Mrs. Red Pepper

by Grace S. Richmond

"Of course you know your own affairs," mumbled Macauley, in some embarrassment. "But, if you'd heard R.P. Burns charging me to look after you as if you belonged to me, you'd pardon my impertinence."

"I appreciate your interest," Charlotte assured him, lightly. "But I'm really enjoying the new experience of this storm and don't mind a bit how long it lasts. Granny is warm as can be upstairs with her little stove, and as she can't hear the wind howl her spirits aren't in the least depressed. I admit I don't just love to hear the wind howl. If it would be still about it I should like to see the snow bury my whole front lawn three feet deep."

"I'm glad you take it that way. Martha insists that such storms are very depressing,—principally, I believe, because they keep her from running in to see her neighbours. Well, I must be off. I'll send the youngsters over to shovel a path to your front door; I had to wallow through myself."

He went away, and the storm raged on. The boys did not come over; their labours would have been of small avail if they had worked never so valiantly, for the drifts formed faster than they could have been shovelled away. Night fell with Nature still unappeased, and the wind, contrary to the prediction of the grocer's boy, when in the late afternoon he fought his way in with his basket of supplies, did not go down with the sun.

In the middle of the night, Charlotte, waking from an uneasy sleep, felt the house rocking so violently with the tempest that she became alarmed. She wondered if the shaky frame could withstand the continued shocks. The air of the room felt very cold to her cheek, although she had, out of consideration for the unusual conditions, refrained from opening wide her window. The rush of cold seemed to be coming from the door which opened into her grandmother's room, and with a sudden fear she flew out of bed and ran to investigate. With the first step inside Madam Chase's door her bare foot encountered the icy touch of snow, and she realized that a window was undoubtedly open to the full force of the storm.

Without a thought of herself she rushed across the room, understanding what must have happened: the shaky little old window frame had blown in, for the tempest came straight from that direction. Yes, she stumbled upon it, lying on the floor. She picked it up and tried to replace it, but an instant's struggle convinced her that this was impossible. With a cry she ran to the bed, herself chilled through, her heart beating fast with fear. How long had Granny been lying there in the onslaught of wind and cold?

She seized upon the small figure huddled under the blankets, lifted it, blankets and all, and bore it into her own room. She laid it on her own cot, covered it with a mountain of clothing, and crushed into place the door between the two rooms. Then, shaking with chill, her teeth chattering, she dressed, answering the old lady's one shivering complaint:

"I thought I was very cold, in my dreams, Charlotte. What has happened?"

"It's all right, Granny,—you are safe in my room. I'll get you warm in a minute."

She ran down to the kitchen, heated water over a spirit-lamp, and made a stiff little hot drink, which she carried upstairs, with a hot-water bottle. The bag at Granny's feet, the stimulating posset drunk, Charlotte felt easier about her charge and went next at the task of making her comfortable for the remainder of the night. She ran down again and made up the fire in the fireplace, convinced that she must get the old lady downstairs, now that with each blast the terrible wind was filling one room with the storm and battling at the little old door to make an entrance into the other. Then she put on a coat, and went up to wrestle with Granny's bed, while the wind swept round her, and the snow flew across the room and stung her cheeks. It was a hard task, getting the bed apart and down the stairs, but she accomplished it, and set it up in the living-room, far from the windows and with one side to the fire. Then she brought down springs and mattress, warmed the latter thoroughly at the blaze, and put it in place.