Out rushed the boys, tumbling over each other in hot haste, shrieking, hallooing, and plunging into the snow with shouts of eager delight. Even Belshazzar forgot his forebodings, and was foremost in this race after fun.
The teacher, a kind, elderly man, went to the school-house door and watched the tumult benignly from beneath the steel-bowed spectacles that had been hastily thrust across his forehead. His face, which had been severe, in a strained effort to keep up the dignity of his school, now beamed with infinite satisfaction, and rubbing his hands gleefully, he was sorely tempted to take a share in the fun himself. Damming up a torrent like that which came tumbling across the road, was something worth while, even for a man.
The boys rushed down to the swollen brook where it entered the gulley and made a tumultuous descent to the river, which was only concealed from the bulk windows of the school-house by a growth of young hemlocks that contrasted richly with the crusted snow. Here the boys were bound to make a dam big enough to drown a fellow in, neck and heels. Who cared for the mud? Who was afraid of the snow? Hurrah! hurrah! come on all hands and pitch in. There is a broken rail. Look out for the loose stones in that tumble-down, old wall. Bring up drift wood from the river, dead branches from the trees; tear loads of moss from the white oak stumps; bring any thing, every thing. Had any boy pluck enough to drag out some logs from the school wood pile? "Oh, golly! there is the master standing square in the door, and little Paul, the furrener, talking to him. Hurrah! the master is sending him off to join the fun.
Isn"t he a trump?"
Some of the boys stood still, knee deep in the water, frightened half to death by that wicked word--trump. But Tom Hutchins cried out with wonderful audacity, "Trump! who"se afeard? He"s a high, low, jack, and the game, he is! There he goes into the school-house just to give us a chance at the wood pile. Come on, boys!"
Away the little fellows went, leaping like deer out of the mud, and directly a whole team of boys came dragging a walnut log through the snow, leaving a deep path all the way from the wood pile, which the master never could be made to see, spectacles or no spectacles, anymore than he could hear the tumbling logs close under the window where he was sitting. I am inclined to think the boys were right, and that old man was a trump, though he did belong to the church.
"Hurrah! stand from under," said Tom Hutchins, looking down upon a swarm of schoolmates who were busy as bees in the mud and water of the gully.
"Here comes the crowner--A number one, and no mistake. Come up here and give a boost, you chaps."
The boys sprang up the muddy sides of the gully, dripping like water-G.o.ds, reckless of wet jackets, torn trowsers, and shoes from which the water came up in gushes, and helped pitch that great, knotty log end foremost into the gully, where it was to form a line for the water to sweep over.
"Take it by the end--lift all at once--now, heave all together. Hurrah!
hurrah!"
Paul had, indeed, lingered around the school-house door till the master sent him off to join the play. Then he went down to the brook and stood disconsolate on its high bank, as all this wild fun went on. He was cold and confused. No one asked him to help dam up the brook, so he stood in the snow, buried to the ears in his overcoat and comforter, and thinking that the watery sunshine was a very poor imitation of the tropical warmth in which he had formerly luxuriated.
He was at a loss how to take part in their play; besides that, the very roar of the water, and riot of the boys, reminded him of that fearful night when he was made an orphan, and so recalled his sufferings, that he longed to get beyond the sound. As for the boys, they were all too much engaged to notice his abstraction or ask his a.s.sistance.
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
ALL SORTS OF TREASON.
I have done a little injustice to Tom Hutchins--the warm-hearted lad who had been so in love with little Rose Mason, and was sure to be in love with every boy or girl who awoke his admiration, or needed his help. It was he who had proposed to draw Paul home on his sled, on his first lonely school day, and since that time a warm friendship had sprung up between the two lads. The first liking had been cemented by an exchange of doughnuts, wonder cakes, and red-cheeked apples. Then Tom had undertaken to teach Paul English in conversational lessons, and picked up a few sc.r.a.ps of French from the boy, fairly believing himself to be speaking a foreign language when he twisted his hard, New England tongue into imitations of Paul"s pretty broken English, in which the boy could now make himself understood.
In the midst of his eager work on the dam, Tom saw Paul standing alone on the bank and called to him. But Paul shook his head, with a sad smile, and shrunk further away from the water. Then Tom gave one great heave at the log which was to complete the dam, shook the mud from his hands, and went dripping up the bank, with his face all aglow, and smiling as if he had just come out of a spring shower, and was inviting his friend down to watch the wild flowers start up in his track.
"Are you cold, Paul?" he asked, dancing about till the water splashed over the tops of his boots.
"A little," Paul said, shivering. "Only a little."
"Why, it"s a"most like summer," returned Tom. "Splendid."
"Is it?" Paul asked, shivering worse than ever, as he thought what a forlorn idea of summer people must have in that frigid land.
"Why, how you do shiver," cried Tom. "Let"s take a run up the hill and back, or you"ll freeze solid."
"But you want to play," Paul said; "go with the boys, they are calling for you."
"Let "em," replied Tom, philosophically, consoled at once by the idea that his playmates needed his a.s.sistance, and too full of generous kindness for any thought of leaving Paul to his loneliness. "Come along--let"s see who"ll get to the top first."
At the conclusion of their race Paul had got a color in his cheeks, and felt somewhat less like an icicle than before.
Then Tom paused, and looked Paul in the face quite seriously.
"Come down here among the hemlocks; I want to talk to you where the boys can"t hear. We might do it in French, you know--you and I--but mebby we"d better have it out according to the spelling-book."
Paul smiled, and followed his friend to the bank of the river, where they sat down under the sheltering hemlock boughs. Tom shivered a little, but he shook the weakness off, and broke forth at once into the subject that was on his mind.
Tom"s head was full of Katharine Allen and her troubles, a subject upon which he and Paul had held many earnest conversations, interspersed by mysterious hints about Rose Mason and Tom"s unhappy state of mind regarding her absence in some unknown country.
"Paul, how is Katharine Allen this morning?" he said, abruptly.
Paul shook his head sadly by way of answer.
"Not any better?" asked Tom. "Wal, I"m sorry for her, anyhow. Little Rose liked her, and she was always good to Rose. It scares me to death to think what they"re going to do to her."
"Who?" asked Paul.
"Why the law, of course," replied Tom, shocked at his friend"s ignorance. "You know they"re going to take her to prison as soon as she"s well enough to be carried there."
"Yes, I know. They are wicked men, too wicked," exclaimed Paul; "why can"t they leave her alone?"
"You mustn"t say any thing agin the squire," returned Tom, with his New England respect for the law and its ministers. "I"m sorry for her, but you see she kinder killed the baby, poor little critter--I guess she was crazy, though, I do, but marm won"t hear on it."
"Why don"t her husband come and help her," Paul suggested.
"She haint got any--oh, dear no, that"s the worst on it, marm says."
"Oh, she must have."
"Oh, must she!" retorted Tom, exulting in his knowledge of this world"s wickedness, gained from conversations he had overheard concerning the poor girl, yet perplexed, and quite unable to settle the matter to his own satisfaction. Still he had no intention of allowing Paul to suppose that his wisdom was more than half a.s.sumed.
"I"m glad Miss Rose ain"t here, anyhow," he observed; "she"d break her heart about all this. I know she would."
Paul thought the girl"s heart must be colder than the weather if it would not have that effect, and nodded his approbation of Tom"s sentiment.
"Katharine is getting stronger; they talk of carrying her off in a day or two," continued Tom. "I heard our folks say so this morning."
Paul"s great eyes dimmed with tears, then a quick pa.s.sion turned them into fire.
"I could kill them," he said. "Yes, I could."
""Twouldn"t be no use," remarked Tom, sapiently; ""cause they"d only take you off too. I wish we could do something, though--I wish we could."
"Can"t we?" questioned Paul, his face kindling with eagerness. "Oh, don"t you think we could?"
"You"re such a little bit of a chap," Tom replied, eyeing his companion, with a natural exultation at his own superiority in point of inches and weight.
"I"m little," Paul said, "but I am very brave--oh, you don"t know! And Jube--Jube is strong like a lion, he could do any thing."