The Grammar School Boys Snowbound Part 23

d.i.c.k was too cold to talk, but he made a dive for his cap, and held it in place over some of the excelsior, while shaking Dan miserably felt for another match. This time the tiny flame caught in the excelsior.

"It's a g-g-g-g-go!" chattered d.i.c.k.

"M-m-m-me for b-b-b-b-bed!" chattered Dan, racing back to his bunk in the starting light of the fire and diving in under the blankets.

But d.i.c.k Prescott stuck at his post. He saw the excelsior blaze briskly.

Then the flames licked at the oil over the logs. Thirty seconds after that, and the cabin interior was fairly well lighted by the increasing blaze. d.i.c.k wouldn't go back to his bunk, but stood with his back as close as he dared to the fire. Yet the cold air was all around him, and, while his back baked the rest of his body was so cold that his teeth continued to play against each other in six eight time.

"Why don't you get back into bed?" called Tom Reade lazily from his warmth under blankets. But d.i.c.k stuck it out. When the first logs were a seething ma.s.s of ruddy fire d.i.c.k, now chattering less, brought more short logs and piled them on in place. The wind, that day, would take all the wood that was fed to the fire. Gradually d.i.c.k stopped chattering. At last he even felt comfortable.

"You fellows can get up now just as well as not," he announced.

Dan was the first to try it.

"Something like," he announced. That brought Dave Darrin out. One by one the other fellows followed--all except Hen.

"You don't catch me out of my bunk until breakfast is ready," announced young Dutcher.

d.i.c.k wheeled impatiently, at this hint, but Dave Darrin whispered in his ear:

"Let it go at that, d.i.c.k. But after breakfast we'll make him wash all the dishes--every one--and spend the rest of the forenoon slicking up around the place. If he refuses--well, we'll know how to bring him to time."

So Hen was ignored for the time being. Dan and Greg busied themselves in the first breakfast preparations. d.i.c.k and Dave, presently, went over to one of the windows, forcing it back and tugging at the shutter, which proved to be frozen in place.

"Bring some hot water, Dan, the minute you get it," urged d.i.c.k. This was soon ready and a small amount of it was poured around the sill, loosening the shutter, which was shoved back.

"Glory! Look at the storm!" cried d.i.c.k. There was a rush after the gla.s.s window had been closed.

Never had a prettier snow scene been exposed to view. The snow was still swirling down, while what had fallen was up level with the window.

"It's a good four feet deep, already!" cried Dave.

"And looks as though it would go on snowing for a week," added Tom Reade joyously.

"Fellows," announced d.i.c.k, "we're surely s...o...b..und. That's something that we've often dreamed about. Say, wouldn't it be queer if we had a long spell of this sort of thing, and couldn't--simply couldn't--get back to Central Grammar by the time school opens again after the holidays?"

"If the food holds out it'll be fun," a.s.sented Tom Reade.

Soon another shutter was opened, admitting more daylight. When they got around to the rear window, and got it open, d.i.c.k pointed to the shack in the rear.

"Well, we know that Mr. Fits hasn't been out to-day," Prescott laughed.

"Just look at his door. The drifts have piled against it, higher than the door itself."

Snow scenes, however, do not feed any one. So the boys turned back to the kitchen preparations. What if the bacon and eggs didn't look quite neat enough to suit a real housekeeper? The mess tasted good. So did the fried potatoes, made out of the left overs from last night's boiled ones. Coffee, bread and b.u.t.ter and "store pie." No wonder the youngsters, when they were through with breakfast, and in a cabin now warm from one end to the other, felt, as d.i.c.k expressed it:

"Say, we're at peace with the whole world, aren't we?" he asked.

"Yes," agreed Dan solemnly. "Mr. Fits is snowed in tight."

"We're even at peace with Hen Dutcher, the miserable s.h.i.+rk," rumbled Tom Reade.

"That reminds me," said d.i.c.k, turning. "Hen, it's up to you to wash all the dishes, and to do it tidily, too."

"I won't," retorted Hen defiantly. "I'm no servant to you fellows."

"Hen," observed d.i.c.k, with a light in his eyes that meant business, "it's past the time now for you to tell us what you'll do and what you won't do. We didn't invite you here, and you didn't pay any share of the expenses that we have been under. Accident made you our guest; we didn't really want you here at all. The same accident that makes it necessary for you to stay here for the present has kept away the rest of your crowd--Fred Ripley and his pals. While you stay here you'll do your full share of the work. If you don't, you'll soon wish you had. Now, your first job is to wash and dry the dishes. After that you'll tidy up the cabin. I'll show you what's needed in that line. Get to work!"

Hen had grown meeker during this address, for he saw that the other fellows approved all that their leader was saying.

"All right," he muttered; "I'll do it, but it ain't a square deal. I'm your guest and I ought not to work."

CHAPTER XII

BLIZZARD TOIL AND A MYSTERY

"Our old college chum, Mr. Fits, isn't stirring yet," reported Greg Holmes, after looking out through the rear window that offered the best view of the cook shack at the rear.

"Too bad," muttered Tom Reade, turning away from a front window where he was watching only the steady fall of the flakes. "If he were a neighbor worth having he'd come out and offer to shovel the paths."

"I wonder how cold it is outdoors?" pondered Hazelton aloud.

"Somewhere below zero, certainly," rejoined Tom. "Suppose we call that definite enough?"

"I'd like to get out into this storm," hinted Dave.

"So would I," nodded d.i.c.k with energy. "It would be fine to be out in the grandest storm that we've ever seen! Down in Gridley I suppose the folks have the sidewalks cleaned off."

"Don't you believe it," objected Dan Dalzell. "Not in this storm. Horses couldn't get through it to drag a plow, and it would take an army of men to shovel the snow away, for the wind will blow the snow back as fast as a fellow gets a few bushelfuls moved."

"Let's try it and see!" proposed d.i.c.k, jumping up and going for his overshoes.

"Mean it?" demanded Dave joyously.

"Surely I do."

"Then I'm with you." Dave ran to where his outdoor apparel lay. "Going with us, Tom?"

"It's a bad example to set some of these small boys," gaped Tom with his most venerable air, "but I'm afraid I can't stay inside while you fellows are enjoying yourselves."

Greg, too, hurried to get on his arctic overshoes and his overcoat. Then he pulled his toboggan cap well down over his ears and neck and donned his mittens.

"There are only two snow shovels," announced d.i.c.k. "What are the rest of you going to use?"

"Here's the fire shovel," answered Greg, producing it. "That will be good enough for me."