“I’ll wait,” returned Mr. Meade. “Winter time we can wait and be neighborly, but, I declare, in the summer I don’t have a moment to spare to go to a wedding!”
He tied his horses and went back to the camp where Mrs. Williamson and the girls had breakfast ready. They insisted he must eat with them, and as he had had the first meal by lamp-light, he was able to eat a second breakfast comfortably.
“Mother packed us a lunch, so you don’t have to bother,” he told Mrs. Williamson, and, sure enough, there was a large basket under the seat of the sleigh.
What a trip that was—along snow-covered roads, the sleighbells ringing and the children singing in tune to the bells. They met few teams and they each took turns driving the steady pair of farm horses whose flying feet seemed to skim the white roadway.
“How awfully still it is!” said Margy, when they turned into the narrow trail that led through the woods.
It was still and it was beautiful—a mantle of spotless snow over the ground and every little twig and bush draped in white. There were the tracks of little wood creatures between some of the trees, and a squirrel dived into a stump as Fred came suddenly upon it.
“Are you going to chop Christmas trees?” asked Artie, who couldn’t get away from the idea of Christmas.
“No, I’m going to haul down wood to be chopped up. That’s my main winter work,” Mr. Meade explained.
The logs had been cut earlier in the year, and the sled had to be driven slowly through the woods, stopping at each pile of timber which Mr. Meade loaded on. Fred was allowed to drive and very proud he felt. He had intended to have a boat on the river when he grew up, but now he felt that he might like to be a farmer and “get the wood out” in the depth of winter.
When the sled was fairly well loaded, Mr. Meade built a fire and they sat around it to eat their lunch. The horses had feed-bags and ate placidly, apparently not affected by the cold.