than either of the other boys.

We had a grand game with Willie. Miss Laura had trained us to do
all kinds of things with balls jumping for them, playing
hide-and-seek, and catching them.

Billy could do more things than I could. One thing he did which I
thought was very clever. He played ball by himself. He was so
crazy about ball play that he could never get enough of it. Miss
Laura played all she could with him, but she had to help her
mother with the sewing and the housework, and do lessons with
her father, for she was only seventeen years old, and had not left
off studying. So Billy would take his ball and go off by himself.
Sometimes he rolled it over the floor, and sometimes he threw it in
the air and pushed it through the staircase railings to the hall
below. He always listened till he heard it drop, then he ran down
and brought it back and pushed it through again. He did this till he
was tired, and then he brought the ball and laid it at Miss Laura's
feet.

We both had been taught a number of tricks. We could sneeze and
cough, and be dead dogs, and say our prayers, and stand on our
heads, and mount a ladder and say the alphabet, this was the
hardest of all, and it took Miss Laura a long time to teach us. We
never began till a book was laid before us. Then we stared at it,
and Miss Laura said, "Begin, Joe and Billy say A."

For A, we gave a little squeal. B was louder C was louder still. We
barked for some letters, and growled for others. We always turned
a summersault for S. When we got to Z, we gave the book a push