“Shoo!” gasped Janice—it must be confessed in a very weak voice.
The eyes never even winked. Morally courageous as the girl was, every atom of physical bravery seemed to have oozed out of her now. Her knees trembled under her; she could hardly stand.
And then, unexpectedly, there was a scrambling noise in the dark beyond the chest, and a sleepy voice emitted a plaintive “ba-a-a! ba-a-a!” A lamb! A cosset that had been brought in from the sheepfold the week before and which Janice had forgotten all about, although she had been making a pet of it every time she had occasion to enter the stable.
The unwinking eyes did not move; but the relieved girl knew what they were now. Two shiny buttons on an old jumper of Marty’s which had been flung down beside the meal chest and in front of the pen where the lamb was kept.
“Ba-a-a!” again bleated the lamb, the innocent cause of all Janice Day’s disturbance and fear.
“Ba-a-a yourself!” she cried, laughing hysterically. “What a dunce I have been. If Marty knew it, I’d never hear the last of it. And how foolish—and really wicked, too!” she continued thoughtfully. “I guess that’s like half the troubles I have in this world. I see them coming and make more of them than they really are when they arrive.
“I expect I even have no business to worry as I have about dear Father. It seems as though I fail to trust in Providence when I am forever disturbed and troubled about things. Everything will come out all right of course! Father will be safe; Nelson will not disappoint me. ‘All things work together for good’——”
She had removed her jacket while she so thought, and now crept through the small, square window into the hen-house. There was a rustling on the perches and the old rooster uttered a sleepy “cut, cut, ca-da-cut!”
“You be still!” giggled Janice. “I am no chicken thief, so don’t alarm your harem. My! that was a tight squeeze! Now I’m going out—Good-night all!” and she pushed open the outside door of the hen-pen and came out into the blowy, snowy world again.
The storm seemed fiercer than ever; but the lights in the kitchen window led Janice to refuge. Marty was hooting for her from the back porch.