so tall that his shoulders
scarcely stooped and his bow-legs were almost straight. "I've got to have
them!" Sonny Boy's red cheeks grew quite pale and his voice was gruff with
feeling.

"Why, Sonny Boy dear, what can the things be that you want so much!" said
Aunt Kate wonderingly.

"Spelling and fractions," said Sonny Boy firmly.

"You dear boy! I never heard of a boy who thought so much of his lessons
as that!" exclaimed Aunt Kate.

"It's to show another fellow--stupider than I am," said Sonny Boy. "And
crookeder. I've got to get straight and be a soldier, too, to show him
how." And he told her about Otto.

Aunt Kate hugged him and laughed a little and cried a little. And she said
it was a beautiful idea and he should have a tutor so that he could learn
spelling and fractions very fast. And he should go to a gymnasium and
straighten his shoulders and his legs. And his uncle would take him to
camp to see the soldiers drill.

And she would buy him some more white mice. But that last offer Sonny Boy
declined. He wanted no white mice but those! And he didn't want those,
because he liked better to have Otto and the poor invalid children have
them.

It was quite wonderful to see how Sonny Boy learned spelling and
fractions. The tutor was surprised, and what the Poppleton schoolmistress
would have thought no one can even guess! For Sonny Boy had been dull at
his lessons.

And presently he straightened himself out in the most surprising way, and
learned to drill soldiers like a major. He had a fine military company, in
the "almost well" room of the children's ward at the hospital. The
officers sent word to Aunt Kate that he was a very welcome visitor and did
the children great good.

He bought a drum and fife with the parrot money, and sent them to the
Poppleton Guards, the company to which "the fellows didn't want him to
belong." And he wrote a letter to the Guards, telling them about the
military tactics that he had learned at the camp, where his uncle had
taken him.

"How quickly you have learned!" said Aunt Kate one day. "You are the very
brightest one of the Plummers."

But Sonny Boy shook his head. "I never could learn until 'twas for another
fellow," he said.

"Anyway, you're the dearest one of the Plummers!" said Aunt Kate, with a
hug. By this time they were at Bolton for the summer, and they awoke one
morning to find the place gay with show-bills and huge placards.

The "Wonder of the World" was com