“Aw, Tess! what d’you want to say such things to a feller for?” he growled. “If there is anything in there we’ll find it out soon enough.”
Dot’s sharp ears had heard something of this. She shrieked:
“Oh! Is it mice? I am afraid of mice, and I won’t go in there till you drive them all out, Sammy.”
“Je-ru-sa-lem!” murmured Sammy, with vast disgust. “Don’t girls beat everything?”
“I don’t care! I don’t like mice,” reiterated the smallest Corner House girl.
“Huh!” declared Sammy, wickedly, “maybe there’ll be wolves under there.”
“Wolfs? Well, I haven’t my Alice-doll here, so I don’t care about wolfs. But mice I am afraid of!”
At that Sammy took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and dived out of sight. He found that there was quite a sharp incline over hard snow to the bottom of the hole. All around the trunk of the tree, and next to it, was bare, hard ground. It made a roomy shelter, and it was just as warm as any house could be without a fire.
There was a quantity of dry and dead branches under here to scratch him and tear at his clothing. Sammy broke these off as he crawled around the tree, making the way less difficult for the little girls when they should enter.
A little light entered by the hole down which he had plunged. It made the interior of the strange shelter of a murky brownness, not at all helpful in “seeing things.”