rt, had been one of mistaken zeal. It was not
that he himself had lost his cause--he had lost it for hundreds of men
in whom he had become interested, and whom he had struggled to serve.

Very wretched the boy was for the remainder of the day; when night came
he dreaded to go home. What would his father say to him?

Peter might have saved himself this worry, for when he entered the
dining-room and sat down to dinner he found the good-humor of his father
quite undisturbed and no allusion was made to the day's occurrence.
Surely this was carrying out to the letter the agreement they had made.
Peter Coddington was his son and he treated him as such; but to Peter
Strong, the boy of the tannery, he had nothing to say. Miserably Peter
waited for the opportunity to offer explanation or apology. It did not
come and all chance for securing it vanished when, directly after the
coffee was served, Mr. Coddington rose, announced that he had an
engagement, and was whirled off in the motor-car. He did not return
until long after his son was asleep.

Had Peter known what this mysterious engagement was his slumbers would
have been happier, for the president of the company had gone on no idle
errand. Screened from view in the far corner of the big touring-car he
had ridden past the tanneries and with his own eyes had seen the benches
in the ball field thronged with sweltering humanity. Twice, three times
he passed. He saw the boys at their games; the tired mothers resting in
the twilight; the babies that toddled at their feet; and the men--his
men--lying full-length on the grass drinking in the cool air. This was
what he had come out to see.

The result of it was that the next morning, in the doorway of every
factory of the Coddington Company, the following notice was posted:

After careful investigation Mr. Coddington has decided that it is
for the interest of his men that the plan to erect a building on
the ball field be abandoned. Instead the land will be laid out as a
recreation ground to be known as Strong Park, and to be reserved
for the Coddington employees, their families, and their friends.
Negotiations have been opened for a site on Central Street, where
the new patent leather factory will shortly be erected.

Signed: H. M. CODDINGTON, President.

What an ovation the men gave Peter that day! And how grateful Peter was
to his father! So grateful that bef