Produced by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) FROM SCHOOL TO BATTLE-FIELD [Illustration: "Come down aff the top o' dthat harrse!"] FROM SCHOOL TO BATTLE-FIELD A STORY OF THE WAR DAYS BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A. AUTHOR OF "TROOPER ROSS," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY VIOLET OAKLEY AND CHARLES H. STEPHENS PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1899 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. ILLUSTRATIONS "COME DOWN AFF THE TOP O' DTHAT HARRSE!" ALMOST SENSELESS, TILL SHORTY STROVE TO LIFT HIS BLEEDING HEAD UPON HIS KNEE "I COULDN'T STAND IT. I HAD TO GO" SHE WAS PERMITTED TO READ AND TO WEEP OVER SNIPE'S PATHETIC LETTER FIRST CAPTURE OF THE ADVANCING ARMS OF THE UNION "WHERE'D YOU GET THAT WATCH?" FROM SCHOOL TO BATTLE-FIELD. CHAPTER I. "If there's anything I hate more than a rainy Saturday, call me a tadpole!" said the taller of two boys who, with their chins on their arms and their arms on the top of the window-sash, were gazing gloomily out over a dripping world. It was the second day of an east wind, and every boy on Manhattan Island knows what an east wind brings to New York City, or used to in days before the war, and this was one of them. "And our nine could have lammed that Murray Hill crowd a dozen to nothing!" moaned the shorter, with disgust in every tone. "Next Saturday the 'Actives' have that ground, and there'll be no decent place to play--unless we can trap them over to Hoboken. What shall we do, anyhow?" The taller boy, a curly-headed, dark-eyed fellow of sixteen, whose long legs had led to his school name of Snipe, turned from the contemplation of an endless vista of roofs, chimneys, skylights, clothes-lines, all swimming in an atmosphere of mist, smoke, and rain, and glanced back at the book-laden table. "There's that Virgil," he began, tentatively. "Oh, Virgil be blowed!" broke in the other on the instant. "It's bad enough to have to work week-days. I mean what can we do for--fun?" and the blue eyes of the youngster looked up into the brown of his taller chum. "That's all very well for you, Shorty," said Snipe. "Latin comes easy to you, but it don't to me. You've got a sure thing on exam., I haven't, and the pater's been rowing me every week over those blasted reports." "Well-l, I'm as bad off in algebra or Greek, for that matter. 'Pop' told me last week I ought to be ashamed of myself," was the junior's answer.