windows in school before vacation came, when he thought of the swimming-hole out at Sycamore and of going barefooted. It was all so calm and peaceful. But with the chaplain's "Amen!" the speaker's gavel cracked and the buzzing noise peculiar to the house began again. And Jamie awoke from his reveries with a start. He had heavier things to think of now; he was almost a man; he was in the legislature. Senate bill 578 was on its third reading, the gang was present, and Mr. Meredith had not come. Jamie was troubled, and sighed. He must attend to his duties—he must do something.
Jamie looked over all the faces before him; nowhere could he find one man he could trust as a friend of Mr. Meredith.
He glanced at the door with a lingering hope that Mr. Meredith would appear, but of course he did not come. Then Jamie slowly hitched down the speaker's stairs, a step at a time, and, reaching the floor, slipped over by the reporters' boxes—empty that afternoon, for the correspondents, like the legislators, never returned until Tuesday morning—and thence into the side aisle, under the gallery, and to the cloak-room. There he got his cap, looked long-
