“STHICK TO YER HORSES, MOIK.”
When excitement was at its height the other sleighs arrived upon the scene, and if there had been an uproar before, there was a mighty cry abroad in the land now. But, dear me, it is all in a lifetime; so why leave these floundering mortals piled up in heaps any longer? They were unsnarled eventually, gotten upon their feet (or their neighbors’), packed like sardines into the two other sleighs, and, with six instead of four horses now drawing each, started homeward, none the worse for their spill, excepting a good shaking up, a few handfuls of snow merrily forming rills and rivulets down their necks, some badly battered hats and torn coats, and one of them, at least, with some wholesome lessons regarding handling four frisky horses when the air is frosty and a number of lives may depend upon keeping “top side go, la!”
CHAPTER XVI
LETTERS
When the sleighing party reached home they found hot chocolate and ginger cookies awaiting them. Before retiring, Miss Preston had seen to it that neither shivering nor hungry bodies should be tucked into bed that night.
Five weeks had now sped away, and Toinette was beginning to look upon her new abiding-place as home; at least, it was nearer to it than any she could remember. The old life at the Carter school seemed a sort of nightmare from which she had wakened to find broad daylight and all the miserable fancies dispelled.