nto a hat, and the
game went on until all but one were put out.

Hat-ball is so simple that any number can play at it, and Jack's friends
found it so full of boisterous fun, that every new-comer wished to set
down his hat. And thus, by the time Pewee and Riley arrived, half the
larger boys in the school were in the game, and there were not enough
left to make a good game of bull-pen.

At noon, the new game drew the attention of the boys again, and Riley
and Pewee tried in vain to coax them away.

"Oh, I say, come on, fellows!" Riley would say. "Come--let's play
something worth playing."

But the boys stayed by the new game and the new ball. Neither Riley, nor
Pewee, nor Ben Berry liked to ask to be let into the game, after what
had passed. Not one of them had spoken to Jack since the battle between
him and Pewee, and they didn't care to play with Jack's ball in a game
of his starting.

Once the other boys had broken away from Pewee's domination, they were
pleased to feel themselves free. As for Pewee and his friends, they
climbed up on a fence, and sat like three crows, watching the play of
the others. After a while they got down in disgust, and went off, not
knowing just what to do. When once they were out of sight, Jack winked
at Bob, who said:

"I say, boys, we can play hat-ball at recess when there isn't time for
bull-pen. Let's have a game of bull-pen now, before school takes up."

It was done in a minute. Bob Holliday and Tom Taylor "chose up sides,"
the bases were all ready, and by the time Pewee and his aides-de-camp
had walked disconsolately to the pond and back, the boys were engaged in
a good game of bull-pen.

Perhaps I ought to say something about the principles of a game so
little known over the country at large. I have never seen it played
anywhere but in a narrow bit of country on the Ohio River, and yet there
is no merrier game played with a ball.

The ball must not be too hard. There should be four or more corners.
The space inside is called the pen, and the party winning the last game
always has the corners. The ball is tossed from one corner to another,
and when it has gone around once, any boy on a corner may, immediately
after catching the ball thrown to him from any of the four corners,
throw it at any one in the pen. He must throw while "the ball is
hot,"--that is, instantly on catching it. If he fails to hit anybody on
the other side, he goes out. If he hits, his side leave the corner