It was Billy who gathered the last bunch of bluebells. He found them one November morning, their brave, delicate beauty all that remained of unforgotten blooms. The next day it was winter.

The boy welcomed the whirling snow, but when the ice began forming all along the beach, his delight was unbounded. He couldn't pity the poor sailors as Betty advised; Billy envied them. The last trip of the season, like the first perilous voyage in the spring, seemed brimming with possibilities of adventure.

Morning after morning, Billy ran to the window before he was dressed to see the waves tossing the broken ice in ridges farther and farther from the shore. How he longed to try the stretches of clear ice between the ridges! How he longed to go where the waves were dashing against the crystal wall! He wondered how much higher than his head the spray leaped toward the sun before it fell in sparkling showers all along the southern shore as far as the child could see.

In the meantime the last light-ship had gone into winter quarters, the last buoy had been taken away, and even Billy understood that navigating the straits was a perilous undertaking. Whenever a boat whistled to be reported, the whole family ran to the window to see it pass, while the fog-horn sounded a farewell, and Billy's father dipped the stars and stripes in parting salute, to which the boat made answer.

One steam-barge, the Wallula, was long unaccounted for. She was the last of the season, as Billy knew. He and Betty watched almost as anxiously as their father for the belated boat. One afternoon there came a blinding snow-storm, and for the first time Billy agreed with Betty in pitying the poor sailors, especially those on the Wallula.

"Just think of being out in such a storm, with the light-ships all gone and the buoys all taken away!" said the little girl. "I don't see how a boat could help going on the shoals. Don't you ever be a sailor, Billy, will you?"

"No," replied Billy, "of course not; I'll be the captain."

A wonderful sight greeted Billy the following day. As usual he was up early, and through the east window in the sitting-room he saw the Wallula frozen fast in the ice not far from shore.

"Oh, mamma! mamma!" he called. "Here's the big red sun coming right out of the red, red clouds, and it's shining on the Wallula. And the icicles! Oh, mamma! Betty! Come and see the icicles shining on all the ropes. Oh, I must get out there quick."

As Billy dressed, the sun was swallowed by a cloud so big, so black, its shadow dimmed the joy shining in his face.

"Why, mamma!" he shouted, "what a 'normous cloud, and it's spreading over all the sky. I never saw anything happen so quick before. Did you ever see such a cloud! It was so heavy it had to go and fall down over all the sunshine."

"No wonder!" exclaimed Betty, "I should think it would! Look there!"

"Where? What?"

"Why, Billy, don't you see? There is Antoine LeBrinn down on the beach with Samone in his arms, and I know the poor little thing hasn't on half enough clothes to keep her warm. I don't care how soon they take her away from him, so there!"

"Why, Betty!"

"I don't care, Billy. I'm beginning to feel just the way the rest of the folks do about that old Antoine. Papa says he don't stick to any kind of work, and his family are too poor for anything!"

"I'm going to tell him," Billy threatened; "you see if I don't."

Late in the morning half the village gathered to watch the tug from Cheboygan release the Wallula and tow her into safe water. Then Billy saw more than one man frown, as he noticed the thinly clad child shivering in the Frenchman's arms. From that time he determined to compel Betty to tell Antoine he must stop drinking. At first Betty refused, but finally a new idea came into her mind.

"Tell you what we might do, Billy," she said, "we might get up a pledge for him to sign his name to."

"What's a pledge?"

"Oh, it's something you sign," and Betty, offering no further explanation, wrote her pledge. Having never seen a temperance pledge, this was not an easy thing to do. Betty tried many times, and destroyed nearly all her best tablet before she decided upon the correct form. All this scribbling she did in the presence of the impatient Billy.

"Now read it," he begged, when Betty folded several sheets of paper instead of destroying them.

"I am afraid you won't understand it, Billy," she said, doubtfully, "but it means, 'I won't drink any more whiskey and things.' Now listen, Billy; I'd like to hear how it sounds myself: 'When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to touch not, taste not, handle not, look not upon the wine when it is red, give me liberty or give me death before I ever touch another drop.'"

"Oh, Betty, that's good; course I understand it. Why, it sounds just like the Fourth of July last year!"

"There now, Billy, I shall have to read it all over again if I find out how it sounds, because that's only the short beginning."

"Why, Betty, but that's enough! If he signs that and promises that he won't drink another drop, why, why, that's the place to stop, Betty."

"I don't know but you're right, Billy, but lawyers put in lots of words they don't need when they write things, and they never stop when they get through. You see, I haven't read you the 'whereas' and 'now therefore' part. I wanted this pledge to sound as if a lawyer made it. You see, Billy, I know, because I read everything."

"I don't care," Billy maintained, "you might get him mixed."

"That's so," admitted Betty.

"And then, too, Bet, why don't you say 'before I drink another drop—of whiskey,' in big capital letters."

"Oh, never, Billy, that would hurt Antoine's feelings. We mustn't even hint about getting drunk and such things, but I will do as you say about having a short pledge, and we'll trim it with pictures."

"Make pictures of bottles and things, Betty."

"Oh, stop, Billy, I should say not! Birds and flowers will be better, and won't hurt Antoine's feelings. Don't you understand? Then we'll tie a red ribbon on it."

It so happened that Billy's mother, not sharing the children's secret, wouldn't allow them to visit the Frenchman's home, and it was not until the ice stretched from shore to shore, and Antoine began his winter fishing, that their opportunity came. After school one night, they visited his fish shanty on the frozen straits.

"Come in," said Antoine, in response to Betty's knock, "come in."

"Oh, my, what a tiny place!" exclaimed Betty, "and how warm it is! too warm! Oh, my!"

"Smells fishy and tarry," added Billy, holding his nose.

"Hush!" warned Betty, fearing Antoine might be offended.

"Warm!" repeated the man, laughing heartily; "the preacher she was here, and I ain't want it to stay, so I make it warm, and she ain't stay long."

"Why did the minister come to see you?" asked Betty.

"Did he come out here to have you tell him fish stories?" Billy inquired.

Again Antoine laughed. "No, Beely, the preacher she come out here and bring one temperance pledge. She say to me, 'Antoine, I'm fisherman, too. I'm ask you to sign your name on this one paper.' I'm tell that preacher she make a mistake, and I'm put one, two, three stick of wood on the stove, and it get too warm pretty quick. The preacher she go home, and ole Antoine she sign no pledge so long she live, I tole you that right now."

Betty looked discouraged, but Billy grinned as he knelt to peer through the hole in the ice. Both children knew better than to speak of their pledge.

With utmost patience Antoine explained to his visitors all he knew about fishing through the ice.

"What you think is on the end of that line, Beely, that go into the water there?"

"Minnows?"

"Oh, no, Beely, no minnow on the winter. On the end that line is one decoy fish. She's heavy and weighted with lead. We let it down on the deep water. Then, when we see a fish come after it, we wind the line with one windlass."

"Can't you pull in the line?" asked Betty.

"No, Betty, no, you pull the line, you jerk the decoy fish, and that won't do. Beely, you turn the crank there and wind the line over the reel. Now, Betty, kneel on the edge of the opening on the floor and look down on the water. Can you see one decoy fish?"

"Yes, just as plain as anything."

"Now you, Beely, turn the crank."

"Oh, oh!" cried Betty. "Up comes the little fish, straight, straight up, just as natural as if it was alive."

"Now let me see," besought the small boy. "You come, Betty, and turn the crank."

"Here, Beely," said Antoine, "you and Betty can both look on the same time if you squeeze beside her. Fish shanty ain't big like the town hall?"

"Well, I should say not," admitted Billy. "Why, isn't it nice, Antoine? You can sit right still on your box and reach all the walls, can't you? Oh, that's the way you do it? When you see a fish coming, you just keep watching him, and then you reach over and turn the crank and wind up the line, and then the pretend fish comes up higher and higher. But then, I don't see how you spear the real fish."

"Well, Betty and Beely, I will show you. You see the decoy fish she come quiet through the water when we bring it up with a windlass. If we brought it up with one jerk, our trout would be scare away. Fish no fool, I tole you that. When my fish come to the top of the water, so I'm sure of my aim, I send my spear after him."

"But I should think you would lose the spear," said Billy. "My, it's heavy!"

Antoine pointed to the rope which tied the spear to a ring fastened in the roof.

"Wish a fish would come along now," said Billy, still gazing into the depths beneath.

"We make too much noise, Beely. Betty, you be little squaw and Beely be Indian, and we'll keep still like the Indian and then I'll show you one fish. I'm fix the spear so she's all ready, and now watch. Don't whisper."

Silently the three peered through the hole in the ice. Betty wished that her heart wouldn't beat so loud; she feared the fish must hear its thumping. Several times Billy was compelled to stifle deep sighs, warned by a look from Antoine. Poor Billy! His knees ached and his back ached, and it is no wonder the active child kept thinking that he couldn't endure such a cramped position another moment. It seemed ages to Betty also before she raised her face with a pleased smile to the fisherman and exchanged a glance with the radiant Billy.

There was a big fish coming straight toward the decoy. The children had a fine chance to see exactly how a fish swims. Billy held his breath, as the line was slowly wound over the reel and the decoy came nearer and nearer the surface. They could see the bright eyes and the glistening fins of the fish that came after it.

Just as Antoine reached for his spear, Betty sneezed. Quick as a flash the fish darted to the bottom of the straits; but it moved no quicker than Antoine, who motioned for silence. Betty longed to explain that she couldn't help sneezing, while Billy could scarcely be restrained from venting his wrath. Under the circumstances, he gave Betty an angry glance, and ventured to wiggle the least bit before settling himself for another time of breathless waiting. As for Betty, she could just manage to keep the tears back, and, when the fish slowly rose from the bottom of the lake, she didn't see him so clearly as Billy and the fisherman did.

That time Antoine speared the fish. Billy not only saw him do it, but helped pull a big trout through the hole in the ice, and soon he and Betty were taking turns carrying the treasure home.

"Dear me," said Betty at last, "I'll never dare say 'pledge' to him again."

"I should say not," echoed Billy.

Upon reaching home, Betty was much distressed when she discovered that her pledge was lost. "Somebody'll find it, Billy, and tell everybody in town, and then won't we catch it? Everybody'll be making fun of us."

Billy tried to be consoling. "They won't know who wrote it, Betty."

"Oh, that's the worst of it, Billy. I put my name and your name and the date and everything on that paper, and I said it was for Mrs. LeBrinn's Christmas present! Oh, dear!"

At that very moment, Antoine, alone in his shanty, was reading Betty's pledge. A curious smile came and went as he read the slip of paper. When the last gleam of sunlight faded in the west, he locked his shanty and walked to the village with his load of fish.

The following morning little 'Phonse LeBrinn came late to school. His pinched face looked sad and care-worn.

"Old Antoine was drunk again last night," some one whispered across the aisle. "He sold his fish before he went home, and spent every cent at the saloons."

Billy heard the whisper, and, passing 'Phonse on his way to class, he left a piece of candy on his desk. It was all he had to offer.