"Woo-hoo! Noo'-zhin-ga pa'-hon ba ma kae don'-ba i ga!" (Oh! boys, get up and look at the snow!) exclaimed a new student, ignorant of the rule against speaking Indian.
We scrambled out of bed and rushed to the windows. Sure enough, there was snow on the ground, and the trees that the frost had stripped of their verdant beauty now stood resplendent in a mantle of white.
Summer had gone. The myriads of little creatures that only a short time ago enlivened the hills and valleys had withdrawn into the recesses of the earth, or other places of safety, each according to its own peculiar habit.
Winter had come. And the school-boy, defying its chilling blasts, dances about in the crisp snow, or on the ice, shouting to his playmates. Delighting in the exercise of every muscle, he races to the hill-top, blows his hot breath on his tingling finger-tips, mounts his little sled, then dashes down the hill with merry shouts of laughter, though the snow whirls and flies about his ears and beaming face. Again and again he takes this wild descent until he hears the calling of the school-bell; then, with reluctant feet, he enters the class-room, to study the divisions of the earth either by natural boundaries, or by the artificial ones made by aggressive man, to learn about weights and measures, or to memorize the great events that have changed the conditions of nations and of peoples.
Every one was up and dressed that morning when Gray-beard came to the dormitory; and, after repeating our prayer, we hurried down the two flights of stairs, making a noise like thunder. We ran into the yard, where we wrestled for a while, then rubbed our faces and hands with snow.
One of the teachers asked why the boys did so. "All boys do that," answered Brush. "The old folks tell them to do it, because then their faces and hands won't get frozen."
When breakfast was over that morning, and the students had shifted their positions so as to face the centre of the dining-room, and had folded their arms, the superintendent, marking with his forefinger the chapter he had selected to read at the morning worship, looked up and spoke, "We want the boys to learn the use of tools, and to make things for themselves, so we have provided the boards out of which every boy in this school can make a sled for himself. The carpenter will give to any boy who asks, the materials and show him how to use the tools to make his sled. Of course this must be done before the school hour."
We looked at each other and smiled. The reading of the Scripture and the prayer seemed to us to be unusually long, but at last they came to an end. Then every boy hurried and scurried to the carpenter's shop. Soon dozens of hammers were going crack, crack, and the saws zip, zip.
"Be careful, boys! Look out for nails, or you will ruin your saws," said the carpenter, and he smiled good-naturedly as he went on marking the boards for the next applicant.
Suddenly, in the midst of all the din some one exclaimed, "Hong!" which is Indian for Ouch! and a big boy danced about, shaking his hand violently in the air, then he brought it down and pressed it between his knees, twisting his body into all sorts of shapes, howling the while. The hammering and sawing ceased, and a dozen voices asked, "What's the matter?" Peter, who was always clumsy in his movements, instead of hitting the nail he was driving, had struck his thumb and smashed it. The traditional "Indian stoicism" was not in him, so he kept up his howling until the carpenter had put on a tobacco poultice and bandaged the injured thumb.