hour more."

The thirty young faces that looked up into his grew very solemn, too.

Then their teacher smiled and said: "But instead of keeping you in, this
time, I will keep you out. I give every boy in the room permission to
stay one hour after school and play in the snow."

Thirty happy small boys went bounding out into the white school yard.

While they were building a snow fort and storming it with cannon-balls
of snow, their teacher wrote their "excuses"--one to be carried by each
boy when he went home from school an hour late.

When the joyous hour was over, Mr. Newman rang the bell and the boys
came up to the schoolhouse and were given their excuses. They thought it
very funny to be kept "out" an hour after school, instead of being kept
"in," and to carry an excuse home instead of to school.

"We will have poor lessons every day, if you will punish us this way,
Mr. Newman," said one of the biggest boys.

"This kind of punishment is given only when a six-inch snow covers the
school yard at Hamlet," said the teacher.

The boys all went happily home with cold noses and fingers and toes, but
warm hearts for their teacher, whom they were beginning to think was the
greatest man they knew.

"I tell you I'm going to be up on that geography and grammar to-morrow,"