"I tell _you_ I don't want to go through with that again! I'll take a
licking first! He says things that count! You see, 'Wheels' has been a
boy himself, and he hasn't forgotten it; and that--that makes a
difference somehow!"

Yes, that disrespectful lad said "Wheels!" I have no excuse to offer for
him; I only relate the incident as it occurred.

The buildings, many of them a hundred years old, are with one exception
of warm-hued red brick. The gymnasium is built of red sandstone. Ivy has
almost entirely hidden the walls of the academy building and of Masters
Hall. The grounds are given over to well-kept sod, and the massive elms
throw a tapestry of grateful shade in summer, and in winter hold the
snow upon their great limbs and transform the Green into a fairyland of
white. From the cluster of buildings the land slopes away southward, and
along the river bluff a footpath winds past the Society House, past the
boathouse steps, down to the campus. The path is bordered by firs, and
here and there a stunted maple bends and nods to the passing skiffs.

Opposite the boat house, a modest bit of architecture, lies Long Isle,
just where the river seemingly pauses for a deep breath after its bold
sweep around the promontory crowned by the Academy Buildings. Here and
there along the path are little wooden benches to tempt the passer to
rest and view from their hospitable seats the grand panorama of gently
flowing river, of broad marsh and meadow beyond, of tiny villages
dotting the distances, and of the purple wall of haze marking the line
of the distant mountains.

Opposite Long Isle, a wonderful fairyland inaccessible to the scholars