It was after lunch on a sleepy afternoon, and Laura, Wesley, Amanda, and the other students were reading quietly while struggling to stay awake. Wesley yawned as he turned a page, then noticed an unusual smoky smell. His eyes met Laura's, and he knew that she could smell it too.

Willie Oleson, who had just been to the outhouse, suddenly dashed in.

"Smoke is coming from the back of the building!" he cried.

Instantly the classroom came to life. Miss Wilder and the older students rushed to get the younger ones out as quickly as possible, while trying to calm their fears.

Once everyone was outside, students scattered in all directions in search of buckets to hold water from the well behind the schoolhouse.

"Where's Amanda?" Wesley suddenly realized that she was nowhere to be found. In a panic, he rushed back to the burning schoolhouse and peered into a window, where he saw a still form lying on the floor inside. With a jolt of horror, he realized that the form was Amanda. She must have tripped and hit her head on something in the mad dash to escape the blaze.

"Amanda!" he screamed, dashing for the door.

"No, Wesley! You'll die if you go in there!" cried several onlookers. They tried to hold him back, but with superhuman strength he shook them off.

He ripped his shirt off and wrapped it tightly around his lower face to avoid inhaling the poisonous vapors. Then he sprinted through the door to where she lay, carefully gathered her limp body into his arms, and carried her back out.

As soon as they were safely outside the range of the flames, Wesley gently laid Amanda on the grass. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and she wasn't breathing.

"Oh, my God! She's dead!" Miss Wilder's body was wracked with sobs.

Wesley placed his mouth over Amanda's and gently exhaled several times. Amanda gasped and coughed, and her eyes fluttered open.

"Oh, thank God!" Miss Wilder clasped her little sister in a tight embrace. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she looked at Wesley. "She was dead, and you brought her back! You're an angel from heaven!"

"Hardly." Wesley chuckled. "She was unconscious, not dead. I just gave her some of my breath to help her to wake up again."

"What you did was a miracle," Miss Wilder went on. "Reverend Alden will definitely hear from me about this."

"What I did is called mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It's what you do to get someone's respiratory system working again when something like this happens." Wesley's heart was suddenly filled with compassion for these inhabitants of the nineteenth century.

Amanda sat up and rubbed her eyes. "What happened?"

"There was a fire," Wesley explained. "You bumped your head and fell down. I picked you up and brought you to safety."

Amanda began to cry. "Oh, Wesley, you saved my life."

Wesley grinned shyly. "Oh, Amanda, I'm just so glad you're all right." He gently took her hand in his own.

Amanda looked into his eyes. "I love you, Wesley," she said, as tears streamed down her face.

"I love you too, Amanda." He kissed her lips tenderly, and when he looked into her eyes again, he saw that they were shining with joy.