le on the slightest provocation. John's face
set in an expression of heroic determination until he looked as if he'd
swallowed a dose of castor oil!

[Illustration: _He imagines himself a hero._]

He'd like to catch Sid DuPree dancing around her in maddening circles,
some afternoon, while she shrank piteously from each cry of "'Fraid cat!
'Fraid cat!" Or that bully might throw pieces of chalk at her or pelt
her with snowballs in the winter time until she broke into incoherent
sobs. Then he, John Fletcher, would show that Sid where he got off at.
He'd punch his face in, he would!

The school room door closed upon the mother's broad back, and the hum of
excitement at the departure subsided into the normal undercurrent of
whispering between the pupils. Pencils scratched laboriously over rough
manila pads as their owners copied the questions from the board. The boy
two seats ahead of John took a wad of chewing gum from his mouth and
stuck it on the underside of his desk. Someone over on Sid DuPree's side
of the room dropped a book to the floor with a bang.

Then Miss Brown shoved back the test papers she had been correcting and
glanced at the clock.

"Clear the desks," she ordered sharply. "Class prepare for physical
culture."

They obeyed with alacrity, for the drills were ever a relief from the
enforced inactivity of restless little bodies. Moreover, they were
vastly more enjoyable than mathematical perplexities or troublesome
state and river boundaries.

"Rise on toes, inhale deeply, and exhale ver-y slowly!" came the crisp
command after the children had stumbled to their feet in the aisle.
"One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four."

Heated little faces grew even more flushed as the minute hand of the big
wall clock showed the passing of five flying minutes. Next came, "Thrust
forward, upwards, and from your sides," "bend trunks," to all points of
the compass, "lunge to the right and left, and thrust forward," and a
baker's dozen of other exercises designed to offset the weakening
influences of cramped city environments and impure air.

In conclusion, the class made a quarter-turn to the right and as they
thus stood in parallel rows, took hold of each other's hands. At
teacher's command, they swung their arms back and forth vigorously to an
accompaniment of the inevitable "one-two, one-two."

John's was a back seat, thanks to skillful maneuvering on the opening
day of school, and flaxen-haired Olga occup