“Well, you let it hang here and I’ll skin it for you before I go back home. Fust off I want to see your Mr. Howbridge.”
As M’Graw went through the hall to find the lawyer, Neale and Agnes were called by Luke from one of the sheds. His voice and beckoning hand hurried them to the spot.
“What do you know about this?” cried Luke. “Here are two perfectly good sleds—a big one and a smaller. And one of those drivers that have just started back for Coxford, told me where there was a dandy slide.”
“Crackey, that’s fine!” agreed the eager Neale.
Agnes, too, was delighted. The other girls were eager to try the coasting.
“But we must get away without the children. It is too far for them to go,” Ruth said. “At least, we must try it out before we let them join us.”
“They are all right at the front with their snow man. I just saw them,” Agnes said. “Come on!” Agnes was always ready for sport.
They started away from the house, the two boys dragging the bobsled. There were about four inches of fluffy, dry snow on top, and under that the drifts were almost ice-hard.
“Ought to make the finest kind of sledding,” Luke declared.
Meanwhile Ike M’Graw had found Mr. Howbridge reading a book in a corner of one of the comfortable settees in the big living-room. He dropped the book and stood up to greet the woodsman with a smile.