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'; 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 colored 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 strictly and frankly
partisan, and so separated themselves into sections differentiated by
the colors of the flags they carried and the ribbons they wore. Side
yelled defiance at side, and party bantered party. Here the blue and
white of company "A" flaunted audaciously on the breeze beside the very
seats over which the crimson and gray of "B" were flying and they in
their turn nodded defiance over the imaginary barrier between themselves
and "C's" black and yellow.

The band was thundering out Sousa's "High School Cadet's March," the
school officials, the judges, and reporters, and some with less purpose
were bustling about discussing and conferring. Altogether doing nothing
much with beautiful unanimity. All was noise, hurry, gaiety, and
turbulence.

In the midst of it all, with blue and white rosettes pinned on their
breasts, sat two spectators, tense and silent, while the breakers of
movement and sound struck and broke around them. It seemed too much to
Hannah and "little sister" for them to laugh and shout. Bud was with
company "A," and so the whole program was more like a religious
ceremonial to them. The blare of the brass to them might have been the
trumpet call to battle in old Judea, and the far-thrown tones of the
megaphone the voice of a prophet proclaiming from the hill-top.

Hannah's face glowed with expectation, and "little sis