ether they deserve to be considered so or not, but some four or five
only in this large school envied Fred. The rest would probably have
hurrahed with him; for Fred was a "capital good fellow," and quite a
favorite.

"Bully for you!" whispered Ned Brown, his right-hand neighbor; but Ned
was instantly disgraced, the eye of the teacher catching the words as
they dropped from his lips.

When school was over several of the boys rushed to the spot where
Fred--his cap in his hand, and his dark hair blowing about every
way--was standing.

"I say," said James Duncan, "I thought you would get it. You've worked
like a Trojan and you deserve it."

"It's as good as getting the valedictory," said Joe Stone.

"And that is entering into any college in the land without an
examination," said Peter Crane.

Now Peter had run shoulder to shoulder with Fred and it does him great
credit that, being beaten, he was thoroughly good-natured about it.

"I say, Fred, you ought to treat for this;" and Noah Holmes, standing on
tiptoe, looked over the heads of the other boys significantly at Fred.

"I wish I could; but here's all the money I've got," said Fred, taking
about twenty-five cents from his pocket--all that was left of his
monthly allowance.

"That's better than nothing. It will buy an apple apiece. Come on! Let's
go down to old Granger's. I saw some apples there big as your head; and
bigger, too," said Noah, with a droll wink.

"Well, come on, then;" and away went the boys at Fred's heels, pushing
and shouting, laughing and frolicking, until they came to Abel Granger's
little grocery.

"Now hush up, you fellows," said Noah, turning round upon them. "Let
Fred go in by himself. Old Grange can't abide a crowd and noise. It will
make him cross, and all we shall get will be the specked and worm-eaten
ones. Come, fall back, there!"

Very quietly and obediently the boys, who always knew their leader, fell
back, and Fred went into the little dark grocery alone.

He was so pleasant and gentlemanly that, let him go where he would and
do what he would, in some mysterious way he always found the right side
of people and got what he wanted, in the most satisfactory manner.

Now Abel Granger was "as cross as a meat axe." Noah said, and all the
boys were afraid of him. If the apples had been anywhere else they would
have been much surer of their treat; but in spite of their fears,
back came Fred in a few moments, with a heaping measure o