CHAPTER IV

Enlisting for Life


The village children were swarming out of school the next afternoon. The
heat and confinement of the crowded schoolroom had not lessened the
superabundance of energy and high spirits amongst them, and the boys soon
congregated on the green, bent on a game of cricket.

'Where's Teddy?' 'Teddy Platt!' 'Young Ted, where's he got to?' 'Fetch
Teddy!' This was the general cry. But Teddy was nowhere to be seen.

'Has he been kept in?' queried one.

'Likely enough. He's up in the clouds to-day.'

'Oh, ain't he just! Why, I offered him half such a huge apple. My! it
was a beauty! And his eyes sort o' wandered away from it, as if it had
been a piece of mud! "Thanks," ses he, "I'll have a bite
to-morrer--not to-day."'

'And teacher was down on him sharp, too,' put in another eager voice.
'He answered all the 'rithmetic wrong, and he said forty soldiers made a
rood! And teacher ses, "Is your head good for nothing but soldiers?" And
Ted he got as red as fire, and says, "It's full of them to-day, sir";
and teacher said, "Go down to the bottom of the class till you can empty
it of them then, and tell me when you've done it." And when Ted comes
next to me I says, "Is your button lost, old chap, that you're in such a
stew?" And he says, "No, the button is all right, but I'm thinkin' how