"I'll be inner," cried another boy.
"Inner!" said grandma. "What does that mean? Some new expression. I have no doubt, which I never before heard; but an old lady of eighty years can't be expected to keep up with the times. It's something dreadful, of course."
But what was the old lady's surprise when the boys threw aside their blue jackets, and two of them began to throw the "stone" back and forth, one to the other; while the third boy stood between, striking at it as it flew through the air, and sometimes hitting it and sometimes not. There they staid all the afternoon doing the same thing.
"Why," said grandma, putting on her glasses, and looking more closely. "I declare! they're only playing ball, after all. Well, I'm glad they're not so cruel as I thought them. They are such pretty little boys, and have such pretty red stockings too!"
"But," said she, after a long pause, "there is still one thing that troubles me. Where is the 'old cat'?"
MATTIE B. BANKS.
WHAT IS THE HORSE DOING?
AN any one of my young readers guess from the picture what the horse is doing to the dog? Do not read the rest of my story till you have tried to answer this question.