He shook his head dolefully. "No, I couldn't stand another night as bad as that. The train will be warm anyhow, and even the drive won't be much worse than the barn was this morning. Jim Ellgood has his barn heated. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea for us to heat ours next year. Milking ain't much fun when your hands are frostbitten."
"Yes, it would be a good idea," she conceded inattentively, while she brought a pencil and a piece of paper and made a list of the things she wished him to buy in town. "You may hear something about the war in Europe," she added, in the hope of diverting his mind from the pain in his tooth. Nathan was the only man at Pedlar's Mill who had taken the trouble to study the battles in France, and even Dorinda, though she made no comment, thought he was going too far when he brought home an immense new map of Europe and spent his evenings following the march of the German Army. Already lie had prophesied that we should be drawn into the war before it was over; but like his other prophecies, this one was too farsighted to be heeded by his neighbours.
When it was time for him to start, and Nimrod had brought the wagon to the door, she wrapped Nathan's face in her grey woollen scarf and tied the ends in a knot at the back of his head. "You can get somebody to undo you at the station."
He smiled ruefully. "No, I don't reckon I'd better get on the train tied up like this. I must look funny."
"It doesn't matter how you look," she responded; but she could not keep back a laugh.
As the wagon ploughed through the snow, she stood there, with her shawl wrapped tightly over her bosom and the lantern held out into the blackness before dawn. The air was alive with a multitude of whirling flakes, which descended swiftly and sped off into the space beyond the glimmer of her lantern. After the wagon had disappeared the silence was so profound that she could almost hear the breathless flight of the snow-flakes from the veiled immensity of the sky. By the glow of the lantern she could just distinguish the ghostly images of trees rising abruptly out of the shrouded stillness of the landscape. While she lingered there it seemed to her that the earth and air and her own being were purified and exalted into some frigid zone of the spirit. Humanity, with its irksome responsibilities and its unprofitable desires, dropped away from her; but when she turned and entered the house, it was waiting in the ashen light to retard her endeavours.
[II]
In the kitchen John Abner was lingering over his breakfast, and Fluvanna was frying bacon and eggs, while she complained of the weather in a cheerful voice.
"Are the cows all right?" Dorinda inquired of her stepson. Until the storm was over, the cows must be kept up, and John Abner, who was a diligent farmer, had been out to feed and water them.
"Yes, but it's rough on them. It's still as black as pitch, but the sooner we get the milking over the better. The hands are always late on a morning like this."