CHAPTER PAGE✦

I. HARD TIMES FOR JOEL 9

II. THE TENNIS MATCH 24

III. A NARROW ESCAPE 35

IV. OF VARIOUS THINGS 49

V. AT SILVIA HORNE'S 60

VI. THE ACCIDENT 75

VII. THE SALISBURY GIRLS 89

VIII. "WE'RE TO HAVE OUR PICNIC!" 105

IX. ALL ABOUT THE POOR BRAKEMAN 121

X. JOEL AND HIS DOG 135

XI. THE UNITED CLUBS 154

XII. SOME EVERY-DAY FUN 173

XIII. THE PICNIC 186

XIV. MISS SALISBURY'S STORY 206

XV. THE BROKEN VASE 233

XVI. NEW PLANS 247

XVII. PHRONSIE 262

XVIII. TOM'S STORY 280

XIX. THE GRAND ENTERTAINMENT 300

XX. THE CORCORAN FAMILY 322

XXI. AT THE PLAY 346

XXII. PICKERING DODGE 368

XXIII. THE CLEMCY GARDEN PARTY 389

XXIV. THE PIECE OF NEWS 417

XXV. "THE VERY PRETTIEST AFFAIR" 435

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

"TAKE RICKIE! HE BEAT TOO, AS MUCH AS I." Frontispiece

AND SHE TOLD THEM THE WHOLE STORY AS FAST AS SHE COULD 100

JUST THEN SOMETHING SKIMMED OUT FROM THE CORNER 155

"I NEVER DID REGARD PICNICS AS PLEASANT AFFAIRS," GASPED MISS ANSTICE 206

"SEE, JOEL, I'M ALL FIXED UP NICE," LAUGHED PHRONSIE FROM HER PERCH 286

"OH, I DO HOPE I SHALL DRAW THE RIGHT ONE, JASPER." 307

"AND SO WE HAD A LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT, AND SOLD THE TICKETS, AND HERE IS OUR GIFT!" 337

THERE STOOD THE LITTLE VASE, PRESENTING AS BRAVE AN APPEARANCE AS IN ITS FIRST PERFECTION 412

Five Little Peppers at School

I HARD TIMES FOR JOEL

"Come on, Pepper." One of the boys rushed down the dormitory hall, giving a bang on Joel's door as he passed.

"All right," said Joel a bit crossly, "I'm coming."

"Last bell," came back on the wind.

Joel threw his tennis racket on the bed, and scowled. Just then a flaxen head peeped in, and two big eyes stared at him.

"Ugh!"--Joel took one look--"off with you, Jenkins." Jenkins withdrew at once.

Joel jumped up and slammed the door hard, whirled around in vexation, sprang over and thrust the tennis racket under the bed, seized a dog-eared book, and plunged off, taking the precaution, despite his hurry, to shut the door fast behind him.

Jenkins stole out of his room three doors beyond, and as the hall was almost deserted about this hour, so many boys being in recitation, he had nothing to do but tiptoe down to Joel's room and go softly in.

"Hullo!" A voice behind made him skip.

"Oh, Berry,"--it was a tone of relief,--"it's you."

"Um," said Berry, "what's up now, Jenk?" He tossed back his head, while a smile of delight ran all over his face.

"Hush--come here." Jenk had him now within Joel's room and the door shut. "We'll have fun with the beggar now."

"Who--Dave?"

"Dave? No. Who wants to haul him over?" cried Jenk in scorn. "You are a flat, Berry, if you think that."

"Well, you are a flat, if you think to tackle Joe," declared Berry with the air and tone of one who knows. "Better let him alone, after what you got last term."

"Well, I ain't going to let him alone," declared Jenk angrily, and flushing all up to his shock of light hair; "and I gave him quite as good as he gave me, I'd have you know, Tom Beresford."

"Hoh, hoh!" Tom gave a howl of derision, and slapped his knee in pure delight. "Tell that to the marines, sonny," he said.

"Hush--old Fox will hear you. Be still, can't you?"--twitching his jacket--"and stop your noise."

"I can't help it; you say such very funny things," said Beresford, wiping his eyes.

"Well, anyway, I'm going to pay him up this term," declared Jenkins decidedly. He was rushing around the small room; the corners devoted to David being neatness itself, which couldn't truthfully be said of Joel's quarters. "I'm after his new tennis racket. Where in thunder is it?" tossing up the motley array of balls, dumb-bells, and such treasures, that showed on their surface they belonged to no one but Joel.

"Great Scott!" Tom cried with sudden interest, and coming out of his amusement. "You won't find it."

"Saw him looking at it just now, before he went to class," cried Jenkins, plunging around the room. "Where is the thing?" he fumed.

Berry gave a few swift, bird-like glances around the room, then darted over to the end of one of the small beds, leaned down, and picked out from underneath the article in question.

"Oh! give it to me," cried Jenk, flying at him, and possessing himself of the treasure; "it's mine; I told you of it."

"Isn't it a beauty!" declared Berry, his eyes very big and longing.

"Ha, ha--ain't it? Well, Joe won't see this in one spell."

Jenkins gave it a swing over his head, then batted his knee with it.

"What are you going to do, Jenk?" demanded Berry, presently, when he could get his mind off from the racket itself.

"Do? Ha, ha! Who says I can't pay the beggar back?" grinned Jenk, hopping all over the room, and knocking into things generally.

"Hush--hush," warned Berry, plunging after him; "here's old Fox," which brought both boys up breathless in the middle of the floor.

"She's gone by"--a long breath of relief; "and there she goes down the stairs," finished Berry.

"Sure?" Not daring to breathe, but clutching the racket tightly, and with one eye on Berry, Jenk cried again in a loud whisper, "Sure, Berry?"

"As if any one could mistake the flap of those slipper-heels on the stairs!" said Berry scornfully.

"Well, look out of the window," suggested Jenk suddenly. "She'll go across the yard, maybe."

So Berry dashed to the window, and gave one look. "There she sails with a bottle in her hand, going over to South" (the other dormitory across the yard). "Most likely Jones has the colic again. Good! Now that disposes finely of old Fox," which brought him back to the subject in hand, the disposal of Joel's racket.

"Give me that," he said, hurrying over to Jenkins.

"No, you don't," said that individual; "and I must be lively before old Fox gets back." With that, he rushed out of the room.

"If you don't give me that racket, I'll tell on you," cried Beresford in a passion, flying after him.

"Hush!" Jenk turned on him suddenly, and gripped him fast. "See here," he cried in a suppressed tone, and curbing his anger as best he could, "you don't want Joe to go into that match, this afternoon, with this racket." He shook it with eager, angry fingers.

"No," said Berry without stopping to think, "I don't."

"Well, then, you better keep still, and hold your tongue," advised Jenk angrily.

"Well, what are you going to do with it?"

"None of your----" what, he didn't say, for just then a boy flew out of his room, to tear down the long hall. He had his back to them, and there was no time to skip back into Jenkins' own room, for the two had already passed it. One wild second, and Jenkins thrust the racket into the depths of the housemaid's closet close at hand, under some cleaning-cloths on a shelf. Then he stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Hullo!" The boy who was rushing along, suddenly turned, to see him whistling.

"Oh Jenk, is that you? See here, where's your Caesar?"

"Don't know--gone up the spout," said Jenkins carelessly, and keeping well in front of Beresford.

"Well, who has one? You haven't, Berry?" He turned to Tom anxiously.

"Not on your life he hasn't," Jenk answered for him.

"Botheration!" ejaculated the boy. "I've fifty lines to do, else I'm shut in from the game. And Simmons has run off with my book."

"Try Joe Pepper's room; he's in math recitation," said Jenk suddenly. "He has one, Toppy."

"You're a brick." Toppy flew down the hall, and bolted into Joel's room.

"Holy Moses, what luck! He'll prowl for an hour over Joe's duds. Come on." Jenk had his head in the cupboard, and his fingers almost on the racket, when Toppy's voice rang dismally down the hall: "Joe must have taken it."

Jenk pulled his fingers out, and had the door fast, and was quite turned away from the dangerous locality. "Well, I don't know what you'll do, Toppy," he said, controlling his dismay enough to speak. "Run down and skin through the fellows' rooms on first floor. Oh, good gracious!" he groaned, "it's all up with getting it now," as a swarm of boys came tumbling over the stairs.

So he mixed with them, laughing and talking, and Berry melted off somewhere. And no one had time to think a syllable of anything but the great game of tennis to be called at two o'clock, between the two divisions of Dr. Marks' boys. Some of the team of the St. Andrew's School, a well-known set of fellows at this sport and terribly hard to beat, were going to be visitors. So there was unusual excitement.