.

On Friday afternoon everything was ready as usual. I rang off at four
o'clock and stepped into the hall. And right there the first thing went
wrong.

Never before had I been delayed in my start. But now there stood
three men in the hall, prominent citizens of the town. I had handed
my resignation to the school-board; these men came to ask me that I
reconsider. The board, so I had heard, was going to accept my decision
and let it go at that. According to this committee the board did not
represent the majority of the citizens in town. They argued for some
time against my stubbornness. At last, fretting under the delay, I put
it bluntly. "I have nothing to reconsider, gentlemen. The matter does
no longer rest with me. If, as I hear, the board is going to accept my
resignation, that settles the affair for me. It must of necessity suit
me or I should not have resigned. But you might see the board. Maybe
they are making a mistake. In fact, I think so. That is not my business,
however." And I went.

The time was short enough in any case; this cut it shorter. It was five
o'clock before I swung out on the western road. I counted on moonlight,
though, the fickle luminary being in its first quarter. But there were
clouds in the north and the weather was by no means settled. As for
my lights, they were useless for driving so long as the ground was
completely buried under its sheet of snow. On the snow there form no
shadows by which you can recognize the trail in a light that comes from
between the two tracks. So I hurried along.

We had not yet made the first three miles, skirting meanwhile the river,
when the first disaster came. I noticed a rather formidable drift on the
road straight ahead. I thought I saw a trail leading up over it--I found
later on that it was a snowshoe trail. I drove briskly up to its very
edge; then the horses fell into a walk. In a gingerly kind of way we
started to climb. And suddenly the world seemed to fall to pieces. The
horses disappeared in the snow, the cutter settled down, there was a
sharp snap, I fell back--the lines had broken. With lightning quickness
I reached over the dashboard down to the whiffletrees and unhooked one
each of the horses' traces. That would release the others, too, should
they plunge. For the moment I did not know what they were doing. There
was a cloud of dust dry snow which hid them. Then Peter emerged. I saw
with horror that he stood on Dan who was lying on his side