The others laughed. “Betsy, you aren’t going to burst out into poetry again, are you?”
“Not guilty!” that merry maid replied. Then pausing to look about she inquired. “Which way shall we go in search of adventure? Behind us is the sea. The wind is too icily cold to go in that direction. Down below us is the village and beyond that—what?”
“Let’s go and find out. Have we time?” Margaret consulted her wrist watch.
“Time to burn,” she announced. “It’s only eight-thirty. I’ve walked to the village in half an hour often.”
“Yes, my dear, so you have, but that was in the good old summer time. You’ve never waded through drifts on an unbroken road and made that speed,” Betsy told her, and Megsy agreed.
“Well, count an hour to reach the village. Another hour to see what lies beyond, and a third to return, and lo—that brings us back just on schedule, thirty minutes before noon.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Virginia said brightly, “let’s go as far as we can in half of our time and return on the other half. But that wouldn’t do, either,” she hastened to make the correction, “for it’s down hill going and up hill coming back.”
“Well, the sooner we get started the sooner we’ll return,” Barbara said wisely, “and we can talk as we walk.”
Away they went, Betsy and Babs in the lead, Virginia, Megsy and Sally following single file. As they neared the top of the hill road, they heard merry shouts and Betsy, having first reached the crest where she could look over, turned and beckoned excitedly. “Quick! There are a lot of youngsters here sliding down the hill, They’ve got a whopper of a toboggan. It’s long enough to take us all on. Can’t we bribe them to coast us down the hill? Then we’ll be that much nearer the town.”
“That’s a spiffy idea,” Babs sang out. “I brought my purse. Suppose I offer them five cents for each passenger.”