The High School Boys' Canoe Club

A fiction story. "It's the wreck of one of the grandest enterprises ever conceived by the human mind!" complained Colonel W.P. Grundy, in a voice broken with emotion. A group of small boys grinned, though they offered no audible comment. "Such defeats often---usually, in fact---come to those who try to educate the masses and bring popular intelligence to a higher level", was the colonel's declaration, as he wiped away a real or imaginary tear. On a nearby lot stood a large show tent, so grayed and frayed, so altogether dingy as to suggest that it had seen some summers of service ere it became briefly the property of Colonel Grundy. Near the entrance to the tent a temporary platform had been built of the board seats taken from the interior of the tent. Near the platform stood a grim-visaged deputy sheriff, conversing with an auctioneer on whose face the grin had become chronic. Some distance from the tent stood a group of perhaps forty men of the town of Gridley.