In Winter Quarters 



himself to the deserved ridicule of 

 every one of his boon companions. 

 More than that, he was not conscious 

 as yet of any particular desire to walk 

 by this girl's side. She was a year or 

 two his senior, red-cheeked, vivacious, 

 popular. Under ordinary circum- 

 stances he would have raced straight- 

 away of course, with his accustomed 

 playmates, but such was the sobering 

 influence of the storm which for some 

 years afterwards was referred to as the 

 worst within the memory of the oldest 

 inhabitant that for the first time in 

 his life he felt a strange new fear that 

 danger lurked in that blinding frigid 

 gale and the pathless ways for this one 

 girl. It did not occur to him that any 

 other girl in the whole school stood in 

 need of such little aid as he might 

 render, and, notwithstanding the fact 

 that he had an armful of his own im- 

 pedimenta to manage, with an assur- 

 ance hitherto entirely foreign to his 

 nature, he insisted upon adding to 

 [72] 



