Chapter 6

Quiz had the skies made by a Kingston carpenter; and he was so proud of them that, when a crowd gathered to see what he was going to do with the mysterious slats, he proceeded to make his first attempt in an open space in the Academy campus. He put the skies down on the snow, slipped his toes into the straps, and, sweeping a proud glance around among the wondering Kingstonians, dashed forward in his old snow-shoe fashion.

It took the Kingstonians some seconds to decide which was Quiz and which was ski. For the skittish skies skewed and skedaddled and skulked and skipped and scrubbed and screwed and screamed and scrawled and scooped and scrabbled and scrambled and scambled and scumbled and scraped and scrunched and scudded and scuttled and scuffled and skimped and scattered in such scandalous scampishness that the scornful scholars scoffed.

Quiz quit.

The poor boy was so laughed at for days by the whole Academy that his spunk was finally aroused. He got out again the skies he had hidden away in disgust, and practised upon them in the fields, at a distance from the campus, until he had finally broken the broncos and made a swift and delightful team of them. He soon grew strong enough to glide for hours at a high rate of speed without weariness, and the ski became a serious rival to the bicycle in his affections.

He learned to shoot the hills at a breathless rate, climbing up swiftly to the top; then, with feet apart, but even, zipping like an express-train down the steep incline and far along the level below.

He even risked his bones by attempting the rash deeds of old ski-runners. Reaching an embankment, he would retire a little distance, and then rush forward to the brink and leap over into the air, lighting on the ground below far out, steadying himself quickly, and shooting on at terrific pace.

But this rashness brought its own punishment--as fool-hardiness usually does.

XV

At dinner, one Saturday, Quiz had broken out in exclamations of delight over his pet skies, and had begun to complain about the time when spring should drive away the blessed winter.

"I can't get enough of the snow," he exclaimed.

"Oh, can't you?" said Jumbo, ominously.

Quiz could hardly finish his dinner, so impatient was he to be up and off again, over the hills and far away. When he had gone, Jumbo asked the other Lakerimmers if they had not noticed how exclusive Quiz was becoming, and how little they saw of him. He said, also, that he did not approve of Quiz' rushing all over the country alone and taking foolish risks for the sake of a little solitary fun.

The Lakerimmers agreed that something should be done; and Jumbo reminded them of Quiz' remark that he could not get enough snow, and suggested a plan that, he thought, might work as a good medicine on him.

That afternoon Quiz seemed to have quite lost his head over his ski-running. He felt that there were signs of a thaw in the air, and he proposed that this snow should not fade away before he had indulged in one grand, farewell voyage. He struck off into the country by a new road, and at such a speed that he was soon among unfamiliar surroundings.

As the day began to droop toward twilight he decided that it was high time to be turning back toward Kingston. He looked about for one last embankment to shoot before he retraced his course.

Far in the distance he thought he saw a fine, high bluff, and he hurried toward it with delicious expectation. When he had reached the brink he looked down and saw that the bluff ended in a little body of water hardly big enough to be called a lake. After measuring the drop with his eye, and deciding that while it was higher than anything he had ever shot before, it was just risky enough to be exciting, he went back several steps, came forward with a good impetus, and launched himself fearlessly into the air like the aëronaughty Darius Green.

He launched himself fearlessly enough, but he was no sooner in mid-air than he began to regret his rashness. It was rather late now, though, to be thinking of that, and he realized that nothing could save him from having a sudden meeting with the bottom of the hill.

He lost his nerve in his excitement, and crossed his skies, so that when he struck, instead of sailing forward like the wind, he stuck and went headforemost. Fortunately, one of his skies broke--instead of most of his bones; and a very kind-hearted snow-bank appeared like a feather-bed, and somewhat checked the force of his fall. But, for all that, he was soon rolling over and over down the hill, and he landed finally on a thin spot in the ice of the lake, and crashed through into the water up to his waist.

Now he was so panic-stricken that he scrambled frantically out. He cast one sorry glance up the hill, and saw there the pieces into which his ski had cracked, as well as the pathway he himself had cleared in the snow as he came tumbling down. Then he looked for the other ski, and realised that it was far away under the ice.

He was now so cold, that, dripping as he was, he would not have waded into the lake again to grope around for the other ski if that ski had been solid gold studded with diamonds.

Plainly, the only thing to do was to make for home, and that right quickly, before night came on and he lost his way, and the pneumonia got him.

It was a very different story, trudging back through the snow-drifts in the twilight, from flitting like a butterfly on the ski. He realized now that his legs were tired from the long run he had enjoyed so much. He lost his way, too, time and again; and when he came to a cross-roads and had to guess for himself which path to take, somehow or other he seemed always to take the wrong one, and to plod along it until he met some farmer to put him on the right path to Kingston. But though he met many a farmer, he seemed to find never a wagon going his way, or even a hospitable-looking farm-house.

He was still miles away from Kingston when lamp-lighting time came. A little gleam came cheerfully toward him out of the dark. He hurried to it, thinking of the fine supper the kind-hearted farmers would doubtless give him, when, just as he reached the gate of the door-yard, there was a most blood-curdling uproar, and two or three furious dogs came bounding shadowily toward him.

He lost no time in deciding that supper, after all, was a rather useless invention, and Kingston much preferable.

Previously to this, Quiz had always understood that the dog was the most kind-hearted of animals, but it was months after that night before he could hear the mere name of a canine without shuddering.

Well, a boy can cover any distance imaginable,--even the path to the moon,--if he only has the strength and the time. So Quiz finally reached the outskirts of Kingston.

His long walk had dried and warmed him somewhat; but he was miserably tired, and he felt that his stomach was as empty as the Desert of Sahara. At last, though, he reached the campus, and dragged heavily along the path to his dormitory.

He stopped at Tug's to see if Tug had any remains left of the latest box of good things from home; but no answer came to his knock, and he went sadly up to the next Lakerim room. But that was empty too, and all of the others of the Dozen were away.

For they had become alarmed at Quiz' absence, and started out in search of him, as they had once before set forth on the trail of Tug and History.

By the time Quiz reached his room he was too tired to be very hungry, and he decided that his bed would be Paradise enough. So, all cold and weary as he was, he hastily peeled off his clothes, and blew out the light. He shivered at the very thought of the coldness of the sheets, but he fairly flung himself between them.

Just one-tenth of a second he spent in his downy couch, and then leaped out on the floor with a howl. He remembered suddenly the look Jumbo had given him at dinner when he had said he could not get snow enough.

Jumbo and the other fiends from Lakerim had filled the lower half of his bed with it!

* * * * *

Late that night, when the eleven Lakerimmers came back, weary from their long search, and frightened at not finding Quiz, Jumbo went to his room with a sad heart. When he lighted his lamp and looked longingly toward his downy bed, he saw a pair of flashing eyes glaring at him over the coverlet. They were the eyes of Quiz; and within easy reach lay a baseball bat and several large lumps of coal. But all Quiz said was:

"Excuse me for getting into your bed, Jumbo. You are perfectly welcome to mine."

XVI

But, speaking of cold, you ought to hear about the great fire company that was organized at the Academy.

The town of Kingston was not large enough or rich enough to support a full-fledged fire department with paid firemen and trained horses. It had nothing but an old-fashioned engine, a hose-cart, and a ladder-truck, all of which had to be drawn by two-footed steeds, the volunteer firemen of the village.

The Lakerimmers had not been in Kingston many weeks before they heard the fire-bell lift its voice. It was not more than twenty minutes before the Kingston fire department appeared galloping along the rough road in front of the campus at a fearsome speed of about six miles an hour.

Several of the horses wore long white beards, and others of them were so fat that they added more weight than power to the team.

Such of the academicians as had no classes at that hour followed these champing chargers to the scene of the fire.

It turned out to be a woodshed, which was as black and useless as a burnt biscuit by the time the fire department arrived.

But the Volunteers had the pleasure of dropping a hose down the well of the owner of the late lamented woodshed, and pumping the well dry. The Volunteers thus bravely extinguished three fence-posts that had caught fire from the woodshed, and then turned for home, proud in the consciousness of duty performed. They felt sure that they had saved the village from a second Chicago fire.

Jumbo said that the department ought not to be called the Volunteers, but the Crawfishes. B.J., who had a scientific turn of mind, said that he had an idea for a great invention.

"The world revolves from west to east at the rate of a thousand miles an hour," he said.

"I've heard so," broke in Jumbo, "but you can't believe everything you see in print."

B.J. brushed him aside, and went on:

"Now, all you've got to do is to invent a scheme for raising your fire-engine and your firemen up in the air a few feet, and holding them still while the earth revolves under them. Then you turn a kind of a wheel, or something, when the place you want to get to comes around, and there you are in a jiffy. It would beat the Empire State Express all hollow. Why, it would be faster even than an ice-boat!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I guess I'll have to get that idea patented."

"But say, B.J.," said Bobbles, in a puzzled manner, "suppose your fire was in the other direction? You'd have to go clear around the world to get to the place."

"I didn't think of that," said B.J., dejectedly.

And thus one of the greatest inventions of the age was left uninvented.

* * * * *

But Tug had also been set to thinking by the snail-like Kingston firemen.

"What this place really needs," he said, "is some firemen that can run. They want more speed and less rheumatism. Now, if we fellows could only join the department we'd show 'em a few things."

"Why can't we?" said Punk, always ready to carry out another's suggestion.

"George Washington was a volunteer fireman," was History's ever-present reminder from the books.

The scheme took like wild-fire with the Dozen, and after a conference in which the twelve heads got as close together as twenty-four large feet would permit, it was decided to ask permission of the Academy Faculty and of the town trustees.

The Kingston Faculty was of the general opinion that it is ordinarily--though by no means always--the best plan to allow restless boys to carry out their own schemes. If the scheme is a bad one they will be more likely to be convinced of it by putting it into practice than by being told that it is bad, and forbidden to attempt it. So, after long deliberation, they consented to permit half a dozen of the larger Lakerim fellows to join the volunteer department.

Fires were not frequent, and most of the buildings of the village were so small that little risk was to be feared.

The trustees of the village saw little harm in allowing the academicians to drag their heavy trucks for them, and promised that they would not permit the boys to rush into any dangerous places.

In a short while, then, the half-dozen were full-fledged firemen, with red flannel shirts, rubber boots, and regulation hats. The Lakerimmers were so proud of their new honor that they wanted to wear their gorgeous uniforms in the class-rooms. But the heartless Faculty put its foot down hard on this.

The very minute the six--Tug, Punk, Sleepy, B.J., and the Twins--were safely installed as Volunteers, it seemed that the whole town had suddenly become fire-proof.

The boys could neither study their lessons nor recite them with more than half a mind, for they had always one ear raised for the sound of the delightful fire-bell. They always hoped that when the fire would come it would be in the midst of a recitation; and Sleepy constantly failed to prepare himself at all, in the hope that at the critical moment he would be rescued from flunking by a call to higher duties. But fate was ironical, and after two or three weeks of this nerve-wearing existence the Volunteers began to lose hope.

One Saturday afternoon, when the roads were frozen into ruts as hard and sharp as iron, and when the Dozen had just started forth to take a number of pretty girls to see a promising hockey game, the villainous old fire-bell began to call for help.

The half-dozen regretted for a moment that they had ever volunteered to be Volunteers; but they would not shirk their duty, and instantly dashed toward the shed where the fire department was stored. They were there long before any of the older Volunteers, and had a long, impatient wait. Then there were all manner of delays; breakages had to be repaired and axles greased before a start could be properly made. But at last they were off, tearing down the rough roads at a speed that made the older firemen plead for mercy.

The alarm had come from a man who had been painting a church steeple, and had seen a cloud of smoke in the direction of the "Mitchell place," a large farm-house some little distance out of the village limits.

There was a fine exhilaration about the run until they reached the edge of the town, and began to drag the bouncing, jouncing cart over the miserable country road. Still they tugged on, going slower and slower, and the older Volunteers letting go of the rope and falling by the wayside like the wounded at the hill of San Juan.

Finally even the half-dozen had to slacken speed, too, and walk, for fear of losing the whole fire department--the chief had already given out in exhaustion, and insisted upon climbing on one of the trucks and riding the rest of the way. But at length, somehow or other, the Kingston Volunteers reached the farm-house at a slow walk, their tongues almost hanging out of their mouths, and their breath coming in gasps.

Strange to say, there were no signs of excitement at the Mitchell place, though a great cloud of black smoke poured from a huge hollow sycamore-tree that had been cut off about ten feet from the ground, and was used as a primitive smoke-house.

The Volunteers looked at this tree, and then at one another, without a word. Then Mr. Mitchell came slowly toward his gate, and asked why he had been honored with such a visit.

The only one that had breath enough to say a word was the fire chief, who had ridden the latter part of the way. He explained the alarm, and asked the cause of the smoke.

Mr. Mitchell drawled: "Wawl, I'm jest a-curin' some hams."

As they all pegged dismally homeward, the half-dozen thought that Mr. Mitchell had also just about cured six Volunteers. And when the half-dozen took off their red flannel shirts that day, they no longer looked upon them as red badges of courage, but rather as a sort of penitentiary uniform.

The fire department of Kingston had such another long snooze that the half-dozen began now to rejoice in the hope that there would not be another fire before vacation-time. They had almost forgotten that they were Volunteers, and went about their studies and pastimes with the fine care-freedom of glorious boyhood.

* * * * *

Then came a cold wave suddenly out of the West--a tidal wave of bitter winds and blizzardy snow-storms, that sent the mercury down into the shoes of the thermometer.

Things froze up with a snap that you could almost hear.

It seemed that it would be impossible even to put a nose out of the warm rooms without hearing a sudden crackle, and seeing it drop to the ground, and the ears after it. The very stoves had to be coaxed and coddled to keep warm.

Jumbo said: "Why, I have to button my overcoat around my stove, and feed it with coal in a teaspoon, to keep it from freezing to death!"

The academicians went to and from their classes on the dead run, and even the staid professors scampered along the slippery paths with more thought of speed than of dignity.

That night was the coldest that the oldest inhabitant of Kingston could remember. The very winds seemed to be tearing madly about, trying to keep warm, and screaming with pain, they were so cold! Ugh! my ears tingle to think of it. The Lakerimmers piled the coal high in their stoves, and piled their overcoats, and even the rugs from the floor, over their beds.

Sleepy, whose blood was so slow that he was never warm enough in winter and never very warm in summer, even spread all the newspapers he could find inside his bed, and crawled in between them, having heard that paper is one of the warmest of coverings. The journals crackled like, popcorn every time he moved; but he moved very little and it would have been a loud noise indeed that could have kept him awake.

At a very early hour, then, the Volunteers and the rest of the Dozen were as snug as bugs in rugs.

And then,--oh, merciless fate!--at the coldest and dismalest hour of the whole twenty-four, when the night is about over and the day is not begun, at about 3 A.M., what, oh, what! should sound, even above the howls of the wind and the rattlings of the windows and doors, but that fiend of a fire-bell!

It clanged and banged and clamored and boomed and pounded its way even through the harveyized armor-plate of the Lakerim ship of sleep.

Tug was the first to wake, and his heart almost stopped with horror of the time the old bell had chosen for making itself heard. Tug was a brave boy, and he had a high sense of responsibility; but he had also a high sense of the comfort of a good warm bed on a bitter cold night, and he lay there, his heart torn up like a battle-field, where the two angels of duty and evil fought bitterly. And he was perfectly willing to give them plenty of time to fight it out to a finish.

* * * * *

In another room of the dormitory there was another struggle going on, though it would be rather flattering to say that they were angels who were struggling. The Twins had wakened at the same moment, and each had pretended to be asleep at first. Then each had remembered that misery loves company, and each had jabbed the other in the ribs, at the same time.

"What bell is that?" Reddy had asked Heady, and Heady had asked Reddy, at the same instant.

"It's that all-fired fire-bell!" both exclaimed, each answering the other's question and his own.

"Jee-minetly! but this is a pretty time for that old thing to break out!" wailed Reddy.

"It ought to be ashamed of itself," moaned Heady.

"It's too bad," said Reddy; "but a fireman mustn't mind the wind or the weather."

"That's so," sighed Heady, "but I'm sorry for you."

"What!" cried Reddy, "you're sorry for _me_! What's the matter with yourself?"

"Why, I couldn't possibly think of going out such a night as this," explained Heady; "you know I haven't been at all well for the last few days."

"Oh, haven't you!" complained Reddy. "Well, you're twice as well as I am, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself to shirk your duty this way."

"Duty! Humph! There's nothing the matter with you! It would be criminal for me, though, to go out a night like this, feeling as I do. Mother would never forgive me. But you had better hurry, or you'll be late," urged Heady.

"Hurry nothing!" said Reddy. "I'm surprised, though, to see you trying to pretend that you're sick, and trying to send me out on a terrible night like this when you _know_ I'm really sick."

Then the quarrel waxed fiercer and fiercer, until they quit using words and began to apply hands and feet. It was not many minutes before each had kicked the other out of bed, and each had carried half of the bedclothing with him.

Neither of them remained any longer than was necessary on the cold floor, but each grabbed up his half of the bedding, and rolled himself up in it, and lay down with great dignity as far away from the other as he could get, even though he hung far over the edge.

But the covers had been none too warm all together, and now, divided into half, the Twins were soon shivering in misery. They stood it as long as they could, and then, as if by a silent agreement, they decided to declare a peace, and each remarked:

"I guess we're both too sick to go out such a night as this." And they were soon asleep again.

* * * * *

When Punk heard the fire-bell, his heart grew bitter at the thought of the still bitterer night. He did not think it proper for one of his conservative nature to violate all the rules of health and self-respect by going out in such rowdy weather.

He peeked over the edge of his coverlet, and saw that his stove was still glowing, and that his own room was not on fire.

Then he reached out one quick arm and pulled his slippers into bed with him, and when they were warm enough put them on his feet, wrapped himself up well, and, running to the window, raised it quickly, thrust his head out, and looked up and down the campus. This quick glance satisfied him of two things: first, that none of the beloved Academy buildings were on fire; and second, that he was never much interested in the old village, anyway.

So he toddled back to his cozy bed.

B.J. was sleeping so soundly that the fire-bell could not wake him; it simply rang in his ears and mingled with his dreams. In the land of dreams he went to all sorts of fires, and saved thirty or forty lives, mainly of beautiful maidens in top stories of blazing palaces. His dreamland rescues were as heroic as any one could desire, but that was as near as he came to answering the call of the Kingston alarm.

* * * * *

As for Sleepy, it is doubtful if the bell would have awakened him if it had been suspended from his bed-post; but from where it was it never reached even to his dreams, if, indeed, even dreams could have wormed their way into his solid slumbers.

* * * * *

Tug's conscience, however, was giving him a sharper pain than he suffered at the thought of the night outside. At length he could stand the thought of being found wanting in his duty, no longer.