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Show Ramsey MilHoUaiid Sf"88? (.-m-;-fht by Doubleday, Page & Company. gave never the slightest sign of comprehending com-prehending that there find been a fight about her. Having no real cognizance of Messrs. Bender and Milholland except ex-cept as impediments to the advance of learning, she did not even look demure. CHAPTER IV. With Wesley Bender, Ramsey was again upon fair terms before the winter win-ter had run its course ; the two were neighbors and, moreover, were drawn together by a community of interests which made their reconciliation a necessity. ne-cessity. Ramsey played the guitar and Wesley played the mandolin. All ill feeling between them died with the first duet of spring, yet the tinkling they made had no charm to soothe the savage breast of Ramsey whenever the Teacher's Pet came into his thoughts. He day-dreamed a thousand thou-sand ways of putting her in her place, but was unable to carry out auy of them, and had but a cobwebby satisfaction satis-faction in imagining discomfitures for her which remained imaginary. "Just once !" he said to Fred Mitchell. "That's all I ask, just once. Just gimme one chance to show that girl what she really is. I guess if I ever get the chance she'll find out what's the matter mat-ter with her, for once in her life, anyway." any-way." Thus it came to be talked about and understood and expected In Ramsey's Ram-sey's circle, all male, that Dora Yo-cum's Yo-cum's day was coming. "You'll see !" said Ramsey. The time'll come when that ole girl'll wish she'd moved out o' this town before she ever got appointed monitor of our class ! Just you wait !" They waited, but conditions appeared to remain unfavorable indefinitely. Perhaps the great opportunity might through the woods that bordered it. Two envied boy fishermen established themselves upon a bank up-stream, with hooks and lines thoughtfully brought with them, and poles which they fashioned from young saplings. They took mussels from the shallows, for bait, and having gone to all this trouble, declined to share with friends less energetic and provident the perquisites per-quisites and pleasures secured to themselves. Albert Paxton was ur,: person who proved his enterprise. Having visited vis-ited the spot some days before, he had hired for his exclusive une throughout the duration of the picnic an old row-boat row-boat belonging to a shanty squatter; It was the only rowboat within a mile or two and Albert had his own uses for it. Albert was the class lover and. after first taking the three chaperon teachers "out for a row," an excursion concluded in about ten minutes, he disembarked dis-embarked them ; Sadie Clews stepped into the boat, a pocket camera In one hand, a tennis racket In the other ; and the two spent the rest of the day, except ex-cept for the luncheon interval, solemnly solemn-ly drifting along the banks or grounded ground-ed 6n a shoal. Now and then Albert would row a few strokes, and at almost al-most any time when the populated shore glanced toward them, Sadie would be seen photographing Albert, or Albert would be seen photograph ing Sadie, but the tennis racket re malned an enigma. They were sixteen, six-teen, and had been "engaged" more than two years. On tlie borders of the little meadow of baskets there had been deposited two black shapes, which remained un disturbed throughout the day, a closet? guitar case and a closed mandolin case, no doubt containing each its proper instrument. So far as any ust of these went they seemed to be of th? same leisure class to which Sadie'? tennis racket belonged, for when one of the teachers suggested music, the musicians proved shy. Wesley Ben der said they hadn't learned to play anything much and, besides, he had 8 couple o' broken strings he didn't know as he could fix up; and Ramsey said he guessed it seemed kind o' too hot tr play much. Joining friends, they organized or-ganized a contest in marksmanship the target being a floating can which they assailed with pebbles; and aftei that they "skipped" flat stones upon the surface of the water, then went tr join a group gathered about Willis Parker and Heinle Krusemeyer. No fish had been caught, a lack of luck crossly attributed by the fishermen fisher-men to the noise made by constant advice ad-vice on the part of their attendant gallery. Messrs. Milholland, Bender, and the other rock throwers came up shouting, and were ill received. "For heaven's sakes," Heinie Krusemeyer Kruse-meyer demanded, "can't you shut upl Here we just first got the girls to keep their mouths shut a minute and I almost al-most had a big pickerel or something on my hook, and here you got to up and yell so he chases himself away! Why can't nobody show a little sense sometimes when they'd ought to? A fish isn't goin' to bite when he can't even bear himself think ! Anybody ought to know that much." But the new arrivals hooted. "Fish !" Ramsey vociferated. "I'll bet a bun dred dollars there hasn't been even a minify in this creek for the last sixty years I" "There Is, too !" said Heinle, bitterly. bitter-ly. "But I wouldn't be surprised there wouldn't be no longer if you got to keep up this noise. If you'd shut up Just a minute you could see yourself there's fish here." Ramsey leaned forth over the edge of the overhanging bank, a dirt precipice preci-pice five feet above the water, and peered Into the indeterminable depths below. The pool had been stirred, partly by the Inexpert pokings of the fishermen and partly by small clods and bits of dirt dislodged from above by the feet of the audience. The water, wa-ter, consequently, was but brownly translucent and revealed Its secrets reluctantly re-luctantly ; nevertheless certain dim lit- j tie shapes had been observed to move within it, and were still there. Ramsey Ram-sey failed to see them at first. "Where's any ole fish?" he Inquired, scornfully. "Look !" whispered the girl who stood nearest to Ramsey. She pointed. point-ed. "There's one. Right down there by Willis' hook. Don't you see him?" Ramsey was Impressed enough to whisper. "Is there? I don't see him. I can't" The girl came closer to him and, the better to show him, leaned out over the edge of the bank and, for safety In maintaining her balance, rested her left hand upon his shoulder while she pointed with her right. Thereupon something happened to Ramsey. Thi touch upon his shoulder was almos' nothing, and he hnd never taken the slightest Interest In Milla Rust (to whom that small warm hand belonged) though she was the class beauty, and long established In the office. Now, all I at once, a peculiar and heretofore entirely en-tirely unfamiliar sensation suddenly became important In the upper part or his chest. Tor a moment he held hla breath, an Involuntary action hs seemed to be standing In n shower of (lowers. "Don't you see it, Ramsey?" Mllln whispered. "It's a great big one. j Why, It must b as long as as youi j , shoe I Look !" Ramsey saw n thing but the thick I round curl on Ml Jn's shoulder. That curl was shot wl'h dazzling fibers of ! sunshine. He seemed to be tremtding. u The oloV resentment rose he'd 'ihow' that gir! yet, some day." : ! (TO BE CONTINUED.) THE FIGHT. Synopsis. With his grandfather, small Ramsey MtlhoMand is watching watch-ing the "Decoration Day Parade" in the home town. The old gentleman, gentle-man, a veteran of the Civil war, endeavors to Impress the youngster young-ster with the significance of the great conflict, and many years afterward aft-erward the boy was to remember his words with startling vividness. In the schoolroom, a few years afterward, Ramsey Is not distinguished distin-guished for remarkable ability, though his pronounced dislikes are arithmetic, "Recitations" and German. Ger-man. In sharp contrast to Ramsey's Ram-sey's backwardness is the precocity of little Dora Yocum, a young lady whom In his bitterness he denominates denomi-nates "Teacher's Pet." i O CHAPTER III. Continued. 3 Here was a serious affront, at least to Ramsey Milholland's way of thinking; think-ing; for Ramsey, also now proved sensitive. He quieted his friends "Shut up !" and advanced toward Wesley. "You look here ! Who you eallin' 'pups'?" "Everybody!" Wesley hotly returned. re-turned. "Everybody that goes around mentioning ladles' names on the public pub-lic streets are pups !" "They are, are they?" Ramsey as hotly demanded. "Well, you just look here a minute; my own father mentions men-tions my, mother's name on the public streets whenever he wants to, and you Just try caliin' my father a pup, and you won't know what happened to you !" "What'll you do about It?" "I'll put a new head on you," said Ramsey. "That's what I'll do, because anybody that calls my father or mother moth-er a pup " "Oh, shut up! I wasn't talkln' about your ole father and mother. I said everybody that mentioned Dora Yo-cum's Yo-cum's name on the public streets was a pup, and I mean It ! Everybody that mentions Dora Yocum's name on the pub" "Dora Yocum !" said Ramsey. "I got a perfect right to say it anywhere I want to. Dora Yocum, Dora Yocum, Dora Yocum ! " "All right then, you're a pup 1" Ramsey charged upon him and received re-ceived a suffocating blow full In the face, not from Mr. Bender's fist but from the solid bundle of books at the end of the strap. Ramsey saw eight or ten objectives instantly : there were Wesley Benders standing full length In the air on top of other Wesley Benders, Ben-ders, and more Wesley Benders zigzagged zig-zagged out sidewlse from still other Wesley Benders ; nevertheless, he found one of these and It proved to be flesh. He engaged it wildly at fisticuffs fisti-cuffs ; pounded It upon the countenance and drove It away. Then he sat down upon the curbstone and, with his dizzy eyes shut, leaned forward for the better bet-ter accommodation of his ensanguined nose. Wesley had retreated to the other side of the street, holding a grimy handkerchief to the midmost parts of his pallid face. "There, you ole d n pup 1" he shouted, In a voice which threatened a sob. "I guess that'll teach you to be careful bow you mention men-tion Dora Yocum's name on the public 6treets 1" At this, Ramsey made a motion ns If to rise and pursue, whereupon Wesley Wes-ley fled, walling back over bis shoulder as he ran, "You wait till I ketch you out alone on the public streets and nr - His voice was lost in an outburst of hooting from his former friends, who sympathetically surrounded the wounded Ramsey. But In n measure, at least, the chivalrous fugitive had won his point. He was routed and outdone, yet what survived the day was a rumor, which became a sort of tenuous legend among those Interested. Interest-ed. There had been a fight over Dora Yocum, It appeared, and Ramsey Milholland Mil-holland had attempted to maintain something derogatory to the lady, while Wesley defended her ns a knightly youth should. The boys, unmindful of proper gallantry, gal-lantry, supported Ramsey on account of the way be bad persisted in lickln' I he stuftin' out of Wesley Bender after receiving that preliminary wallop from Wesley's blackjack bundle of books. The girls petted and championed Wesley Wes-ley ; they talked outrageously of his conqueror; fiercely declaring that he ought to be arrested ; and for weeks they maintained a new manner townrd him. They kept their facial expressions expres-sions hostile, but perhaps this was more for one another's benefit than for Ramsey's; and several of them went so far out of their way to find even private opportunities for reproving reprov-ing him that an alert observer might have suspected them to have been less lndlgnsnt than they seemed but not Ramsey. He thought they all hated him, and said he was glad of It. Dora was a non-partisan. The little pri "var so diligent at her books she "For Heaven's Sakes," Heinle Krusemeyer Kruse-meyer Demanded, "Can't You Shut Up?" have arrived if Ramsey had been able to achieve a startling Importance in any of the "various divergent yet parallel lines of school endeavor" one of the phrases by means of which teachers and principal clogged the minds of their unarmed auditors. But though he was far from belfig the dumb driven beast of misfortune that he seemed in the schoolroom, and, In fact, lived a double life, exhibiting In his out-of-school hours a remarkable example of "secondary personality" a creature fearing nothing and capable of laughter; blue eyed, fairly robust, and anything but dumb he was nevertheless never-theless without endowment or attainment attain-ment great enough to get blra distinction. distinc-tion. He "tried for" the high-school eleven, and "tried for" the nine, but the experts were not long in eliminating elimi-nating him from either of these competitions, com-petitions, and he bad to content himself him-self with cheering instead of getting cheered. He was by no manner of means athletic, or enough of anything else, to put Dora Yocum In her place, and so he and the great opportunity were still waiting in May, at the end of the second year of high school, when the class, now the "10 A," reverted revert-ed to an old fashion and decided to entertain itself with a woodbind picnic. pic-nic. They gathered upon the sandy banks of a creek In the blue shade of big, patchy-barked sycamores, with a dancing danc-ing sky on top of everything and gold dust atwlnkle over the water. Hither the napkin-covered baskets were brought from the wagons and assembled assem-bled In the shade, where they appeared ap-peared as an attractive little meadow of white D apery, and gave both surprise sur-prise and plenshre to communities of ants and to other original settlers of the neighborhood. From this nucleus or headquarters of the picnic, various expeditions set forth up and dow n the creek and |