admiration the boyish faces showed.
“I guess I am! You are a set of trumps, and we’ll give you a
first-class spread after the play to pay for it. Won’t we, fellows?”
answered Jack, much gratified, and feeling that now he could act
his own part capitally.
“We will. It was a handsome thing to do, and we think well of you
for it. Hey, Gus?” and Frank nodded approvingly at all, though he
looked only at Annette.
“As king of this crowd, I call it to order,” said Gus, retiring to the
throne, where Juliet sat laughing in her red table-cloth.
“We’ll have ‘The Fair One with Golden Locks’ next time; I promise
you that,” whispered Ed to Mabel, whose shining hair streamed
over her blue dress like a mantle of gold-colored silk.
“Girls are pretty nice things, aren’t they? Kind of ’em to take Jill in.
Don’t Molly look fine, though?” and Grif’s black eyes twinkled as
he planned to pin her skirts to Merry’s at the first opportunity.
“Susy looks as gay as a feather-duster. I like her. She never snubs a
fellow,” said Joe, much impressed with the splendor of the court
ladies.
The boys’ costumes were not yet ready, but they posed well, and all
had a merry time, ending with a game of blind-man’s-buff, in
which everyone caught the right person in the most singular way,
and all agreed as they went home in the moonlight that it had been
an ususually jolly meeting.
So the fairy play woke the sleeping beauty that lies in all of us, and
makes us lovely when we rouse it with a kiss of unselfish
good-will, for, though the girls did not know it then, they had
adorned themselves with pearls more precious than the waxen
ones they’d ecked their Princess in.
Chapter 11 “Down Brakes”
The greatest people have their weak points, and the best-behaved
boys now and then yield to temptation and get into trouble, as
everybody knows. Frank was considered a remarkably well-bred
and proper lad, and rather prided himself on his good reputation,
for he never got into scrapes like the other fellows. Well, hardly
ever, for we must confess that at rare intervals his besetting sin
overcame his prudence, and he proved himself an erring, human
boy. Steam-engines had been his idols for years, and they alone
could lure him from the path of virtue. Once, in trying to
investigate the mechanism of a toy specimen, which had its little
boiler and ran about whistling and puffing in the most delightful
way, he nearly set the house afire by the sparks that dropped on the
straw carpet. Another time, in trying experiments with the kitchen
tea-kettle, he blew himself up, and the scars of that explosion he
still carried on his hands.
He was long past such childish amusements now, but his favorite
haunt was the engine-house of the new railroad, where he observed
the habits of his pets with never-failing interest, and cultivated the
good-will of stokers and brakemen till they allowed him many
liberties, and were rather flattered by the admiration expressed for
their iron horses by a young gentleman who liked them better even
than his Greek and Latin.
There was not much business doing on this road as yet, and the
two cars of the passenger-trains were often nearly empty, though
full freight-trains rolled from the factory to the main road, of
which this was only a branch. So things went on in a leisurely
manner, which gave Frank many opportunities of pursuing his
favorite pastime. He soon knew all about No. ii, his pet engine,
and had several rides on it with Bill, the engineer, so that he felt at
home there, and privately resolved that when he was a rich man he
would have a road of his own, and run trains as often as he liked.
Gus took less interest than his friend in the study of steam, but
usually accompanied him when he went over after school to
disport himself in the engine-house, interview the stoker, or see if
there was anything new in the way of brakes.
One afternoon they found No. 11 on the side-track, puffing away