"Oh boys! boys!" she exclaimed. "Why will you be so foolish and obstinate? What kind of men do you suppose you'll make if you spend your school-days quarreling and fighting with each other?" "Well, I don't know," replied Pen. "My grandfather thinks it isn't such a bad idea for boys to try their mettle on each other, so long as they fight fair. He thinks they'll make better soldiers sometime. And he says the country is going to need soldiers after awhile." She looked up in surprise. "But I don't want my boys to become soldiers," she protested. "I don't want war. I don't believe in it. I hate it." She had reason to hate war, for her own father had been wounded at Chancellorsville, and she remembered her mother's long years of privation and sorrow. Again her lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. There was an awkward pause; for each boy sympathized with her and would have been willing to help her had a way been opened that would not involve too much of sacrifice. Elmer Cuddeback, even in the face of his forthcoming punishment, was still the most tenderhearted of the three, and he struggled to her relief. "Can't--can't we make some sort o' compromise?" he suggested. But Pen, too, had been thinking, and an idea had occurred to him. And before any reply could be made to Elmer's suggestion he offered his own solution to the difficulty. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Grey," he said, "and what I'll get our fellows to do. We'll have one, big snowball fight. And the side that gets licked 'll stay licked till school's out next spring. And there won't be any more scrapping all winter. We'll do that, won't we, Elmer?" "Sure we will," responded Elmer confidently. Aleck did not reply. Miss Grey thought deeply for a full minute. Perhaps, after all, Pen's proposition pointed to the best way out of the difficulty. Indeed, it was the only way along which there now seemed to be any light. She turned to Aleck. "Well," she asked, "what do you think of it?" "Why, I don't know," he replied. "I'd like to talk with some of our fellows about it first." He was always cautious, conservative, slow to act unless the emergency called for action. "No," replied Pen. "I won't wait. It's a fair offer, and you'll take it now or let it alone." "Then," said Aleck, doggedly, "I'll take it, and you'll be sorry you ever made it." Lest active hostilities should break out at once, Miss Grey interrupted: "Now, boys, I don't approve of it. I don't approve of it at all. I think young men like you should be in better business than pelting each other, even with snowballs. But, as it appears to be the only way out of the difficulty, and in the hope that it will put an end to this ridiculous feud, I'm willing that you should go ahead and try it. Do it and have it over with as soon as possible, and don't let me know when it's going to happen, or anything about it, until you're all through."