Fifth, that there might be $20,000 in a safe across the street.
Sixth, that there was a gang of cutthroats somewhere about who wanted the money, and would come after it the minute they knew I was alone; and might come sooner.
By this time I was sleepy; so I covered up Kaiser on one end of the lounge, the cat on the other, put out the lamp, and went up-stairs and popped into bed.
CHAPTER VI
Some Account of what I do and think the first Day alone: with a Discovery by Kaiser at the End.
I woke up with a start in the morning, thinking that it was all a bad dream; then I knew it wasn’t, and wished it were; and next I was very glad to hear the blizzard still roaring as hard as ever, which may seem odd to you. But the fact is that I had thought a long time after I went to bed and had decided on two things–first, that I was safe from the robbers as long as the storm lasted, and, second and more important, that I had a plan which might serve to keep them away for a while at least after the storm stopped. I got up and looked out of the window, but I might as well have looked into a haystack for all I saw. I could not even see the houses on the other side of the street.
I went down, said good-morning to the cat and dog, and started the fire. It was colder; 53 I peeped at the thermometer through the window, and saw it was a dozen degrees below zero. I found the stock at the barn all right and cheerful; the chickens were down making breakfast of what I had given them for supper, all except Crazy Jane, who had finished eating and was trying to get out of the barn, maybe thinking that she could make a nest in a snowbank, or could scratch for angleworms.
After I had finished the barn-work I went in and got breakfast. I started a fire in the kitchen and got a better meal than I had the night before. I went down cellar after some potatoes, and noticed that there were a plenty of them; with squashes, pumpkins, and other vegetables; all of which I knew before, but I observed that such things looked different to me now. I couldn’t count much on the pumpkins because I didn’t know how to make pumpkin pie, but I knew that the cow would be very glad to get them without their being made into pie. “It would be funny,” I said, out loud, as if there were somebody to hear, “if cows should find out some day that pumpkins are better in pies and farmers should have 54 to fix them that way before they would eat them.”