William Theophilus Nichols

“ A score or more of big logs, freed by the breaking of some boom up-stream, came like a fleet of rams to batter the walls of the rickety structure. By this time the water was more than knee deep on the highest part of the earth floor of the shed, and Poke and Step were perched in insecurity on a pile of old boxes in a corner. The only alleviating feature of their situation was a lessening of the darkness with the coming of the dull dawn ”

“ One tore a great hole in the shed wall; a second ripped away an end. Then a huge timber lodged against an upright of the framework, and with the full force of the flood behind it, turned like a beam of a great derrick, carrying away what was left of the roof, tearing out the wall as if it had been made of paper, and completing the ruin of the shed. The pile of boxes was tossed aside, and Poke and Step were pitched into the water. ”

“ Where foot travel was greatest the sidewalks showed black and bare; puddles formed in low places; the compacted and leveled track of the sleighs grew dingier than ever. Throughout the afternoon the same conditions held, until with the coming of [153] darkness the temperature dropped a trifle, and a thin coating of ice formed on the little ponds of snow-water.
“Umph! What did I tell you? Weather breeder!” was Lon’s oracular speech, when Sam sought his opinion of the probabilities for the morrow. But even Lon declined to commit himself on the sort of weather which might be expected. ”

“ Plainly enough, Sugar Valley did not suggest Mrs. Grant and her manifestation of gratitude.
“You’ll have plenty of chances. The season comes when the snow goes. Now let’s get along! Care where we go?”
“Not a bit,” said Varley. “You lead.”
[80]
It was rather incautious permission. Sam, elated by discovery of a companion who appeared to have lost sight of the runaway and its consequences, cheered by fellowship, and with the magic of the bracing air and the sunshine to set his blood coursing swiftly, set out at a pace which soon left Varley floundering far in the rear. ”

“ This time Poke didn’t gasp; he groaned. “I see where somebody I know gets mighty unpopular at our house. Confound fussy folks, anyway!”
“Same thing at our place,” quoth Step and drew a long face. “If a fellow’s late for a meal they act as if they thought he ought to be in jail.”
“Well, it’s up to us to make tracks,” said Sam, then cast a half dubious glance at Varley; a hurried march back to town would be no joke for the novice on snow-shoes. ”

“ But, somehow, the call was of the sort that one ought not to hear alone, being, indeed, a comradely, sociable call of good fellowship.
To make the most of such a day one ought to be with one’s chums. Sam understood this perfectly—and stubbornly fought the understanding. Lon’s advice had not been wasted, though it had not persuaded Sam to seek the Safety First Club boys again. ”

“ Sometimes I’ve wondered if he didn’t think a mince pie was a funny medal, but now he knows—and you friends of his know—why you’re facing this mince pie, and why I expect you to treat it the way the old Dominie treated his. If you leave a crumb of it, I shan’t like it one bit—so there!”
“Oh, you won’t be disappointed!” Sam cried hastily. “It—it’s a beautiful pie. And—and I like the story that goes with it,” he added after the briefest of pauses.
Mrs. Grant gave him a glance of understanding. “Well, now, I thought you might,” she said. “Boys are funny—you never can tell how things’ll strike ’em. ”

“ Probably everybody notices, from time to time, how things which would seem to be trifling in themselves bring about results which are anything but trifling. Paul Varley’s interest in sugar making was to prove a case in point.
If Varley had not been with the Safety First Club that day, it is altogether likely that the trip to the maple groves would have been omitted. The big dinner, with Sam’s wonderful mince pie as its climax, left the Grants’ guests very well pleased with the world in general but not at all disposed to exertion, especially as the weather showed no improvement. ”

“ If some man, who had been a witness of the affair, should have met him on the street, and clapped him on the shoulder, and growled “Clever job [61] you did, youngster!” or “Good work, son!”—why, that would have been all right, and quite in accord with his idea of the proprieties. But to be hugged and patted, and promised a pie, with his club-mates and others looking on, to say nothing of the principal—truly, Sam felt that his was a hard and undeserved fate. ”

“ You don’t believe in anything unless you can put it in figures.”
The taunt swept away the Shark’s indecision. “Warning—nothing!” he snapped. “Too much mince pie, that’s all!”
Poke’s grin was triumphant. “All right! Call it too much mince pie, if you want to. But wait till Sam gets that pie that’s promised him, and the crowd hears about it! Then I guess you’ll think I was right all through.”
“Huh!” grunted the Shark skeptically.
Poke laughed aloud. “Ho, ho, ho! I don’t beat you often, Shark, but when I do, I beat you all to pieces. Talk about mince pie, if you want to. ”

“ The fireplace was a rough, but substantial, affair, smoke blackened. The pieces of furniture he had noticed on first entering were decrepit with age. The table lacked a leg; the settle sagged at one end; the chest of drawers was a ruin.
[251]
The Shark was taking off his overcoat, and unbuckling his high overshoes. From both shoes and coat steam was rising as they caught the heat from the fire.
Varley followed his companion’s example. As he removed his shoes, he whistled softly. The guaranteed waterproofing had not been up to the requirements of such a test as it had undergone. ”

“ The suggestion of an ice jam and ice dam at the foot of the valley could not be verified, of course, but it was possible to gauge the steady rise of the water. Sam made the stairs a practical register. From time to time he ventured down them, and regularly found the invading flood a little higher than before.
The hours wore away slowly. At intervals some one or another of the refugees announced the time, striking a match ostensibly in order to glance at his watch, but taking remarkable care to save the tiny flame as long as possible. Everybody craved light. ”

“ In proof of its new and genuine regard the club had admitted Tom to its jealously guarded circle of membership.
They were, it may be said, a good lot of boys; healthy youngsters in their teens—the Shark was the youngest and physically the weakest; well intentioned but not wise beyond their years; fond of fun and activity and no prophets of possible consequences of their escapades. ”

“ Two big glass bowls had been set beside the monster pie, one filled with cream beaten to a delightful fluffiness, the other with something very pleasing to the eye and suggesting to Varley a light caramel.
“I’ll try both,” said Sam valiantly.
“Good for you!” exclaimed his hostess. “That’s one comfort of having boys around, though. When you take extra trouble to please ’em, they’ll meet you half-way. They’ve got real appetites, and they know what to do with them. Now, I don’t believe Dominie Pike had whipped cream with his pie, but that was his misfortune and not his fault. ”

“ Varley, in almost as grievous plight, laid hold upon his collar and began to drag him toward the window.
Experiences were crowding thick and fast upon the city youth, but he was rising to the emergency and proving the mettle that was in him. It was a hard task, desperately hard, to cover the few feet which lay between the gap in the floor and the wall. Varley gritted his teeth, and pulled and tugged at the Shark, and gained inch by inch. ”

“ The Shark patted the stone with a demonstrative affection Varley hadn’t dreamed he was capable of displaying.
“Bully old rock! Sure you’d be here, where you belong! Oh, but I say! This is just the greatest sport outdoors!”
“But I don’t see—the marker wasn’t shown on the map—it was put in long after the map was made—I don’t understand——”
The Shark interrupted Varley’s broken speech.
“Of course! But naturally it would be put about here by the government men. If you’d taken a good look at the map, you’d have seen why. You’d get the line. Then Mr. Grant as good as pointed out the spot. ”

“ So Sam went to bed little the wiser, and woke to find another day seemingly much like that which had gone before, still, warm and hazy, with the eaves dripping more merrily than ever, the puddles bigger and deeper, and the streets coated with a slush, peculiarly damp and chilling in its effect on shoe-leather. ”

“ Sam Parker, muffled to the chin, mittened and rubber-shod, appeared to be imitating the example set by the town. He trudged along, whistling bravely if not blithely; and quickened tune and pace a trifle when he came in sight of a little building in the lee of a big house. Turning in at the gate, he hurried up the path to the smaller building; rapped thrice upon the door—there was hint in the performance of hasty observance of a customary rite ”

“ The Shark made no reply. Doubtless, it seemed to him that none was needed. So he merely continued to peer through his spectacles at the newcomer, with a characteristic intentness which was all his own.
Willy Reynolds, indeed, was often referred to as an “odd stick.” He had a mind of marked mathematical bent, and had proved himself so proficient in algebra, geometry and [14] trigonometry as to puzzle and amaze his comrades, toiling along paths of learning which appeared to offer him only entertainment. So they dubbed him the “Shark,” because he always seemed hungry for mathematics. ”

“ In the beaten track of the roadways was an icy surface, made still more slippery by a thin coating, at once grimy and greasy, offering easy traction for the sledges, piled high with wood, which now and then came crunching along the streets. But it was full of peril to the motor cars, a few of which were abroad, skidding wildly at corners in spite of chained tires and careful driving. Out in [10] the fields the snow was perhaps a foot deep. Where paths had been shoveled the long mounds beside the walks rose almost to the waist of a man of average height. ”

“ Sam sprang to his feet. He crossed the room to a window, through which he stared industriously.
“If you’d like to have the moral o’ that story,” Lon went on, “it’s that one human can’t buck all the rest. The odds are too big. What’s a ton to him ain’t a featherweight to the world. And applyin’ that moral to a case nearer home, I’d say you’d better make up your mind to go back to your crowd, and grin and bear it. And the more you grin, the less you’ll have to bear.”
“GRIN AND BEAR IT” ”

“ Suppose you bring along half a dozen of your chums—more, if you want to. Goodness knows, our old house is big enough to take you all in! And let’s see! You can come out right after school, and we’ll have dinner—it’ll be waiting for you. And I’ll get that mince pie off my conscience. Then Mr. Grant can take you down to the island—it isn’t an island, really, but that’s what we call it—and let you see the apparatus for making maple syrup and sugar.” She turned swiftly back to Varley. ”

“ The Shark declined to commit himself. “This gang is getting lazy. All it seems to care for is to sit around and tell stories. You’re as good for nothing as a lot of woodchucks stowed away in a hole till spring comes.”
“Well, the woodchuck knows his business,” quoth Step.
“It’s mighty poor business, all the same, for a pack of human beings.”
Trojan Walker laughed softly. “Ha, ha! If you’d like my opinion, Shark, getting mad with the world because you can’t work out a chess problem is worse business still.”
The Shark whipped about to face him. “Can’t work it out, can’t I? Huh! ”

“ Poke demanded.
“I got a lot.”
“A mince pie! You’re fooling me—or trying to.”
“Yes, I got a mince pie,” said Sam calmly. “And I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t miss the pointers I’ve picked up in getting it. I know more about people, and er—er—about motives. And I can see what a fool I made of myself for a while. And I see, too, how what seem like little things at the start can lead to big things. Why, it’s like rolling a snowball that gets bigger and bigger as you push it along. It began with Varley breaking our rules, and walking into the club. ”

“ Hannah, you take the overcoats and hang ’em up by the kitchen stove. And you boys, you get over by the living-room fire. Mercy me! but you’re as sopping wet as our old cat was the day he fell into the cistern. And don’t be afraid to take off your shoes and dry ’em—wet feet’s the worst thing that can happen; and I’m not going to have your mothers think I let company manners help give you all colds. Yes, and don’t be bashful about pulling off your socks if the water got through to ’em. And Hannah, oh, Hannah! Run up-stairs and bring down some of Mr. Grant’s socks—bring enough to go ’round. ”

“ The Shark, in turn, was bewildered, but luckily bethought him of his manners. “Excuse me, Mrs. Grant, but—but we can’t be talking about the same thing.”
“I’m talking about dust!”
“Oh!” There was relief in the Shark’s tone: also there was a little impatience. “Dust nothing! What do I care—er—er—I mean I was pretty sure there was a minor water-shed right there, but I had to feel to make certain. The light, you know, is not very strong; hence the chance of error of vision is increased, and——”
Mrs. Grant’s laugh cut him short. ”