were wide cracks
toward the shore, and they had to wait for these to close. They were an
hour making the trip, and just before they reached the bank they came
to a broad space of water. The ice was lifting and falling and crunching
all around them. They waited as long as they dared and decided to leap
from cake to cake. Sam made the crossing without accident, but his
companion slipped in when a few feet from shore. He was a good swimmer
and landed safely, but the bath probably cost him his hearing. He was
taken very ill. One disease followed another, ending with scarlet fever
and deafness.

There was also entertainment in the office itself. A country boy named
Jim Wolfe had come to learn the trade--a green, good-natured, bashful
boy. In every trade tricks are played on the new apprentice, and Sam
felt that it was his turn to play them. With John Briggs to help him,
tortures for Jim Wolfe were invented and applied.

They taught him to paddle a canoe, and upset him. They took him sniping
at night and left him "holding the bag" in the old traditional fashion
while they slipped off home and went to bed.

But Jim Wolfe's masterpiece of entertainment was one which he undertook
on his own account. Pamela was having a candy-pull down-stairs one
night--a grown-up candy-pull to which the boys were not expected. Jim
would not have gone, anyway, for he was bashful beyond belief, and
always dumb, and even pale with fear, in the presence of pretty Pamela
Clemens. Up in their room the boys could hear the merriment from below
and could look out in the moonlight on the snowy sloping roof that began
just beneath their window. Down at the eaves was the small arbor, green
in summer, but covered now with dead vines and snow. They could hear the
candymakers come out, now and then, doubtless setting out pans of candy
to cool. By and by the whole party seemed to come out into the little
arbor, to try the candy, perhaps the joking and laughter came plainly
to the boys up-stairs. About this time there appeared on the roof from
somewhere two disreputable cats, who set up a most disturbing duel
of charge and recrimination. Jim detested the noise, and perhaps was
gallant enough to think it would disturb the party. He had nothing to
throw at them, but he said:

"For two cents I'd get out there and knock their heads off."

"You wouldn't dare to do it," Sam said, purringly.

This was wormwood to Jim. He was really a brave spirit.

"I would to