onding to the one
displayed by Oscar, whose father, after all, was nothing but a captain
on one of the small steam sloops running between the city and some of
the surrounding islands.

Oscar was especially eloquent when he spoke of the love his parents had
for each other. He gave examples that seemed exaggerated to Keith, but
nevertheless impressed him. In return Keith boasted similarly of his own
parents, and he meant every word he said, but always what he had to tell
fell short of the pictures drawn by Oscar.

"You don't understand," cried Oscar one day when again they were
debating this fascinating topic all by themselves. "It's all right for
your mother to kiss your father when he leaves and when he returns, and
to be looking for him all the time. But that's not enough. That's not
the way my parents love each other. And I don't think your father cares
so very much for your mother. But my father is so much in love with my
mother that he would like to eat what she has chewed!"

"No--o!" protested Keith, rather appalled by the illustration used, and
yet feeling as if he had beheld some undiscovered country. There was a
pause during which he stared incredulously at Oscar.

"I mean just what I said," insisted Oscar a little more quietly after a
while. "Anything that has to do with my mother is sweet to my father, I
tell you. And that is love. If you don't know it, you don't know what
love is either."

"But why," demanded Keith, his mind still so full of the disturbing
image called forth by Oscar that his jaws moved uneasily as if he had
taken into his mouth something unpalatable.

"Because," Oscar hesitated ... "because it is that way."

Keith left shortly afterwards to think it over in solitude. It was
probably the first time the word love had been presented to him as
anything but a commonplace term for laudable but commonplace feelings.
He puzzled over it, but to little purpose, and for some reason he
thought it useless or unwise to ask his mother for information.

VIII

The third grade proved merely a continuation of the second. Little had
changed over summer. A few boys had been dropped behind and a few others
overtaken. That affected the bottom of the class, but not the top. Dally
remained their principal, and when he welcomed them back at the opening
of the fall term, Keith waited excitedly for the distribution of
places. Few changes were made however. Davidson remained _primus_ as
before, with Keith