y the
school-house. At least, we came out by a little shallow hole in the
ground, half filled with poison-ivy and fire-weed, and ringed by a few
stones. We paused sadly by the ruins.

"I suppose the trolly takes the kids into the village now," said I.
"Centralization, you know."

"There used to be a great stove in one corner, and the pipe went all
across the room," Old Hundred was saying, as if to himself. "If you
sat near it, you baked; if you didn't, you froze. Do you remember Miss
Campbell? What was it we used to sing about her? Oh, yes--

Three little mice ran up the stairs
To hear Biddy Campbell say her prayers;
And when they heard her say Amen,
The three little mice ran down again.

And, gee but you were the punk speller! Remember how there was always
a spelling match Friday afternoons? I'll never forget the day you fell
down on 'nausea.' You'd lasted pretty well that day, for you;
everybody'd gone down but you and Myrtie Swett and me and one or two
more. But when Biddy Campbell put that word up to you, you looked it,
if you couldn't spell it!"

"Hum," said I, "I wouldn't rub it in, if I were you. I seem to recall
a public day when old Gilman Temple, the committee man, asked you what
was the largest bird that flies, and you said, 'The Kangaroo.'"

Old Hundred grinned. "That's the day the new boy laughed," said he.
"Remember the new boy? I mean the one that wore the derby which we
used to push down over his eyes? Sometimes in the yard one of us would
squat behind him, and then somebody else would push him over
backward. We made him walk Spanish, too. But after that public day he
and I went way down to the horse-sheds behind the meeting-house in the
village, and had it out. I wonder why we always fought in the holy
horse-sheds? The ones behind the town hall were never used for that
purpose."

This was true, but I couldn't explain it. "We couldn't always wait to
get to the horse-sheds, as I remember it," said I. "Sometimes we
couldn't wait to get out of sight of school."

I began hunting the neighborhood for the hide-and-seek spots. The barn
and the carriage-shed across the road were still there, with cracks
yawning between the mouse-gray boards. The shed was also ideal for
"Anthony over." And in the pasture behind the school stood the great
boulder, by the sassafras tree. "I'll bet you can't count out," said
I.

"Pooh!" said Old Hundred. He raised his finger, pointed it at an
imaginary