t yard. Some boys seemed to be
having a drill there; so I ran up the steps leading from the piazza to
the ground, and looked over the fence. But lor now! what do you think?
one of the boys was a girl! She had on long india-rubber boots, and I
called out, "Go it, Boots!"

Then the little boy that was with her, who seemed to be her brother,
looked so mad at me! and, really and truly, I couldn't help plaguing
them a little. I know you think I was real mean; but if you had seen how
funny they looked, in paper cocked hats, with turkey tails for feathers,
and the little boy thumping a big tin saucepan for a drum, you would
have laughed, too; so you needn't look so provoked, Neighbor Oldbird!

"Gee up, awkward squad!" I said; "double quick halt on the right flank!
Ha-ahup!"

But the little girl only laughed good humoredly, and said: "Jimmy and I
belong to the Seventh Regiment, and drill in the last fashion. Don't you
want to come and learn the Lefferts Tactics?"

Wasn't she a nice little thing! Never got mad or anything, but just gave
me back as good as I sent. I declare, I fell right smack in love with
her that minute, and I don't care a fig now for the girl I met in
dancing school, upon my word I don't; so I rushed back into the
kitchen, coaxed the cook to give me two more hunks of gingerbread, and
called out, "Won't you have some cake?"

They came running up on the piazza like lamplighters; and while they
were eating the gingerbread, _I_ was eating something I got especially
for myself at the same time. Did you ever try it? You have a great big
sour apple, as cold as it can be, and a tremendous pickled pepper, as
hot as it can be; then you take first a bite of the pepper, and nearly
burn all the skin off your throat, and then a bite of the apple to cool
it again; and so on. It's gorgeous, I tell you!

Presently the little boy (whose name, as I said, was Jimmy), stopped
his eating to ask me, "Do you live in New York?"

"No, I live at White Plains. I go to the Military Academy there; don't
you want me to show you some drill?"

"Oh, Cousin Charley is going to teach us some time. He belongs to the
Seventh Regiment. We love to be soldiers, though, and we know a boy,
Freddy Jourdain his name is, who got up a whole regiment, and has
parades, and went into camp, and everything."

"We have a camp at White Plains," I told them. "Do you ever go there in
summer, Miss----" here I stopped, rather awkwardly, not knowing what her