The Siwash was late comin’ back with the mail over the Chillowisp. Snow must have been three foot deep in the mountains, and it lay for quite a while in the valley, so we thought Kultus Jake and Frisco Baldy had waited too late and would lose their chance to get to their trappin’. They did lose it, too, but not exactly that way--but I’ll come to that point when I get there. Snow druv school indoors. Miss Carey she had to quit the tent--and sure enough it turned out like I told y’u. Edmund’s sittin’-room was filled up with Texan kids--Edmund’s private room, which he had so nicely fixed up with all his college things: mugs, flags, an oar, pictures of his friends, a whole heap of stuff. It had to be used for the school, bein’ the only possible place, or school had to stop till spring come round and the tent could serve again. Well, Edmund wasn’t willin’ to cut off the hope of the empire of the Northwest for five whole months. Of course they wasn’t there Saturdays and Sundays, or at night, or at hours when he really needed his room--he was in the store durin’ school-time--but every day, after the kids had gone home, poor Edmund he had to open all the windows of his pet room. He caught Miss Carey sweepin’ it of their leavin’s and scolded her savage for that. Insisted on sweepin’ it himself. Would have his way. My sakes, but he was a cross man every day while he was sweepin’! Then the kids they bruck one or two of his souvenirs, touchin’ and meddlin’ with them, and Miss Carey was wild. Edmund didn’t mind half as much. She spoke to me as we was takin’ a ride together one Sunday, when the snow had melted most off again. Guess it was early in December. She wanted her folks back in Orange, New Jersey, to buy new things and send ’em out. She was earnest about it. She was a nice-lookin’ girl. I remember that ride. Tamaracks was all yello’ and sheddin’, makin’ yello’ patches on the snow with their needles, but the pines was that green they was black a little ways off, and the wind smelt of ’em strong. “I wanted particularly to replace the glass decanter,” she says, “but it only made him rude to me. I had to tell him it was a very strange thing that the only gentleman in the valley should be the one person who had been rude.” “Goodness to gracious!” I shouts out, “what did he say?” “That I was the only lady in the valley, and that explained it.” “Well,” I says, “he’s never apologized as handsome as that to me.” So we both laughs. “But,” she says just before we got home, “he ought not to tease those poor old men.” “Well, he’s not done it lately--not in my hearin’,” I says.