The Dozen from Lakerim

fine style and watch a sudden thaw melt him out of sight. Or to write a name carefully, like a copy-book, and with many curlicues, in the wet sand, and then scamper off

er Time come along and blot out the work you have taken great pains with and have put your heart into.

kerim Athletic Club was very well known to those same people. And the Lakerim Athletic Club, or, at least the twelve founders of the club, w

rs! And hadn't they given up every free hour for two years to working like Trojans? though, for that matter, who ever heard of any work the

est complaint was made, of course, by the one who had done the least work in building up the club-a lazybones who h

lows to go and leave the club in the lurch this way

once too often, and who read wild Western romances more than was good for his peace of m

easant, and the men to whom the term was applied lost their tempers, and

for less money, or hadn't the money, for they changed th

h of the High School at Lakerim organized themselves into an athletic club that won many victories, and how they be

he Dozen were planning to desert the club, leave the town, and take their good muscles to another town, where there was an academy! The worst of it was that thi

rimmers should even consider joining forces with a rival. The president of the club himself was one of the deserters; and the rest of the Dozen grew very bitter, and th

ed long enough. He rose to his feet and proceeded to deliver an oration

ade up to go to college, and seeing that I've got to go to some preparatory school, and seeing there is no preparatory school in Lakerim, and seeing that I have therefore got to go to some other town, and seeing that at Kingston there is a fine preparatory school, and seeing that I want to have some sort of a show in athletics, and seeing that the Athletic Association of the Kingston Academy has been kind enough to specially invite three of us fellows to go there-why, seeing all this, I do

s do: he had set his audience to thinking. Only one of the Twelve had a remark to make for some time, and that was

regular De

kenes?" whis

proudly. "He was the fellow that used to fill

ve choked on some of

d a little fello

known to fame as "Punk,"

utchman of a Demoskenes,

ng dinner waiting at their various homes. Then they strolled along home. They met again and again; for the fate of the club was a serious matter to them, and the fate of the Dozen was a still more serious matter, because th

year. It was settled that Tug and Jumbo and Punk should accept the flattering invitation of the Kingston Athletic Asso

," and Bobbles were to be sent to other academies-to Charleston, to Troy, and to Greenville; but they made life miserab

hought of laboring over books any longer. But just as the Dozen had resigned themselves to losing the companionship of Sleepy (he was a good man to crack jokes about, if

the Troy Latin School-not because he loved Latin, but because Troy was the seat of much social gaiety, and because there was a large seminary for girls in that town. He was, however, at

couple knew that the boys really loved each other dearly at the bottom of their hearts, and decided to teach them how much they truly cared for each other; so he yielded to their prayer that they be allowed to go to different academies. The boys, in high glee, tossed up a penny to decide which should

muscles, and more us they thought of his big heart. His sworn pal, the tiny Jumbo, was well nigh distracted at the thought of severing their two knitted hearts; but Sawed-Off's

thout telling any one, for he felt very much ashamed of his stubbornness; and h

and altogether useless. So, now that they were in public, they all shook hands very formally: Tug with a girl several years older than he; Pretty with the beautiful Enid; Quiz with the fickle Cecily Brown; bashful Bobbles with the bouncing Betsy; B.J. with a girl who had as many freckles as B.J. had had imaginary encounters with the bandits who had tried to steal

TRAIN AND WAIT FOR ME,

O

strangely enough, was the fact that she had no one to bid good-by to, s

arryall came dashing up, drawn by the lively horses Sawed-Off had once saved from destroying themselves and the Dozen in one fell swoop down a steep hill. The c

wait for me. I'm goi