y hours, there were many
days of hard work for Hannah Davis, when her son went into the High
School. But she took it upon herself gladly, since it gave Bud the
chance to learn, that she wanted him to have. When, however, he entered
the Cadet Corps it seemed to her as if the first steps toward the
fulfilment of all her hopes had been made. It was a hard pull to her,
getting the uniform, but Bud himself helped manfully, and when his
mother saw him rigged out in all his regimentals, she felt that she had
not toiled in vain. And in fact it was worth all the trouble and expense
just to see the joy and pride of "little sister," who adored Bud.

As the time for the competitive drill drew near there was an air of
suppressed excitement about the little house on "D" Street, where the
three lived. All day long "little sister," who was never very well and
did not go to school, sat and looked out of the window on the
uninteresting prospect of a dusty thoroughfare lined on either side with
dull red brick houses, all of the same ugly pattern, interspersed with
older, uglier, and viler frame shanties. In the evening Hannah hurried
home to get supper against the time when Bud should return, hungry and
tired from his drilling, and the chore work which followed hard upon its
heels.

Things were all cheerful, however, for as they applied themselves to the
supper, the boy, with glowing face, would tell just how his company "A"
was getting on, and what they were going to do to companies "B" and "C."
It was not boasting so much as the expression of a confidence, founded
upon the hard work he was doing, and Hannah and the "little sister"
shared that with him.

The child often, listening to her brother, would clap her hands or cry,
"Oh, Bud, you're just splendid an' I know you'll beat 'em."

"If hard work'll beat 'em, we've got 'em beat," Bud would reply, and
Hannah, to add an admonitory check to her own confidence, would break in
with, "Now, don't you be too sho', son; dey ain't been no man so good
dat dey wasn't somebody bettah." But all the while her face and manner
were disputing what her words expressed.

The great day came, and it was a wonderful crowd of people that packed
the great baseball grounds to overflowing. It seemed that all of
Washington's coloured population was out, when there were really only
about one-tenth of them there. It was an enthusiastic, banner-waving,
shouting, hallooing crowd. Its component parts were strictl