HEN the thermometer on the north side of School Hall registers four degrees below zero at noon it means cold weather; and that is just what the thermometer did on Saturday. In sheltered angles where the sun shone it was not so bad, but on the way across the campus, where the wind blew unobstructed, fellows in knickerbockers moved rapidly, Jack Frost in pursuit and pinching their calves sharply. By half past three, what time the hockey game with Cedar Grove School was scheduled to commence, the mercury had dropped another point and the audience about the rink consisted of exactly six boys, among them Dick and Sid Welch, and one girl. Of course the girl was Harry. I doubt if there was another girl for miles up or down the river who would have braved the cold that afternoon for the sake of sport and patriotism.
The rink is some three hundred yards down the shore from the boat-house. Years before a ferry plied between this point and the opposite town of Coleville, but with the completion of the new bridge below Silver Cove the enterprise, like many similar ones in the vicinity, had ceased to be profitable. Ultimately the boat had disappeared and only the ferry house and landing remained. But that was last year; now even those were gone, the lumber—such of it as was fit for the purpose—having been used in the construction of the barrier around the rink. Many of the old joists and planks, however, were too rotten to hold nails and these had been left piled up on the beach. Sid, struck by a brilliant idea, had looted the pile, and by the time the game had begun a big bonfire was blazing merrily. The handful of spectators divided their attention between the fire and the contest until the first half was over, with the score three goals for Ferry Hill and one for Cedar Grove. Then every one, players, spectators, substitutes, and referee—who was Chub—gathered as near the flames as safety permitted and alternately turned faces and backs to the warmth.
“You’re a wonder, Sid,” declared Roy. “If I had half your brain—!” He shook his head eloquently, at a loss for words.
“Oh, Sid’s a great fellow for scheming how to be comfortable,” said Billy Warren, who played right center for Ferry Hill. “Did you ever hear about the contrivance he rigged up on his bed the first year he was here?”
Every one replied that he had, except Harry; and Harry demanded to be told.
“Well,” said Warren, “Sid used to go to sleep with two blankets over him and the comforter over the foot of the bed, you know. Then along toward morning it would get cold and Sid would want the comforter, but he was too sleepy to reach down and get it.”
“That’s right,” interrupted Chub, whose bed was next to Sid’s in the Junior Dormitory. “I used to find him all curled up in a ball in the morning with his teeth chattering like—like—”
“I didn’t!” declared Sid.
“Shut up, Sid, you know you did,” said Warren. “Well, so what does Sid do but get a piece of clothes-line and tie an end to each corner of the comforter. Then when he woke up and found he was freezing to death all he had to do was to take hold of the rope and pull the comforter up. Oh, he’s a wonder, Sid is!”
“Just the same, it worked all right,” said Sid with a grin, as the laugh went around. “And I wish I had that comforter now.”
“I don’t see how you could get much more on,” said Dick, as he viewed Sid’s rotund appearance. “You look like a bale of sweaters now.”
“I’ve only got two on,” was the reply. “I was going to borrow Chub’s, but he went and wore it himself.”
“How dare you, Chub?” laughed Roy. “You ought to have more consideration for others.”
“Thunder!” replied Chub good-naturedly, “Sid would borrow everything I have if I’d let him. As it is he wears more of my things than his own. Last week I tried to find a pair of stockings and couldn’t; Sid had the whole lot in his locker.”
“They had holes in them,” answered Sid gravely.
“They certainly had when you got through with them,” laughed Chub. “Come on, fellows; time’s up.”