“Can’t Peggy help us?” Alice asked.
She had learned the value of Peggy. Everything was so much more exciting when she was around.
“You can begin by yourselves, and I’ll be through with her pretty soon,” said Mrs. Owen.
It kept on snowing fast all day, and, toward the end of the afternoon, Diana began to wonder how she was to get home. Mrs. Owen went to the telephone to call up the Carters, but could not make it work. She tried again and again. The line was out of order. This had happened once before that winter in another snowstorm. Diana began to look a little sober. She was not exactly homesick, but the thought of home with her father and mother and her two brothers seemed very pleasant. It seemed forlorn not to be able to reach them by telephone. They knew where she was, however, and it was pleasant to have Peggy and Alice so overjoyed at the great storm.
“They never can come for Diana to-day,” Peggy said. “The roads aren’t broken out.”
When night came, both Diana and Alice begged Peggy to sleep with them, and this was a triumph. They asked her to sleep in the middle, as each wanted Peggy next to her; and they kept her telling stories of what she saw on the wall until Mrs. Owen came up and said, “Children, you must stop talking, or I shall take Peggy into my room again.”
Peggy saw wonderful things. They were all snow scenes, in deep forests where every twig was coated with diamonds or powdered with snow. She saw the Frost King there, having his revels, and finally, just before Mrs. Owen came up to stop their talking, she saw the roads being broken out, and Tom and Christopher coming for Diana with the big sled. Diana went to sleep with this pleasant picture in her mind, and, toward the end of the next day, it really happened. It stopped snowing early the next morning, but the snow-plough did not get around in time for the children to go to school. It was just after dinner when Tom and Christopher appeared.
“We’ve come to make a path to your front door, Mrs. Owen,” Tom said. “And we’ll make one to the hen-house, too.”
They had brought their snow-shovels along with them, and they began to dig with a will. Peggy got her shovel and went out to help them, and Alice and Diana watched the merry trio from the window.
“I can’t bear to have Diana go,” said Peggy. “I wish she could live here always.”