dulgent ear were ancient history
at many a grandfather's fireside.

But, like all things earthly, the big tree was growing old; a barbed wire
fencing surrounded the aging trunk, and effectively prohibited climbing
the rotten and unsafe branches. Even cutting names was forbidden. Freddy
had been the last allowed, as the "kid" of the house, to put his initials
beneath his father's. It had been quite an occasion, his eleventh
birthday. There had been a party (Freddy always had ten dollars to give a
party on his birthday); and then, surrounded by his guests, still
gratefully appreciative of unlimited ice cream and strawberries, he had
carefully cut "F. W. N. 19--" beneath the same signature of twenty years
ago. It was then too twenty years ago. It was then too hilarious an
occasion for sad reflection; but lying alone in the infirmary to-day,
Freddy's memories took doleful form as he recalled the "F. W. N." above
his own, and began to think of his father who had vanished so utterly from
his young life.

He had only the vaguest recollection of a tall, handsome "daddy" who had
tossed him up in his arms and frolicked and laughed with him in a very
dim, early youth. He could recall more clearly the stern, silent man of
later years, of whom the five-year-boy had been a little afraid. And he
retained a vivid memory of one bewildering evening in the dusky parlor of
Saint Andrew's when a shaking, low voiced father had held him tight to his
breast for one startling moment, and then whispered hoarsely in his ear,
"Good-bye, my little son,--good-bye for ever!" It was very sad, as Freddy
realized to-day (he had never considered the matter seriously
before),--very sad to have a father bid you good-bye forever. And to have
your mother dead, too,--such a lovely mother! Freddy had, in his small
trunk, a picture of her that was as pretty as any of the angels on the
chapel windows. And now he had "temperature," and maybe he was going to
die, too, like some of those very good little boys of whom Father Martin
read aloud on Sundays.

Freddy's spirits were sinking into a sunless gloom, when suddenly there
came a whistle through the open window,--a whistle that made him start up
breathless on his pillow. For only one boy in Saint Andrew's could achieve
that clear high note. It was Dan Dolan calling,--but how, where? Freddy's
window was four stories high, without porch or fire escape and that
whistle was almost in his ear. He pursed up his tremb