er boy would receive every advantage of care,
education and culture. So she kissed him good-by and left him there,
and she herself, ill, penniless and wretched, went back to live with
her father on the little farm at Cobb's Corners, five miles away. But
all that was ten years before, and Pen was now fourteen. That he had
been well cared for was manifest in his clothing, his countenance,
his bearing and his whole demeanor as he hurried along the partly
swept pavement toward his destination.

A few blocks farther on he overtook a school-fellow, and, as they
walked together, they discussed the war.

For war had been declared. It had not only been declared, it was in
actual progress.

Equipped and generalled, stubborn and aggressive, the opposing forces
had faced each other for weeks. Yet it had not been a sanguinary
conflict. Aside from a few bruised shins and torn coats and missing
caps, there had been no casualties worth mentioning. It was not a
country-wide war. It was, indeed, a war of which no history save this
veracious chronicle, gives any record.

The contending armies were composed of boys. And the boys were
residents, respectively, of the Hill and the Valley; two villages,
united under the original name of Chestnut Hill, and so closely joined
together that it would have been impossible for a stranger to tell
where one ended and the other began. The Hill, back on the plateau,
had the advantage of age and the prestige that wealth gives. The
Valley, established down on the river bank when the railroad was built
through, had the benefit of youth and the virtue of aggressiveness.
Yet they were mutually interdependent. One could not have prospered
without the aid of the other. When the new graded-school building was
erected, it was located on the brow of the hill in order to
accommodate pupils from both villages. From that time the boys who
lived on the hill were called Hilltops, and those who lived in the
valley were called Riverbeds. Just when the trouble began, or what was
the specific cause of it, no one seemed exactly to know. Like Topsy,
it simply grew. With the first snow of the winter came the first
physical clash between the opposing forces of Hilltops and Riverbeds.
It was a mild enough encounter, but it served to whet the appetites of
the young combatants for more serious warfare. Miss Grey, the
principal of the school, was troubled and apprehensive. She had
encouraged a friendly rivalry between the two