the least. I suppose our Spanish was as funny to him. He never laughed at us, though; I presume he was too polite.

But he just got into the ways of us boys about as quickly as any new boy that ever came to the Highland School, and before he had been there two weeks he was in a scrape!

It's dreadfully dull to be the teacher's son. You have to do just so, you know, "to set a good

BUT HE COULD RIDE.

what the matter was, but our sudden interest in the science of planes and prisms so amused him that he laughed all the way down-stairs; for Charlie Brown crept to the door and heard him.

At last Frank Hapgood-"Happy-go-lucky"sat up in desperation, flung his pillow on the floor, got out of bed deliberately and sat down on it. Nine other pillows, nine other white-robed figures solemnly followed suit. Said Harry Eveleth, " Fel

example," and it isn't any fun. Father never asked me to tell what was going on, no matter what was up; but he put me "upon honor" not to go in myself, so of course I had to keep out. But the fellows understood, and used to tell me all about it afterward, and as somehow they always came to grief, I felt a little more contented than I might have done.

One night we could not get to sleep.

The long moonbeams came down athwart the dormitory through the great windows, and lay in broad parallelograms, bisected and quartered, upon the floor. We got our geometry lesson out of the figures, and reeled off a whole section of theorems, without the least effect. That ought, by rights, to be enough to set a whole houseful of boys journeying into the Land of Nod, but it didn't us.

Father heard us jabbering and came up to see

lows, I've tried to do my duty

and go to sleep, and I can't. We must do something!"

A silence, broken by a sigh from Ramon. "Ah! on nights like zis I have gone to ze - ze zoogar houses to sleep some time, in Habana !"

Frank "Happy" gave a start, looked at the circle intently, then gave a definite little nod, and winked.

Eight others of the owl committee gave a simultaneous start in answer, as though they had been unconsciously fooling around a galvanic battery. The gentleman from Havana alone was quiet; he did not yet understand, but the others did, and he Texan was ready to follow.

herders say that a drove of ten thousand cattle will sometimes at night leap to their feet like a flash, without apparent cause or warning. There will be a roar of thundering hoofs, a distant rumble, and that herd will have vanished like smoke from the camp-fire," on the stampede!" Our boys had "stampeded."

Ten or fifteen minutes later a certain wakeful teacher was pleasantly made aware of the fact that a cataract of boys, each with one of the nice white blankets belonging to Mrs. Teacher, tied across his shoulders, was streaming down the lightningrod by his window; and stepping lightly thither, he caught a disconnected word or two about "old Brown's sugar-house."

'How shall we get her out?" "Tie up her feet in straw!"

"But the carriage will make such a racket!"

66

we can

and sat up, gasping. than try that again.

"Well" after a moment's thoughttake the cart; that's been newly greased." There was a rumble, a slow sque-e-ak, and the cart was out without much noise. Two boys at the thills and two more pushing behind, they softly trundled it down the yard, stopping at every unusually loud squeak. It was almost as light as day; only in the yard the trees cast a slight shadow of tangled branches, leafless as they were.

There was a suppressed sense of excitement, a strained thrill of the nerves that made thumby work of their handling the buckles. The old horse was sleepy, and wouldn't "stand round" to order, and they had to push her into place; but they were

They had rather run the risk
But they met no one.

It was a night when there is no sound. The insects are dead, the birds have gone South with the other members of the higher circles of society; there was only the rattle of the heavy cart, springless and jolty, along the dusty road that wound like a great horseshoe around the long slope of the ridge that shot up suddenly into "Paradise Hill.” Beyond the river a dog barked, a mile away, and ended in a melancholy howl. Ramon shivered, and drew his blanket around him; he had a superstitious fear of that sound. The mountains in the North never seemed so

But nobody wanted to howl. They did want to get up the slope to the edge of the woods, where the sugar-house was, and putting horse and cart together in the shed, they scaled the fence and started up the hill at a lumbering trot. Now that their beds were so far away they were sleepy enough.

As it happened, just as they struck the fence, a brisk, elderly gentleman, with iron-gray hair, and spectacles, and a queer twinkle in his eye as he glanced up at the mass of clouds piling up in the mountains, walked hurriedly down a narrow sheeppath through the leafless woods, and entered the sugar-camp. It was dark in there,-dark as Erebus; only in two or three places a ray of light streamed down through the holes in the roof.

The gentleman in spectacles glanced around serenely, as though it were quite the thing for him to be wandering around in the woods at that unearthly hour, poked at the roof here and there with his cane, knocked up a few shingles that let more light in on the subject of his investigations, and came out again hastily as he heard the boys approach, and disappeared in a clump of spruces. Five or ten minutes afterward, he suddenly appeared at the bottom of the hill, backed the horse out of the shed, put on the bridle, and removed the blanket, sedately got in and drove quietly home. Charlie Brown was the first up the hill, and heralded the sight of the camp with a cheer. then, lively! Out with your jack-knives and off with a lot of spruce boughs!"

"Now

Then followed a great hacking of dull knives and cracking of limbs, with the occasional swish of an armful into the camp. The boys worked like beavers for a while, and got thoroughly warmed again, and the air within was filled with resinous fragrance. That done and arranged to their experienced leader's satisfaction, they wrapped themselves like Indians in their blankets and tumbled down upon the heap of boughs; the air trembled with a chorus of strange sounds as one by one they dropped off into a drowsy sleep, with an occasional wriggle as a knot, or the end of a limb, made itself

felt through the many-folded blanket, and engraved a distinct dent upon the sleeper's back; while overhead, the giant cloud crept upward slowly, slowly toward the zenith, spreading east and west without a break. One half of the valley had vanished in the blackest shadow, and still the gilded edge swung steadily on with the slow, resistless sweep of misty legions upon legions, armed in ebon mail; vast billows of night that drowned the scattered stars that met them, one by one. Then it struck the full moon and blotted it from sight. The world of the little valley dropped into night, and all was dark as Erebus. A breath of wind whispered through the forest, and died away, sighing, in the pines. 'Ramon awoke suddenly.

Straight from the centre of that sea of blackness, like the plummet of an engineer, like the lead of a storm-tossed sailor, shot a drop of rain. Down it came with unerring swiftness, right through one of the spectacled gentleman's improvised "skylights" in the roof, and splashed in the Cuban's face. Half-dreaming still, he sleepily rolled over out of range; he had been awakened before in that way, and was used to it.

There was a slope now in the pile of boughs, and Harry Eveleth slid down into the vacated place unconsciously. Splash! and the raindrop covered his cheek with water. Dimly through his dormant brain the idea crept that he was back in the dormitory, and some one was trying the old trick of hanging a saturated sponge above his head; he had done it himself, once, and this was retribution. With a smothered grunt of discontent he gave Ramon a shove that sent him further, and rolled over into his place. Frank Hapgood began to slide - began to dream that he was falling down through a frightful place that had no bottom! The air whistled shrilly past his head. The black walls of the pit shot upward swiftly and he could see the faint light far up at the mouth of the shaft growing dimmer until it too went out! He tried to scream, but the wind caught the sound and carried it away with a rush of mocking laughter; he tried to reach out and grasp the walls but his hands were bound! Then he felt that he was drawing near the end; he had fallen miles! - and now his speed was slackening, and he was falling so softly, so lightly, till at last, like a downy feather he floated on the air, as a spirit from another world. He had reached the centre of the earth!