When she finally was in the stable, the wind banged the door shut. There was light enough for her to see, however. The ponies whinnied, while the cows lowed gratefully at her appearance. Janice scattered corn and oats through the feed-window into the hen-house, and heard some of the hungry biddies scramble down from the roosts to get the grain.
She knew just what grain to give the horses, and she mixed the mash for each cow separately. Uncle Jason had put a pump into the barn the year before, and it was so protected that it could not freeze. She climbed into the mow and threw down fodder and hay for the night. All that the men would have to do would be to milk and water the stock.
It was comfortably warm in the stable. The heat of the animals’ bodies made it so. She went the round of the stalls and patted the nose of each beast kindly. The horses raised their heads and looked at her; but the cows kept on guzzling their food, their broad, rough tongues scraping around and around in the wooden pails.
“I declare!” thought Janice. “It isn’t such a bad lot, after all, to live in a stable. But I guess I’d better get back to the house, or the drifts will be so deep I’ll be lost in them.”
She again buttoned her coat, turned up her collar, and drew on her mittens. It was growing very dark in the barn, and she heard something stirring behind the feed-box—whether a cat or a rat she did not know. Anyway, she did not stop to investigate, for it might be a rat, and Janice was desperately afraid of those vermin.
Coming to the door, she unlatched it and pushed. The door stuck. She tried it again and then, with some fear, threw herself against it. It did not yield an inch and she knew instantly what the matter was. The snow had heaped against it—packed solid by the wind—higher than when she entered.
Again and again Janice Day pushed against the narrow door, exerting her strength to the utmost, while her fear grew. She was not naturally a nervous girl, nor easily disturbed by trifles. But there was something so terrifying in this sudden and complete mastery by the storm of affairs that she was shaken to the soul.
Besides, there was that rustling, scraping noise in the corner beyond the meal chest. It was the unknown that troubled her.
Of course, Uncle Jason or Marty would soon come to her rescue. She had not been more than half an hour in the barn. Unless this snowstorm was much heavier than any of which Janice had ever heard, the men would surely find their way up the hillside, and Aunt ’Mira would send them in search of her. Mrs. Day herself, however, would be sadly alarmed if Janice did not soon return to the house.
It was useless for the girl to push against the door by which she had entered. She was soon assured of this fact. And she did not wish to stay alone in the stable with that rat—or what she thought was a rat. The noise it made could be easily heard above the sounds made by the cattle eating their supper.