She went into the dining-room where the table had been set for the noonday meal for two, and heaped his plate with potatoes and gravy, while he stood looking miserably out of the window. The sun's rays were melting the surface of the snow and turning it a dirty gray. Up the street, Perry Alford was winging snowballs at a black, leafless trunk opposite his house. That meant good packing, and snow fights, snow men, and a baker's dozen of other exciting amusements. To be gated on such an afternoon! "Come, son!" said Mrs. Fletcher, as he turned away with quivering lip, and drew his chair to the table. "Be a man. Mother's right about it, isn't she?" He admitted that her sentence was but justice, and attacked the dinner with an appetite which no sorrow could diminish. Then he tramped slowly up to his room and threw himself down on his bed with a book to while away the weary stretch of afternoon confronting him. Straightway the centuries rolled back, and the present day sorrows were forgotten. The times of the good king Alfred held sway as he followed the exploits of the hero against his Danish enemies with breathless interest. Again and again did the young earldorman's well-drilled band sally forth from its stronghold to attack larger bodies of the foe, and again and again did the boy on the bed wish that he was living in those soul-stirring times. Then came the building of the _Dragon_, for war must be waged on the sea as well as by land, and a call of, "Oh, John-e-e-e-e! Oh, John-e-e-e-e!" He stood up regretfully. One of his legs was cramped from lying motionless so long, and he limped into the front room. Silvey was below on the water-streaked walk. "Come on out!" "Can't. She found out about my hitching this morning." "Aw-w-w, come on. The fellows are building a snow fort in the big lot, and pretty soon, we're going to have a big fight." He reached down, scooped up a handful of the moist snow, and patted it easily into a small, hard ball. "Look, packing's fine. Go down and tease her!" John shook his head. Mother was inexorable on such occasions, and never had there been a time on record, no matter what the weeping or wailing, when a gating had been lifted. So he would meet his punishment without further ado. Silvey went disconsolately back towards home, and the prisoner returned to his room and stared from the window which overlooked the railroad tracks. Presently he turned away and rummaged in the bureau in the big south room until he found his mother's opera glasses. A moment or so of adjustment, and he smiled contentedly. If he could not be a participant, he would at least witness the battle.