The driver opened the door and said he could n't go on, as a fallen wire was sagging across the street in front of the horse's nose. We jumped out, and Berri was just about to seize the thing and try to lift it over the horse's head, when I remembered the murderous ecstasy of the other one and jerked him back. Ahead of us there was a drift almost as high as the cab itself, and the man said that even without the wire we never could drive over or through it. So, after a short consultation, he decided to blanket his nag and spend the rest of the night in the cab; the horse was "dead beat," he said, and he very much doubted if it could pull back to town against the wind even after turning around, which was a more or less impossible undertaking in itself. Berri and I packed up the pigeons—the dead one included, as Berri remembered having read in the paper that morning of a case of "suspended animation" somewhere in Texas—and pushed on to the waiting-station at the other end of the bridge.
That was a queer night. I was simply played out when I got inside the waiting-room, and I had n't been there more than a few minutes when I discovered that my ear was frozen. A kind, officious woman all but broke it off rubbing snow on it; but though it pained excruciatingly during the night and is still sensitive and has a tendency to stick out at right angles from my head, I think it will recover. There must have been fifteen or twenty people cooped up in the waiting-room and the cigar-stand (with hot soda-water and candy facilities) next door. Some of them were cross and unhappy, and some of them were facetious. One of them had a small dog. Berri's pigeons created a sensation. The cigar-man gave us a box to put them under, and Berri bought them popcorn for fear they might be hungry during the night. The warmth of the room revived them completely, all but the dead one.
We talked for a while; but as Berri remembered, now that the excitement was over, to be formal and impersonal once more, it was rather dreary. We could have slept, I think,—in fact we were asleep, when one of the facetious refugees woke us up to ask if we did n't want to join him "and some other gentlemen in a game of euchre." Disappointed at his unsuccessful efforts to interest people in this diversion, he chased the little dog about the room, declaring that he intended to tie a glass of chocolate around its neck and send it out in the storm to look for travellers who had lost their way. It was impossible after that to get to sleep again.
We had been sitting with our heads against the wall for almost an hour, waiting for daylight, when Berri, who hadn't said anything for ever so long, suddenly came out with,—
"Oh, Granny, I 'm so sorry I did it!" I knew what he meant at once, although the thesis had n't been in my mind at all, and I was just about to advise him to have a talk with Fleetwood and tell him everything, when he added that he would have to stand by himself now, as it was too late to draw back.
The worst of the storm was over, the cabman had come in to get warm and tell us that his horse had frozen to death, and the windows of the waiting-room had begun to look pale instead of black, by the time I convinced Berri that it wasn't too late, and that as soon as we got to Cambridge he ought to go to The Holly Tree and wait until Fleetwood came in for his breakfast. When he finally made up his mind to do this, I never saw any one in such a state of impatience. He could n't sit still, and kept running to the door every other minute to see if the snow-plough was coming over the bridge. Once he suggested that we should walk; but although the morning was clear and beautiful, I had had enough of struggling through mountains of snow the night before, and refused. The plough appeared at last, preceded by a whirling cloud and followed by a car. We set the pigeons free (Berri told them all to return with olive branches as quickly as possible) and watched them fly to the nearest telegraph-pole and proceed to make their toilets for the day.
It must have been about half an hour after I parted with Berri (he went on to The Holly Tree and I came to my room) that he bounded up the stairs, pale with excitement. He had met Fleetwood, and after a few preliminary remarks about the blizzard (the whole place was submerged) he had blurted out,—
"Mr. Fleetwood, I want to tell you something about my thesis; I did n't write it." To which the instructor replied almost indifferently,—
"Yes, I noticed that. What was the trouble?" Berri just looked at him in amazement.
"I said I did n't write it," he faltered.