er and over, levelled
and reheaped it, and levelled it again before their ardor cooled. At
last they were convinced that the coin was hopelessly lost. John turned
away moodily.

"Come on," he said. "I'll be getting scolded if I don't get home for
dinner." It was hard to lose the proceeds of a morning's work in such a
manner.

Mrs. Fletcher was waiting for him when he came into the hallway,
stamping his feet lustily to free them from the last lingering traces of
snow.

"Where's the brush, Mother?" he asked, as he shook his coat. She brought
him the implement and watched him keenly.

"Didn't I forbid you to go hitching, this morning?"

"Who told you?" he asked naively, taken aback at the sudden accusation.
Mothers had the most mysterious ways of discovering things.

She smiled in spite of herself. "I asked the little Mosher boy where you
were and he said he'd seen you riding off behind Anderson's grocery
wagon. What do you think I ought to do to such a disobedient little
boy?"

He didn't know. But he wished that he might lay hands on that kid
brother of Skinny's. He'd teach him a thing or two about holding his
tongue.

"You're getting too big to spank," she commented as he stood silently
before her. He nodded a cheerful assent to this.

"So I think you'd better stay in the house this afternoon."

"A-w-w-w, Mother!"

She went into the dining-room where the table had been set for the
noonday meal for two, and heaped his plate with potatoes and gravy,
while he stood looking miserably out of the window.

The sun's rays were melting the surface of the snow and turning it a
dirty gray. Up the street, Perry Alford was winging snowballs at a
black, leafless trunk opposite his house. That meant good packing, and
snow fights, snow men, and a baker's dozen of other exciting amusements.

To be gated on such an afternoon!

"Come, son!" said Mrs. Fletcher, as he turned away with quivering lip,
and drew his chair to the table. "Be a man. Mother's right about it,
isn't she?"

He admitted that her sentence was but justice, and attacked the dinner
with an appetite which no sorrow could diminish. Then he tramped slowly
up to his room and threw himself down on his bed with a book to while
away the weary stretch of afternoon confronting him.

Straightway the centuries rolled back, and the present day sorrows were
forgotten. The times of the good king Alfred held sway as he followed
the exploits of the hero against his Da