rther: when one day old Peter Beantassel, whose
family was always on the verge of starvation, spent on drink the
accidental earnings of a week, and then fell into an abandoned well and
was drowned, it was decided by the school to give an exhibition for the
benefit of Mrs. Beantassel and her six children. Mr. Morton was
delighted, and promised to secure a church or hall without expense to
the boys, and to collect enough money from the public to pay for
printing the tickets. The boys at once began work in tremendous earnest;
they were for a fortnight so busy at determining upon a programme, and
studying, rehearsing, selling tickets, and exacting promises from people
who would not purchase in advance, that there was but little playing
before school and during recess, blackberry hedges were neglected, and
the trout in the single brook near the town had not the slightest excuse
for apprehension.

Paul Grayson entered into the spirit of the occasion as thoroughly as
any one else; he volunteered to recite Longfellow's "Psalm of Life," and
when the farce of _Box and Cox_ was about to be given up because no boy
was willing to dress up in women's clothes, and be laughed at by all the
larger girls, for playing the part of Mrs. Bouncer, Paul volunteered for
that unpopular character, and saved the play. But this was not all.
There were to be some tableaux, and as Mr. Morton had been asked to
suggest some scenes, particularly one or two with Indians in them, and
was as fond of pointing a moral as teachers usually are, one of his
tableaux, to be called "Civilization," was a scene in the interior of an
Indian's wigwam. The squaw, who had just been killed, was lying dead on
the floor; her husband, with his hands tied, stood bleeding between two
soldiers, while between father and mother stood the half-grown son,
wondering what it all was about. As all of the boys wanted to see this
tragic picture, all of them declined to take part in it; Joe Appleby had
been heard to remark with a sneer that only very small and green boys
cared to look at Indians, so he was asked to take the part of the
wretched son himself; but he said that when any one saw him making a
fool of himself by browning his face and dressing up in rags, he hoped
some one would tell him about it: so Grayson, as the only other tall boy
who had dark hair that was not cut short, was cast for this part also,
and offered no objection. As for the bleeding chieftain, Napoleon Nott
fo