arch!" Sunny Boy beat a lively quick-step on his drum and
the army moved down the quiet street, leaving Bobbie Henderson playing
with the shells.

Sunny Boy's drum, of all his toys, was probably his favorite. He had
let it roll into the street once and a horse had nearly stepped on it,
but his mother had mended it neatly with court-plaster, and it seemed
good for many more days.

"Rub-a-dub, dub! Rub-a-dub, dub!" he pounded gaily now as he swung
along at the head of his gallant forces.

"I don't think generals play drums," David Spellman had said
doubtfully, when Sunny Boy first organized his army.

"Well, I'm going to play mine," Sunny Boy had retorted firmly. "Daddy
says when you're short of help a man has to do two people's work. I
can play my drum and be general, too."

"Halt!"

Sunny Boy issued his order so quickly that the army was startled and
stepped on one another's heels as they came to a standstill.

"This square's a good place to drill," he explained. "I'll see how
well you know the man'l of arms."

Sunny Boy meant the manual of arms, and his idea of army drill,
gleaned from the talk of his father and one or two older cousins,
wasn't very clear; but then, his army didn't know much about it
either, so his authority wasn't questioned.

"Column right!" said Sunny Boy.

The army obediently turned to the right.

"Ruth, don't you know which is your right?" demanded Sunny Boy
severely.

A general must keep up discipline, you know, and when a girl is in an
army she must do just as the others do.

"I get mixed 'bout right and left," admitted Ruth Baker cheerfully.
"But I'm all right now, Sunny. See?"

"All right," approved Sunny Boy graciously. "Column left!"

The army swung to the left.

"Look here, I don't intend to have you children making a noise like
this in front of my house!" The handsome glass-paneled door of the
house before which the army was drilling had opened suddenly. A woman
whom Sunny Boy afterward described to his mother as "awful big and
tall" came out on the steps and frowned down at the children. "Why on
earth do all the children in the neighborhood pick out my house to
play around?" she continued fretfully.

Sunny Boy's army wanted very much to run home, but he showed no signs
of running himself so they waited, huddled together in a frightened
little group.

"Why don't you stay at your own homes to play?" persisted the woman.

The woman really wasn't very tall, not talle