After school at night, the three boys cut up and carried into the schoolhouse a large quantity of wood to build the morning fire, but when James reached the schoolhouse in the morning, there was not a coal on the hearth, the fireplace was full of half-melted snow, and not a single stick of all the wood carried in the night before was to be found anywhere.
James had his axe on his shoulder, and was equal to the occasion; he cut a log, back-stick, fore-stick, and small wood, went into the woods and split kindling from a pine stump, then went to Mr. Nevins’ for fire. Arthur and Elmer instantly came with him; Elmer with a firebrand, and Arthur hauling a load of dry wood on a hand-sled, which, in addition to what James had already prepared, made one of the hottest fires of the season, and soon dried up the snow-water that flooded the hearth, and the floor around it that was smeared with ashes. They cut some hemlock-brush, made a broom, and soon restored things to their pristine order.
“Now,” said Arthur, “whoever did this thing thought that James, not being used to wood fires, would not be able to make one; the master and scholars would get here, find no fire, and he would appear like a fool, and be blamed. James, don’t you lisp a word of it, and we won’t; if it comes out, the one who did it will have to tell of it himself, and then we shall find out who did it.”
The perpetrators of the trick did not know that James had built the fire every morning at Mr. Whitman’s for two months.
Just as the school was called to order, Arthur and Elmer came in, and stood so long with their backs to the fire, that the master at last said,—
“Boys, are you not sufficiently warm?”
They were by no means suffering from cold, but as they stood thus, facing the whole school, they took careful note of the surprise depicted on several faces at finding a good fire, and everything as usual, likewise of sundry nods, winks, and whispers; sometimes saw something written on a slate, and the slate held up for some one in another seat to read the message. When the two brothers came to compare notes that night, after returning home, they were not in much doubt as to the perpetrators of this low trick.
The Nevins boys held themselves in readiness to assist James, if needful, the next morning, who came early but found everything as usual.
“Their gun has missed fire,” said Arthur to James.
“Elmer, you and I must be all eyes and ears, for we shall certainly hear about it to-day. They’ll get no fun out of it, unless it comes out.”