build, and looked able to bear any amount of men-
tal development without a lasting bend of his physi-
cal shoulders. Johnny had, at the early age of ten,
whopped nearly every boy in school, but that was a
secret of honor. It was well known in the school
that, once the Trumbulls heard of it, Johnny could
never whop again. "You fellows know," Johnny
had declared once, standing over his prostrate and
whimpering foe, "that I don't mind getting whopped
at home, but they might send me away to another
school, and then I could never whop any of you
fellows."

Johnny Trumbull kicking up the dust, himself
dust-covered, his shoes, his little queerly fitting dun
suit, his cropped head, all thickly powdered, loved
it. He sniffed in that dust like a grateful incense.
He did not stop dust-kicking when he saw his aunt
Janet coming, for, as he considered, her old black
gown was not worth the sacrifice. It was true that
she might see him. She sometimes did, if she were
not reading a book as she walked. It had always
been a habit with the Janet Trumbulls to read im-
proving books when they walked abroad. To-day
Johnny saw, with a quick glance of those sharp,
black eyes, so unlike the Trumbulls', that his aunt
Janet was reading. He therefore expected her to
pass him without recognition, and marched on kick-
ing up the dust. But suddenly, as he grew nearer
the spry little figure, he was aware of a pair of gray