“I think we ought to light a lamp and put it in the window, as a guide for them,” Mac proposed, when they had finished their meal.
“Sure thing,” Tim agreed. “They may come along late, and any kind of a light will be a help to them. We haven’t got much oil, but we’ll use all that we have in a lamp for them.”
Mac picked up a taboret and put it on the window seat. “Put the lamp on top of that,” he directed. “That ought to shine for quite a distance. If the oil runs out, we can go until daylight without any. We’ll get enough coal in here to last all night, and we won’t have to build a new fire in the morning. If they haven’t come in by that time we’ll have to go after them, storm or no storm.” Tim placed the lighted lamp on the taboret, and the boys felt that they had done all that could be done under the circumstances. Mac sat on the couch in a reclining position, and his brother squinted at the titles on the backs of the books in the bookcase.
“I’ll try a little reading,” he announced. “Don’t know how successful it will be.”
Mac yawned and slid a little lower. “I’m too tired and worried to read,” he said. “Better not get hold of a spook book.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Tim replied. “I need something exciting to keep me awake and take my mind off of things.”
He finally found a book that suited him, and, drawing a chair close to the lamp on the taboret, he started to read. Mac sank lower on the couch and soon fell asleep. Tim read on. It was a little colder over near the lamp than he wished for, but he didn’t want to take the lamp away from the window.
A sudden clear tapping on the window back of him caused Tim to start violently and almost drop his book. It came on the glass of the window at the end of the room and not where the light was. Tim jumped up joyously, sure that the boys had returned.
“Hey, Mac! Wake up! The boys are here!”
Mac bounded to his feet. “They are? Where?”