Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/347

Rh smile of invitation she added, “We have formed ourselves into a little army of three, to fight  for the ‘victor’s crown of gold.’ Will you  join it?”

“I don’t think I understand quite,” said Bert slowly.

Bess repeated the verse to them, and then went on,—

“All is, we boys want to be as true and brave and unselfish from day to day as we can possibly be, so that at the end of the years, as we look back over the little battles we have fought all through our lives, we can feel that we have conquered in them, and have won our  right to the crown. Not all of us will have the power or the opportunity for one grand  fight and unselfish victory like Sam’s, the day  he went into the fire to save our Fred; but, after all, it is the way we meet the every-day cares and troubles, the little petty ones, such as we every one of us have, that shows our  heroism as much as the greater ones. If we study a lesson when we should prefer to be  playing ball, or do as our fathers and mothers  wish, and do it cheerfully and pleasantly, even