as he spoke, and slapped
significantly on his overcoat pocket, bulging with packages of
cigarettes.

"What if Squills should come back unexpectedly?" asked Johnny.

"Oh, that's all arranged. We'll toss him up in a blanket until he
hasn't breath enough left to squeal on us. Suppose you bring along a
blanket, if you have one to spare," suggested the wild senior, whose
notice always flattered the susceptible freshman. "In case Squills
does turn up before schedule time, it would be a good thing to have
one handy."

"All right, I'll be ready. When do you start?"

"At ten o'clock," was the answer. "We'll come by for you," and the
three conspirators tramped down the long corridor, shoulder to
shoulder, to the whistled tune of "John Brown's Body."

John sat down at his table, frowning over his lessons for the next
day. For nearly an hour he tried to work, first at his Latin and then
on the theme that he was expected to hand in directly after chapel.
But his thoughts were on the coming lark.

"Oh, bother!" he exclaimed at last, tossing the books into a
disorderly heap and tearing his theme in two. "What difference will it
make fifty years from now, if I'm not prepared to-morrow? I guess I'll
get that blanket while I think about it."

At the beginning of the cold weather, he had written home for some
extra blankets, and Rhoda had sent a box immediately. It had been
standing in the closet several days, waiting for him to find time to
unpack it. A sofa pillow made of his class colours came tumbling out
as he removed the lid, and, wondering what other extras his sister
might have put in the box, he turned it upside down on the bed to
investigate. Two fine soft blankets came first, then an eiderdown
comfort, and then--something wrapped in a square of time-yellowed
linen, and smelling faintly of lavender.

"What under the canopy!" he muttered, beginning to unfold it. "Well,
I'll be--jiggered!" he exclaimed, as the familiar squares of faded
patchwork met his eye. "It's that old quilt I made for mother!" He had
forgotten its existence, but now, as he spread it out full length,
smiling at the well-known object, it seemed only yesterday that he
had been at work upon it. Rob's old teasing rhyme came back to him:

"This is the patchwork all forlorn,
Made by the boys in Marshall's barn."

[Illustration: "THE FAMILIAR SQUARES OF FADED PATCHWORK MET HIS EYE"]

"It _was_ funny," he thought, "the way I farmed out those two hund