sex--impartially. All the school watched the battle of the hearts
eagerly. The big boys, who usually know as little about the social
transactions beneath them as the teacher knows, felt an inkling of the
situation. The red-headed Pratt girl became deeply interested in
the affair, though she was never invited to a party in the school's
aristocracy. She did not even get an invitation to Bud Perkins's
surprise party, where every one who had any social standing was
expected. Yet she saw all that went on in the school, and once she all
but smiled sympathetically at Piggy, when she met him slipping away
from his Heart's Desire's desk, in which he had left a flock of Cupids
nestling on a perfumed blotter, and a candy sheep. Mealy Jones would
have snubbed the Pratt girl if she had caught him thus, but Piggy gave
her a wink that made her his partner. After that hour the Pratt girl
became his scout. The next day she blundered. That Friday was burned
into Piggy Pennington's memory with a glowing brand.

[Illustration: _The red-headed Pratt girl_.]

The trouble occurred in this way: On the Friday following Piggy's
black Monday, the King of Boyville, decided to resort to an heroic
measure. In his meditative moments Piggy had made up speeches
addressed to his Heart's Desire wherein he had proposed reconciliation
at any sacrifice save that of honor. Twice during those four days he
had stood by his Heart's Desire during recess, while they had looked
out at the play-ground. But the words next to his heart had sputtered
and bubbled into nothing on his lips. He could only snap chalk at
the young gentlemen in the yard below him, in a preoccupied way,
and listen to his Heart's Desire rattle on about the whims of her
fractions and the caprices of her spelling-lesson. Friday noon,
Winfield Hancock Pennington took a header into the Rubicon. In the