“Hurry, Eleanor. We are all waiting for you,” called Constance from the terrace, where a group of young people stood waiting for the tardy one.
It was the day following Christmas, and such a day as long dwells in one’s memory of perfect winter days; scarcely a cloud in the sky, and the air filled with a crispness which set one’s blood a-tingle. The world wore her white robes of the season, bedecked with a thousand sparkling jewels. The river was frozen nearly across, and on its glistening surface groups of skaters darted about, or pushed ice-chairs, in which were seated older or less vigorous bodies for whom skating was not.
Early in December, when the weather had turned unusually cold for the season, the river had commenced to freeze over. It had been thirty years since such heavy ice had formed, and those who recalled that time predicted that the present cold snap would hold as that one had held, and the New Year find, as it had then found, the sleighs crossing to the opposite shore.
Eleanor Carruth had returned from college three days before Christmas, to find everyone in the liveliest, gayest mood, and each moment crowded to its very limit with duties or pleasures. Christmas in Mrs. Carruth’s home had always been a day of “good will toward man” in its truest, sweetest sense. No one had time to think of self in her desire to think of others. For more than sixty years Mammy’s voice had been the first one to cry “Christmas gif’” to her children, as she went from bed to bed in the chill Christmas dawn. Try as they might in bygone years, none of the other servants on the old plantation had been able to creep up to the bedchambers before her, and now in the newer life of the Northern world, to which she had followed those she loved, she had never missed her greeting. In the dark, difficult days when resources were limited and every penny had to be so carefully expended, the Christmas gifts had been very simple little remembrances interchanged, but old Mammy had invariably managed to have some trifle for her “chillen,” and they would sooner have gone without their own than have failed to have their token of the season lying at her door on Christmas morning.
But happier days had now dawned for all, and the Christmas day just passed had been a red-letter one for the family. True, Eleanor’s resources were not yet equal to Constance’s. Eleanor’s spending money was derived from the source which, prior to her entrance in college, had caused Mammy such deep concern. Eleanor still coached a number of the less brilliant lights of the college. In this way she felt more independent of her aunt and less dependent upon Constance.
Constance protested and scolded, declaring that it was perfect nonsense for Eleanor to so burden herself, since the candy kitchen was more than equal to the demands made upon it. But Eleanor was a Carruth.
As the party stood waiting for her, Jean, keeping fast hold of Haydn’s hand and jigging up and down in her impatience to be off, Forbes talking to one of Eleanor’s friends, and the others all chatting at once, Eleanor came hurrying from the house, carrying in her hand a pair of shining skates, and carefully tucked under her arm a broom.
Haydn was the first to spy it. His eyes began to twinkle, and he quickly slipped over to Constance’s side.
“Is this a very mid-winter madness?” he asked under his breath.
Constance glanced up quickly. Her eyes instantly caught the twinkle, and darted toward Forbes, who was too deeply engaged in trying to prove to his rather skeptical listener that the soft little wraith-like clouds beginning to gather overhead meant wind, and perhaps more snow also, within twenty-four hours, to be aware of Eleanor’s unusual departure in the line of impedimenta. Neither Constance nor Hadyn intended to spoil the joke by jogging their wits, and the others who were alive to the fun preferred to see it to the end.