“As I was tellin’ Ander on our way over, just exactly four years ago to-day, Moses and Zaccheus was down with chicken-pox and David and leetle Rebecca war gettin’ the symptoms of it when it sot in dark and snowy like it is to-day. Winter took a tight hold for nigh three months. Why, you’ll remember there wa’nt no loggin’ done that winter, and the wolves starved to death in the timber. Deer, too, and turkey, and I guess thar wa’nt no visitin’ done much either, and give my life if thar was one dance in the whole Bushwhackers’ Place. Why, it got cold and stayed cold, and Joseph, our cat, friz stiff on the ladder when he was climbin’ to the loft of the barn. And every sign p’ints to jest sech another winter comin’.”
“It looks as though winter was here to stay, all right,” observed Peeler, “and we’re like to have a hard one, too. The rats are buildin’ deep and strong.”
“My boy, Tom, he cut down a squirrel tree yesterday,” declared Mrs. Boss, “and that squirrel had stored up feed for a long winter. Hope, though, we don’t have one like that one o’ four years ago. I had both ears and one toe friz that winter.”
“Guess we’d all better get home,” laughed Declute, “else we’ll have to build some snowshoes t’ travel on.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Peeler, “and I guess the cattle and sheep won’t care about standin’ out in this storm.”
Gloss came out and sat at the table. Mary Ann Ross sat down near her, and Bill Paisley, stepping carefully through the babies, drew close enough to the girls to say:
“Didn’t know that you intended to come over, Mary Ann.”
“Ma thought we ought to come,” said the girl.
“Did you hear them prophesyin’ a long winter?” asked Paisley.
Mary Ann looked up and smiled.