o pockets, but though they brought forth
a plentiful salvage of the anomalous treasure usually to be found in
school-boys' pockets, the display of "change" was pathetic. Raymond had
a quarter, and that was more than anyone else turned out.

The conductor impatiently repeated:

"Tickets, please!"

Then Missy, feeling that financial responsibility must be recognized
in a class president, began to put her case with a formal dignity that
impressed every one but the conductor.

"We're the Junior class of the Cherryvale High School--we wish to go to
Osawatomie. Couldn't we--maybe--?"

Formal dignity broke down, her voice stuck in her throat, but her eyes
ought to have been enough. They were big and shining eyes, and when she
made them appealing they had been known to work wonders with father and
mother and other grown-ups, even with the austere Professor Sutton.
But this burly figure in the baggy blue uniform had a face more like a
wooden Indian than a human grown-up--and an old, dyspeptic wooden Indian
at that. Missy's eyes were to avail her nothing that hour.

"Off you get at the watering-tank," he ordained. "The whole pack of
you."

And at the watering-tank off they got.

And then, as often follows a mood of high adventure, there fell upon the
festive group a moment of pause, of unnatural quiet, of "let down."

"Well, what're we going to do now?" queried somebody.

"We'll do whatever Missy says," said Raymond, just as if he were Sir
Walter Raleigh speaking of the Virgin Queen. It was a wonder someone
didn't start teasing him about her; but everyone was too taken up
waiting for Missy to proclaim. She set her very soul vibrating; shut
her eyes tightly a moment to think; and, as if in proof that Providence
helps them who must help others, almost instantly she opened them again.

"Rocky Ford!"

Just like that, out of the blue, a quick, unfaltering, almost
unconscious cry of the inspired. And, with resounding acclaim, her
followers caught it up:

"Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!"--"That's the ticket!"--"We'll have a
picnic'."--"Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!"

Rocky Ford, home of nymphs, water-babies and Indian legend, was only
half a mile away. Again it shone in all its old-time romantic loveliness
on Missy's inward eye. And for a fact it was a good Maytime picnic
place.

That day everything about the spot seemed invested with a special kind
of beauty, the kind of beauty you feel so poignantly in stories and
pictures but