The Dozen from Lakerim Part 9

The Scandinavian skies are not blue, and they are not overhead, but underfoot. Of course you know all about the Norwegian ski, but perhaps your younger brother does not, so I will say for his benefit that the ski is a sort of Norwegian snow-shoe, only it is almost as swift as the seven-league boots. When you put it on you look as if you had a toboggan on each foot; for it is a strip of ash half an inch thick, half a dozen inches wide, and some ten feet long; the front end of it pointed and turned up like that of a toboggan.

When you first get the things on, or, rather, get on them, you learn that, however pleasant they may grow to be as servants, they are certainly pretty bad masters; and you will find that the groove which is run in the bottom of the skies to prevent their spreading is of very little a.s.sistance, for they seem to have a will of their own, and also a bitter grudge against each other: they step on each other one moment, and make a wild bolt in opposite directions the next, and behave generally like a pair of unbroken colts.

Quiz had once learned to walk on snow-shoes. He grew to be quite an adept, indeed, and could take a two-foot hurdle with little difficulty. But he soon found that so far from being a help, his familiarity with the snow-shoe was a great hindrance.

The mode of walking on a Canadian snow-shoe, which he had learned with such difficulty, had to be completely unlearned before he could begin to make progress with the Scandinavian footgear. For in snow-shoe walking the feet must be lifted straight up and then carried forward before they are planted, and any attempt to slide them forward makes a woeful tangle; to try to lift the ski off the ground, however, is to invite ridiculous distress, and the whole art of scooting on the ski is in the long, sliding motion. It is a sort of skating on incredibly long skates that must not be lifted from the snow.

Quiz had the skies made by a Kingston carpenter; and he was so proud of them that, when a crowd gathered to see what he was going to do with the mysterious slats, he proceeded to make his first attempt in an open s.p.a.ce in the Academy campus. He put the skies down on the snow, slipped his toes into the straps, and, sweeping a proud glance around among the wondering Kingstonians, dashed forward in his old snow-shoe fas.h.i.+on.

It took the Kingstonians some seconds to decide which was Quiz and which was ski. For the skittish skies skewed and skedaddled and skulked and skipped and scrubbed and screwed and screamed and scrawled and scooped and scrabbled and scrambled and scambled and sc.u.mbled and sc.r.a.ped and scrunched and scudded and scuttled and scuffled and skimped and scattered in such scandalous scampishness that the scornful scholars scoffed.

Quiz quit.

The poor boy was so laughed at for days by the whole Academy that his s.p.u.n.k was finally aroused. He got out again the skies he had hidden away in disgust, and practised upon them in the fields, at a distance from the campus, until he had finally broken the broncos and made a swift and delightful team of them. He soon grew strong enough to glide for hours at a high rate of speed without weariness, and the ski became a serious rival to the bicycle in his affections.

He learned to shoot the hills at a breathless rate, climbing up swiftly to the top; then, with feet apart, but even, zipping like an express-train down the steep incline and far along the level below.

He even risked his bones by attempting the rash deeds of old ski-runners. Reaching an embankment, he would retire a little distance, and then rush forward to the brink and leap over into the air, lighting on the ground below far out, steadying himself quickly, and shooting on at terrific pace.

But this rashness brought its own punishment--as fool-hardiness usually does.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "QUIZ LEARNED TO SHOOT THE HILLS AT A BREATHLESS RATE."]

XV

At dinner, one Sat.u.r.day, Quiz had broken out in exclamations of delight over his pet skies, and had begun to complain about the time when spring should drive away the blessed winter.

"I can't get enough of the snow," he exclaimed.

"Oh, can't you?" said Jumbo, ominously.

Quiz could hardly finish his dinner, so impatient was he to be up and off again, over the hills and far away. When he had gone, Jumbo asked the other Lakerimmers if they had not noticed how exclusive Quiz was becoming, and how little they saw of him. He said, also, that he did not approve of Quiz' rus.h.i.+ng all over the country alone and taking foolish risks for the sake of a little solitary fun.

The Lakerimmers agreed that something should be done; and Jumbo reminded them of Quiz' remark that he could not get enough snow, and suggested a plan that, he thought, might work as a good medicine on him.

That afternoon Quiz seemed to have quite lost his head over his ski-running. He felt that there were signs of a thaw in the air, and he proposed that this snow should not fade away before he had indulged in one grand, farewell voyage. He struck off into the country by a new road, and at such a speed that he was soon among unfamiliar surroundings.

As the day began to droop toward twilight he decided that it was high time to be turning back toward Kingston. He looked about for one last embankment to shoot before he retraced his course.

Far in the distance he thought he saw a fine, high bluff, and he hurried toward it with delicious expectation. When he had reached the brink he looked down and saw that the bluff ended in a little body of water hardly big enough to be called a lake. After measuring the drop with his eye, and deciding that while it was higher than anything he had ever shot before, it was just risky enough to be exciting, he went back several steps, came forward with a good impetus, and launched himself fearlessly into the air like the aeronaughty Darius Green.

He launched himself fearlessly enough, but he was no sooner in mid-air than he began to regret his rashness. It was rather late now, though, to be thinking of that, and he realized that nothing could save him from having a sudden meeting with the bottom of the hill.

He lost his nerve in his excitement, and crossed his skies, so that when he struck, instead of sailing forward like the wind, he stuck and went headforemost. Fortunately, one of his skies broke--instead of most of his bones; and a very kind-hearted snow-bank appeared like a feather-bed, and somewhat checked the force of his fall. But, for all that, he was soon rolling over and over down the hill, and he landed finally on a thin spot in the ice of the lake, and crashed through into the water up to his waist.

Now he was so panic-stricken that he scrambled frantically out. He cast one sorry glance up the hill, and saw there the pieces into which his ski had cracked, as well as the pathway he himself had cleared in the snow as he came tumbling down. Then he looked for the other ski, and realised that it was far away under the ice.

He was now so cold, that, dripping as he was, he would not have waded into the lake again to grope around for the other ski if that ski had been solid gold studded with diamonds.

Plainly, the only thing to do was to make for home, and that right quickly, before night came on and he lost his way, and the pneumonia got him.

It was a very different story, trudging back through the snow-drifts in the twilight, from flitting like a b.u.t.terfly on the ski. He realized now that his legs were tired from the long run he had enjoyed so much. He lost his way, too, time and again; and when he came to a cross-roads and had to guess for himself which path to take, somehow or other he seemed always to take the wrong one, and to plod along it until he met some farmer to put him on the right path to Kingston. But though he met many a farmer, he seemed to find never a wagon going his way, or even a hospitable-looking farm-house.

He was still miles away from Kingston when lamp-lighting time came. A little gleam came cheerfully toward him out of the dark. He hurried to it, thinking of the fine supper the kind-hearted farmers would doubtless give him, when, just as he reached the gate of the door-yard, there was a most blood-curdling uproar, and two or three furious dogs came bounding shadowily toward him.

He lost no time in deciding that supper, after all, was a rather useless invention, and Kingston much preferable.

Previously to this, Quiz had always understood that the dog was the most kind-hearted of animals, but it was months after that night before he could hear the mere name of a canine without shuddering.

Well, a boy can cover any distance imaginable,--even the path to the moon,--if he only has the strength and the time. So Quiz finally reached the outskirts of Kingston.

His long walk had dried and warmed him somewhat; but he was miserably tired, and he felt that his stomach was as empty as the Desert of Sahara. At last, though, he reached the campus, and dragged heavily along the path to his dormitory.

He stopped at Tug's to see if Tug had any remains left of the latest box of good things from home; but no answer came to his knock, and he went sadly up to the next Lakerim room. But that was empty too, and all of the others of the Dozen were away.

For they had become alarmed at Quiz' absence, and started out in search of him, as they had once before set forth on the trail of Tug and History.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Jumbo saw a pair of flas.h.i.+ng eyes glaring at him over the coverlet."]

By the time Quiz reached his room he was too tired to be very hungry, and he decided that his bed would be Paradise enough. So, all cold and weary as he was, he hastily peeled off his clothes, and blew out the light. He s.h.i.+vered at the very thought of the coldness of the sheets, but he fairly flung himself between them.

Just one-tenth of a second he spent in his downy couch, and then leaped out on the floor with a howl. He remembered suddenly the look Jumbo had given him at dinner when he had said he could not get snow enough.

Jumbo and the other fiends from Lakerim had filled the lower half of his bed with it!

Late that night, when the eleven Lakerimmers came back, weary from their long search, and frightened at not finding Quiz, Jumbo went to his room with a sad heart. When he lighted his lamp and looked longingly toward his downy bed, he saw a pair of flas.h.i.+ng eyes glaring at him over the coverlet. They were the eyes of Quiz; and within easy reach lay a baseball bat and several large lumps of coal. But all Quiz said was:

"Excuse me for getting into your bed, Jumbo. You are perfectly welcome to mine."

XVI

But, speaking of cold, you ought to hear about the great fire company that was organized at the Academy.

The town of Kingston was not large enough or rich enough to support a full-fledged fire department with paid firemen and trained horses.

It had nothing but an old-fas.h.i.+oned engine, a hose-cart, and a ladder-truck, all of which had to be drawn by two-footed steeds, the volunteer firemen of the village.

The Lakerimmers had not been in Kingston many weeks before they heard the fire-bell lift its voice. It was not more than twenty minutes before the Kingston fire department appeared galloping along the rough road in front of the campus at a fearsome speed of about six miles an hour.

Several of the horses wore long white beards, and others of them were so fat that they added more weight than power to the team.