lines on board—
      Awa'! my bairns, awa'!
  An' ye'll be back by gloamin' gray,
      An' bright the fire will low,
  An' in your tales and sangs we'll tell
      How weel the boat ye row.
              When life's last sun gaes feebly down,
                  An' death comes to our door,
              When a' the world's a dream to us,
                  We'll go to sea no more—
                      No more—
                  We'll go to sea no more."

When the applause that greeted the song had subsided, little Steve Leonard asked: "I suppose that means they'll sail all their lives, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it means just about that," said Tom Kennedy.

Paying no attention to the touch of sarcasm in Tom's intonation, Steve added:

"Well, they might do that in a fishing boat, but they couldn't do it in the navy. My Uncle Walter is an officer in the navy, and he's got to get out of it next year, because he'll be sixty-two years old, though there isn't a gray hair in his head."

"The people in the song were fishermen," said Sandy.

At this moment there was a cry of alarm among the small boys in the stream. One of them had got beyond his depth and had disappeared beneath the surface.

The larger boys rushed down the bank with eager inquiries: "Where?" "Where did he go down?"

But two of them—George Dewey and Bill Ammon—did not need to wait for the answer. They knew the exact depth of every square yard in that part of the river, and the set of the current at every point, for they had been in it and through it more than a hundred times.

"Run down the bank and go in by the pine tree, Bill," said George. "I'll go in just below the riffle and explore the cellar-hole!"

A few seconds later both of these boys had disappeared under water.

The "cellar-hole," as the boys called it, was a place where some natural force, probably frost and the current, had excavated the bed of the river to a depth of eight or ten feet, with almost perpendicular walls. It was a favorite place for the larger boys to dive; and another of their amusements consisted in floating down into it with the current, which, just before entering the cellar-hole, ran swiftly through a narrow channel.

The two boys were under water so long that their companions began to fear they never would come up. From the excited state of their minds it seemed even longer than it really was.

Bill was the first to appear, and as soon as he could get his breath he reported "No luck!"

A moment later George came up, and it was evident that he was bringing something. As soon as Bill saw this he swam toward him, and at the same time two other boys plunged in from the bank. They brought ashore the apparently lifeless body of little Jimmy Nash and laid it on the grass.

"What shall we do?" said several.

"Shake the water out of him," said one.

"Stand him on his head," said another.

"Roll him over a barrel," said a third.

"Somebody run for a doctor," said a fourth; and this suggestion was quickly carried out by two of the smaller boys, who scampered off in search of a physician.

"The barrel is the right idea," said George, "but there is no barrel anywhere in sight. Boys, bring us that big log."

Half a dozen boys made a rush for the log, rolled it down the slope, and brought it to the place where it was wanted. They laid Jimmy across it, face down, and gently rolled him back and forth, which brought considerable water out of his lungs.

One of the boys who had run for a physician had the good fortune to come upon Dr. Dewey, who was passing in his gig, and shouted:

"Doctor! Doctor! there's a drownded boy down here! Come quick!"

The doctor sprang to the ground, tied his horse to the fence in less time than it takes to tell it, and followed the excited boy across the field and down the bank.

After working over the little fellow about half an hour he brought him back to consciousness, and at the end of another half hour Jimmy was well enough to be taken to his home. He was very weak, and two large boys walked beside him, supporting him by the arms, while all the others followed in a half-mournful, half-joyful procession.

"I wonder if Jimmy's father will lick him for being drowned," said Tom Kennedy.

CHAPTER III.

Winter came to Montpelier, and with it frost, snow, and a new school year.

The first snowfall was in the night, and by noon of the next day it was soft enough to pack, presenting an opportunity for fun such as American boys never forego. Big or little, studious or indolent, every one of those whose acquaintance we have made in the preceding pages, together with many of their schoolmates whom we have not named, took up handfuls of the cold, white substance, fashioned them into balls, and tried his skill at throwing. It is the Yankee form of carnival, and woe to him who fails to take the pelting good-naturedly.

That day the fun was thickest at the orchard near the schoolhouse. Half a dozen boys, partly sheltered by the low stone wall, were considered to be in a fort which a dozen others were attacking. At first it was every man for himself, "load and fire at will," but as the contest grew hotter (if that term will do for a snow battle) it was necessary to organize the work a little. So the smaller boys were directed to give their attention entirely to the making of balls, which the larger ones threw with more accuracy and force. One boy, having a notion to vary the game with an experiment, rolled up a ball twice as large as his head, managed to creep up to the wall with it, and then threw it up into the air so that it came down inside the fort. When it came down it landed on the head and shoulders of Teddy Hawkins, broke into a beautiful shower, and for a moment almost buried him out of sight. This feat of military skill received its appropriate applause, but the author of it had to pay the cost. Before he could get back to his own lines he was a target for every marksman in the fort, and at least half a dozen balls hit him, at all of which he laughed—with the exception of the one that broke on his neck and dropped its fragments inside his collar.

When there was a lull in the contest a boy looked over the wall and hailed the besiegers with:

"Boys, see who's coming up the road!"

A tall man who carried a book under his arm and apparently was in deep thought was approaching. This was Pangborn, the schoolmaster, fresh from college, still a hard student, and assumed by the boys to be their natural enemy from the simple fact that he had come there to be their teacher.

When he appeared at this interesting moment there was no need of any formal proclamation of truce between the contending forces. The instinct of the country schoolboy suggested the same thought probably to every one, whether besieger or besieged. The word passed along, "Make a lot of them, quick! and make them hard."

The little fellows whose hands were red and stinging with cold worked with double energy, and the larger ones ceased throwing at one another, stepped back to places where they were not so likely to be seen from the road, and by common consent formed an ambush for the unsuspecting teacher.

When he came within range a ball thrown by George Dewey, which knocked off his cap, was the signal for a general attack, and the next minute he thought himself in the center of a hailstorm, the hailstones being as large as country newspapers ever represent them. After the first sensation of bewilderment, he realized the situation, and being a man of quick wit, with some experience of boys, he saw what was the one proper thing to do.

Coolly laying down his book on his cap