dition of each pair of players.

It is probable that the game was once--some hundreds of years ago,
maybe--called "three hole catch," and that the name was gradually
corrupted into "three hole cat," as it is still called in the interior
States, and then became changed by mistake to "three old cat." It is, no
doubt, an early form of our present game of base-ball.

It was this game which the new boy watched, trying to get an inkling of
how it was played. He stood by the school-house door, and the girls who
came in were obliged to pass near him. Each of them stopped to scrape
her shoes, or rather the girls remembered the foot-scraper because they
were curious to see the new-comer. They cast furtive glances at him,
noting his new suit of brown clothes, his geography and atlas, his
arithmetic, and, last of all, his face.

"There's a new scholar," said Peter Rose, or, as he was called, "Pewee"
Rose, a stout and stocky boy of fourteen, who had just been caught out
by another.

"I say, Greeny, how did you get so brown?" called out Will Riley, a
rather large, loose-jointed fellow.

Of course, all the boys laughed at this. Boys will sometimes laugh at
any one suffering torture, whether the victim be a persecuted cat or a
persecuted boy. The new boy made no answer, but Joanna Merwin, who, just
at that moment, happened to be scraping her shoes, saw that he grew red
in the face with a quick flush of anger.

"Don't stand there, Greeny, or the cows'll eat you up!" called Riley, as
he came round again to the base nearest to the school-house.

Why the boys should have been amused at this speech, the new scholar
could not tell--the joke was neither new nor witty--only impudent and
coarse. But the little boys about the door giggled.

"It's a pity something wouldn't eat you, Will Riley--you are good for
nothing but to be mean." This sharp speech came from a rather tall and
graceful girl of sixteen, who came up at the time, and who saw the
annoyance of the new boy at Riley's insulting words. Of course the boys
laughed again. It was rare sport to hear pretty Susan Lanham "take down"
the impudent Riley.

"The bees will never eat you for honey, Susan," said Will.

Susan met the titter of the playground with a quick flush of temper and
a fine look of scorn.

"Nothing would eat you, Will, unless, maybe, a turkey-buzzard, and a
very hungry one at that."

This sharp retort was uttered with a merry laugh of ridicule, and a
graceful t