Fred built a roaring fire in the stove, filled the woodbox, and then, not stopping to dry his gloves—to say nothing of his shoes, which were soaked through—he set off to the barn to bring the rest back with him.
While he was gone, Polly first made some tea and boiled an egg for their kind hostess. Then she set the table at the old woman’s directions, told her who they were and explained about the Riddle Club and that Fred was not her brother. She cut the bread and scrambled the eggs, and when Fred and the others returned they found a cheerful picture awaiting them—a warm kitchen and a table set with six bowls of milk and a mound of bread already buttered, not to mention a pan of baked beans, the reddest of red currant jam, and the yellowest of golden eggs sizzling in a pan on the stove.
“Take off your wet things,” ordered the old woman. “I guess I have enough bedroom slippers to go round. I have ten nieces, and every blessed one of them has, at some time or other, knit me a pair of bedroom slippers. They don’t seem to think I wear anything else.”
The girls and boys laughed, but when they had taken off their heavy, wet shoes, the red and pink and blue and purple wool knitted slippers felt very cozy and warm to their tired feet. Their gloves and mittens were hung on a line behind the stove and the shoes arranged in a row on the hearth, and then they sat down to enjoy their belated supper.
“I suppose your folks will be worried to death about you, but we can’t help it,” said the old woman. Her name, she told them, was Mrs. Wicks. “There’s a telephone in a house about half a mile away, but a storm like this always breaks down the wires, even if you were fit to go out again to-night, which you’re not. I never saw a storm come up quicker than this one did, and it’s lucky for me you came along. I haven’t a fancy to have a rheumatic attack and no wood for a fire in the house.”
Artie and Ward went to sleep at the table, and that brought up the question of where they were to sleep.
“I’ve got two bedrooms, besides mine,” said Mrs. Wicks. “But they haven’t been used this winter. I’m afraid they’re damp.”
“That will be all right,” said Polly, politely.
“No, it won’t be all right,” declared Mrs. Wicks, with vigor. “I don’t aim to have you take cold, sleeping in damp sheets. I can’t get the things out, but you go in and bring the sheets and blankets off those two beds and hang ’em on chairs before the fire; that will dry them. You can put the two little fellows on my bed till theirs is ready.”
But neither Polly nor Fred would hear to this, so Artie and Ward were finally shaken awake and set to work carrying out blankets while the girls washed the dishes. Mrs. Wicks had had a nap before their arrival, and she was enjoying herself, but Polly and Margy confided to each other that never, never, never had they been half so tired and sleepy.