headed an' both ter blame, but we uster think a good deal er one 'nother.

"Bill, I never seen him sence. He sent the taxes reg'lar on the farm, an' I heerd once t' he was married an' doin' well out in Indiana. An' now poor Jim's dead an' gone." was silent.

Again the Squire

"My gal Letty's got a little friendly with the young un, an' I guess Jim had hard luck an' the old farm's 'bout all the widder's got."

They reached the corner and Bill Smith jumped out. "Carry ye over's well's not, Bill," but the other insisted that he could. walk and the Squire drove on.

All day Sunday the snow fell but the temperature steadily rose, and by Monday morning the storm had dwindled down to a cold, drizzling rain which froze as it fell and formed a hard, slippery

crust.

During this time Lonnie had gone about with a strangely excited air. As soon as the crust would bear on Monday he got out a large hand sled and asked if he might have the old stove, lying unused in the back room, giving the indefinite excuse that he wanted to do a little work over the hill a piece. The widow consented without question, for she trusted Lonnie implicitly and really knew very little about farm work and its requirements.

Toward night, true to Ike Randall's predictions, the storm cleared away. Lonnie returned home very late.

Town meeting day dawned bright and clear, and what was more, to at least three persons in Fayville, quite warm. The meeting progressed rather tamely for Fayville. The bright weather or something seemed to have infected every one with an unusual lack of interest in the ordinary business of the town. The only excitement came when the Squire and Deacon White were nominated for road commissioner, but the Deacon was overwhelmingly defeated and the meeting adjourned for dinner.

"Sugarin' any yit up your way," asked Bill Smith as the Deacon

stood for a moment outside, looking nervously up at the smiling blue sky.

"Hain't teched a bucket. Is ennybody up your way? Ye-Ye -hain't noticed the Squire's people scatterin' enny, hev' ye, Bill?" "See he hed a few out soakin' up, but I guess the' won't nobody do much sugarin' till they git roads, will they?"

When the afternoon session opened Squire Haskell missed the Deacon, but was not much disturbed as he thought of his two stalwart sons at home with the team, putting a road through the softened crust to the sugar lot. He knew the Deacon had no one to help him but his hired man and they had both voted that morning. The meeting ended at three and the Squire hurried home. The boys had, indeed, done well. Not only was the road broken out, but the sap was merrily tinkling into a hundred buckets, some already half full.

"Yoke up the cattle, boys," said the Squire delightedly. "Guess we'd better git this simmered down a little tonight, seein' the Deacon went home airly."

At dark a great holder of sap was safely stored in the sugar house and the Squire started a fire for the first time under the new evaporator. He had studied the directions till he knew them by heart. By the time things were steaming up nicely it was nine o'clock and the Squire, carefully arranging the feed pipe according to directions, went to the house for his supper.

But alas! for new inventions with their intricate mechanisms. The syphon which was to carry the sap from the first to the second pan refused to work, and when the Squire returned, a half hour later, he found the sugar house filled with smoke and the front pan of his beloved "bilin' machine" burned beyond the possibility of further use.

Early next morning Squire Haskell, very much discouraged, started for the tin shop with his ruined pan. There was just a bare possibility of his getting it repaired in time to get his sugar

in ahead of the Deacon, but the probability, he was forced to admit, was very slight.

Just before reaching the village he met Lonnie, and, surprised at seeing him so early at the village, stopped a moment to ask if any one was sick at the Freeman house.

"Waal, guess not," answered Lonnie with a sort of wild exultation in his voice. "I jes' run down ter collect a little matter o' fifty dollars on some sugar I ben makin'."

"What!" The Squire's mettlesome horses started as the exclamation burst from him.

Then Lonnie told him, for he liked the Squire, of how he had, almost, without sugaring apparatus, without a team or road, but with an old stove and a hand sled, outwitted the two shrewdest men in town with everything at their command. These were not Lonnie's words, but that is what the Squire understood by them.

For a moment he stared at Lonnie with an expression of blank amazement, then he burst into a roar of laughter and, leaning over, wrung the boy's hand till it ached.

"So ye got ahead of us old fellers, did ye. Ha! Ha! Well, Lonnie, I guess you'll do. But don't let it git out an' I'll go down an' tell Sim Goodnow. Want nobody else round when he paid ye, was thar? Guess I'll try 'n be round down thar a spell. Deacon White's goin' ter be comin' in ter town with his'n, ye know, purty quick. Waal I never!"

As the Squire reached the corner, he turned in his seat and called: "Say, Lonnie, tell the widder me'n my wife 'll be up this afternoon, will ye?"

That afternoon Jim Freeman's widow came to know the nobility and generosity of the man who had been the friend of her husband's youth, and Lonnie will never forget the immeasurable happiness that came to him when Alice put her hand on his shoulder and, with tear-dimmed eyes, assured him that his money should be her means of going to Bolton Academy.

A. M. B., 'or.

KIDNAPPED.

The winter term of Willis' freshman year was drawing to a peaceful close. The class rivalry between freshmen and sophomores, hitherto the feature of absorbing interest in the college life of the year, had been little in evidence of late, for since the great indoor meet in Infantry Hall when the freshman relay team had won the championship cup, and Wheeler, the big 'Varsity tackle, pride of the freshman class, had taken two straight falls out of the champion of the sophs. in the wrestling match for championship of the college, there had been little to stir up emulation among the underclassmen. But beneath this dead calm was working a spirit of great unrest. Smarting under the sting of continuous defeat, first in the fall athletic meet, then in freshman-soph. foot-ball game, the January debate, and, finally, the reverses in Infantry Hall, the sophomores burned midnight oil in their inner chambers and planned deeply for revenge.

Elated by their long string of victories, puffed up with typical freshman pride, as yet unhonored, the men of 'or planned for a grand coup, which should be the crowning feature of their remarkable record. As captain of the class foot-ball team and president of freshman class, Willis felt it incumbent on himself to give definite form to this unexpressed but pronounced desire of his classmates. So a few days before, he had called a meeting of the chosen few who stood high in the freshman councils. Wheeler was there, adding to his athletic prestige the clear, sagacious head which entitled him to first place in the conclave, and "Eph." Green, the astute secretary; Davis, the great mathematician and class treasurer; Hal Waller, small, keen and wiry, notable for the wily plot by which the freshmen had been able to outwit the sophs. and keep their class banner waving triumphantly for twenty-four hours from the flagstaff of University Hall. Then was developed a scheme of daring effrontery, no less a plan than the holding of a freshman class banquet. When Willis had unfolded the details

of his plot, Wheeler smote the table with his mighty fist and exclaimed, "The very thing, 'twill cap the climax and make the sophs. green with rage." He voiced the sentiment of the meeting and the scheme was at once perfected. Everything was done with the profoundest secrecy. Tickets were printed and sold only to the tried and true of "aughty one." The hall was secured, and Victor Gelb, the steward of the feast, was a caterer well known for his partiality toward freshmen. No untoward event ruffled the smooth progress toward the great high feast, and the evening before that set for the banquet Wheeler, lounging on the cushions in Willis's "den" in Hope, remarked, "Well, Howard, old boy, all is quiet along the Potomac; the sophs. are all in the dark; and, say, won't they be wild tomorrow night when they wake up to the fact that we have scored again and are banqueting in state 'while the enemy slept,' as it were?" Knocking the ashes from his pipe, he departed with a jovial "so long" for his own room in University, singing in triumphant notes, "Glory, glory to the Freshmen!"

Wheeler slept late the next morning; it lacked but three minutes of nine when he awoke, and consequently he came into math. just ofter the roll had been called. No sooner had he taken his seat than Stevens, a prominent classmate, defying the discipline of the class-room, rushed over to him and exclaimed, "How did you get away? We thought they had got you, too; where is Willis and Green and Waller? "What the devil do you mean?" shouted Wheeler, springing to his feet. "Mean!" cried Stevens, "Why, don't you know? Willis and Green and Waller and Guild have gone! vanished!! disappeared!!! been kidnapped, most likely, by the sophs!! and when you failed to show up at breakfast or chapel we thought they had you!" It was all too true. Willis's room had been entered in the night and there were evidences of a most violent struggle. The bed was broken, desks were overturned, furniture smashed and the door hung on a single hinge. "Mr. Slocum," said Wheeler to the instructor, "I will take it upon myself to ask you to dismiss this division; it seems, fellows,"