to rob one of the local banks, the mystery of the haunted schoolhouse, and a host of other lively incidents—–­all these are so familiar to the reader of these volumes as to need no repetition.  And Dick & Co., through the series of exciting adventures they had encountered, had become the best-known boys in and around the little city of Gridley.  Being leaders of other boys, they had naturally made some enemies, but that is to be expected in the case of all who are born to lead, or who fit themselves for leadership.

And now, on this glorious June Sunday afternoon, we find our schoolboy friends enjoying the sacred day quietly, yet looking forward to the opening of the contests on the diamond between the three local Grammar Schools, the North, Central, and South Grammars.

The road they had chosen on this Sunday afternoon was one over which they had seldom traveled.  It was not the road to Norton’s Woods, to the great forest, nor yet the one that went by the “haunted schoolhouse.”  It was in a wholly different direction from Gridley.

“It’s a long way home, this,” complained Tom Reade, as the boys plodded along the dusty highway.  “And I’m hungry.”

“Hungry?” snorted Darrin.  “Of course you are.  You fellows sang a verse to me a while ago.  Tom, how do you and your fellow-porkers like this lay?”

Taking a deep breath, Dave started to sing a travesty, to the air of “America.”

"My stomach, ’tis of thee, Sweet gland of gluttony, To thee I sing!  Gland—–­“

“Stop it,” ordered Tom threateningly, as he advanced upon Darrin.

“Stings, does it?” inquired Dave sarcastically.

“Yes, it does,” Reade retorted bluntly.  “To my mind ‘America’ is as sacred as any hymn ever written, and I won’t hear it guyed!  That’s no decent occupation for an American boy.”

“That’s right,” nodded Greg Holmes.

“Well, I won’t yield to any of you in being American to the backbone,” Dave retorted hotly.

“Prove it,” said Tom more quietly.

“I’ll prove it by my whole life, if need be,” Darrin went on warmly.  “Tom Reade, I’ll be glad to meet you when we’re sixty years old, talk it all over and see who has been the better American through life!”

“Great!” laughed Dick Prescott approvingly.  “That’ll be a fine time to settle the question.  And that time is—–­let me see—–­forty-six years away.”

The other boys were grinning now, and Dave and Tom, catching the spirit of the thing, laughed good-humoredly.

“But this does seem a mighty long way home,” Dan complained.

“I can show you fellows a shorter way, if you want it,” Prescott proposed.

“We all live on Missouri Avenue.  Show us,” begged Hazelton.

“It’s through the woods,” Dick continued.  “I warn you that you’ll find some of it rough going.”

“Then I don’t know about it,” Greg replied with fine irony.  “We fellows are not very well used to the woods.”