r it has been played by street
bands and organs, and heard on every street corner for as many years as
you boys have been living on the earth. "Wait till the clouds roll by,
Jenny, wait till the clouds roll by." The lads I am writing this story
for are between ten and fourteen years old, and they know that the
clouds do once in a while roll around a person's path, and block the
way, because fogs and mists _can_ block the way just as well as a big
black stone wall.

At the corner of the street a red-headed, blue-eyed lad, a head taller
than Harry, joined the latter. He put his hand on Harry's shoulder and
walked beside him.

"Well," said this last comer, whose name was Frank Fletcher, "will your
mother let you go, Harry, boy? I hope she doesn't object."

"But she does," said Harry, quickly "Mother doesn't think it right for
us to start on such an expedition and she says all parents will say the
same."

"Of all things, where can the harm be? Only none of the rest of us have
to ask leave, as you do."

"Mother," said Harry, disregarding this speech, "is of the opinion that
to enter a man's garden by the back gate, when the family are all away,
is breaking into his premises and going where you haven't a right, and
is burglary, and if you take flowers or anything, then it's stealing.
Mere vulgar stealing, she says."

"Why, Harry Pemberton, how dare you say _stealing_ to me?" And Frank's
red hair stood up like a fiery flame.

"I'm only quoting mother. Don't get mad, Frank."

"Does your mother know it's to decorate the soldiers' graves that we
want the flowers, and that Squire Eliot won't be home till next year,
and there are hundreds 'n hundreds of flowers fading and wasting and
dying on his lawn and garden, and furthermore that he'd _like_ the
fellows to decorate the cemetery with his flowers? Does she know that, I
say?" and the blue-eyed lad gesticulated fiercely.

"All is," replied Harry, firmly, "that you boys can go ahead if you
like, but mother won't let me, and you must count me out."

"All is," said Frank, mimicking Harry's tone, "you're a mother-boy, and
we fellows won't have anything more to do with you." So they sent him to
Coventry, which means that they let him alone severely. They had begun
to do it already, which was why he whistled so merrily to show he did
not mind.

I never for my part could see that there was any disgrace in being a
mother-boy. But I suppose a boy thinks he is called babyish, i