nd to business, but soon
found it impossible. They were alone in the forest with unlimited
whitewash; and with Scotty inciting them to deeds of daring, how could
they resist? They started by enduring their leader's pranks, and ended
by embracing them, and when their morning's task was completed not even
McAllister's ghost, could it have appeared, would have recognised its
old haunts.

Yet no one could say the boys had not done their work, for they had
whitewashed the school with a thoroughness even Store Thompson's wife
would never have attempted. The only fault was the lack of
discrimination shown by the decorators. Some critics might have
considered the coating of the floor and the desks a work of
supererogation. But the boys were not stingy; they whitewashed
everything with an impartial and lavish generosity; the walls, the
ceiling, the blackboard, the furniture. Yes, even the stove and
stovepipes were rubbed until they fairly radiated whiteness, and stood
out spectrally in their pallid surroundings, like the ghost of some
departed heater. Scotty gave the new master's desk an extra coat, and
even polished up a stray book and dinner pail, unluckily left behind
the day before, just to have them in harmony with their environment.

When at last the work was finished and the three bespattered workmen
prepared to depart, Dan declared in an oratorical address delivered
from the top of the master's snowy desk, that they had nobly done their
duty, for had they not carried out the new master's instructions and
whitewashed the school?

And when they turned the white key in the white door and stole off in
three directions through the forest, bursting with mirth, they vowed
they had not experienced such a season of pure joy since the night
Gabby Johnny's waggon had arisen, like Charles's Wain, in the heavens!

X

IN THE REALMS OF GOLD

Not to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood
On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude
Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;
At every thought and deed to clear the haze
Out of our eyes, considering only this,
What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,
This is to live and win the final praise.
--ABCHIBALD LAMPMAN.

Upon his return home, Scotty went out behind the house to work off some
of his superfluous mirth upon the woodpile. He had flung aside his
coat and was swinging his axe vigorously,