Peter drank in all this with deep joy, and Mother seemed to have listened with some interest, for one day she gave Jim a sheet of paper on which she had written a rhyme about Parr, bringing in Paley and Wigsby by name in a most wonderful way, as well as all the reasons Jim had for not liking Parr, and Wigsby's wise opinion on the matter. Jim was immensely pleased. He had never had a rhyme written expressly for him before. He read it till he knew it by heart and then he sent it to Wigsby, who liked it almost as much as Jim did. Perhaps you may like it, too. THE NEW BOY His name is Parr: he says that he Is given bread and milk for tea. He says his father killed a bear. He says his mother cuts his hair. He wears goloshes when it's wet. I've heard his people call him “Pet”! He has no proper sense of shame; He told the chaps his Christian name. He cannot wicket-keep at all, He's frightened of a cricket ball. He reads indoors for hours and hours. He knows the names of beastly flowers. He says his French just like Mossoo-- A beastly stuck-up thing to do-- He won't keep _cave_, shirks his turn And says he came to school to learn! He won't play football, says it hurts; He wouldn't fight with Paley Terts; He couldn't whistle if he tried, And when we laughed at him he cried! Now Wigsby Minor says that Parr Is only like all new boys are. I know when _I_ first came to school I wasn't such a jolly fool! Jim could never understand how Mother could have been clever enough to do it. To the others it seemed nice, but natural. You see they had always been used to having a mother who could write verses just like the way people talk, even to the shocking expression at the end of the rhyme, which was Jim's very own. Jim taught Peter to play chess and draughts and dominoes, and altogether it was a nice quiet time. Only Jim's leg got better and better, and a general feeling began to spring up among Bobbie, Peter, and Phyllis that something ought to be done to amuse him; not just games, but something really handsome. But it was extraordinarily difficult to think of anything. “It's no good,” said Peter, when all of them had thought and thought till their heads felt quite heavy and swollen; “if we can't think of anything to amuse him, we just can't, and there's an end of it. Perhaps something will just happen of its own accord that he'll like.” “Things DO happen by themselves sometimes, without your making them,” said Phyllis, rather as though, usually, everything that happened in the world was her doing. “I wish something would happen,” said Bobbie, dreamily, “something wonderful.”