However, to come to the important Friday of Carrie Poole's party: Ruth and Agnes were finally dressed. They only looked at their supper. Who wanted to eat just before going to a real, country barn-dance? That is what Carrie had promised her school friends.
Ruth and Agnes had their coats and furs on half an hour before Neale O'Neil came for them. It was not until then that the girls noticed how really shabby Neale was. His overcoat was thin, and plainly had not been made for him.
Ruth knew she could not give the proud boy anything of value. He was making his own way and had refused every offer of assistance they had made him. He bore his poverty jauntily and held his head so high, and looked at the world so fearlessly, that it would have taken courage indeed to have accused him of being in need.
He strutted along beside the girls, his unmittened hands deep in his pockets. His very cheerfulness denied the cold, and when Ruth timidly said something about it, Neale said gruffly that "mittens were for babies!"
It was a lowery evening as the trio of young folk set forth. The clouds had threatened snow all day, and occasionally a flake—spying out the land ahead of its vast army of brothers—drifted through the air and kissed one's cheek.
Ruth, Agnes, and Neale talked of the possible storm, and the coming Christmas season, and of school, as they hurried along. It was a long walk out the Buckshot Road until they came in sight of the brilliantly lighted Poole farmhouse.
It stood at the top of the hill—a famous coasting place—and it looked almost like a castle, with all its windows alight, and now and then a flutter of snowflakes falling between the approaching young people and the lampshine from the doors and windows.
The girls and boys were coming from all directions—some from across the open, frozen fields, some from crossroads, and other groups, like the Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil, along the main highway.
Some few came in hacks, or private carriages; but not many. Milton people were, for the most part, plain folk, and frowned upon any ostentation.
The Corner House girls and their escort reached the Poole homestead in good season. The entire lower floor was open to them, save the kitchen, where Mother Poole and the hired help were busy with the huge supper that was to be served later.