"You'd better believe! I've been here five years, and we've never missed one yet. Do you remember the night last winter, when we all went sleighing and came home at eleven o'clock nearly frozen stiff, Bess? Whew! it was cold. When we got back we found Miss Preston making chocolate for us.

There she was in her bedroom robe and slippers. She had gotten out of bed to do it because she found out at the last minute that that fat old Mrs.

Schmidt had gone poking off to bed, and hadn't left a single thing for us."

"I guess I _do_ remember, and didn't it taste good?" was the feeling answer.

"You weren't here the year before," said Lou. "Sit still, my heart! Shall I ever forget it?"

"What about it? Tell us!" cried the girls in a chorus.

"That was the first year Mrs. Schmidt was here, and, thank goodness, she isn't here any longer, and she hadn't learned as much as she learned afterwards. My goodness, wasn't she stingy? She thought one egg ought to be enough for six girls, I believe. It took Miss Preston about a year to get her to understand that we were not to be kept on half rations. Well, that night we were expecting something extra fine. We got it!" and Lou stopped to laugh at the recollection. "We rushed into the house, hungrier than wolves, and ready to empty the pantry, and what do you think we found? A lot of _after-dinner coffee cups_ of very weak cocoa, with _nary_ saucer to set them in, and two small crackers apiece. 'I was thinking you would come in hungry, young ladies, so I make you some chocolate. You don't mind that I have not some saucers, it make so many dishes for washing,' she said, smiling that pudgy smile of hers. Ugh! I can't bear to think of it even to this day, and she was ten million times better before she left last spring. That was the reason Miss Preston took matters into her own hands the next time, I guess."

Just then a tap came at the door, and Miss Preston put her head in to ask:

"Can you girls do extra hard work between this and eight o'clock?"

Had she entertained any doubts of their ability to individually do the work of three, the shout which answered her in the affirmative would have banished them forever, for the girls were not slow to guess that some surprise was afoot.

"Very well, I'll trust you all to prepare tomorrow's lessons without exchanging an unnecessary word, and at eight o'clock I'll ring my bell, and then you must all put on extra warm wraps and go out on the piazza to--look at the moon. I shall not expect you to come in till ten-thirty."

As the last word was uttered Miss Preston met her doom, for five girls pounced upon her, bore her to the couch and hugged her till she cried for mercy.

"Come with us, oh! come with us," they cried. "It will be twice as nice if you'll come!"

"Come _where_? Do you suppose I've lived all these years and never seen the _moon_?" and laughing merrily she slipped away from them, only pausing to add: "It is ten minutes of seven now."

The hint was enough, and not a girl "got left" that night.

At eight o'clock a silvery ting-a-ling was heard, and never was bell more promptly responded to. Had it been a fire alarm the rooms could not have been more quickly emptied.

The moonlight made all outside nearly as bright as day, and when the girls went out upon the porch they found three huge sleighs, with four horses each, waiting to whirl them over the shining roads for miles. Miss Preston did not make one of the party, but Miss Howard was a welcome subst.i.tute, for, next to Miss Preston, the girls loved her better than any of the other teachers, and Toinette was sorely divided in her mind as to which she was learning to love the better.

Off they started, singing, laughing at nothing, calling merrily to all they overtook, or pa.s.sed, and sending the school yell, which Miss Howard had made up upon the spur of the moment for them,

"Hoo-rah-ray! Hoo-rah-ray!

Sunny Bank, Montcliff, U. S. A.,"

out upon the frosty air, until the very hills rang with the cry, and flung it back in merry echoes.

Miss Howard's sleigh led the van, and one or two of the girls had clambered up to ride upon the high front seat with the driver, a st.u.r.dy old Irishman, who would have driven twenty horses all night long to please any of Miss Preston's girls. Ruth sat beside him, with Toinette next to her, and Edith was squeezed against the outer edge. But who cares about being squeezed under such circ.u.mstances? It's more fun.

The snow had fallen so lightly that sometimes the runners cut through slightly; but, all things considered, the sleighing was very good. Still, the driver kept the horses well in hand, for they were good ones and ready to respond to a word. Moreover, the hilarity behind them seemed to have proved infectious, for every now and again a leader or a wheeler would prance about as though joining in the fun, and presently another animal became infected and wanted to prance, too. Had she not, the next chapter need not have been written.

CHAPTER XV

"PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL"

More than five miles had slipped away under those swiftly-moving runners ere Ruth was suddenly seized with a desire to emulate a famous charioteer of olden time, one "Phaeton, of whom the histories have sung, in every meter, and every tongue," if a certain poet may be relied upon. So, turning a beguiling face toward the unsuspecting Michael beside her, she said:

"You're a fine driver, aren't you, Michael?"

"'T is experience ivery man nades; I've had me own," observed Michael, complacently.

"It must be very hard to drive four horses at once."

"Anny one what kin droive two dacently should be able enough to handle four; 't is not the number of horses, but the sinse at the other ind av the reins."

"Is that so? I thought it needed a strong man to drive so many."

"Indade, no; it does not that. I've seen a schmall, little man, hardly bigger than yerself, takin' six along with the turn av his hand."

"Could he hold them if they started to go fast?"

"Certain as the woirld, he cud do that same. 'T was meself that taught him the thrick av it. 'T is easy larnt."

"Then teach me right now, will you?"

Poor Michael, he saw when it was too late that boasting is dangerous work, but to refuse anything to "wan av the young ladies" never for an instant occurred to him. Probably had he asked Miss Howard's consent he would have been spared complying with a request which his better judgment questioned, but that did not occur to him, either, so, giving one apprehensive glance behind him at the twenty or more pa.s.sengers in the sleigh, he placed the reins in Ruth's hands, adjusting them in the most scientific manner.

They were skimming along over a beautiful bit of road with a thick fir wood upon one side and open fields upon the other. The road was level as a floor, and no turn would be made for fully half a mile. Horses know so well the difference between their own driver's touch and a stranger's hand, and the four whose reins Ruth now held were not dullards. They had been going along at a steady round trot, with no thought of making the pace a livelier one, but directly the reins pa.s.sed out of Michael's hands the spirit of mischief, ever uppermost in Ruth, flew like an electric fluid straight through those four reins, and, in less time than it takes to tell about it, those horses had made up their minds to add a little to the general hilarity behind them.

The change was scarcely perceptible at first, but little by little they increased their pace, till they were fairly flying over the ground. Not one whit did the girls in the sleigh object; the faster the better for them. The sleighs behind did their best to keep up, but no such horses were in the livery stable as the four harnessed to Michael's sleigh, for Michael was the trusted of the trusted.

But he was growing very uneasy, and, leaning down close to Ruth, said: "Ye'd better be lettin' me take thim now, Miss. We've the turn to make jist beyant."

"O, I can make it all right; you know you said that anybody who drives two horses decently could drive four just as well, and I've driven papa's always."

"Yis, yis," said Michael quickly, seeing when too late that he had talked to his own undoing, "but ye'd better be lettin' me handle thim be moonlight; 't is deceptive, moonlight is," and he reached to take the reins from her. But alas! empires may be lost by a second's delay, and a second was responsible for much now.

As Michael reached for the reins the turn was reached also, and where is the livery stable horse that does not know every turn toward home even better than his driver, be the driver the oldest in that section of the country! Around whirled the leaders, and hard upon them came the wheelers, and a-lack-a-day! hard, _very_ hard, upon a huge stone at the corner came the runner of the front bob.

Had the whole sleighful been suddenly plunged into a hundred cubic feet of hydrogen gas, sound could not have ceased more abruptly for one second, and then there arose to the thousands of little laughing stars and their dignified mother, the moon, a howl which made the welkin ring.

Shall I attempt to describe what had happened in the drawing of a breath?

A bob runner was hopelessly wrecked; two horses were sitting upon their haunches, while two others were striving to prove to those who were not too much occupied with their own concerns to notice that, after all is said and done, the Lord _did_ intend that such animals should walk upon two legs if they saw fit to do so. Michael stood up to his middle in a snow-drift; Ruth sat as calmly upon a snow bank as though she preferred it to any other seat she had ever selected, albeit she was well-nigh smothered by the back and cushions of her novel resting-place; Toinette was dumped heels-over-head into the body of the sleigh, where she landed fairly and squarely in Miss Howard's lap; Edith hung on to the seat railing for dear life, and screamed as though the lives of all in the sleigh (or out of it) depended upon her summons for a.s.sistance. The sleigh had not upset, yet what kept it in a horizontal position must forever remain a mystery, and such a heap of scrambling, squirming, screaming girls as were piled up five or six deep in the bottom of it may never be seen again. Some had been dumped overboard outright, and were floundering about in the snow, which, happily, had saved them from serious harm. With the inborn chivalry of his race, Michael's first thoughts said: "Fly to the rescue of the demoiselles," but stern duty said: "Sthick to yer horses, Moik, or they'll smash things to smithereens, and, bedad, I sthuck wid all me moight, or the Lord only knows where we'd all have fetched up at that same night," he said, when relating his experiences some hours later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "STHICK TO YER HORSES, MOIK."]

When excitement was at its height the other sleighs arrived upon the scene, and if there had been an uproar before, there was a mighty cry abroad in the land now. But, dear me, it is all in a lifetime; so why leave these floundering mortals piled up in heaps any longer? They were unsnarled eventually, gotten upon their feet (or their neighbors'), packed like sardines into the two other sleighs, and, with six instead of four horses now drawing each, started homeward, none the worse for their spill, excepting a good shaking up, a few handfuls of snow merrily forming rills and rivulets down their necks, some badly battered hats and torn coats, and one of them, at least, with some wholesome lessons regarding handling four frisky horses when the air is frosty and a number of lives may depend upon keeping "top side go, la!"

CHAPTER XVI