the woods and whoop. But first we must have some hard balls made, so that I may hit you good when you come up. Bob, help this boy make some balls for me!"

Thus outlined, the game did not attract me. I did not so much mind doing his work for him, since he was company, so to speak, but it did go against my grain to have to manufacture the missiles for my own hurt.

"Why should I be the Frenchman?" I said, grumblingly. "I am no more a Frenchman than you are yourself." "You're a Dutchman then, and it's all the same," he replied. "All foreigners are the same."

"It is you who are the foreigner," I retorted with heat. "How can I be a foreigner in my own country, here where I was born?"

He did not take umbrage at this, but replied with argument: "Why, of course, you're a foreigner. You wear an apron, and you are not able to even speak English properly."

This reflection upon my speech pained even more than it nettled me. Mr. Stewart had been at great pains to teach me English, and I had begun to hope that he felt rewarded by my proficiency. Years afterward he was wont to laughingly tell me that I never would live long enough to use English correctly, and that as a boy I spoke it abominably, which I daresay was true enough. But just then my childish pride was grievously piqued by Philip's criticism. "Very well, I'll be on the outside then," I said. "I won't be a Frenchman, but I'll come all the same, and do you look out for yourself when I do come "--or words to that purport.

We had a good, long contest over the snow wall. I seem to remember it all better than I remember any other struggle of my life, although there were some to come in which existence itself was at stake, but boys' mimic fights are not subjects upon which a writer may profitably dwell. It is enough to say that he defended himself very stoutly, hurling the balls which Bob had made for him with great swiftness and accuracy, so that my head was sore for a week. But my blood was up, and at last over the wall I forced my way, pushing a good

deal of it down as I went, and, grappling him by the waist, wrestled with and finally threw him. We were both down, with our faces in the snow, and I held him tight. I expected that he would be angry, and hot to turn the play into a real fight, but he said instead, mumbling with his mouth full of snow:

"Now you must pretend to scalp me, you know."

My aunt called us at this, and we all trooped into the house again. The little girl had crowed and clapped her hands during our struggle, all unconscious of the dreadful event of which it was a juvenile travesty. We two boys admired her as she was borne in on the negro's shoulder, and Philip said:

"I am going to take her to England, for a playmate. Papa has said I may. My brother Digby has no sport in him, and he is much bigger than me, besides. So I shall have her all for my own. Only I wish she weren't Dutch."

When we entered the house the two gentlemen were seated at the table, eating their dinner, and my aunt had spread for us, in the chimney corner, a like repast. She took the little girl off to her own room, the kitchen, and we fell like famished wolves upon the smoking venison and onions.

The talk of our elders was mainly about a personage of whom I could not know anything then, but whom I now see to have been the Young Pretender. They spoke of him as "he," and as leading a painfully worthless and disreputable life. This Mr. Stewart, who was twelve years the Chevalier's senior, and, as I learned later, had been greatly attached to his person, deplored with affectionate regret. But Major Cross, who related incidents of debauchery and selfishness which, being in Europe, had come to his knowledge about the Prince, did not seem particularly cast down.

"It's but what might have been looked for," he said lightly, in answer to some sad words of my patron's. "Five generations of honest men have trusted to their sorrow in the breed, and given their heads or their estates or their peace for not so much as a single promise kept, or a single smile without speculation in it. Let them rot out, I say, and be damned to them!"

"But he was such a goodly lad, Tony; think of him as we knew him-and now! "

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'No, I'll not think, Tom!" broke in the officer, for when I do then I too get soft-hearted. And I'll waste no more feeling or faith on any of 'em-on any of 'em, save the only true man of the lot, who's had the wit to put the ocean 'twixt him and them. And you're content here, Tom?"

"Oh, ay! Why not?" said Mr. Stewart. "It is a rude life in some ways, no doubt, but it's free, and it's honest. I have my own roof, such as it is, and no one to gainsay me under it. I hunt, I fish, I work, I study, I thinkprecisely what pleases me best."

"Ay, but the loneliness of it!" "Why, no! I see much of Johnson, and there are others round about to talk with, when I'm driven to it. And then there's my young Dutchman-Douw, yonder who bears me company, and fits me so well that he's like a second self."

The Major looked over toward my corner with a benevolent glance, but without comment. Presently he said, while he took more meat upon his plate "You've no thought of marrying, I suppose ?"

"None!" said my patron, gravely and with emphasis.

The Major nodded his handsome head meditatively. "Well, there's a deal to be said on that side," he remarked. Still, children about the hearth help one to grow old pleasantly. And you always had a weakness for brats."

Mr. Stewart said again: "I have my young Dutchman.”

Once more the soldier looked at me, and, I'll be bound, saw me blushing furiously. He smiled and said:

"He seems an honest chap. He has something of your mouth, methinks."

My patron pushed his dish back with a gesture of vexation.

"No!" he said sharply. "There's none of that. His father was a Dominie over the river; his mother, a good, hardworking lady, left a widow, struggles to put bread in a dozen mouths by teaching a little home-school for infants. I have the boy here because I like himbecause I want him. We shall live to

:

The Major rose at this, smiling again, and frankly put out his hand.

I meant no harm, you know, Tom, by my barracks jest. Faith! I envy the lad the privilege of living here with you. The happiest days of my life, dear friend, were those we spent together while I was waiting for my bride."

Mr. Stewart returned his smile rather sadly, and took his hand.

The time for parting had come. The two men stood hand in hand, with moistened eyes and slow-coming words, meeting, for perhaps the last time in this life, for the Major was to stop but an hour at Fort Johnson, and thence hasten on to New York and to England, bearing with him weighty despatches.

While they still stood, and the negro was tying Master Philip's hat over his ears, my aunt entered the room, bearing in her arms the poor little waif from the massacre. The child had been washed and warmed, and wore over her dress and feet a sort of mantle, which the good woman had hastily and somewhat rudely fashioned meantime.

66

Oh, we came near forgetting her!" cried Philip. Wrap her snug and warm, Bob, for the journey."

The Major looked blank at sight of the child, who nestled in my aunt's arms. "What am I to do with her?" he said to my patron.

"Why, papa, you know she is going to England with us," said the boy.

"Tut! lad!" spoke the Major, peremptorily. Then, to Mr. Stewart: "Could Sir William place her, think you, or does that half-breed swarm of his fill the house? It seemed right enough to bring her out from the Palatine country, but now that she's out, damme! I almost wish she was back again. What a fool not to leave her at Herkimer's!"

I do not know if I had any clear idea of what was springing up in Mr. Stewart's mind, but it seems to me that I must have looked at him pleadingly and with great hope in my eyes, during the moment of silence which followed. Mr.

Stewart in turn regarded the child attentively.

"Would it please you to keep her here, Dame Kronk?" he asked at last.

As my aunt made glad assent, I could scarcely refrain from dancing. I walked over to the little girl, and took her hand in mine, filled with deep joy.

66

'You render me very grateful, Tom," said Major Cross, heartily. "It's a load off my mind. Come, Philip, make your farewells! We must be off!"

"And isn't the child to be mine-to go with us?" the boy asked, vehemently. "Why be childish, Philip ?" demanded the Major. "Of course it's out of the question.'

وو

The English lad, muffled up now for the ride, with his large, flat hat pressed down comically at the sides by the great knitted comforter which Bob had tied under his chin, scowled in a savage fashion, bit his lips, and started for the door, too angry to say good-by. When he passed me, red-faced and wrathful, I could not keep from smiling; but truly rather at his swaddled appearance than at his discomfiture. He had sneered at my apron, besides.

With a cry of rage he whirled around and struck me full in the face, knocking me head over heels into the ashes on the hearth. Then he burst into a fit of violent weeping, or rather convulsions more befitting a wild cat than a human being, stamping furiously with his feet, and screaming that he would have the child.

I picked myself out of the ashes, where my hair had been singed a trifle by the embers, in time to see the Major soundly cuff his offspring, and then lead him by the arm, still screaming, out of the door. There Bob enveloped him in his arms, struggling and kicking, and put him on the horse.

Major Cross, returning for a final farewell word, gave me a shilling as a salve for my hurts, physical and mental, and said:

"I am sorry to have so ill-tempered a son. He cannot brook denial, when once he fixes his heart on a thing. However, he'll get that beaten out of him before he's done with the world. And so, Tom, dear, dear old comrade, a last good-by. God bless you Tom! Farewell!"

"God bless you-and yours, mon frère !"

We stood, Mr. Stewart and I, at the outer gate, and watched them down the river road, until the jutting headland intervened. As we walked slowly back toward the house, my guardian said, as if talking partly to himself:

"There is nothing clearer in natural law than that sons inherit from their mothers. I know of only two cases in all history where an able man had a father superior in brain and energy to the mother-Martin Luther and the present King of Prussia. Perhaps it was all for the best."

To this I of course offered no answer, but trudged along through the melting snow by his side.

Presently, as we reached the house, he stopped and looked the log structure critically over.

"You heard what I said, Douw, upon your belonging henceforth to this house to me?"

"Yes, Mr. Stewart."

"And now, lo and behold, I have a daughter as well! To-morrow we must plan out still another room for our abode."

Thus ended the day on which my story properly and prophetically begins the day when I first met Master Philip Cross.

higher and the highest learning which have chiefly felt the pressure of the oncoming of the so-called "new education." Under this pressure these schools have largely changed the nature, increased the amount, and developed in variety the studies of their curricula. But the signs are only too plainly manifest that similar demands will be made upon the schools which lie lower down in the stratum of the secondary education.

Indeed, as it seems to me, upon no other stage of education is the burden of making all things "new" destined to fall more heavily than upon the fittingschools of the country. By "fittingschools " I mean such as fit pupils for the colleges and first-class scientific schools; and any educational institution or more private enterprise, in so far as it undertakes such preparatory work, is entitled to be called by this name. The intermediate position which every such school is, by its very nature, compelled to occupy cannot fail to confront it in the near future with a number of most serious problems. Back of the fittingschool, or rather at its base, lies the primary education, with all its many flaws, accumulated follies, and marked deficiencies. In this earlier stage we can expect little yielding to the pressure of the new ideas of compass, variety, and choice in education. The limits of change possible in such matters for the primary schools of the country will remain comparatively small. No variety of elective courses, and very little attempt at increased breadth, can enter here. Whatever improvement is made at this stage must simply be in the way of securing more thorough and genial training of the child in the few subjects with which all education begins, and which every pupil is alike required to know. These schools, then, may be spoken of as the nether-stones of our mill of education; they will stand immovable on the lower side of the instruction of the preparatory schools. Or, to change the figure of speech, they will entail upon the preparatory schools all the deficiencies, follies, and weaknesses, of which they are themselves seized.

I have just spoken of the primary schools, with their imperfect but very stable work of laying the foundations of

a common education, as the nether millstone on which the fitting-schools have to lie. But on the other side are the colleges and higher scientific schools; these have for years been steadily increasing the gross amount of their demands upon the fitting-schools, and now, under the influence of the new ideas of education, they seem likely to impose yet heavier burdens by a corresponding increase in the variety of these demands. The higher institutions may then, not inaptly, be compared to the upper millstone in the educational mill. What is to prevent the preparatory schools from being ground fine between the nether and the upper stones? And yet between the two is the natural and only place for these schools. Their difficulty is also greatly increased by the fact that they can scarcely hold most of their pupils long enough to do a thoroughly good work with them. The fact that the pupils come crude and unformed to such schools, even in all matters of the most elementary training, is coupled with the greatest haste on the part of the same pupils to pass through the intermediate stage of education, into the freer, larger, and more varied intellectual (and social and athletic (?)) activity of the college.

And now let us consider separately each one of the three kinds into which the general grade of schools called "preparatory" may be divided. The case of the public high-school as a fitting-school is, under the present circumstances, exceedingly peculiar. Indeed, the very existence in the future of the public high-school in this country, not only as a fitting-school, but also in any shape whatever, cannot be predicted with much confidence. But at present the attitude and relations of the different schools of this grade toward the colleges vary greatly. In a few public schools the preparation given for college or for the scientific school is as good as can be obtained anywhere; in a somewhat larger number the influences are on the whole in favor of a truly liberal education. But in a very large and, I fear, increasing number of cases, especially in the West, the influence of the public schools is decidedly adverse to a truly liberal education. In some places the teachers of the public schools con