‘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 to enlist."’

’He’ll go for a drummer-boy as soon as he’s big enough, and I’ll go with him!’ cried Carrots.

‘Oh, come on,’ shouted one of the impatient ones; ’if Ted’s not here, let us begin without him.’

And Teddy’s delinquencies at school were soon forgotten in the excitement of the game.

He had not been kept in, but had slipped away the minute school was over, and was soon dodging in and out of the thick overhanging trees along the edge of his favourite stream.  His little feet sped swiftly along, and as he ran he talked in a whisper to himself, which was his way when anything special was weighing on his mind.  ’I’ll go right into the wood, and get under a thick tree.  I won’t let a squirrel see me, nor even a rabbit.  I must be quite quiet, and it must be like church, and I shan’t come away till I’ve done it.’

Into the wood he went, but he was hard to satisfy; roaming here and there, peeping round corners, and thrusting his curly head in amongst the bushes, it was fully half an hour before he chose his spot.

It was a secluded little nook under an old oak-tree, where the moss grew thick and green, and bushes of all sorts and sizes formed a natural bower round the gnarled trunk.  In front of this tree Teddy stood, and then, half shyly, half reverently, he took off his cap and laid it on the ground.  Looking up through the veil of green leaves above him to the sunny blue sky beyond, he stood with clasped hands and parted lips for a moment or two in perfect silence.  The soft wind played gently with his curls, and rustled amongst the leafy boughs overhead, and in the distance the birds’ sweet voices were the only sounds that met his ears.  As the boy’s eyes came back to earth they seemed to have reflected in them something of the bright sunshine above, and then down on his knees he dropped.  Placing his little clasped hands against the old trunk in front of him, and bending his golden head till it rested likewise against the tree, Teddy prayed aloud, slowly, and with frequent pauses,—­