iver met together and formed quite a large company. They had two trials
to begin with; firstly, they could not think of a name fine enough for
themselves; and secondly, they could not get any sort of uniform to
wear. Their mothers could not see the necessity of their having new
suits just to play in; and it seemed for some time as if the little
patriots would have to march forever in their old every-day clothes.

"But they'll give us some new ones by and by, boys," said Willy. "My
mother laughed last night, when I asked again, and that's a certain sure
sign."

"O, I thought we'd given that up," said Fred Chase.

"Look here, boys," exclaimed Willy; "I've thought of a name; it's the
'Never-Give-Ups.' All in favor say 'Ay'!"

"Ay! ay!" piped all the lads; and it was a vote. Perhaps it was a year
before the Never-Give-Ups got their uniforms; but at last their mammas
saw the subject in a proper light, and stopped their work long enough to
dye some homespun suits dark blue, and trim them gorgeously with red.

Willy's regimentals were not home-made; they were cut down from his
father's old ones; and he might have been too well pleased with them,
only Fred Chase's were better yet, being new, with the first gloss on,
just as they had come from a store in the city of Boston.

Fred was captain of the company. The boys had felt obliged in the very
beginning to have it so, on account of a beautiful instrument, given him
by his father, called a flageolet. True, Fred could not play on it at
all, and had to give it up to Willy; but it belonged to him all the
same.

"Something's the matter with my lungs," said Fred, coughing; "and that's
why those little holes plague me so; it's too hard work to blow 'em."

The boys looked at one another with wise nods and smiles. They did not
like Fred very well; but he was always pushing himself forward: and when
a boy has a great deal of self-esteem, and a brave suit of clothes
right from Boston, how are you going to help yourselves, pray? So Fred
was captain, and Willy only a fifer.

There was one boy in the ranks who caused some trouble--Jock Winter. Not
that Jock quarrelled, or did anything you could find fault with; but he
was simple-minded and a hunchback, and some of the boys made fun of him.
When Fred became captain he fairly hooted him out of the company. "No
fair! no fair!" cried Willy, Joshua Potter, the Lyman twins, and two
thirds of the other boys; but the captain had his way in