"You can't," said Tim.

"Can, too," insisted Meg. "We don't want to fight on your side, anyway."

The bell rang before they had this settled, and when Mr. Carter stopped Bobby in the hall to ask him how the plans were going, Bobby had to confess that they had done little beyond dispute over the names for the sides and whether the girls should be allowed to play.

"It's the girls' school, after all, as much as it is yours," said Mr.

Carter thoughtfully. "Some of them, I imagine, will prefer to look on from the windows; but, if I were you, I would be glad to have those who want to play on your side."

"But Tim can't be American," insisted Bobby. "We won't be any other country."

"Then choose colors," suggested Mr. Carter, "Why not Black and Orange?"

Mr. Carter, you see, was a Princeton man, and he thought those colors very beautiful, as indeed they are.

Bobby overtook Tim Roon on the stairs and asked him about the colors.

"I'll be general of the Orange side," decided Tim promptly.

Tim never thought to ask any one his opinion. He always took what he wanted for himself and did not bother to consult the wishes of others.

"Then I'll be the Black," said Bobby. "We'll have to do a lot of work this noon to get ready. I'm glad we brought our lunch."

Tim's head was so full of s...o...b..ll fights that he missed outright in spelling, and Bobby was discovered drawing a plan of a fort when he should have been studying his geography lesson.

"There," said Miss Mason when the noon bell rang, "now do try to get this wonderful fight out of your minds by the time the one o'clock bell sounds. And don't let me hear of any one going without his lunch to play in the snow. Eat first, and then play."

Bobby looked a little guilty. He had planned to hurry out and start the building of his fort and eat his lunch as he worked. He sat down with Meg and bolted the good sandwiches Norah had packed, very much as Philip sometimes ate his dinner. But then this was an exceptional occasion. Bobby didn't usually forget his manners.

"Come on, fellows!" called Tim, as the children streamed out into the yard. "Choose your sides--hurry up!"

As they chose their sides, Tim found, to his disgust, that he would have to have some girls under him. These were mostly sisters of the boys who lived in Tim's neighborhood, and though he had often pulled their braids and otherwise teased them, still they felt that for the honor of their home streets they were bound to fight on Tim's side.

After every one was enrolled on the Black's side or on that of the Orange, they set to work to build the forts. Such scrambling for snow!

Such frantic scouring of corners for drifts from which to pack the walls! And mercy, such screaming and shouting! No game was ever played without a noisy chorus, and this was the most exciting game the Oak Hill children had found in a long time.

"Well, how is it going?" asked Miss Mason, as they came up, damp and rosy, in answer to the noon bell. "I watched you from the window for a few moments, but I couldn't tell what you were building."

Couldn't tell what they were building! If that wasn't like a woman!

For a second Bobby was completely discouraged, and then he thought that of course Miss Mason couldn't be expected to know. She probably had no idea what a really good snow fight was.

"We were making forts," he explained. "Tim's is down by the gate and mine is under the chestnut tree. We've got a lot of ammunition made, too."

School was out at three o'clock, and a good many of the teachers came upstairs to Miss Mason's room to watch the fight from her windows.

Only first and second grade pupils were supposed to take part, but the third and fourth grade children seemed naturally to drift in the direction of the piled up s...o...b..a.l.l.s.

"We'll help you make 'em," they offered.

"That's fair enough," said Mr. Carter, who was to be referee. "You fourth graders help the first, and the third grade can be a reserve force for the second."

When enough s...o...b..a.l.l.s were ready to begin with, the general of the Blacks retired behind the white walls of his fort and the forces of the Orange did the same. Mr. Carter blew shrilly on his whistle, and the battle raged.

Whenever a head popped up over the wall of either fort, whiz! a s...o...b..ll would be flung toward it. Sometimes the head ducked, sometimes it was caught fairly.

"Gee, don't they sting!" Palmer Davis danced about, holding one hand to his ear. "Just you let me have a whack at 'em!"

The girls were aiming furiously, if blindly. And though Meg closed her eyes tight every time she threw a s...o...b..ll, Bobby reported that several of her shots had hit a victim. Thanks to the good work of the fourth grade pupils, the supply of ammunition held out well.

Suddenly Bobby, who was standing on a little snow mound that raised him slightly above the wall, received a s...o...b..ll squarely in the eye. He cried out with the pain, though he tried to smother the sound with his hand over his mouth.

"That was dipped in water and packed!" said Palmer angrily, picking up the ball and examining it. "That's no fair. Mr. Carter said packed s...o...b..a.l.l.s weren't to be used. Let's see your eye, Bobby. Is it swelling?"

"Don't say anything," begged Bobby, letting Palmer inspect his eye, which was rapidly swelling. "Mr. Carter would stop the fight if he heard about the ball."

CHAPTER VII

A BIRTHDAY PARTY

Palmer knew this to be true, for Mr. Carter had expressly said that at the first sign of unfair play the battle would be called off. He made few rules for his pupils, but those he did make were never to be lightly broken.

"I'll bet that Tim Roon threw it!" stormed Meg. "You wait!"

Meg was very quick to think and to act, and the sight of her favorite brother, one blue eye almost closed, roused her to strong measures.

"Come on, and rush 'em!" she cried, her little arms waving like windmills. "Don't stand here, throwing b.a.l.l.s. Let's capture their old fort!"

For an instant they stared at her, and then, the idea appealing, the whole Black army poured over the side of the fort, and charged on the enemy, shrieking wildly. Bobby, who could barely see where he was going, was swept along with the rest.

Upstairs in the schoolhouse, the teachers looked at each other in surprise, and Mr. Carter was equally astonished.

"Surrender!" shouted Meg, the first to leap the wall of the Orange fort.

The Orange army simply backed. It was very funny to see them. They had not expected an open attack, and they were too taken by surprise to guard their piles of ammunition. As the opposing forces climbed their wall they dumbly gave way and moved back, back, till, with a cry of joy, the Black fighters swooped upon the orderly mounds of s...o...b..a.l.l.s.

With their ammunition gone, of course the Oranges could do nothing less than give in.

Mr. Carter came up laughing.

"Well, Tim, that was a surprise attack for fair, wasn't it?" he asked pleasantly. "I think we'll have to say the Black side won.

Congratulations, Bobby. And now, Generals, shake hands, and the biggest fight in Oak Hill school history will be over."

Tim put out his lip stubbornly.

"I didn't know it was fair to play like that," he argued sourly. "We could have taken their fort easy, if you'd said that was the way to play. 'Sides Meg Blossom put 'em to it. Bobby hadn't a thing to do with that."

"Yes, Meg did," said Bobby hurriedly, trying to edge out of the crowd.

"She really won the war."