invent the thinkephone, it will make
more trouble than pleasure, for no one, not even the best people,
would be ready to have all their thoughts known to any other human
being. But, dear Johnny, Who is it to whom all our thoughts lie bare,
Who hears them just as if we spoke, Who, if we ask Him, can take
away the wicked ones, and put good and holy ones in their place?”
“It is the Saviour, mamma,” said Johnny, reverently, “and if I had
just asked Him yesterday, when I heard the music, and found the
half dollar in my pocket, that would have been better than stopping
my ears. But it seems to me that just when I am most bad and need
Him the most, I forget all about Him.”
 “We can teach our minds, as well as our bodies, to have habits,”
said his mother, “and the habit of sending up a quick, earnest prayer,
whenever we are especially tempted, will often save us from yielding
to the temptation, when there is nothing else to do it. Even if I could
read your thoughts, I cannot always be with you, and I could not
always help you, but the Saviour is always near, and always ‘mighty
to save,’ from small things as well as great, and you can think to
Him, and know that it will be just the same as if you had spoken.”
Johnny was obliged to keep rather quiet for several days, but he
was much more patient and gentle than he had ever been before
during a slight illness, and he seemed sincerely pleased when he
heard what a good time Tiny and Pep and the rest of his small
friends had had at the circus.
Tiny had been much impressed by seeing the identical donkey
that had come so near to breaking Johnny’s head.
“I didn’t half like that part,” she said. “I wanted that donkey
punished for kicking you, Johnny.”
“He didn’t do it on purpose, Tiny,” said Johnny, indulgently. “You
see, I stuck my head out over the rope, and, though I couldn’t help
thinking at first that he knew and did it to punish me, I know now
that that was foolish. And I’m really very much obliged to him! If
nothing ever happened to folks, I don’t believe they’d think of
anything!”
Mrs. Leslie left Johnny to decide for himself whether or not he
should give her back her sleeve, and, very sorrowfully, he brought
her his hat to have the “token” ripped off.
“It wouldn’t be fair for me to keep it on, mamma,” he said, “when
I deserted Polly and Tiny and you all at once. But please don’t cut it
up, or anything,—just put it away safely, and the very first time I’ve
been tempted right hard, and remembered what you said, and been
helped through, then I’ll ask you to put it on my hat again!”
 CHAPTER III.
LETTER AND SPIRIT.

iny and Johnny congratulated themselves,

and each other, at least once a week, upon
being the children of an editor.
You will think, perhaps, that they had
literary tendencies, and hoped to grow up
into co-editors? Not in the least! They each
wondered, as they groaned over
“composition day,” how anybody could be
found willing to spend the greater part of his time either in writing,
or in reading what other people had written; they knew that at least
a column of the “large print” in their father’s paper, was always
written by himself, and they had often seen him plodding through
pages of bad writing, which must be read and decided upon, so that,
proud as they were of him for being able to do these things, and
much as they admired him, I am afraid they pitied him even more.
“Poor papa!” they would say to each
other, when they saw him at his desk, with
a mountain of manuscript before him; and
sometimes, I must confess, Mr. Leslie
echoed this sigh, for an editor’s life is not
invariably “a happy one,” any more than a
policeman’s is.
No, their pleasure in having an editor for
their father was a very practical one;
among the many books which were sent to
him for review were numbers of nice story and picture books for
children; among the “exchanges” which came to the office were
 delightful picture papers, selected,
apparently, with a view to playroom walls
and scrap-books. And last, but by no means
least, there was the waste-paper basket!
They had learned the signs and tokens, and
whenever a very fat manuscript was being
read, they would ask eagerly,—
“Did she send
any stamps, papa?”
They were so nearly sure that the fat
manuscript would prove “not available for
the purposes of, etc.,” that the whole thing
hinged on the stamps—if she had sent
them, why then, of course, she must have
her “old manuscript” back, if she wished it; but if she had not, then,
oh, then! there were all those sheets of paper, perfectly blank on
one side, anyhow. And what with colored envelopes, and pamphlets
printed on pink and blue paper, and envelope bands, and
monograms, and occasional coats-of-arms, that waste paper basket,
with skilful handling of its contents, had yielded many a handsome
kite.
Its contents had been given over to Johnny, and those of the rag-
bag to Tiny, at the same time, but they preferred to make
partnership affairs of both. As the rag-bag yielded sails for boats,
and covers for balls, and “bobs” for kites, so did the waste-paper
basket yield colored paper wherewith to dress paper dolls, and stiff
cards which made excellent cardboard furniture, not to mention
those pieces of blank-on-both-sides writing paper, which could be cut
into small sheets and envelopes. And if a monogram is really
handsome, why should not one person use it as well as another?
Johnny was beginning to be famous for his kites, and as he was a
warm-hearted and generous little boy, with a large number of
friends, he frequently made a kite to give away. Tiny was always
ready to help him, and was particularly “handy” at making the
 devices of bright paper with which the kites were
generally ornamented, and pasting them neatly
on. When the kite was very large, she did even
more than this, and Johnny never gave one away,
without explaining that Tiny had shared in the
making.
They had been saving all the best paper of
every sort lately for the largest kite they had ever
undertaken; it was so large that it was already
named the Monster, and it was stretched, half
finished, upon the floor of the spare garret, where it would not be
disturbed. It was designed for a birthday present to one of Johnny’s
very best friends, and everybody in the house was interested in it. It
was to be pure white, with a pair of wings, and a bird’s head and
tail, in brilliant red paper, pasted upon one side, and on the other, in
large blue letters, the initials of the boy for whom it was intended.
But, with the perversity of things in general, or rather because it
had been a very warm summer, and most of the poor authors had
been taking holidays as much as they could, the waste-paper basket
of late had not been worth the trouble of emptying.
So it was with no very great expectations
that Johnny went to it one Saturday
morning to see if by chance there should be
a rejected manuscript of sufficient length to
satisfy the Monster. No, there was nothing
there but a letter written on both sides of
the paper, a few pamphlets, likewise
without blank sides, and some envelopes
and postal cards. Johnny was turning away
with a natural sigh, and the conviction that,
if the Monster was ever to be finished, he
must make a small appropriation out of his Christmas money, when
behold! on the floor, just under the edge of the desk, and hidden by
the basket, he spied a lovely manuscript; large sheets, firm, white,
unruled paper, written upon only on one side.
He jumped for it with a joyful exclamation, but stopped as
suddenly—had it been thrown down, and missed the basket, or had
it fallen, and been neglected for the moment, because it was hidden
by the desk and basket?
If Mr. Leslie had only been there, how
quickly these questions could have been
answered! But alas! he had left home that
very morning, to be gone two days; and
must a whole precious Saturday be lost on
account of what was, perhaps, after all,
only a needless and foolish scruple?
Then the two Johnnys—you may have
observed that there are two of you?—began
an argument something like this:—
Johnny No. 1. You’d better not take that thing till you’ve asked
your father about it. It looks to me as if it had merely fallen from the
table.
Johnny No. 2. But papa won’t be back till Monday morning, and I
can’t wait. Bob’s birthday is next Wednesday, and the kite’s only half
done now!
No. 1. That makes no difference. It is not the question. And you
might at least ask your mother what she thinks, and let her decide.
No. 2. Mamma never knows anything about papa’s papers; I’ve
heard her say so a dozen times. And why should it have been on the
floor if it was worth anything?
No. 1. You know quite well that your father never throws on the
floor things which are meant for the basket, and that it looks much
more as if it had fallen from the table. Come, put it back, and either
wait till Monday, or go and buy the rest of the paper you need.
 No. 2. Papa’s a very careful man, and he wouldn’t have gone off
for two days and left anything worth while on the floor. It was
almost in the basket, and it’s all the same, and I mean to take it, so
there!
The other Johnny made no reply to this conclusive argument—in
fact, he had no time, for the wrong Johnny rushed out of the library,
shouting:—
“Tiny! Oh, Tiny! come at once! Here’s enough to finish the
Monster, tail and all!”
Tiny dropped some very important work
for her best doll without a moment’s
hesitation, and reached the garret almost
as soon as Johnny did.
“Oh, that’s perfectly lovely!” she panted,
“and it’s more than enough! But oh,
Johnny,” she added, in a changed tone, “if
we should ever write poems and stories and
things, after we’re grown up, do you believe
that some dreadful editor will let his
children make kites out of them?”
“I’m afraid he will, of mine,” said Johnny, frankly, “for that’s about
all they’d be good for, but you write much better compositions than I
do, Tiny, for all you’re so much younger than I am, so perhaps the
editors will print yours. But it does seem a sort of shame, when you
think of all the time it must take them to do it, and how flat they
must feel when it turns out to have been for nothing. Now this
one”—looking at it critically—“is really beautifully written, and on
such good paper. Why, even the paper must cost them ever so
much! I say, Tiny, it’s just as if we had to put on five dollar gold
pieces, or gold dollars, for bait when we go fishing, and then had
them nibbled off without catching anything. I’ll tell that to papa—I
think he might make a story, or a poem, or a fable, or something out
of it—don’t you?”
 “Yes, it’s just the kind of thing they use for a fable,” said Tiny,
approvingly, and so, in steady work at the kite, enlivened by such
intellectual conversations as this, the day flew by, and by evening
the Monster was finished, tail and all.
There had been more than enough of the strong white paper for
everything, and Tiny had carefully cut the “bobs” out of it, fringing
each one at both ends. The colored paper for the enterprise had
been on hand for some time, and Mrs. Leslie put the crowning glory
on, by drawing a monogram to take the place of the separate initials
of Bob’s name, which were to have adorned one side of the kite.
This monogram was cut by Tiny’s deft fingers from pink and blue
paper, and carefully pasted together in the middle of one side.
Johnny had so entirely succeeded in silencing his scruples about
the manuscript, that he would probably never have thought of it
again, if it had not been rather forcibly recalled to his memory. It
had not occurred to Tiny to ask any questions about it; such streaks
of luck had come to them before, and she had perfect faith in
Johnny. So when, at the dinner-table, on Monday, Mr. Leslie said to
his wife,—
“I’ve somehow mislaid a very bright article by Mrs. —— which I
meant to use in the next number. Did you empty the waste basket,
dear, or did the children?”
Before his mother could answer, Johnny, with a very red face, and
a lump in his throat, had told the whole story.
Mr. Leslie looked exceedingly grave.
“I am very much annoyed by the loss of this manuscript,” he said,
“for even should Mrs. —— have a rough draft of it, she will be
obliged to take the trouble of making a second copy, and should she
not, it will be necessary for me to pay her for it, as if I had used it.
But that is not the worst of it, Johnny. If we deliberately stifle our
consciences, after a while, we cease to hear from them. Do you
remember asking me what ‘Quench not the Spirit’ means?”
“Yes, papa,” said Johnny, in a choked voice.
 “I think, then, that you remember what I told you, my boy, and I
shall pray that you may not again forget it. And now, the next thing
is, reparation, so far as you can make it. You must write to Mrs. ——
and tell her the whole story.”
“Oh, papa! please! I’ll do anything else!” said Johnny, piteously.
“But won’t you please write for me, and let me sign it, or put that it’s
all true, at the bottom?”
“No, my son,” said his father, firmly, “you must do this yourself,
and I shall take it as a proof of real repentance, if you do it
promptly, and without complaint.”
Johnny said not another word, and that evening, when he bade
his father good-night, he handed him a letter, saying meekly,—
“You’ll direct it for me, won’t you, papa?”
“Certainly, I will, my dear boy,” said his father, throwing his arm
around Johnny’s shoulder, and drawing him near for another kiss.
“And you’ll read it, and see if it will answer? Indeed, I did my very
best!” said poor Johnny.
“I don’t doubt it, dear boy,” said his father, warmly, “and I shall
add a few lines to tell Mrs. —— so.”
“Oh, will you do that? Thank you very much, dear papa!” said
Johnny, and he went to bed with a wonderfully lightened heart.
This was his letter:—

“Dear Mrs. —— Perhaps you will think I have no

right to call you that, when you hear what I have
done. I took a story of yours, which I heard papa say
was a very bright one, and used nearly all of it to finish
a Monster Kite, which Tiny and I were making. Tiny is
my sister, but she knew nothing about the way in
which I took the story. It was this way. Papa lets us
have everything which he puts into the waste-paper
basket, but people don’t seem to have written much
 lately, and we had not near enough. On Saturday
morning I went to look. There was nothing of any
account in the basket, but your story had fallen on the
floor, and I made myself believe that I thought it had
been thrown at the basket, and missed it. Papa was
away and was not coming back till Monday, and we
were in a great hurry to finish the Monster for Bob
Lane’s birthday, so I just took it, and let Tiny think I
found it in the basket, which was as bad as a lie,
though I didn’t say so. Now, I am so sorry that I don’t
know how to tell you, but that is not enough. If I could
unpaste your story, I would, but we put on a great
deal of paste—you have to, you know, or it don’t stick
—and some of it is all cut into fringe, for the bobs. But
what I mean to say is this: if you have any little boys,
or little nephews, or know anybody you would like to
give that kite to, I will send it right on. I have money
enough, I am pretty sure, to pay for expressing it, and
I know a way of fixing it so that it will not break. I sent
one to my cousin. Will you please let me know at once,
if I may send it, and oblige,
“Yours very sorrowfully and very respectfully,
“John Leslie.”

It had taken Johnny three good hours to write and copy that
letter. His father made no alteration in it, merely adding a few
courteous lines to express his own regret for what had happened,
and to say that he believed his boy had repented his fault very
sincerely, and had done his best with the enclosed letter.
Mrs. —— was not a monster, if the kite was. She laughed till she
cried, and then cried a little till she laughed again, over Johnny’s
letter. Then she answered it, and this is what she said:—
 “My dear John,—You have my hearty forgiveness. And
I would like very much to have the kite for my son,
who is nearly as old as I imagine you are, and has
never yet made one. But you must allow me to pay the
expressage; I can only accept it on that condition. I
have a rough copy of the article which helped to make
the Monster, and from this I will make a fair copy for
your father to-day and to-morrow. Please tell him so,
with my kindest regards,—and that I hope it will
circulate as widely as will the first one, and in as high
circles! I should very much like to hear from you again;
if you will write once in a while, so will I, and some
day, I hope, you and my boy will meet and be friends.
In the meantime, believe me sincerely and cordially
your friend,
“Mary ——.”

Johnny proved the sincerity of his repentance still further by the

perfect willingness with which he packed the Monster for his journey.
Tiny helped him, having first, by working very carefully, soaked off
the monograms, not much the worse for wear, and, as they were so
fortunate as to have some gilt paper in stock, the rough spot was
covered with a shining star.
An explanation was made to Bob, who, not having expected a
kite, or indeed any birthday present at all from Tiny and Johnny, was
quite resigned to wait, with so brilliant a prospect ahead of him, until
one or two more unfortunates had contributed a large enough
supply of waste paper. If they had known how eagerly it was
welcomed, it might have helped to console them a little, poor things!
The children built a third Monster for themselves, after Bob’s was
finished, and on this they pasted, in large gilt letters, upon a blue
ground, the motto they intended to use if they should ever have a
coat-of-arms—“Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”
 “Only I suppose it will have to be in Latin then,” said Johnny, as he
smoothed down the last letter of the last word, “and perhaps, by
that time, I’ll know enough Latin to do it myself!”
 CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST MOVE.

here were just two things which could keep

Johnny quiet for more than two minutes at a
time; one was having some one read aloud
to him, and the other was playing checkers.
He could read to himself, more or less, but
stopping once in a while to spell a long word,
or to wonder what it means, breaks the
thread of the most entertaining story, so
whenever anything very attractive-looking in
the way of books and magazines came into the Leslie family, Johnny
coaxed his mother to read it aloud.
But it is one thing to hear reading because you have begged for it,
and have been running and jumping enough to make keeping still
not only possible but really quite pleasant, and another to hear it
because your mother asks you to stay in the house until it clears up,
or your cold is well.
New Year’s Day had been bitterly cold and raw, and Johnny,
coming from the well-warmed church in the morning, had stopped
on the way home to do a little snowballing. He had “cooled off,” as
he expressed it, rather too quickly, and the result was an unpleasant
cough. Now Johnny did not in the least object to drinking the
agreeable beverage made of Irish moss and lemons and sugar,
which his mother had prepared for him, but it was hard work to stay
in the house when all the other boys were building a snow-fort, and
making ready for a magnificent battle.
“Oh, mammy dear!” he implored, “if you’d ever in your life been a
boy, you’d know how I feel when I look out of the window! If you’ll
let me out for just one little hour, right in
the middle of the day, I’ll put on my rubber-
boots, and my overcoat, and my fur cap,
and my ear-tabs, and wind my neck all up
in Tiny’s red scarf, and not stand still one
single moment—oh, please, please! They’re
just building the tower!”
“Poor Johnny!” said Tiny, with much
sympathy, “would it hurt him that way,
mamma?”
“Yes, dear, I’m afraid it would,” said Mrs. Leslie, and turning to
Johnny, she asked, “My Johnny, were you quite in earnest, when you
said you would try to win back my sleeve?”
“Why mammy! of course I was!” he answered, opening his eyes
very wide, and for a moment forgetting his woes. No opportunity
which he considered large enough had yet occurred, for him to try to
win back his mother’s “silken sleeve,” which he had worn twisted
around his hat to show that he meant to render her knightly service,
and which he had given back to her the day after the circus,
because he felt that he was unworthy to wear it, and he often
looked at it sorrowfully as it hung, where he had placed it, above his
mother’s picture, in his little room.
“Very well,” she said, gently pulling him
down upon her lap, and turning his face
away from the distracting window. “Imagine
that you are really a knight, and that you
are storm bound in my castle, as the
foreign knight was in Sintram’s. You’d be
too polite, in that case, I hope, to be
grumbling and howling because you were
compelled to pass a whole day in the
charming society of the lady of the castle—
now, wouldn’t you?”
 “Well, yes, mamma, I suppose I should,” admitted Johnny,
reluctantly, “but somehow it doesn’t seem exactly the same thing.
You see, the snow may all be melted before you let me out again,
and when the real old knights were storm bound, or anything, they
always knew that their enemies and battles and things would keep!”
“Very well then,” replied his mother, promptly, “that gives you a
chance to be just so much more knightly than the ‘real old knights’
were! And if you don’t give another howl, or scowl, or grumble, all
day, but are my very best Johnny, instead of my second best or third
best, I’ll twist my sleeve around your new school cap this very
night!”
“Oh, mammy! will I really and truly be winning it, that way?”
asked Johnny, eagerly.
“Indeed you will,” said his mother, kissing him, “for you’ll never,
even if you should some day be a soldier, and fight for your country,
find a worse enemy, or one that will take more conquering, than my
third-best Johnny Leslie!”
Johnny returned the kiss with interest, and then, resolutely turning
his back to the window, he said,—
“Tiny, if you’ll bring your old black Dinah here, I’ll get out all the
blocks, and my pea-shooter, and my little brass cannon, and we’ll
make a huge fort, and put Dinah in the tower, and storm it! You
don’t mind our making a muss here, mammy, if we clear it up again,
do you?”
“Not a bit,” said his mother, cheerfully,
while Tiny, with a little scream of delight
rushed off for Dinah. The playroom stove
was out of order, and the children were
obliged to play in the dining-room, which
made Johnny’s imprisonment all the harder
to bear.
Tiny came back presently, with an
assorted cargo, presided over by Dinah, in the basket.
 “I brought all my tin housekeeping things,” she explained, as she
proceeded to unload. “I thought we could put them on top, and
they’d make such a lovely clatter when the fort fell!”
“Now, that’s what I call really bright!” and Johnny nodded his head
approvingly. “It’s almost a pity you’re a girl, Tiny—you’d be such a
jolly little fellow if you were only a boy!”
It made Tiny very happy when Johnny
approved of her, so the building of the fort
went merrily on with so much laughing and
talking that Mrs. Leslie, who was in the
kitchen, not “eating bread and honey,” but
making doughnuts, looked in once or twice
to see if any of the children’s friends had
called. And when the stately fort, with its
tin battlements, at last yielded to the fierce
attack of the brass cannon and the pea-
shooter, used after the manner of battering-
rams, she rushed to the scene of conflict with the dreadful certainty
that the stove had been knocked over, but an invitation to help
hurrah for the victory quieted her fears.
The ruins had just been picked up and repacked in the basket,
when Ann came in to set the dinner table, and Johnny found, to his
astonishment, that the morning was gone.
“But there’s all the great long afternoon yet!” he thought, ruefully,
“and mamma will have to lie down, I’m afraid, and Tiny’s going to
that foolish doll-party, and—hello! if I keep on this way I shall say
something, and, if I do, Tiny will stay at home; it would be just like
her, she’s such a good little soul. Brace up, Johnny Leslie, and win
your sleeve!”
And Johnny marched up and down, and tried to sing “Onward,
Christian Soldier!” but only succeeded in coughing.
“Mamma, I wish to whisper something to you,” said Tiny, after
dinner. “Don’t listen, please, Johnny,” and she whispered, “Don’t you
think it would be dreadfully mean for me to go to the doll-party,
mamma, when poor Johnny has such a cough and can’t go out?
Because if you do, I’ll stay at home, and I wouldn’t mind it, or not so
very much, if Johnny would play with me as he has played this
morning.”
“No, darling,” whispered her mother, “Johnny would not be so
selfish as to wish you to stay; and the other little girls you are to
meet would be disappointed, for they all know about your new
Christmas doll. So run and get ready, and Ann will carry you and
your daughter across the street. You will have a great deal to tell us
when you come home, you know.”
Tiny went, but not very briskly, and, when she was gone, Johnny
said,—
“I’ll bet—I mean I think I know what Tiny said, mamma; didn’t
she offer to stay at home from her doll-party?”
“What a brilliant boy!” said his mother, smiling. “She did, but I
knew you would not like her to make such a sacrifice; she has been
counting upon the party for a week.”
“No, indeed!” said Johnny, warmly, “I hope I’m not such a great
bear as all that! But it was a jolly thing for the dear little soul to do,
and I’ll not forget it.”
“Would you like me to read to you again, dear?” asked his mother,
when she had put the finishing touches to Tiny’s dress, and seen her
off.
“No, Mrs. Mother, thank you,” said Johnny, stoutly, “I am going to
read to myself, and you are going upstairs to lie down for at least an
hour. You’re making your back ache face, and if you don’t lie down
I’ll not eat one single doughnut or gingerbread—so there!”
“I couldn’t stand that, of course,” said his mother, laughing, and
kissing him, “and I find my back does ache, now you mention it, so I
will take you at your word, my own true knight!”
 If they had been looking out of the window just then, they would
have seen a bright-faced little girl running up the walk, and before
Mrs. Leslie had started upon her upward journey the door-bell rang,
and there was Johnny’s especial friend, Kitty McKee, with a little
basket of rosy apples, and permission to spend the afternoon, “if it
would be convenient.”
To say that Johnny was glad to see her but faintly expresses his
feelings. She was a year or two older than he was, and he
considered her friendship for him a flattering thing. She played
checkers so well that his occasional victories over her were triumphs
indeed, and, what was better still, she never lost her temper with
her game. So, after performing a war dance around her while she
took off her cloak and hood, Johnny rushed for the checker-board,
and Mrs. Leslie, with an easy mind and a tired body, went upstairs
for a delightful nap.
Johnny took a white checker in one hand, and a black one in the
other, mixed them up under the table, and held up his hand, asking,
—
“Which’ll you have?”
“Right,” said Kitty, and, as it happened, that gave Johnny the first
move.
The battle was fierce, but the advantage which the first move had
given Johnny was followed up until he felt so sure of victory that he
began to grow a little careless, and was startled by losing a king and
seeing Kitty gain one in rapid succession. Then he resumed his
caution; his hand hung poised over the piece he was about to move
until he had taken in all the possible consequences. Slowly he
pushed his man to the back row; two more well-considered moves
and the game was his!
Perhaps the triumph of winning the first game made him too self-
confident; at any rate, victory perched upon Kitty’s banner for the
rest of the afternoon, and when the early dusk fell they drew their
chairs to the cheerful fire, quite willing to exchange their battle for
Tiny’s eager account of the doll-party.
Mrs. Leslie had come down, rested and refreshed, and presently
Mr. Leslie was heard stamping the snow from his boots in the porch,
and Kitty said she really must go, if she did live only next door but
one, and Mr. Leslie said it was highly personal for her to rush off the
minute she heard his fairy footsteps, and he should step in and tell
her mother they were keeping her to tea. Kitty thanked him with a
kiss, and the supper was a very cheerful one. When it was over, the
meeting adjourned to the parlor, and Mr. Leslie found a Christmas
Graphic and a London News and a number of Punch in his pockets,
and it was time for Kitty to go home and for Johnny to go to bed
before anybody knew it. Tiny had gone an hour ago, too sleepy even
to wish to sit up longer.
When Mrs. Leslie came to tuck Johnny up
and give him his last dose of cough mixture
and last good-night kiss, she took down the
sleeve, saying,—
“You’ll find it on your cap in the morning,
my own true knight.”
“But, indeed, mamma,” said Johnny,
earnestly, “I don’t think I’ve half won it. It
hasn’t been hard at all, but the very
pleasantest day since Christmas Day.”
“And why has it been so pleasant?” asked his mother, drawing a
chair to the bedside and sitting down. “Begin at the beginning, and
tell me.”
“Why, you know all that happened, mammy,” replied Johnny. “But
I’ll go over it, if you like. First, I had some good fun with Tiny,
because she played fort so nicely, and then you made us laugh with
the doughnut woman and gingerbread man, and then Kitty came
with those beautiful apples, and then I beat her the very first game
of checkers we played—and I don’t see why in thund—I mean why I
 didn’t beat her any more, for we played six
games after that, and she beat me every
single one. And then Tiny made us laugh
telling about the doll-party, and then papa
kept Kitty to tea, and gave us those jolly
papers, and if that isn’t a pretty good day, I
should like to know what is!”
“But you didn’t begin at the beginning,”
said his mother. “Now I am going to suppose. Suppose, when you
found you could not go out this morning, you had kept on looking
out of the window and watching the boys until your vexation and
disappointment had made you cry, I am very certain that would have
set you to coughing, and then your body would have felt worse, as
well as your mind. Suppose that, instead of offering to play with
Tiny, and doing it heartily, you had been cross and sulky, and hurt
her feelings, and had spent the morning bemoaning your hard fate,
and thinking how ill-used you were; you would have been in such a
bad way by dinner-time that my doughnut woman and gingerbread
man would scarcely have made you smile, and by the time Kitty
came, the sight of your face would have been enough to make her
turn round and go home again. Fretting and fuming all the afternoon
would have left you too tired of yourself and everything else to care
for Tiny’s account of the party and papa’s papers. In short,
everything would have looked to you the ugly color of your own dark
thoughts.”
“Then it’s just like checkers!” exclaimed Johnny, sitting up in bed;
“if you get the first move, and make that all right, the rest is pretty
sure to come straight.”
“Yes,” said his mother. “There is a French proverb which means, ‘It
is only the first step that costs.’ If we make the first step, or the first
move, in the right direction, we have gone a good deal more than
one step toward the right end.”
“And it’s like checkers in another way,” said Johnny, thoughtfully;
“if we’re too uncommonly sure we’re all right, and can’t go wrong,
we get tripped up before we know it. I do believe that the reason
why Kitty beat me every time but that one, was because I felt so
stuck up about the first game that I didn’t try my best afterward; I
thought I could beat her anyhow.”
“That is very likely,” answered his mother. “And now you see how
needful it is to ask that we may obey God’s ‘blessed will’ in all things
—not only large, important-looking things, which only come once in
a while, but in the veriest trifles, or what seem to us like trifles, that
are coming all the time. Sometimes I think that there is no such
thing as a trifle, Johnny. Good-night, darling—you will find my sleeve
on your helmet in the morning, my own true knight!”
 CHAPTER V.
INALIENABLE RIGHTS.

s time went on, from that Fourth of July

when Johnny had reason to change his views
about independence, and as he thought
more about that, and other matters
connected with it, he grew only the more
firmly convinced that any of his rights which
trod upon the toes of other people’s rights,
were only wrongs under a false name.
The boys at his school nearly all liked him; he “went into things”
so heartily, that he was wanted on both sides in all the games that
had more than one. But with all his love of fun, the boys soon found
that there were some sorts of fun—or what they called so—for which
it was useless to ask his help. So when recess came, the morning
before school closed for the summer, a group of boys gathered in a
corner of the playground, whispering together, and did not ask him
to join them. He felt a little left out in the cold, for some of his best
friends were in the group, but he was not naturally suspicious, and
his mother had brought him up in a wholesome fear of imagining
himself injured or slighted.
“Always take good-will for granted, Johnny,” she said to him once,
when he fancied himself neglected by somebody, “at least until you
have the most positive proof of ill-will.”
So he joined some of the smaller boys, who did not seem to have
been invited to the conference, and made them supremely happy by
getting up a game of football.
He had just parted from one of the larger boys, on his way home
from school that afternoon, and was near his gate, when a little
fellow, the youngest of all his schoolmates,
stuck his head cautiously out of the nearly
closed gate, and, after seeing that the coast
was clear, said in a mysterious whisper,—
“Hold on, Johnny, will you? I’ve got
something to tell you, but if you ever say I
told you, you’ll get me into the awfullest
scrape that ever was!”
If little Jamie Hughes had been talking to
anybody but Johnny, he would have
exacted a very solemn “indeed and double deed and upon my
sacred honor I’ll never tell!”
But the boys all felt very sure, by this time, that Johnny would not
do them an ill-turn, no matter what chance he might have; so Jamie
went hurriedly on, linking his arm in Johnny’s as he spoke, and
drawing him inside the gate and up the walk, as if he feared being
seen.
“You see, they didn’t mean me to hear,” said Jamie, talking very
fast, “but it wasn’t my fault. I was up the apple tree cutting my
name, and two of them were under it, and one of them said, ‘The
old gentleman will open his eyes, for once in his life,’ and then the
other said, kind of uneasy, ‘I don’t think we need take cannon
crackers; wouldn’t the small ones do just as well?’ and then I began
to sing, and they never let on they heard me, but the first fellow
said: ‘My dear boy, my grandfather expressly requested that the
salute in his honor should be fired with cannon-crackers!’ and then
they both burst out laughing, and walked away, and I never thought,
till ever so long afterward, that that one who spoke last hadn’t a
grandfather to his name, and I’m sure they’re going to do something
to—to Mr. Foster.”
“What makes you think that, Jamie?” asked Johnny, kindly, “It may
be all a joke; perhaps they saw you up there, and are just putting up
a game on you.”
 Jamie shook his head.
“No, they’re not!” he said, very positively, “they both jumped like
everything when I began to sing, and the one who said little
crackers would do turned as red as a beet. Now, Johnny, I came to
you because I knew you wouldn’t give me away, and because I
thought you could think of some way to checkmate them, and you’d
just better believe it’s what I think! You know Mr. Foster always
leaves his window wide open at night, and the ceilings are so low in
that house where he boards that anybody could throw a pack of
crackers into a second-story window easy enough. I was in his room
once, and his bed’s right opposite the window, and suppose those
fellows should throw so hard that the crackers would hit him in the
face, or light in the bed and set the clothes afire? I can’t tell you all I
know, or you’d believe me, and spot the fellows in a minute, and
then they’d spot me, and I wouldn’t give much for my skin if they
did!”
Jamie would have been a good deal more nervous
than he was if he had known that Johnny had already,
and without the least difficulty, “spotted the fellows.”
Jamie was a timid little boy, and his affection for Mr.
Foster, who was the teacher of mathematics at the
school, had grown out of that gentleman’s patient
kindness to him. Mr. Foster never mistook timidity for
stupidity, but he was a very clear-headed man, with
little patience for boys who tried to make shifts and
tricks do duty for honestly-learned lessons. So the
school was divided into two pretty equal camps
concerning him. The boys who really studied hard were his
enthusiastic admirers, and those who studied only enough to “pull
through,” as they expressed it, were very much the reverse. But
when it came to a question of “fun,” things were sometimes a little
mixed, and it seemed, in this particular case, as if some of the boys
had thoughtlessly gone over to the enemy, and then been somewhat
dismayed when they saw where they were being led.
 Johnny was very much troubled by what he had heard, and the
more he thought of it the less he liked it. A pack of cannon-crackers,
flung at random through a window, and flung all the harder by
reason of the flinger’s haste to put himself out of sight, might do
untold mischief. Beside the possibility that they would start a fire in
the room, there was another even worse one—they might explode
dangerously near the face of the sleeping victim.
No, the thing must be stopped; but how to stop it? He thought of
asking the boys, point-blank, what they were whispering about, but,
even should any of them give him a truthful answer, they would
probably suspect that somebody had suggested the question to him,
and then, of course, remember Jamie’s presence in the tree. He
thought of giving Mr. Foster a confidential warning, but, if it took
effect, it would be open to the same objection, and he did not like to
think of the life Jamie would lead for the next few months were he
even suspected of being the informer.
Johnny’s face wore so puzzled and hopeless an expression, that
evening after he had learned his lessons, that his father said, kindly,
—
“There’s nothing so desperate that it can’t be helped somehow,
my boy; what’s the special desperation this evening? Grief at the
prospect of a temporary separation from your beloved studies?”
Johnny laughed a little at that.
“Oh, no, papa!” he said. “I like one or two of them well enough,
but I think I can stand it without them for a while. I wish I could tell
you all about what’s the matter, but I haven’t any right to. I will ask
you a question, though. Can you think of any kind of game, or
spree, or anything that would make the fellows at school take such
an early start on the Fourth that they wouldn’t have time for
anything else first?”
Mr. Leslie had not in the least forgotten how he had felt and acted
when he was a boy, and he also remembered various things which
Johnny had said from time to time about the way in which Mr. Foster
was regarded by the boys, so he had no great difficulty in guessing
that some mischief was on foot which Johnny was anxious to
forestall, but could not hinder by attacking the enemy on high moral
grounds.
“I should not be much of an editor if I had not enough invention
and to spare for such an emergency as that,” said Mr. Leslie, smiling;
“How many fellows are there, altogether?”
Johnny thought a minute, and then said,—
“Only thirty, papa, since the mumps broke loose—we had over
forty before that.”
“I’ll call around to-morrow, just before the exercises are over,” said
Mr. Leslie, “and ask permission to address the meeting. By a curious
coincidence, a plan for jollifying the Fourth was seething in my brain
before you spoke, and I think a trifling alteration will make it fit the
case to a nicety.”
Johnny fell upon his father’s neck with smothering affection, and
went to bed with a light and easy heart; if “papa” undertook the
business, all would go right.
“And he didn’t ask me a single question, except about how many
of us there were!” said Johnny to himself, proudly, “What a first-class
boy he must have been himself!”
Mr. Leslie was on very good terms with the principal of Johnny’s
school, and had no difficulty in obtaining leave to “address the
meeting.” His address was an invitation to attend an all-day picnic,
on the Fourth of July, and included teachers as well as scholars. Two
hay-wagons, half filled with hay, were to be the vehicles, and a brass
band was to be in attendance. The refreshments, Mr. Leslie stated,
would be simple, but abundant, nobody need feel called upon to
bring anything, but anybody who chose to bring fruit, and could
bring it from home, would have the thanks of the community.
“It is not usual,” concluded Mr. Leslie, “to impose conditions in
giving an invitation, but I must ask a promise from all of you, as we
are to start at seven, sharp, on our
collecting tour, not to leave your homes that
morning until you are called for. We shall
have a long drive to take, and I wish to
have it over before the heat of the day
begins. Will all the boys who agree to grant
me this favor raise their right hands?”
Most of the right hands flew up as if their
owners had nothing to do with it; there was
a very short pause, and then the remainder followed. Johnny drew a
long breath of intense relief. He knew that, although some of the
boys were anything but strictly truthful, they would consider it “a
little too mean” to break their pledge to their entertainer, and
besides, Mr. Leslie had said, emphatically, that there would be no
hunting for absentees, but simply a call at each door.
That picnic was unanimously pronounced the most brilliant of this,
or of any, season. Mr. Leslie was voted “as good as forty boys,” and
the woods rang again with laughter and joyous shouting. But when a
long tin horn had given the signal which had been agreed upon, and
the boys were gathered together for the return, Mr. Leslie mounted a
convenient stump.
“Boys!” he said, as the noisy throng grew silent to listen, “No
Fourth of July celebration is complete without a speech, so I feel
called upon to make a short one. How does the Declaration of
Independence begin?”
“‘All men are born free and equal, and endowed with certain
inalienable rights!’” shouted at least half the party.
“And what does ‘inalienable’ mean?” pursued the orator.
Silence. And then somebody said doubtfully, “Something you can’t
lose or give away?”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Leslie. “So, as we travel through life, we are to
bear in mind this fact, that no matter how great, or wise, or rich, or
powerful, or poor, or oppressed, or injured we may be, we are
bound to respect the ‘inalienable rights’ of other people, and that we
shall never gain anything really worth gaining, or that will bring a
blessing with it, by disregarding those rights.
“I will not undertake to tell you what they are; I think we can
generally tell nearly enough for all practical purposes by two ways;
remembering what we consider our own rights, and imagining what
we should consider our rights, were we in the places of the people
with whom we are dealing. We have had a happy day, I think; I
know I have——”
“So have we!” in a vast shout from the audience——
“——and I have been pleased to see what good Republicans you
all may be, if you choose. I see you are pleased with my pleasure,
and I want to ask you all to remember, as each day closes, leaving
its record of good or evil, that the longest life must close some time,
and that nothing will be of much value to us then, but the Master’s
‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ Thank you for listening to me
so patiently. This day will be a pleasant memory, I hope, for all of
us.”
“Three cheers for Mr. Leslie!” shouted the “fellow” who had not
any grandfather, and the amount of noise that followed was truly
astonishing.
But a good many people’s ideas of what it is to be manly
underwent a gradual change from that evening.
“If Johnny’s father thinks so—why, there’s nothing mean about
Johnny’s father! I should hope we all knew that!”
 CHAPTER VI.
LEANING.

pair of shiny steel skates had been among

Johnny’s Christmas presents, and had very
nearly eclipsed all the rest, although he had
many pretty and useful things beside.
He had never yet learned to skate, for the
only good skating-pond was at some little
distance from his home, and he had no big
brother to take him in hand, and see that he
had only the number of falls which must be accepted by nearly every
one who ventures on skates for the first time.
But the winter following the famous picnic of which I have just
told you, Pep Warren’s almost grown-up brother Robert was at
home, because he had strained his eyes, and been forbidden to
study for a month or two; but, as he sensibly observed, he didn’t
skate on his eyes, and, being a big, jolly, good-natured fellow, he
gave Pep a pair of skates exactly like Johnny’s, and offered to teach
both the little boys to skate.
He had made this offer privately to Johnny’s mother and father
before Christmas, for he had heard Johnny bewailing himself, and
saying he didn’t believe he ever should learn to skate till he was as
old as papa, and then he wouldn’t wish to!
Robert said nothing at the time, but made his kind offer in season
for Kriss Kringle to learn that nothing he could bring Johnny Leslie
would so delight his heart as a pair of steel skates would.
Johnny came home from his trial trip on the new skates with his
transports a little moderated. He was “not conquered, but exhausted
with conquering,” and quite ready to go to bed early that night, and
to submit to a thorough rubbing with arnica first. His head ached a
little. Some of the numerous and hitherto unknown stars which he
had seen still danced before his eyes, and he felt as if he had at
least half-a-dozen each of elbows and knees.
“You see, mamma,” he said,
confidentially, as his mother’s soft, warm
hand, wet with comforting arnica, passed
tenderly over the black and blue places, “I
looked at the other fellows, and it seemed
to me it was just as easy as rolling off a log.
Rob was cutting his name and figures of
eight and all sorts of things while Pep and I
were putting on our skates, and I thought I
had nothing to do but sail in—begin, I
mean, and it would sort of come naturally,
like walking!
“I think Pep must have been born sensible—he hardly ever wants
to do foolish things, the way I do, and, when Rob held out his hand,
Pep just took it, and went very slowly at first, exactly as Rob told
him, and, if you’ll believe it, he could really stand alone, and even
strike out a little, before we came home!
“But I started out alone to meet Rob,
and, first thing I knew, my feet went up in
the air, as if they had balloons on, and
down I came, whack! right on the back of
my head! I tell you, I saw Roman candles
and rockets, but Rob helped me up, and
only laughed a little, though I must have
looked dreadfully funny, and then he took
my hand, and told me how to work my feet,
and I got along splendidly, till I felt sure my
first flop was only an accident, and that I
could go alone well enough. So I let go of Rob’s hand, and kept up