Whether relieved at midnight or at four A. M. I would put on my furs for a little prowl outdoors. To leave the house when it was forty degrees below zero, felt like the plunge into an icy bath, but gave the same refreshment afterward. And it was good to watch the ghostly dances of the northern lights fill the whole sky with music visible.
Once setting out on such an excursion I traversed the dining-hall, entered the dark barroom, and opened the inner door which gave upon the porch. But this time I could not push the storm door open. Something resisted, something outside thrusting at the panels, something alive. I fell back against the bar, imagining bears, burglars, bogies, anything, while I listened, afraid to breathe.
It was then I heard a voice, a girlish voice outside in the Arctic cold, chanting in singsong recitation as though at school:
"Bruce, Bruce; Huron, Desoronto; Chatham Cayuga; Guelph—not Guelph—oh, what comes after Cayuga?" Then feeble hands battered against the door, "Teacher! Teacher!"
But when I opened the door, the girl stepped back afraid.
"You're not the teacher," she said; "oh, tell me before she comes. Sixty-six counties and the towns have all got mixed."
"Come in and let me tell you."
"I daren't! I daren't! You're not the teacher. This is not the school. You'll take me back!"
She turned, trying to run away, but her legs seemed wooden, and she slid about as though she were wearing clogs.
"I won't," she screamed, "I won't go back!" Then she fell.