"My children," he said, "to use the name of the great God solemnly and earnestly for a great and noble purpose is not to 'swear.' Swearing is taking God's holy name in vain, in a trifling way, for a trivial purpose--a thing which our great and good general never did. But this story I would rather you would never repeat. It might not be understood." "Certainly," said Bill, with proud gravity; "common boys wouldn't understand--and, Dolly, don't _you_ tell." "Of course I shouldn't," said Dolly. "I never shall tell even Nabby, nor Bessie, nor anybody." And afterwards, in the family circle, when General Washington was spoken of, the children looked on one another with grave importance, as the trusted depositaries of a state secret. CHAPTER XIV. THE PUZZLE OF POGANUC. Notwithstanding the apparition of the blue-bird and the sanguine hopes of the boys, the winter yet refused to quit the field. Where these early blue-birds go to, that come to cheer desponding hearts in arctic regions like Poganuc, is more than one can say. Birds' wings are wonderful little affairs, and may carry them many hundred southward miles in a day. Dolly, however, had her own theory about it, and that was that the bird went right up into heaven, and there waited till all the snow-storms were over. Certain it was that the Poganuc people, after two promising days of thaw, did not fall short of that "six weeks' sledding in March" which has come to be proverbial. The thaw, which had dripped from icicles and melted from snow-banks, froze stiffer than ever, and then there came a two days' snow-storm--good, big, honest snow-feathers, that fell and fell all day and all night, till all the houses wore great white night-caps, the paths in front of all the house-doors had to be shoveled out again, and the farmers with their sleds turned out to break roads. The Doctor was planning a tour in his sleigh to fulfill his monthly round of visiting the schools. Schools there always were in every district, from the time the first log school-house had been erected in the forests, down to the days when, as now, the school-house is a comfortable, well-furnished building.