3
Through these wrappings, a strange sound came to my ears--the sound of sleigh-bells; and in a moment, so close were they, there emerged from the whirl of snow, a team of horses drawing a swell-body cutter, in which sat a man driving, wrapped up in buffalo robes and blankets until the box of the sleigh was filled. The horses came to a stop in the lee of my house. There had been no such rig in the county before I had gone to the war.
"Is this the Vandemark schoolhouse?" came from the man in the cutter.
"No, Captain," said I; for discipline is strong, "this is my farm."
"Ah, it's you, Mr. Vandemark, is it?" said he. "Can you tell me the way to the schoolhouse?"
Discipline flew off into the storm. I never for a moment harbored the idea that I was to allow Buck Gowdy to rescue Virginia from the blizzard, and carry her off into either danger or safety. There was none of my Dutch hesitation here. This was battle; and I behaved with as much prompt decision as I did on the field of Shiloh, where, I have the captain's word for it in writing, I behaved with a good deal of it.
"Never mind about the schoolhouse," I said. "I'll attend to that!'
"The hell you will!" said he, in that calm way of his. "Let me see. Your house faces the north. These trees are on the section line.... The schoolhouse is.... I have it, now. Sorry to cut in ahead of you; but--get up, Susie--Winnie, go on!"
But I had Susie and Winnie by the bits.