177

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACE PAGE

'OH, WHAT A _LOT_ OF BOYS!'--_Frontispiece_

'I'LL TAKE ONE HAND AND PAT ONE, AND THEN WE'LL ALL RUN DOWN
TOGETHER' 36

NANCE 97

'I'VE PLENTY OF STORIES IN MY HEAD,' SHE SAID 100

'ALL OF A SUDDEN HE STOOD STRAIGHT UP AND BEGAN THROWING
THINGS AT ME FOR ME TO CATCH--IT WAS THE LITTLE SUNS!' 153

'BOB,' SHE SAID. HE PRETENDED NOT TO HEAR HER 171

AND--WERE THOSE SNOW-FLAKES AGAIN? 187

CHAPTER I

'WHAT A LOT OF BOYS!'

It was before the days of sailor suits and knickerbockers. Nowadays boys
would make great fun of the quaint little men in tight-fitting jackets,
and trousers buttoning on above them, that many people still living can
remember well, for it is not so very long ago after all.

And whatever the difference in their clothes, the boys of then were in
themselves very like the boys of now--queer, merry, thoughtless fellows
for the most part, living in the pleasant present, caring much less for
the past or the future than their girl-companions, seldom taking trouble
of any kind to heart, or if they did, up again like a cork at the first
chance. But yet how dull the world, now as then, would be without them
and their bats and balls, and pockets full of rubbish, and everlasting
scrapes and mischief, and honest old hearts!

I always like to hear any one, young or old, man or woman or girl, say,
as one often does hear said, 'I do love boys.'

There were five of them--of the Hervey boys. They began at thirteen and
ended at three, or began at three and ended at thirteen, if you like to
put it that way. But when they were all together in the nursery, or
playroom as they called it more often--to see them, still more to hear
them, you would certainly have said there were at least ten--above all
if a scrimmage of any kind was going on, for then the number of legs and
arms all belonging to everybody apparently, seemed to be multiplied in
an astonishing manner.

You would, I think, have sympathised with a small person, almost as
small as three-years-old Ger, whose first word's when the door was
opened were, in an awe-struck whisper,

'Oh, what a _lot_ of boy