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 been spying and he revolted against the thought. When he had said that he would keep an eye on him he had meant it in a sense of supervision, not as a threat of espionage. Perry had a strong sense of idealism. To him, the fact that he could go anywhere during the school day without hindrance or question, raised the Safety Committee's work to the heights of sanctity. He might suspect that some member of the committee was playing false, but he would not stalk him for verification. Something within his soul would not permit him to skulk after the shadow of one whom Northfield had raised to a place among a trusted few.

And yet suspicion grew slowly and imperceptibly. Twice, within the next four days, there were renewed disturbances in Big Jim's territory. Merritt, faced with the grim knowledge that a larger Safety Committee had not put an end to disorders, came to Perry.

"I'm taking Big Jim off corridor duty at period time," he said. "Fill in for him, will you?"

Perry nodded. "Have you told him?"

"Yes. I told him he had been on for two weeks and could shift to something softer."

Perry grunted. It was like Merritt to avoid speaking the unpleasant truth. He went down to his place, and was there when the 10:40 bell


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 sounded. Out into the corridors poured Northfield's eight hundred. The lines, like undulating snakes passed up and down the stairs. All of a sudden there was a rush, a scattering of students who were pushed from behind, confusion, and subdued laughter from those who had engineered the stampede.

Perry's voice rang out. "Lewis! I saw that. Step down here, please."

A boy, wearing the flush of guilt, dropped out of one of the lines. Somebody murmured "Gosh! I thought this was Big Jim's station, what's happened to him to-day?" The changing classes passed on, but Lewis remained behind, scowling and uncomfortable.

"I'm going to hand in your name," Perry said. "What's your Home Room . . . 11, isn't it? I hope they give you a dressing down that will make you sick."

Lewis shuffled his feet.

"This rough-housing's got to stop. You fellows won't be satisfied until the faculty steps in and suspends student participation in school government. Then, after the student body gets a black eye, you'll be satisfied."

"Why don't you do some reforming in your own committee?" Lewis demanded sulkily. "You yank me out, but just because Big Jim is a mem-

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 ber of the committee you let him get away with murder."

"No member of the committee gets away with anything," Perry said sharply.

"Except ice cream and sodas at the Candy Kitchen?" Lewis retorted. "What do you think he goes over there for every day? I've heard him telling how he gets away with it."

Perry's hand shook a little as he entered Lewis' name and room number in his memorandum book. Abruptly, after that, he went off to look for Merritt, whom he knew he would find on the second floor. The chairman of the Safety Committee was standing near the head of the stairs, dejection in every line of his figure.

"Where's Jim Fry?" Perry demanded.

"Candy Kitchen," Merritt answered listlessly. "I—I think he's gone there to buy something; his talk of scouting for fellows who have skinned over there is just a blind. I saw him taking money from his pocket as he crossed the street."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"What can I do about it?"

"You can go over there and see what he's up to. I don't like this thing of spying on a committee member, but Jim Fry's been carrying his game too far. He's even been boasting of how he gets away with it. I heard that a little while ago.


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 What he needs is somebody to go over there and tell him that the game is up."

But Merritt's expression showed that the curse of indecision was working its spell upon him. Perry started down the stairs again.

"I'm going after him," he flung back over his shoulder.

Big Jim, leisurely consuming a plate of chocolate ice cream, looked up as Perry pushed open the Candy Kitchen door. He called a startled "Hey, Charlie; get this out of sight."

The soda clerk, busy washing glasses, looked up blankly. "What's that?" he asked.

Then it was too late. Perry was in the store. Big Jim, with an angry shake of his head, helped himself to another spoonful of the chocolate mixture.

"You know the rules," Perry said quietly.

"I know what will happen to you if you try to start anything with me," Big Jim said savagely. The veins were standing out on his neck; but if Perry noticed them he made no sign. Only by the manner in which the nostrils of his thin nose had grown pinched was it evident that he had settled himself to an unswerving purpose.

"You're not worthy of that band on your arm," he said. "I'm going to take it from you."

Nobody heard the door open nor saw Lee


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 Oliver had missed this humble pleasure darkened her for a minute. "Why did he die! You didn't overtax his brain? He wasn't taught his letters too soon?"

"Oh, no," I said. I couldn't find the clothes I wanted. "The only thing that taxed his little brain was the prayers his Scotch nurse taught him, and he didn't bother much over them. He would say, 'Jesus, tender leopard,' instead of 'Jesus, tender shepherd,' as if he liked it better."

"Did you ever! The things they say! He'd a Scotch nurse. They say they're very good. I've read in the papers the Queen of Spain has one." She had gone back to the hearth again, and was playing with the toys on the mantelpiece. It was odd that she showed no interest in my search for the most memorable garment. A vivacity which played above her tearwet strength, like a ball of St. Elmo's fire on the mast of a stout ship, made me realize she still was strange. "The toys


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 Merritt come in as one on an unhappy errand. Charlie, the clerk, stood with towel in his hands forgetful of the glasses he had started to dry. Perry took a step forward.

"What are you going to do?" Big Jim demanded.

"I'm going to take away your arm band."

"You try it and I'll squash your nose so that it will touch your ears."

Plainly Big Jim expected that threat to settle the matter. As he stood there, his shoulders hunched, his head thrust forward on its thick neck, he looked to be twice the size of the pale, thin boy who confronted him.

Perry came forward another step. Big Jim drew back his arm. "I'll flatten you," he warned.

"Keep your arm that way," said Perry. "It will be easier for me to take out the pins."

Big Jim wanted to drive out with his fist—and couldn't. Some power outside himself, some power he could not explain, some power greater than all his bulge of muscle, would not let him strike. Surprise, amazement, consternation, uneasiness, passed through the shadows of his eyes. He felt the touch of fingers, felt the pins come out, felt the band loosen, saw it pulled away—and stood with his arm drawn back and permitted it to be done.


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 "If I hit you one" he began uncertainly.

Perry folded the band and put it in his pocket. "Jim Fry," he said evenly, "I charge you with being a traitor to the ideals of Northfield High. I summon you to stand trial before the Northfield Congress."

The trial was held three days later in an anteroom of the office of Dr. Rue, principal of the school. At the invitation of the Congress, Dr. Rue and Mr. Randolph, the faculty adviser of the Congress, were present; but they took no official part in the proceedings. Praska presided. The other members of the Congress, twenty-odd in number, sat as a jury serious and silent along one side of the room. A boy named Maxwell, a senior, was to present the case against the defendant. Big Jim had been told that he could select a student to represent him. Instead he came in alone, swaggering and insolent.

"I don't need counsel," he told Praska. "I can take care of myself."

"This case is serious," Praska reminded him.

Big Jim's glance, as it swept the jury, was disdainful, "I'm glad you think so," he said, and sat down. At first he had been of a mind not to bother to come to the trial. Then he had decided to put in an appearance and show how little he thought of the proceedings.


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 Maxwell cleared his throat, consulted some notes, and called Lee Merritt to the stand.

"You are chairman of the Safety Committee of this school?"

"I am."

"Is Jim Fry a member of the committee?"

"Yes; but he has been suspended."

"Did you see Jim Fry go to the Candy Kitchen last Tuesday?"

"Yes. I saw him cross the street and take money from his pocket and that made me think he was going over there to buy something."

"Did you follow him over?"

"I . . . Perry King was the first to go over. When I got there Perry was telling him that he was going to take the band from his arm."

Maxwell then called Perry to the stand.

"Did you go to the Candy Kitchen last Tuesday during school hours?"

"Yes."

"Was Jim Fry there?"

"Yes."

And alternate question and answer continued until the scene in the Candy Kitchen was painted in.

Big Jim sat sprawled back in his chair, taking note of the witness with a bored air. At the end of the testimony, he ignored Praska's invitation


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 to question Perry, just as he had declined to crossexamine Merritt.

Solemnly, with Praska bringing up the rear, the Congress retired to consider a verdict. Big Jim, with his hands in his pockets, wandered out after them. The main hall was full of students waiting to learn the result of the trial. Two or three of Big Jim's friends came to him and pointed to Perry and Merritt in earnest conversation near the entrance doors.

"Aren't they members of the Congress any more, Jim? They didn't go upstairs with the others."

"They can't vote on the verdict," Big Jim answered. "They were witnesses."

"How did it go—did they rip it into you?"

"It's a joke," said Jim. He believed it, too. Schoolboys like himself going through the motions of a solemn trial, just as though what they did amounted to something. A grin touched his lips.

After a time Praska came down the stairs and led the Congress back to the trial room. Students in the hall made a silent path for them, awed by something in the bearing of these representatives who held so much of the school's destiny in their hands. Big Jim shambled after them, suddenly ill at ease in spite of himself.


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 There was a scraping of chairs as the Congress settled into its seats. Ott, one of the members, a commercial student, took a stenographer's notebook from his pocket, opened it, and held it ready on his knee. Still the same silence that had been with the Congress as it came down the stairs! Praska stood up at his place.

"James Fry," he said, "arise and hear the sentence of the Northfield Congress."

Big Jim remained in his seat.

"Stand!" Praska cried. His lips were set in a thin line. The indignant flame of an outraged loyalty burned in his eyes. He was very stiff, very straight, the very figure of Justice inexorably dealing out its decrees.

Slowly—slowly—Big Jim came to his feet. A force he could not comprehend compelled him to obey. He was witnessing a moral victory, and did not know it.

"James Fry," Praska began, "you have been duly found guilty of the charges brought against you. Judging by the way you have behaved yourself to-day, you are either unaware of the seriousness of what you have done or else you are totally unable to realize the Northfield spirit. In either case you are to be pitied.

"But pity cannot blind us to the fact that conduct such as yours is dangerous. You deserted


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 the duty you were given to do. Northfield called upon you to stand by her, and you promised that you would, and then stole away. You are as bad as the sentry who, in time of war, sells out his company to the enemy.

"How could you do it? Have you no sense of pride in what this school has done? Do you ever feel the thrill of American history—the struggle of the weak and scattered Colonies, the sufferings at Valley Forge, the day of victory at Yorktown, the growth of a nation? But the young American army had its Benedict Arnold, and Northfield has you. Knowing what was at stake, knowing that there was talk of the faculty's stepping in and telling the students that they had failed, you sold us out. Arnold sold out for money and for revenge. You were cheaper than that. You, a Northfield fellow, sold out Northfield for a plate of ice cream. Jim Fry, how could you do it?"

A twitching spasm ran through Big Jim's nerves. Had he and Praska been alone he would have laughed this off; but every member of the Congress was listening to this arraignment. A dull red stained his cheeks, and his gaze held itself fixedly upon a far corner of the room.

"A wrong as great as yours," Praska went on after a silence, "demands a great atonement. Will you apologize to Northfield in the auditorium?"


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 Big Jim's head went back. "Before the whole school?"

"Yes."

"If you think you can get away with anything like that on me, you're crazy."

"Then the sentence of the Northfield Congress," Praska said clearly, "is that you be dishonorably dismissed from the Safety Committee and that the verdict of the Congress be published in the next number of the Northfield Breeze."

The case was closed. Big Jim's eyes had to come away from the corner then, and as he swung around he faced his jury.

"I guess I can get along without the Safety Committee," he said. "I never thought much of that bunch, anyway. As for the Breeze, that's a laugh."

He swaggered oil; and out in the corridor the waiting students clustered about him to learn what had happened. By and by, when Praska and Perry came out, the crowd had dwindled to a handful. The two boys went upstairs to the editorial room of the Breeze, and were lucky enough to find Bristow reading a batch of poems that some ambitious student had dropped into the contribution box. Praska explained that the Congress wanted the verdict in the Fry case published in full.


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 Bristow frowned and tapped an impatient pencil against his desk. "You know I don't believe in that sort of stuff, Praska. We talked it over a couple of weeks ago. Now you come in here to fight it out all over again."

"No," Praska shook his head. "I didn't come here to argue anything. I came here to ask you to do what the Congress, every member of it, thinks ought to be done."

"The whole Congress?" Bristow asked thoughtfully, and got up from his chair and began to pace the room. After a time he halted in the center of the floor.

"What right," he demanded, "has the Congress to tell me what I ought to publish?"

"The Congress is the voice of Northfield," said Praska.

Bristow sighed. "That's what has got me licked," he said after a moment. "When you and I had it out downstairs it was my opinion against yours. This is different. This is the combined opinion of the Congress against me. In America the majority rules. That's democracy. That's fair. Bring me that verdict and I'll put it in."

Bristow published the Fry story in the next issue of the school paper, under a single-column head on page one:


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 Big Jim bought a copy on the outdoor steps of the school, saw the story, and began to grin. But the grin faded as he read. Back there in the trial room, Praska's denunciation had been momentarily disturbing—that and nothing more. Reading the verdict now in cold type seemed to make it deadly effective. Phrases that had glanced off his callousness began to sear him. He had been able to walk out of the trial room and forget what Praska had said, but this could not be forgotten. Praska's voice had been of the moment; this thing, printed from type, had a solid and enduring quality. It would be read by eight hundred students, to-day, to-morrow, all through the week. A copy of it would be preserved in the bound file in the library.

That day was the most uncomfortable that Big Jim had ever lived. Every time he saw students reading the paper he thought they were reading the verdict in his case. If he saw three or four talking, he was sure they were talking about him,—and in many cases they were. Every eye that met his seemed to reflect the question that Praska had asked: "How could you do it?"

No one flung him a cordial or casual word; some cut him dead; two or three—Hammond, the football captain, among them—parked scathing disapproval into a short sentence.


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 Big Jim's boisterousness departed. He became quiet. His manner grew subdued. The same force that has controlled men of all ages, in all walks of life had been brought to bear upon him in the sheltered confines of his school. It was the pressure of public opinion, then, as always, so largely shaped by the press.

And another was to feel that pressure on that day. At noon Merritt came to Praska, where the president of the Congress sat alone in a corner of the cafeteria.

"George," Merritt said, "I'm going to resign as chairman of the Safety Committee. I should have done it long ago. I didn't realize what a rotten job I was doing until that story came out in the Breeze about Big Jim. There's been talk since then. Some of the fellows have been asking why I didn't go over to the Candy Kitchen after Big Jim—why Perry had to do it? Well, why did he have to do it? Because I fell down on the job. I guess I've been falling down right along, only I didn't look at it in that way. Anyway, I'm out, and the Congress can name some fellow who'll make a better chairman than I have made."

During the last period of the day Mr. Banning, in the civics classroom, had to call Big Jim three times before he could arouse him from his thought. At the end of the period the teacher


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 stopped the boy at the door and drew him to one side.

"What's the matter, Fry?" he asked.

Big Jim did not answer.

Mr. Banning made a shrewd guess. "That story in the Breeze get under your skin?"

The boy nodded. "I deserved it, I guess. I'm not kicking. Only . . . only . . ."

"Only it seems cruel to publish it where everybody can read it, and carry it around with them, and read it again. Jim, there was never a man with a bad record made public who didn't feel the same way. The Breeze couldn't harm you if you had not first harmed the school. What you're thinking now is that this thing may hang over you all through high school. It may—it may not. It all depends upon you. There's a way to live it down."

"How?" The boy was eager.

"By playing the game the Northfield way and with the Northfield spirit."

Big Jim squared his shoulders; then, with no further words, walked out of the civics classroom with his head up.


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HE EDITORIAL home of the Northfield Breeze was a corner room on the top floor of the Northfield High School. The room, tucked into an out-of-the-way wing of the building, had the remote appearance of an architectural. A stranger, strolling through the corridors, might have passed the doorway with the impression that the threshold probably led to a storage chamber for janitor's supplies. It was a dull and uninviting doorway.

But once inside the room one would have recognized the calling of the place. Three scarred tables held implements that possessed an editorial look—ancient type-shears loose on their hinges, and disordered piles of school papers and magazines. Drawings that had had their day of renown in the school weekly hung framed upon the walls; and there was also a well-preserved letter of advice that a famed novelist had once written to a Breeze staff. That letter was each succeeding editor's heirloom, to be duly pondered and


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 handed down, in time, to his successor. A dictionary on a stand was near the tables, a filled bookcase stood against one wall, and between two windows was a rack holding newspapers to which the school had subscribed. Four newspapers hung suspended from rods—the New York Times, the Chicago Daily News, the Kansas City Star and the Philadelphia Ledger.

At one of the windows Bristow and Praska stood staring out at a stretch of vacant building lots that lay parallel with the rear of the school building. Praska was the first to speak.

"If something isn't done," he said, "it will be the same story that it was three years ago. Northfield won't have a chance."

Bristow pursed his lips. "Three years ago the election came right after that outbreak of typhoid fever. Everybody was taking sides on the question of pure water. Nobody was thinking about an athletic field for the high school. Scarcely anybody bothered to vote yes or no on the question of buying the lots back there."

"It will be the same this year," said Praska. "This time everybody is interested in Commissioner Sloan. His side is saying that the parks and public improvements were never kept up better than he has kept them. The other side is saying that he's done nothing but make a lot of


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 well, she'd hardly have the time, with this great house to see to. But I don't care much for baby frocks. The babies themselves are none the happier for them. It's all show." She went over to the rocking-horse and gave a ghostly child a ride. For long she hummed a tuneless song into the sunshine and retreated far away into some maternal dream. "He was too young for this," she said. "His daddy must have given him it. I knew it. Men always give them presents above their age, they're in such a hurry for them to grow up. We like them to take their time, the loves. But where's his engine? Didn't he love puffer-trains? Of course he never saw them. You're so far from the railway station. What a pity! He'd have loved them so. Dick was so happy when I stopped his pram on the railway-bridge on my way back from the shops, and he could sit up and see the puffers going by." Her distress that


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 soft jobs for his family at public expense. Every night there are street corner meetings. Nobody says a word about the referendum on the high school field. It's just a side issue. It's up to us to see that it stops being a side issue."

Bristow, his lips still pursed, whistled a preoccupied, aimless, almost silent tune.

"We've been to the editor of the Morning Herald." Praska went on, "and we've had a talk with the editor of the Evening Star. We asked them to get behind the athletic field and boost it. But both papers are attacking Commissioner Sloan. They won't go off on any side issues, either. What's the result? They've each given us one little item buried on an inside page—a couple of inches in each paper. That won't get us any place. There's only one road left. We've got to make our fight in the Breeze."

"We won't reach much of the public," said Bristow.

"We'll reach the parents of our eight hundred students. Less than eight hundred voters bothered to say either yes or no three years ago."

Bristow, still whistling that almost soundless tune, walked to the middle table of the three, and stood there toying with the clipping shears.

"If the Breeze goes into this," he said abruptly, "it's going to be mighty hard work."


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 "Everything's hard," said Praska seriously, "until it's done."

Abruptly Bristow dropped the shears.

"There was a time," he said, "when I didn't believe in a school paper's going into this sort of thing—but I've changed my mind. You can count on the Breeze to go with you all the way. Something Mr. Banning said in civics last week has started me thinking. He said that half the fellows in the senior class would cast a vote in the next election for Governor of this State. It gave me a jolt to think how close a lot of us were—you and me, for instance—to American citizenship. Then he said we don't keep in touch with the people who have graduated from this school. I think I know what he meant by that. He meant that whenever the school had a fight on it ought to call on its graduates for help. It's going to be a fight for that athletic field, and we're going to call on ours. First crack out of the box we ought to call on Carlos Dix."

"Fine!" cried Praska.

Bristow grinned. "I thought that would get you. You've been a Carlos Dix worshipper ever since we were in the sixth grade. I'll bet there was a time you dreamed of him at night."

"I'm still for him," Praska said honestly. "He was the best quarterback Northfield ever had,


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 and he made a record on the State University team."

"Oh, he had a good head."

"He had something more," Praska said sharply "Not many high school letter fellows ever took the trouble to coach a grammar school team as he coached ours. After he went to the University he wrote us a couple of times and suggested plays. He's kept in touch with us ever since he came back and opened his law office. He's come out to the high school games when he could and"

"Gag yourself," Bristow cut in, half in good humor, half in earnest. "When I said Dix had a good head I wasn't slamming him. What's your objection to his having a good head?"

Praska subsided. Bristow, he knew, was twisting words around. At that Bristow excelled him. He had never developed the knack of deft, quick speech. Yet his mental picture of Carlos Dix was as clear and as strong as it had ever been in grammar school days—a keen, alert man, generous, public-spirited, and straight as a string; and he remembered that years ago Bristow had twitted him about Carlos Dix even as he twitted him now.

"Let's get back on the main line," the editor said imperturbably. "We ought to get Carlos Dix to use his head in this athletic business. He


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 knows a lot about managing public affairs. My father says that in another year or so he'll be in the State Legislature, young as he is. Last fall he made political speeches all over the State. He's just the man to help us."

"He may be too busy," Praska suggested doubtfully. "He may not have the time for a campaign like this."

"Do your years at Northfield mean anything to you?" Bristow demanded sharply.

"Yes," Praska answered simply.

"Then if Carlos Dix is the man you say he is, the four years he spent at Northfield mean something to him. Somebody ought to go to him."

"I'll go," said Praska.

At five o'clock the next afternoon the elevator of the Union Trust Building dropped him off at the seventh floor. Carlos Dix's office was down at the end of a corridor—the type of office that would naturally be rented by a man whose future was bright but whose present demanded economy. A girl, sitting at a typewriter desk, disappeared into an inner room after Praska had given her his name. A moment later Carlos Dix came out.

"Hello, Praska," he said with a cordial handclasp. "Come in." He led the way into his private office and motioned the boy to a chair. "Just give me a minute to pick up these papers." With


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 swift fingers he fell to banding legal looking documents into neat packets that he arranged orderly on his desk.

Praska had a momentary chance to study once more this man to whom he had long given a boy's half-hidden allegiance. Carlos Dix's build was still as rangy as when he had shrilled his signals to the Northfield eleven. His forehead was high, his hair was crisp and brown, his gray eyes looked at you openly and directly, and the ghost of a smile seemed to tug constantly at one corner of his wide, generous mouth. He had that vague something that men call magnetism. Lincoln had it. So, too, had Roosevelt.

The young lawyer snapped on the last rubber band and turned to Praska with friendly alertness. "Well, what is it?"

"It's about the election," said Praska. "We're going to try to put through the referendum for an athletic field, and we've come to you for help. Northfield hasn't forgotten you."

"I haven't forgotten Northfield," said Carlos Dix.

He walked to the wall, and stood looking at the framed picture of a football team. When he came back to his desk, it was plain from the expression on his face that his thoughts were in the past. Abruptly he aroused himself.


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 "What you want from me," he said, "is principally advice—right?"

"Right," said Praska.

"You've got two ways to reach people, word of mouth and the printed word. You must use the Breeze."

"We're going to. That's all been planned."

"Good. That reaches the parents of eight hundred students. You want to hammer away on two things, why the school should have an athletic field, and what it will cost. You can easily figure the cost. Go down to the Tax Assessor's office in the City Hall. Find out what figure the city puts on those lots in back of the high school for taxing purposes. Taxing value is always less than market value. In this town, add about forty per cent. to the taxing value and you'll have a fair market selling price. Then keep yelling about how little it will cost each taxpayer."

Praska had drawn pencil and paper from his pockets and was making notes.

"Now for your word of mouth campaign. Every Northfield student must do missionary work at home and with the next door neighbors. Each student must centralize on just that—his own family and the families next door. Don't spread your fire; center it on the people who know you. The athletic field is a side issue in this


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 campaign. The whole town is caught by the ear by just one thing—will Commissioner Sloan be defeated or re-elected? Half of the people won't even bother to vote on the athletic field. If you get out a crowd who will vote 'yes,' you'll win."

Carlos Dix's voice, vibrant, sure, confident, warmed Praska through and through. As he shook hands with the lawyer in leaving, he was struck anew with the thought that only a few short years ago this man of affairs had seen little of the world except what went on in a high school classroom.

"I'm glad you came in," Carlos Dix said, "for many reasons," and Praska left with a feeling of deep inward satisfaction.

The campaign would succeed—he was sure of that. But of even greater moment to him was the fine way in which the lawyer had responded to the call of his old school.

Next morning he told Bristow the success of his errand. "Carlos Dix," he said enthusiastically, "didn't hesitate a minute. You can always count on him. Remember the first year we were in high school, the time the football team was swamped in its first game"

"O, bother Carlos Dix!" Bristow said with irritation. "Let's attend to this election. You get


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 those tax figures and we'll begin to stir the pot. I'll do my bit. You get the rest of the school to campaign at home and among the neighbors. Just get me some figures, and I'll use them as a peg to hang up some snappy articles."

Praska got the figures that afternoon. The gray-haired chief clerk in the Tax Assessor's office took him back among the assessment books and speedily gave him the information he sought.

"I think I know what you're after," the man said. "If you high school fellows are going to try to get that athletic field, I'd buzz around and see the lawyers and the real estate men."

"Why?" Praska asked eagerly.

"Some of the people who own these lots do business through lawyers and real estate brokers. If a real estate man has a client who owns any of that property he'll help you put it over for the sake of his client. If a lawyer has a client who owns some of that property he'll lend a hand to help you put it over, too. There may be a little commission money in it for them."

Praska thanked the man and walked out into the rotunda of the City Hall. The list he had in his pocket showed that B. B. Ballinger, Northfield's leading real estate broker, owned six of the lots in the rear of the high school. There would be at least one real estate man, he thought,


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 who would quickly join in the school's campaign.

But when he told this to Bristow, the editor looked at him with a sudden, speculative smile. "Ballinger! Carlos Dix is his lawyer. I wonder if Carlos is in this with us to get his little commission money."

"Carlos Dix is in this," Praska said indignantly, "to help Northfield. Anyway, there wouldn't be anything wrong in it if he wanted to help Mr. Ballinger sell some lots to the town."

Bristow grinned. "Stirred you up, didn't I? Thought I'd get you with that. But just between you and me, George, if Carlos jumped right into this because he wanted to help Mr. Ballinger it would be a whole lot more honest if he'd come out in the open and say so."

"Well—" Praska began weakly, and stopped. There was nothing he could think of to say.

Bristow opened his campaign in the next issue of the Breeze:

Every person, every community, every school is judged by two standards—the things done and the things left undone. In the coming election Northfield has an opportunity to supply a need of Northfield High School.

The town had the opportunity once before, but did not see it. It must not


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 be said again that Northfield was blind to its chance.

It will cost, it is estimated, about $25,000 for an athletic field. Is this too much? It all depends upon what the town will get for its $25,000. A sick man is usually willing to give all his money to regain his health. Doctors say that it is cheaper to stay well than to spend money for cures. Northfield speaks of that field as an athletic field, but it would be better, perhaps, to call it a "health field."

The old Greeks had a saying, "A sound mind in a sound body." The provides a mental training field, but a basement gym is a poor body builder. Exercise should be taken in the open air. When it is taken on a school field it becomes as much a part of a school duty as study. Health marks are as important as examination marks.

Why did the Greeks insist upon a sound mind in a sound body? For the same reason that one would not store precious oil in a cracked bottle. The crack would allow the oil to leak away, and a weak body is a crack through which energy is lost. The best brains have usually gone with rugged bodies.

Northfield doesn't ask $25,000 merely for an athletic field. It asks for an athletic field plus—and the plus is health.

"That," Bristow said confidently, "is something that ought to strike home."

Praska was sure that it would bring results.


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 And yet, before two days were gone, it was apparent that the article had created scarcely a ripple. The school itself, the party most vitally interested, was not impressed. Bristow was disappointed.

"You ought to go down and see Carlos Dix again," he told Praska. "We're slipping up some place. We're not getting the most out of what we're doing. Dix may be able to put us on the right track. He'll try hard enough if he's in this to sell lots for Mr. Ballinger."

Praska went again to the office on the seventh floor of the Union Trust building, carrying with him a memory of Bristow's teasing, exasperating grin. But all doubts fled as he sat again beside the lawyer's desk. It did not seem possible that those candid eyes, that frank smile, could mask a purpose other than absolute school loyalty.

"I gave you the right road," the lawyer said frankly, "but I sent you up the wrong side. The first thing to do is to convince the school itself. The students cannot campaign at home unless they believe in what they're doing. Try this. Pack together your best arguments for voting for an athletic field. Word them concisely and forcefully. Give, also, brief, logical answers to any objections that have been raised. Keep the whole thing short and have it printed on small


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 slips of paper. See to it that there is one on every student's desk. Then send out speakers from the Northfield Congress to visit each home room and discuss these arguments with the students. Let them ask questions and answer them. Hammer the arguments home. Sell them to the citizens of the school community. Then print a short article on the same lines in the next issue of the Breeze, and get the students to take the paper home, with the article marked, and sell their dads and mothers."

The solution was so simple that Praska was astounded that neither he nor Bristow had thought of it. He stood up to go.

"Keep in touch with me," Carlos Dix said. "I'm interested in this campaign for more reasons than you think."

Praska winced. What the lawyer had said might mean nothing, yet Bristow had planted the seed of a disquieting thought. There would be nothing wrong in Carlos Dix working for the school and at the same time doing service for a client. Nevertheless, the boy had built up a finespirited, wholly unselfish ideal of the man, and the mere thought of commission money in some way soiled the beauty of the picture.

Within the next two days, the argument-selling campaign went through as Carlos Dix had planned


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 it. Perry, Lee Merritt, Hammond, Littlefield, Betty Lawton, Praska, and others went forth as a speakers' committee from the Congress to inspire the school and to rouse it to concerted action.

"The athletic field is yours," they cried, "if you'll get out and work. Take the Breeze home! See that that article is read! Try to find out if your parents will vote for the field on Election Day. Northfield is depending on you. If you fail her, she's lost. You are her soldiers and we're here to-day, on behalf of the Congress, sounding the battle cry and the charge."

The home rooms caught the enthusiasm—there could be no doubt of that. Yet two days later only seventy-two students had reported votes in favor of the field. The results were almost as disappointing as they had been before. By that time another issue of the Breeze was out with a third article, but Bristow made no boasts.

"My father," little Johnny Dunn told him, "says we have too many things now to take our minds off our studies."

"Has he read my articles?" the editor demanded.

Johnny Dunn nodded. Bristow looked crestfallen.

At noon a girl came to the cafeteria, where Praska was eating, and told him that Carlos Dix


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 had telephoned the principal's office and had asked that he be summoned. The boy went upstairs at once.

"How are things shaping up?" the lawyer asked.

"We can find only seventy-two sure votes."

"And the election only eight days away. Son, we've got to hustle. Can you meet me at my office to-night at eight o'clock? Perhaps it will be better if you bring a couple of other fellows with you. Eight sharp."

At eight o'clock Praska was there with Bristow and with Perry King. "Sorry," said Carlos Dix. "I thought we'd be able to talk things over here, but we've got to go elsewhere."

They followed him, and Praska was conscious of how much they had come to rely upon this man's judgment and leadership.

Presently they turned in at a walk outlined with trim hedge. Bristow dug his elbow into Praska's ribs, and the president of the Northfield Congress looked at the editor inquiringly. Bristow merely smiled. And then, as Praska recognized his surroundings, an electric tingle shot him through and through. They had come to B. B. Ballinger's home.

Mr. Ballinger himself opened the door. Carlos Dix was the last one to enter the house.


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 indeed show women who could bring God into the world by the passion of their motherhood. "Let there be life," their suspended bodies seem to cry out to the universe about them, and the very clouds under their feet change into cherubim. As Margaret stood there, her hands pressed palm to palm beneath her chin and a blind smile on her face, she looked even so.

"Oh, the fine room!" she cried. "But where's his little cot?"

"It isn't here. This is the day nursery. The night nursery we didn't keep. It is just bedroom now."

Her eyes shone at the thought of the cockered childhood this had been.

"I couldn't afford to have two nurseries. It makes all the difference to the wee things." She hung above me for a little as I opened the ottoman and rummaged among Oliver's clothes. "Ah, the lovely little frocks! Did she make them? Ah,


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 "How does it look?" the real estate man asked in an undertone.

"I think we'll put it over," the lawyer answered in the same low voice.

Ordinarily Praska would not have heard either the question or the answer; but to-night every sense was sharp and alert. In the living room, where the conference was held, he was conscious of Bristow, his head tilted a little to one side, smiling inscrutably over the heads of the gathering.

"Mr. Ballinger," Carlos Dix said, "is a graduate of Northfield High. I don't think any of you knew that. He graduated years ago before the present high school was built. But his heart is still with Northfield."

"So much so," said Mr. Ballinger, "that I want to organize a committee, get after every graduate who is in town, and send him out to influence his friends to vote for the athletic field. I thought it best, though, to talk to some of the students and see how they felt about it."

"I think that's great," Perry King said at once. Bristow said not a word. Praska nodded—slowly—and saw Carlos Dix give him a sharp glance.

The discussion lasted more than an hour. In all that time Bristow did not speak. Perry was


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 keen and animated. Praska, confused by the clashing faith and despair with which he viewed Carlos Dix, found it hard to fix his attentions on the conversation. It is agony to see a cherished ideal die!

But in the end he responded to the bright hope of the plan. Northfield's graduates would push a quiet, insistent campaign. And in the school itself the work would go on. Speeches would continue to be made in the home rooms.

"If we could only get the auditorium for a night meeting for parents of students," Perry cried suddenly. "The night before the election; just parents, no outsiders. The students making all the speeches. A meeting of those interested in the school to talk about a school need. Wouldn't that be one grand, final hurrah?"

"If you can do that," said Carlos Dix, "it would be almost a winning move."

"We can see Mr. Rue in the morning. If the Northfield Congress will back this" He looked at Praska, and Praska nodded.

The boys departed, but the lawyer remained behind. There were some personal matters, he said, that he wished to talk over with Mr. Ballinger. Praska swallowed a queer lump in his throat.

At the first corner Perry turned off and went


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 his way whistling. Bristow and Praska walked on together in silence.

"Mr. Ballinger's lawyer," Bristow observed at last.

Praska said nothing.

"Did you hear Carlos Dix tell him he thought they'd put it over?"

Praska nodded.

"They held their voices down; they didn't think anybody'd catch what they said. It would be a nice thing for Mr. Ballinger if he could get rid of all those lots in a lump, wouldn't it? What kind of Northfield man is Carlos Dix anyway?"

Praska wet his lips. "You aren't sure"

"Oh, rats! I'm not stupid. I can smell something cheesy when it's right under my nose. What's Carlos Dix doing, talking big about his love for the school and then using us to pull Mr. Ballinger's chestnuts from the fire?"

"I don't know," Praska answered with an effort. Then, in a voice of misery he added, "I wish I did know."

"You always did make too much of a hero of him," said Bristow.

"I believe," was the report that came from Mr. Rue, "that it is entirely proper for the students to use the auditorium for a meeting to tell the needs of the school to the public."


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Against Odds

 * Against Odds (1915), a novel by William Heyliger
 * Against Odds (1894), a novel by Lawrence L. Lynch
 * Against Odds (1917), an autobiography by K. Elizabeth Sihler

title: Against Odds


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 And then came a time of activity such as Northfield had not known before. A sign, built and painted in the manual training shops, went up in the corridor facing the entrance:

Speeches! Day after day they were heard in the home rooms. The great Northfield question became "How are those at home going to vote?" "Ask dad and mother; they know," cried the Northfield Congress. It became the rallying cry of the school. During the last auditorium period of the week a student sprang from his seat as the dismissal signal was given and as the leader of the school orchestra stood ready to start the exit march.

"Everybody in on this," he yelled. "Make it snappy. Are we going to get that field?"

"Ask dad and mother!" roared eight hundred throats; "they know!"

Praska felt that one spontaneous outburst was worth a dozen speeches in the home rooms. The steady record of progress was beginning to show itself in the reports that came in. The seventy-two sure votes had become one hundred and eighty-nine, and more than two hundred parents


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 had promised to come to the auditorium meeting. Added to that, Northfield's graduates, urged on by Mr. Ballinger and by Carlos Dix, were waging their own particular campaign. When the lawyer telephoned again that afternoon, Praska reported that the situation showed a distinct and decided improvement.

And yet, it was Betty Lawton who called to his attention an angle that had been overlooked.

"We're forgetting," she said thoughtfully, "the men and women who will be undecided about coming to the meeting until the last minute."

"You mean that we ought to have some way of reaching them right at the end?" Praska demanded. "How?"

"What do the political parties do on election day when they're trying hard to get out the vote? Don't they rush around in automobiles and bring voters to the polls?"

Praska's hands came together with a crack. "Betty, that's an idea. We ought to be able to find a few fellows who could use their father's cars that night. Now we are on the road."

A hurried call went to home rooms to prepare new lists. What students' folks would surely come to the meeting? Who were doubtful? Saturday Praska, Perry, Hammond and Betty Lawton came to the school and checked up in a


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 silence that was broken only by the clatter of brooms and pans as the janitor and his assistants scoured the building. When the job was done they had one final collection of names—those on whom last minute pressure would have to be brought.

Monday afternoon, after classes, members of the Congress began to telephone to doubtful parents. "We need you to-night," each message ran; "you must come." At six o'clock this special pleading was at an end. Some of the parents had promised. Some were hopeless. Sixty-five homes were still doubtful—one hundred and thirty fathers and mothers controlling one hundred and thirty votes.

Praska wrote out sixty-five names and addresses for those students who had promised to report at the school at seven o'clock with cars. This done he was conscious of a dragging weariness and a gnawing doubt. He began to tremble with an acute fear that they were doomed to failure. At home he ate a hurried supper, and when he left the house his father and mother were making ready to follow him. A church tower clock was striking half-past seven when he got back to the school.

"Did the automobiles go out for their people?" he demanded of Perry King.


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 Perry nodded.

"How many?"

"Five. None of them has come back yet."

"Anybody—anybody here?"

Perry shook his head. Praska told himself that it was too early—told it over and over again as though forcing himself to believe in the impossible.

At twenty minutes of eight one car rolled up to the curb with three people, and promptly went off for more. Praska saw them comfortably seated in the auditorium. The place was half-filled with students. The three adults seemed pitifully out of place—only three!

Five minutes later a trickle of parents began to come through the entrance doors. Boys and girls, wearing the arm bands of the Safety Committee, took charge of them as soon as they entered the building. Praska remained out on the sidewalk, watching with fearful eyes the approaches to the school.

"If they'll only come," he said in a whisper; "if they'll only come."

And then the tide set in. From the four corners of the town they came, men and women whose interest had been aroused, whose attention had been caught, by an unexpected, insistent, compelling campaign. Some were there out of curi-


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 osity, some because their sense of appreciation and admiration had been touched. They passed Praska in ones, and twos, and half-dozens. Exultation rioted in his blood. His weariness was gone.

Perry King, panting, rushed out of the school and touched him on the arm. "George! Some of our crowd is beginning to go away. The students have more than half the seats and the crowd can't find places."

Praska made a dash for the building. "Send the Safety Committee through the aisles. Get the students into the rear of the hall. Tell them they're freezing out our guests. Hurry it." At the door of the school he met the first of those coming away. "Please stay," he cried. "There'll be seats for everybody in a moment. This is our first public meeting and I guess we're a little green at it."

"Shure, lad," said a voice, tis all right. We've all o' us got t' learn our tricks. Back we go—"

And back they went. The ousted students, crowding toward the rear of the auditorium, made progress confusing for a moment. Just then the school orchestra struck up a patriotic air. Once more the situation was saved. Praska came to the wings at the side of the stage, con-


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 scious all at once that his collar was wilted and hopelessly out of shape.

It had been agreed that Mr. Banning should call the meeting to order. At a quarter past eight o'clock he stepped out from the wings. A cheer came from the students packed like canned fish behind the last row of seats. He raised his hand for silence.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "you have come here to-night at the invitation of the eight hundred students of Northfield to hear Northfield plead her case. My duty will be to introduce the speakers. The students will tell their own story. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Perry King, a member of the Northfield Congress and chairman of the Safety Committee."

Hammond said later that, from his part of the auditorium floor, Perry looked like a pinched and hungry undertaker who had come out to hang crepe. But there was nothing melancholy about Perry's address. He had decided to approach the subject from the angle of civic pride. He had a list of all the high schools of the state that possessed athletic fields, and before long he began to read them. Now and then he would pause to say, quietly: "That town is smaller than Northfield."


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 "Do you think," he cried at last, "that all these communities have bought athletic fields as a fad? If Northfield wanted a place for the exclusive use of the Northfield football team, or the Northfield baseball team, I wouldn't be out here to-night asking for your help. There would be no reason for the town to spend more than $20,000 just to provide a playing field for a few teams. But this field will be the home of general class athletics. Every student will exercise here and build up a reserve force of vitality. To-morrow this town decides whether Northfield High School joins the march of progress or else be known as a community that does not understand."

Praska's heart swelled. Perry, he thought, could always be counted on to come to scratch in an emergency. And then Mr. Banning was introducing Betty Lawton.

"I appeal to you to-night," she said, "on behalf of every girl who is a Northfield student. We do not ask you merely for ground on which to play; we ask you for a laboratory where sunshine and fresh air will develop alertness and vigor. The things that spell health and strength spell them the same way for the girl as they do for the boy. Have you heard about the flapper slouch?"

A laugh ran through the audience.

"The doctors," Betty said wisely, "are of the


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 opinion that a slouching way of standing and walking is bad for the health. The girl who enjoys vigorous, outdoor exercise does not slouch. So to-morrow we ask you to vote for our field. Here in Northfield we want you to be proud of the girl who gets the sort of red in her cheeks that is supplied by nature and not by the kind that is bought in the drug stores."

There was no doubt that Betty had struck a human and a humorous note. The audience had warmed up noticeably. Perry, in the wings, was poking one of his long fingers into Mr. Banning's ribs, all unconscious of what he was doing.

"We have them now, sir," he was saying. "Oh, but that hooked them beautifully. Now it's up to old sober-face George to go out and finish it."

The teacher of civics looked at Praska. "Nervous?" he asked. The boy shook his head. "Why should I be? I'm only going to tell them facts." He said it soberly, with no attempt at boasting. After all, that was how it seemed to him—merely telling Northfield's needs to the parents of those who came to Northfield High. It was like saying what he had to say to Northfield's family.

And yet when he walked out on the stage, his breath caught momentarily in his throat. He


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 had not dreamed that so many people were there. Row upon row, aisle upon aisle, they filled the floor and the balcony. Voters, American citizens—and yet they had come out to-night to harken to the appeal of youth. Some were there who had been in high school when he came to Northfield with his freshman class. It made him feel anew how short was the distance from the classroom to the voting booth.

"Men and women of Northfield," he said, "the students of Northfield appeal to you for your help. This is your school as much as ours; that is why you are here to-night. We ask for this athletic field for the same reason that you wouldn't go into a shoe-store and buy one shoe. One shoe wouldn't be enough; there'd be something lacking. And a school without a field that the students can feel is theirs is lacking, too. Such a school trains the mind, but it does not train the body that contains the mind.

"The World War brought a lesson to America. Thousands of men were rejected for army service because they were physically unfit. It is a duty of citizenship for one to be ready to serve his country. A country that gives as much as the United States gives, has the right to ask something in return. It asks, in times of peace, a citizenship that is 100 per cent. active. There


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 can be no 100 per cent. activity in a person whose body is not 100 per cent. fit. That is what we at Northfield ask—a place where we can build up and create the stamina and strength necessary for all the emergencies of American life.

"We want you to see, before you go, some of the spirit of Northfield. And so I ask the students to sing our school hymn, 'Northfield Forever.

The orchestra struck up the opening bars, and the strains of the song swept through the auditorium in a mighty chorus. It was good to hear—stirring, heart-warming. Praska, when it was done, stepped forward again.

"Without the fathers and mothers of Northfield behind us," he cried, "Northfield could not be what it is. I want a big cheer for mother and for dad."

A cheer leader came running down the aisle. "Are you ready? Everybody in on this. Make it good. Yip yip!"

The cheer crashed out probably as no Northfield cheer had ever crashed before. A storm of applause burst from the audience. Seized with the inspiration of the moment, Praska raised his hands.

"Won't you?" he asked the people, "sing


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 'Northfield Forever' with us? We want it to be your song as well as ours."

Many there scarcely knew the words—but they had caught the spirit. The deep voices of the men, the clear, rising notes of the women, sent a thrill of emotion through Praska's veins. Then it was over, and the audience was out of the seats and flowing down the aisles toward the doors. Northfield had told its story. The campaign was over. It rested for the morrow to write a verdict of victory—or defeat.

Election day brought to Praska a restless spirit and a profound depression. Now that there was nothing to do but to wait and hope, a dozen doubts and fears assailed his mind. After all, the arguments that had been so bravely given in the auditorium were but the opinions of boys and girls. Last night they had seemed logical and all-sufficient; to-day they seemed hollowly futile and lifeless. Boys and girls attempting to influence the opinions of mature men and women! From the bleak outlook of to-day the whole campaign took on the mask of brazen madness, a youthful, impetuous, but impotent masquerade.

And yet even in his darkest moments, the thrill that had come to him on the stage ran through him anew. Then and there, some sixth sense


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 told him, Northfield had won the sympathy of its hearers. But would it last? Had it not been merely the triumph of the moment? To-day, away from the cheers, and the songs, and the enthusiasm, would not men and women lose the glamour and view the whole scene lightly? He did not know—but he feared. Boys and girls trying to sway the judgment of their elders! It wore the torturing garments of a gross impossibility.

He walked with his father and mother to the polling place, and waited outside while they voted. In spite of his discouragement his pulse quickened at the sight of the party workers patrolling the sidewalk, the watchers inside, the election clerks, and the ballot box on the plain pine table.

"Well," said his father as they walked home, "there are two votes for the athletic field."

Two, and Northfield with 10,000 voters registered. Two votes seemed so meagre.

The afternoon ran to its close. Daylight faded. The clock struck six, and then seven. A tremor shook his body. The polls had closed. The result was written. He was in a fever to go to the City Hall in the hope of learning the verdict, but shrank from arriving too early and having to wait in an agony of apprehension. At nine o'clock running feet pattering through the


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 street; a knock sounded on the door. Perry King and Bristow clamored for admittance.

"The first ballot box has just been turned in to the City Clerk," Perry panted. "Fourth election district of the second ward. The vote was sixty-eight for the field and fifty against. What do you think of that?"

"We've started something," Bristow cried excitedly.

Hope—wild hope—came to Praska. Only about half of the voters were bothering to mark their ballots on the referendum; but of those who had voted, a majority had thrown their support to the school. If the same ratio held throughout the town—

"I'll go back with you," he said.

When they reached the City Hall, the City Clerk's office was crowded, and it was impossible for them to worm their way past the doorway. They stood in the rotunda, among excited men who spoke only of the vote on Commissioner Sloan. He was, on the early returns, running behind. Out in the street horns began to blow, and a procession wormed its way into the building. The marchers were the supporters of the man who was running against the Commissioner. From time to time election boards, having finished their count, came in with their tally


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 But hardly had the door opened and disclosed the empty, sunny spaces swimming with motes before her old sweetness flowered again. She moved forward slowly, tremulous and responsive and pleased, as though the room's loveliness was a gift to her. She stretched out her hands to the clear sapphire walls and the bright fresco of birds and animals with a young delight. So, I thought, might a bride go about the house her husband secretly prepared for her. Yet when she reached the hearth and stood with her hands behind her on the fireguard, looking about her at all the exquisite devices of our nursery to rivet health and amusement on our reluctant little visitor, it was so apparent that she was a mother that I could not imagine how it was that I had not always known it. It has sometimes happened that painters who have kept close enough to earth to see a heavenly vision have made pictures of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin which do


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 sheets and their ballot boxes and surrendered both to the City Clerk.

By half-past ten Commissioner Sloan's defeat was a certainty. The horn blowing had become a raucous din. Above the heads of the press of people Praska saw the tall form of Carlos Dix.

"Mr. Dix!" he shouted. "Mr. Dix!"

The lawyer looked about him, doubtfully.

"Mr. Dix!" Praska waved a frantic hand.

The lawyer saw them then, and forced his way through the crowd. One look at his face, and Praska read the story of victory.

"The field will win by six or seven hundred votes," Carlos Dix said. "Your meeting last night just about put it through. Praska, I'm proud of you. I look upon this as a big thing."

"It's certainly a big thing for Northfield," said Perry.

"It's a big thing in many ways," Carlos Dix said gravely.

Bristow flashed Praska a wise, knowing look. And at that moment Praska's taste of triumph slowly turned to a taste of ashes.


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OR eight innings Northfield had been pecking away, only to have rally after rally die just when it seemed that runs were about to be scored. The, fastened to one wall of the shack that served as a dressing house, read: Monroe, 5; Northfield, 3. And so when Northfield came in to take her ninth inning turn at bat, a dozen or more students began to worm their way out through the crowd. One stopped for a moment to call back over his shoulder:

"Coming, Praska?"

"I think I'll wait," George Praska answered calmly, "and see Northfield win."

The student went off grumbling. "That's the worst of being president of the Northfield Student Congress," he complained. "Even if the team hasn't a chance you're expected to stick around to the finish."

But Praska was not staying there as a matter


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 of duty. He expected the Northfield nine to win. He had a faith in the school as certain as it was sublime. Northfield was never beaten, he told himself, until the last man was out—and usually not then.

Out on the diamond the Northfield coachers were entreating the boy at the plate for a hit. The pitcher, superbly confident, floated a slow curve toward the plate.

"Strike one!" ruled the umpire.

"Take your time," barked the coacher at first base. "Only takes one to give it a ride. Use your eye, old man."

The batter's eye ordered him to offer at the next pitch. He met the ball, and it rose weakly in the air. The pitcher was under it when it came down.

"Out!" ruled the umpire.

Another Northfield boy was at the plate. The pitcher, studying him, decided to try an inshoot. The ball broke in too far, and plunked into the batter's ribs. A din of sudden hope broke from the Northfield rooters as he trotted down to first, rubbing his side.

"We're off," cried Praska. "Now there, Littlefield, show us an old-time hit. Come on. Lit. Right into it."

Littlefield hitting savagely, drove the first ball


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 far into right field. The boy on first raced all the way to third, and when the outfielder threw home to cut him off should he try to score, Littlefield romped down to second.

Praska had grown hoarse. "Now we're got this game where we want it. Here's your chance, Chan. Crack into one and make Northfield happy."

Chanler, the little second baseman, was crouched at the plate, nervously fidgeting the toe of his left shoe along the ground. The pitcher, so confident a moment before, now looked worried. Twice he shook his head in answer to the catcher's signals, and when he did hurl the ball the pitch was wild.

"Look out!" shrilled the coachers.

Chanler dropped to the ground. But his bat, trailing back over his shoulder, got in the way of the ball. The unexpected shock of the meeting twisted the bat from his hand. The ball popped into the air and fell gently a few feet in front of the plate.

The coachers had become madmen. "Up Chan! Run it out. Fair ball. Come to life!"

Chanler scrambled to his feet and dashed for first. The Monroe infield, momentarily upset, shrilled orders, pleas and advice. The catcher, stumbling as he jumped forward, went off balance


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 and was out of the play. The pitcher, racing in, snapped up the ball with one hand and had a vision, out of the corner of his eyes, of the Northfield runner on third trying to score. He wasted a precious moment deciding that the runner on third was only trying to rattle him and had already swung about and run back to the bag.

"First!" roared the catcher. "Great Scott, throw it. Throw it!"

The pitcher threw, and the throw was high over the first baseman's frantic hands.

A yell of triumph came from Praska. "O-o-o-o-h! Look at that!"

The boy on third had scored, Littlefield had romped to third, and Chanler, rising out of a cloud of dust, was brushing his uniform at second. The score was now 5-4, with the tying run and the winning run waiting to come over the plate.

"Tuttle's up," someone shouted. Slowly—slowly—the crowd became silent. Tuttle was the weakest hitter on the team. Yet, as he strode out swinging two bats, the cheering broke out again as though the students fully expected him to win the game. It was Northfield spirit!

Something, though, was happening on the bench. A boy sprang out and called aloud. Tuttle paused and came back. And now another boy stepped out, bent heavy football shoulders


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 and found a bat, and then came limping to the plate. Even before the umpire could cry "Hammond now batting for Tuttle" the spectators were in an uproar. Boys were telling each other that Hammond hadn't played since he twisted his ankle in a practice game five days ago sliding home on a home run hit. "Home Run Hammond" they called him now, and called it in a swelling chorus that had the fervor of a prayer—just as in the fall they called him "Thunderbolt Hammond."

Hammond, at the plate, was easing himself into position.

"He's favoring that bad leg," Praska thought in a panic. "If the leg should pain him when he goes for the ball, if the pain should throw him off on his swing—"

"They only want Ham to send a fly to the outfielders," a voice said behind Praska, "so that the tying run can score. He'd never be able to run out an infield hit."

"If he does hit to the infield and if Lit is thrown out at the plate" another voice began.

"Sure, Ham will be doubled at first and the game will be over."

Praska's hands began to sweat. The pitcher threw the ball. Hammond hopped away on one leg.


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 "Strike!" ruled the umpire.

"Fooled on an out curve," muttered Praska.

The pitcher threw again. The catcher put up his mitt for the ball—but the ball never reached the glove.

Hammond swung. It seemed that bat and ball met on a line. There was a whistling sound, a streak of white, hopeless outfielders running with their backs to the diamond, and a pitcher standing with drooping shoulders, crushed. Littlefield and Chanler scored. Hammond, limping and hopping, went down the first-base path. One of the fielders had overtaken the ball; but even as he turned to throw it one of Hammond's feet touched the first-base bag and a shriek of jubilation broke from Northfield throats.

Ten minutes later victory still was in the air. It was in the bearing of the wave upon wave of students who poured up from the ball field. It was in the cheers that sounded from the diamond where part of the crowd waited for the team to emerge from the dressing house. It was in the set of Praska's shoulders as he fell into step beside a man and walked with him back toward the heart of the town.

"Quite a game, wasn't it?" Mr. Banning asked. "I was watching you. I thought, at one time, that you were going to throw away your hat."


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 "I felt like throwing something," Praska laughed. "That was a finish, wasn't it?"

"There's always a thrill to a good finish," said the man.

"It takes fighting spirit to make a good finish," the boy said gravely, and with a feeling of pride. After all, it was his school that had made it.

The man walked on in silence, as though some phrase the boy had used had plunged him into contemplation. And yet, when Praska looked up at him questioningly, his eyes seemed to reflect a gentle smile.

"The fighting spirit for a good finish," he repeated. "I'm glad you said that, George. Does it mean that you've changed your mind about the State University?"

Praska flushed. "No, sir. I—I don't think it's a question of fighting spirit. Other fellows have worked two-thirds of their way through; I could do that. But there's so much to be done in the world. I want to get out and begin to do my share. I don't have to go to the University to make a good finish."

He said it with conviction; and yet, somehow, it sounded like a question and not a statement of fact.

"It all depends," Mr. Banning said slowly, "upon what the good finish is to be a part of.


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 You'll graduate from high school late this month. Your job, thus far, has been education. If you want to make a good job of that, your road leads straight to the University."

The boy's chin became stubborn. "That's one kind of good finish. I'm thinking of another kind. I mean a good finish to the job of doing something. I want to get out and tackle the things that are waiting to be done. Four years more of study seems like four years more on the sidelines."

"And yet," said Mr. Banning, "I knew a man who waited three years on the sidelines, and then went out and won the biggest game of the year. It really wasn't three years on the sidelines—it was three years of studying, and watching, and thinking, and learning how."

The boy shook his head. His mental processes were slow. He felt that he was being entangled in a labyrinth of words, worsted not by logic but by language. Mr. Banning understood his silence. "You can't quite see it, can you?"

"No," the boy said honestly.

"I didn't expect you to—right away. Go back to the campaign the school made for the athletic field. The school wanted advice. It needed somebody to show it the way to success. Out of all its graduates you went to Carlos Dix. Why?"


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 "Carlos Dix had done things."

"Right! Carlos Dix had done things. Carlos Dix had gone through the State University."

"He had done more than that, sir. His campaign speeches, his trials in the law courts"

"Yes; after the University had prepared him by putting him on the track of accomplishment."

They were in the heart of Northfield now, and before them was the bank building in which the lawyer had his office. Suddenly Mr. Banning put his hand on Praska's shoulder.

"George, whatever decision you come to finally, you want to make sure it's the right one. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"You ought to talk this over with Carlos Dix. Won't you do that?"

The boy hesitated, and in his indecision there was something of confusion.

"There isn't any reason why you wouldn't want to talk this over with him, is there?" the teacher asked in surprise.

"I'll talk with him," said Praska. In view of the question, it's nearness to the truth, he felt that there was nothing for him to do but to promise.

But days passed, and he did not go to the bank building that housed the lawyer's office. He


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 meant to make the visit, and yet he found slight and obscure reasons to put it off. In the end it was Carlos Dix who called the school and had him summoned to the telephone.

"I've been expecting you," the lawyer said. "Mr. Banning told me you were headed this way for a debate. When will you be along?"

Praska's reply was vague.

"Make it this afternoon. I'll be out of town all next week. I'll be waiting for you about four o'clock."

Four o'clock found Praska walking listlessly into the bank building. Yes, the school had called upon Carlos Dix and the lawyer had responded—but out of that response had come to the boy only anguish of soul. Once Praska had carried the lawyer enshrined in his heart. The things he did had seemed to be the promptings of a loyalty that was still, after many years, true to Northfield High. But the shrine of late, had become a tottering ruin.

In a dull, numbing sort of way Praska had grown used to the thought that Carlos Dix was not the fine, unselfish Carlos Dix he had thought him. But yet another thought ate and ate at all the ideals of faith and service his deep and sensitive nature had built up. The dull numbness was for Carlos Dix, the man; the ever-present ache


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 Margaret made no movement, but continued to sit with her heavy boots resting on the edge of their soles. Dr. Anderson searched Kitty's face, exclaimed, "Oh, well!" and flung himself into an arm-chair so suddenly that the springs spoke. Margaret smiled at that and turned to me, "Yes, take me to the nursery, please." Yet as I walked beside her up the stairs I knew this compliance was not the indication of any melting of this new steely sternness. The very breathing that I heard as I knelt beside her at the nursery door and eased the disused lock seemed to come from a different and a harsher body than had been hers before. I did not wonder that she was feeling bleak, since in a few moments she was to go out and say the words that would end all her happiness, that would destroy all the gifts her generosity had so difficultly amassed. Well, that is the kind of thing one has to do in this life.


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 was for Carlos Dix, the Northfield graduate. The boy had built a picture of Northfield alumni holding to their school as citizens held to their country. One line of the school hymn ran: "Thy stalwart sons forever true"—and to him the words stood for something real and vital. With a boy's ardor for passionate devotion he gave of his soul to Northfield High. He reasoned now, as he had reasoned before, that there was nothing wrong in Carlos Dix working for Mr. Ballinger and for Northfield; but Bristow had driven home the belief that to Carlos Dix, Mr. Ballinger's interests had come first. And, to Praska, that was akin to sacrilege.

The lawyer's hand gripped his with a pressure that was firm and sincere. "Where have you been keeping yourself? Fine thing, isn't it, for one veteran of Northfield's fight for a field to drop out of touch with another? What's bothering you? Final exams?"

Praska shook his head. "I want to go to work and Mr. Banning thinks I ought to go to the State University."

Twice the lawyer stole a glance at the boy. "If I get too personal, George, why just head me off. I want to dig into this thing. Is it finances?"

"No, sir. I'd have to work only part of my way; I could do that."


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 "Tired of study?"

"No. I" His face flushed. "I want to play a man's part, and a man's part is out in the world. A college man is just an older schoolboy. Big things are happening all around, and there he is in college out of it all, just like one of the audience at a play."

"And yet," Carlos Dix said gently, "about eighty per cent. of the leaders in America to-day are college men. College years can't be wasted years, George, if they turn out leaders."

All that lay behind that thought slowly worked its way through Praska's mind. For the first time his own assurance was shaken.

"You're like a sprinter," the lawyer went on, "who's trying to beat the starter's gun. It can't be done. It brings a penalty, and the penalized sprinter is handicapped."

Praska's face had sobered. The telephone on Carlos Dix's desk rang, and the lawyer took the receiver from the hook. The boy paid no attention to the conversation that followed. A sprinter trying to beat the gun! He could understand that. He sat staring at the desk, at its legal looking envelopes, a few scattered papers, a brownish slip of paper— His eyes grew round and wide. He had not meant to read anything there, but unconsciously his gaze had photo-


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 graphed that brownish slip. It was a check. He swung his head away, but the photographic vision persisted. It was a check made payable to Carlos Dix for $1500—and the name signed to it in a heavy, easy-read hand was that of Mr. B. B. Ballinger.

The interruption of the telephone had broken the thread of discussion. When the lawyer presently swung around to the boy, Praska's chin was again squared and set. The man seemed to feel a vague hostility. Somehow, to go on arguing now seemed futile. There was a period of constrained silence.

"Well," the lawyer said, "we don't have to settle this to-day. There's another point, though: when you go out from Northfield, you'll wear the Northfield stamp. Your success or your failure will be, in some respects, a Northfield success or failure. You owe it to yourself to equip yourself for success, and you owe it to Northfield. If you won't think of yourself, George, think of the school. Northfield demands your best. Northfield will be satisfied with nothing less."

And in Praska's mind, as he listened, was a satiric picture of that $1500 check. B. B. Ballinger's money—for what? Was that Carlos Dix's idea of giving Northfield one's best—or one's second best! To the boy, at that moment, all this


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 talk of school loyalty seemed a string of empty, shallow words.

He brooded the matter all the way home. The evening newspaper lay on the front porch flung there by the carrier as he passed. Praska carefully strove to undo it without tearing, from the mysterious, tight-binding fold which carriers somehow achieve; then he smoothed out the front page, his hands moving absently. And there, for the second time that afternoon, his eyes were caught by words for which he had not looked. One quick survey of the headlines, and he started feverishly to read the story:

Praska lowered the newspaper and leaned


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 weakly against the door; his little world had suddenly gone topsy-turvy with conflicting emotions.

Next morning he found Bristow waiting for him outside the school. The editor had lost his aggressive self-confidence and was frankly troubled and ill at ease.

"Did you read that story in last night's paper?" he demanded.

Praska nodded.

"I—I've made a mess of things, I guess. I've thought some rotten things about Carlos Dix and Mr. Ballinger. I was sure they were working together just to sell those lots to the city, and all the while they were Northfield graduates working for Northfield."

"We both thought it," Praska said quietly.

"No." Bristow, honest in denunciation of himself, would not have it so. "You believed in Carlos Dix. I kept hammering away at you until I got the idea of double dealing planted in your mind. Remember that night we heard him and Mr. Ballinger whisper something about 'putting it over?' Something tells me he wasn't talking about the lots; he was talking about the fund. That's what he and Carlos Dix were putting over. I feel as though I ought to go down to his office, tell him I've been a fool, and eat dirt."

"Not that," Praska cried in alarm.


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 "No," Bristow said after a silence. "He doesn't know what we've been thinking, and he'd only be hurt. Once I had though of taking a little dig at him in the Breeze. Gosh, doesn't it make you feel good to know that Northfield has graduates like that!"

Thy stalwart sons forever true, Praska's thoughts ran, and he smiled as he walked with the editor into the building. The shrine again stood clean and whole. Carlos Dix was the Carlos Dix he had thought him. Some day he, too, might be able to come back to Northfield and offer service. The vision thrilled him.

The corridors and stairways hummed with excited speculation. Praska, as he entered the main doorway, was besieged by eager questioners. Did the Northfield Congress know anything about this fund? He shook his head, and pushed his way past them, and went up to Room 13.

There fresh clamor greeted him. All attempts to wheedle information from Mr. Banning, Perry King said, had failed.

"There's something in the wind, though," Perry told him excitedly. "Mr. Banning won't deny that Northfield graduates have started a fund, but he won't say a word about what the fund is for. What do you make of that?"

Praska didn't know what to make of it.


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 "Quick! Mr. Banning's trying to attract your attention. Maybe he's going to tell you something."

But when Praska went forward to the teacher's desk, Mr. Banning asked: "Have you seen Carlos Dix?"

"Yes, sir."

The teacher's eyes asked a question. Slowly Praska shook his head; and the teacher sighed under his breath.

"I'm sorry," was all he said. "I suppose that's your final verdict?"

Praska nodded. The same tenacity, the same doggedness, the same deliberate finality that made him slow to form opinions, made him slow to change them. Carlos Dix was rehabilitated in his estimation. . . and instead of that fact's driving home harder what the lawyer had said, it served only to strengthen the course on which he had decided. Work itself had at first lured him; now it was work with Carlos Dix that beckoned him with glamour and promise. Carlos Dix might advise college; and yet, if he asked it, if if he waved college away, he thought that Carlos Dix would take him into his office. Twice he had heard the man say that he would soon have to get a clerk. The salary, of course, would be very small, but that struck the boy as of slight


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 moment. He would read law with a zealousness that would win approval. In the glow of Carlos Dix's companionship he would drink in legal knowledge. Eventually he would pass his bar examinations. Other men had done it who had not passed years at college—Lincoln, for instance. In the rapture of the bright pictures his fancy created, the State University became something hazy and remote.

He welcomed the start of final examinations. They marked the last step that need be taken before he progressed to the great outside world. Hammond and Littlefield moaned over the "stiffness" of the papers, Perry King breezily set them down as "easy stuff," but Praska slowly plowed his way through them prepared to do the best he could. Thursday afternoon the ordeal was over. He left the school and debated on the sidewalk whether to go down at once and ask Carlos Dix about that job. In the end he decided to wait until the examination marks were announced. If he stood as high as he hoped it would be that much easier to induce the lawyer to take him in.

Next day, with examinations over, the school fell into a backwater of relaxation. Praska spent a good part of the morning reading "Moby Dick," Herman Melville's absorbing story of the sea and the search for the white whale. At noon, as


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 he prepared to go to the cafeteria, he noticed a new leather traveling bag under Mr. Banning's desk.

"All ready for vacation, sir?" he asked.

The teacher smiled. "A different sort of vacation; no bass fishing this time. I'm going down to New York for a summer extension course at Columbia University—a series of lectures on world politics. You know, George, there was a time when a man could be born in the back woods, study law in a prairie law office, and rise to a place of power. Lincoln did it. But that day is past. For one thing, what affects Europe affects us. Steam and electricity, submarines and aeroplanes, have made the Atlantic Ocean little more than a mighty river. Some people will want us to try some of Europe's theories. If they're sound we want them. But we can't afford to make mistakes, because mistakes in government are too costly. I'm going down to New York to get a line on questions that every real American ought to know something about."

"I see, sir," said the boy, soberly.

In the cafeteria he ate with a preoccupied air. Mr. Banning, with all his knowledge, going down to New York to study problems that America might some day have to face! The wonder of it grew upon him—and then the wonder ceased.


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 He knew the man. . . If one wanted to exercise wisely and carefully his duties as a citizen He forgot his food and stared with un seeing eyes across the room.

By and by he left the cafeteria. On the stairs an excited figure halted him.

"Something's happening upstairs about the fund," Perry King said hoarsely.

"Fund?" Praska's mind was on something else.

"You know—the fund that the graduates are raising. There's a meeting of some kind in the principal's office. Carlos Dix is there, and Mr. Ballinger, and a dozen others. Gosh! I'd like to know what's going on to-day."

Praska wasn't interested even in that. Two words ran through his mind—carefully and wisely. He went upstairs without taking thought of where his steps led him. Suddenly voices roused him from his abstraction. He was outside Mr. Rue's office. He saw Carlos Dix; and at that moment the lawyer saw him and came out to the hall.

"George," the man demanded abruptly, "how; about that talk we had? Have you changed your mind?"

"Yes, sir." The boy spoke slowly. "I'm going to the State University. If I don't go I can't be the kind of American citizen I want to be."


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 There was a moment of silence. Then;

"I'm glad you saw it in time," Carlos Dix said. The men in the principal's office were beginning to find seats around a long library table. Abruptly the lawyer walked into the meeting room and closed the door behind him.

The graduation exercises were held on one of those hot, hushed humid nights that sometimes find their way into the last week of June. The ushers, tip-toeing up and down the side aisles, had long ago opened the auditorium windows to their full. In front of the platform the school orchestra waited patiently for the signal that would sound the school hymn as an exit march. On the stage, near the center of the first row of graduates, Praska held his diploma in one hand and tried hard not to screw up his face as a maddening, tickling drop of perspiration rolled slowly down his nose.

"I feel," Perry King groaned, sotto voice, "as though my collar were melting and running down my back. Mr. Rue is going to speak. I guess this is the end."

But the principal merely introduced Carlos Dix who, he said, would speak for "the Northfield Alumni."

"The influence of a good school," began Carlos Dix, plunging directly into what he had to say,


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 "does not end with graduation. Northfield has written something unforgettable into the lives of those of us who have gone forth from its doors—something that brings us back with a keen desire to serve and to inspire service."

He paused for a moment. Praska drew a quick, short breath and leaned forward.

Carlos Dix went on, speaking with a simple boyishness that somehow carried him close to his listeners: "I haven't felt so important," he said, with a sudden flashing grin, "since my brothers used to send me to call the other kids to come and help. The Northfield Alumni have sent me to-night to call to the students of Northfield to come and help-out in the world.

"To pave the way for your coming, we offer you the newly established Northfield Alumni Public Service Scholarship. Every graduate in town and all whom we could reach out of town have contributed to the fund that makes this scholarship possible—and they have contributed gladly. In some cases, the young fellow who gave five dollars was giving far more than the older man who gave five hundred, but they both wanted to give."

Again Praska drew a quick, short breath. This was Northfield spirit.

"There is $7,000 in this scholarship fund," Car-


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 los Dix continued. "It will yield between four and five hundred dollars a year. And that income is to go annually toward paying the freshman college expenses of that Northfield graduate of the current year who has given the most outstanding service to his school community—who has proved himself Northfield's cleanest, hardest-fighting politician.

"The fellow, or girl, who has been such a politician in school is the one most likely to develop into that kind in later life. That is why each year we shall start such a graduate in training. America needs politicians of the right type."

A hush had fallen on the crowd. Perry's hand came over and clutched Praska's arm.

"Remember that the Public Service Scholarship is a permanent institution," Carlos Dix was saying. "The announcement of the winner is to become a regular part of the commencement program. This year, of course, only the faculty has known about it in advance," he interpolated apologetically. "We alumni are rather like kids; we wanted the fun of springing it on the students to-night."

A ripple of laughter ran over the audience, and there was a spatter of.

Carlos Dix stopped it with a quick gesture. "One minute!" he said. "I have been instructed


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 to announce the name of the member of this graduating class who has won the scholarship for the coming college year."

Again the hush fell. Praska's brain was racing. It would be Perry, of course. Perry, by his work on the Safety Committee, had ended the laxness about open lockers. Perry, by his courage, had faced down Rig Jim Fry's rowdyism and had ended disorders in the corridors. Yes, it would be Perry.

Carlos Dix's voice rang out clear in the silence as he turned to the class on the platform: "The Alumni Committee on Scholarship, assisted consciously by the faculty and unconsciously by many different members of the student body, has made a careful study of the service that you have given to Northfield. We have come to the unanimous decision that the Northfield Alumni Public Service Scholarship should go this year to one whom all declare Northfield's cleanest, hardest-fighting politician—George Praska."

A storm of applause broke out. Praska shook himself. His mind had slipped. He was sure of that. He was imagining things. He And then Perry's elbow was in his ribs.

"It's you, you nut," Perry was saying hoarsely. "Wake up. Who else would get it but you?" He saw Carlos Dix coming across the stage toward


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 him with outstretched hand, the first to offer him congratulations.

The next five minutes were the minutes of a dream. Never thereafter was he able to tell all that happened or what he did. One picture alone survived in his memory: his father's face back there in the audience flushed and working with emotion, and his mother smiling and wiping her eyes.

And then he was off the stage, with Perry pounding his back, and Bristow clinging to one arm, and Betty Lawton telling him breathlessly how glad she was. One by one, after a time, the class departed and the clamor died away. There was opportunity for a quiet moment with Mr. Rue.

"Many men have gone out from Northfield," the principal said, "but none has left here marked with greater promise. Live up to it, my boy; live up to it."

"I'll try to," Praska said humbly. He went to the cloakroom. Mr. Banning and Carlos Dix stood there talking.

"You had a majority of the committee with you from the start," the lawyer told him. "A few held off. They thought that your attitude toward college discounted much that you had done. When I informed them you had decided


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 "These subtle discontents are often the most difficult to deal with." Sharply he turned to Margaret. "How would you remind him?"

"Take him something the boy wore, some toy he played with."

Their eyes met wisely.

"It would have to be you that did it."

Her face assented.

Kitty said:

"I don't understand. How does it matter so much?" She repeated it twice before she broke the silence that Margaret's wisdom had brought down on us. Then Dr. Anderson, rattling the keys in his trousers-pockets and swelling red and perturbed, answered:

"I don't know, but it does."

Kitty's voice soared in satisfaction.

"Oh, then it's very simple. Mrs. Grey can do it now. Jenny, take Mrs. Grey up to the nursery. There are lots of things up there."


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 to work through the State University because you thought good citizenship demanded it, they all came over to you at once. Have you any plan—got any idea as to what you'd like to be?"

"I'm going to study law."

"Will you come into my office when you're ready?"

"Yes, sir. I intended to ask you to take me in." He reached for his coat. Mr. Banning's voice halted him.

"George, how did you come to change your mind about college?"

"You changed it for me."

"I? I thought I had failed in that."

"I guess everybody failed for a while. But when you told me why you were going to New York this summer, I began to see things straight. If all the education you had would not make you the kind of American you want to be, then a high school course would not make me the kind I want to be."

A spark, a flame, leaped to Mr. Banning's eyes. Some day, in the future, the boy would come to understand it. He would know it for the joy of the dreamer who had made another see the dream—the rapture of the apostle who had led a human soul to the light.


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text: The Spirit of the Leader

title: The Spirit of the Leader


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 1

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 1


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 2

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 2


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 3

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 3


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 4

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 4


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 5

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 5


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 6

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 6


text: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 7

title: The Spirit of the Leader/Chapter 7