The days had now followed one another until the regular time for “opening the Academy” was close at hand, and nearly all things were in readiness. “Bar,” said Brayton, that night, after another tug at the Greek, “you and I can fix the rope on the bell to-morrow evening, can’t we, without calling in anybody else?” “Val and I can do it in ten minutes without troubling you at all,” replied Bar. “If you’ll give us the key in the morning we’ll attend to it right after breakfast.” There was nothing dull about George Brayton, but he seemed to fall into Bar’s proposition as easily as Gershom Todderley had fallen into the mill-pond. He must have had a good deal on his mind, indeed. “Anyhow,” said Val, as they were getting ready for bed, “we must take Zeb Fuller along. It’s only fair after what he did the other night.” “All right,” said Bar. “School begins next day after, and we must have Zeb pull with us or we’ll lose half the fun of the term.” There was no difficulty in the morning in securing Zeb’s company. The only trouble was in avoiding the additional presence of half the boys in the village. The first consequence was that Zebedee had a good look at Bar Vernon’s invention, for which he had been aching, and the second was, that the rope was rigged over the big wheel for ordinary “ringing” purposes, without any special disturbance of the extraordinary “tolling gear.” The latter had to be unhitched, indeed, but was left all ready for use at any time when a high west wind should conspire with other favoring circumstances. “I can hardly understand, even now,” remarked Zeb, as they were coming out of the Academy, “how it was that Brayton failed to discover that thing at the time, or else to hunt it out afterwards. Depend upon it, boys, there’s something the matter with George.” He scarcely had the words out of his mouth before their path was crossed by the very hasty feet of Effie Dryer, though where she could be going was not so clear as Zeb thought it ought to be even to him. One brief glance and a nod was all the notice she gave them, but in so doing she turned her face full upon them for a moment, and Zeb immediately turned to his friends with: “Do you see that, boys? Euphemia’s been crying. That stepmother of hers! Or can it be old Sol himself has been cutting up? It’s a very distressing case.” “Why so?” asked Bar. “Why?” said Zeb. “Well, because that young woman has no proper knowledge of the art of crying. The only thing she understands well is laughing. I declare, if old Sol and his wife are going to put that kind of work upon Euphemia!” And Zebedee looked as if it might indeed turn out badly for Solomon in such a case. The rest of the day was so full of preparations for “school-opening” that there was really no chance for anything else, and the Ogleport boys were pretty generally on their good behavior.