The Silver Maple

by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

"What?" he cried artlessly. His look of innocent amazement doubled his listener's indignation.

"I said," returned the man very distinctly, "that you have told me a lie, and a very stupid one, for I know your name to be Scot MacDonald, and a rather notorious one you have made it, too."

And turning his back in disgust, the new master walked quietly down the snowy road. For an instant Scotty stood glaring after him, every drop of his rebellious blood tingling. He snatched up his snowball again and took aim. If he could only smash that conceited looking hat, or better still, the insufferable white collar! But there was something in the commanding air of the figure that went so steadily onward, not deigning to look back, that held the boy's arm.

Instead, he sent the missile crashing into the last remaining pane in the porch window, and went leaping into the school, determined to find Dan and relieve his feelings by working some irreparable damage.

The schoolhouse was in a condition to invite depredations. Late in the previous autumn, as soon as the news of the new master's expected advent had come, the matrons of Number Nine had organised a housecleaning campaign in the school. Store Thompson's wife, that queen of housekeepers, headed the expedition against dirt, and even the minister's wife took part. The former lady had long declared that the condition of the schoolhouse was clean ridic'l'us, and now demanded that something be done to better it, for as the new master was coming from the Captain's he was sure to be a gentleman, and most like would be terrible tidy.

So the army of housekeepers had charged down upon the schoolhouse, and such a washing and cleansing and renovating as took place had certainly never been paralleled except when the spring winds and waters came swirling down the Oro hills. The poor little building was scarcely recognisable when it emerged from its baptism of soapy water and whitewash. The big girls added an artistic touch by decorating the spotless walls with cedar boughs, until the place smelled as sweet as the swamps of the Oro; and to crown all, the minister presented it with a fine picture of Queen Victoria to be hung above the master's desk.

And this was the immaculate condition of the place where, when his dinner was finished, Scotty's roving eye sought something upon which to work off his burning indignation.

It had always been the custom heretofore in Number Nine to employ the noon recess tearing round the room in a cloud of dust, yelling, throwing ink and breaking furniture. But to-day the awe of the new master had had a restraining influence, and most of the wilder spirits had betaken themselves to an outdoor campaign. So there were only a few of the smaller pupils and the larger girls grouped round the stove when Scotty started his new enterprise. The cedar wreath above the door was quite dry and rather dusty and offered a fine field for a unique exploit. Lighting a splinter at the stove, he set fire to the garland, allowed the flames to mount up, and just as they threatened to get beyond his control, beat them out with his cap. The girls shrieked in horror; Betty Lauchie screamed that he was a wretch, and the minister himself would be after him, and Biddy Murphy vowed she'd pull every hair of his worthless head out for him if he tried it again. But Scotty was joyously reckless and quite beyond fear of even Miss Murphy.

When Dan returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, who lived over on the Tenth, he found his chum the centre of a wildly excited group, and engaged in beating out his third conflagration. Dan was immediately fired to emulation. He would be disgraced forever in the eyes of the Flats if he allowed Scotty to get ahead of him, and already the room was filling with admiring MacDonalds and envious Murphys. So, in spite of the imploring shrieks and commands of the girls, he struck a match and soon had the festoons along the wall crackling merrily. When this rival blaze was extinguished Hash Tucker stepped into public notice. Considering his blood and breeding, this son of the house of Tucker should have been a phlegmatic Saxon. But no one can say what Canadian air will do with the blood; and under its influence Hash had long ago commenced a reversion to type, the aboriginal wild Indian. Whatever Scotty or Dan did therefore, that he could outdo. Seizing a burning brand from the stove, he scrambled up on the teacher's rickety old desk, and the next moment the triumphal arch, reared in honour of the new master's coming, was in a blaze. But just as he reached up to beat out the flames he was gripped violently round the knees, and down he came to the floor, Scotty on the top of him. Hash roared lustily for his followers; the Tenth responded gallantly, Scotty was engulfed in their on-rush, and, to help on the good work, Dan Murphy headed a rescue party from the Oa to extricate his friend from the yelling heap.

What the outcome of this affray might have been is doubtful, but just at its inception a terrified cry of "fire," from the remainder of the school parted the combatants. They came to their feet to find the flames leaping up the walls, and clouds of smoke rolling through the room.