He yielded at once to her wish. And, notwithstanding the dread task before him on the morrow, he lay down with a lighter heart than he had known for many weeks, and slept more sweetly and soundly than he had slept before since the night of the survey.
Very early the next morning he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked from his window into the darkness outside, and saw that it was snowing. Aunt Martha compelled him, much against his inclination, to eat a hearty breakfast and to bundle himself well against the storm. When, at last, they heard the muffled jingling of the bells that announced the approach of the Mooreville stage, she put her arms around the boy’s neck and kissed him.
“Keep up courage, Dannie,” she said cheerily. “It won’t be hard when you get there. You’ve done the hardest part of it already.”
“I’m not afraid any more, Aunt Martha,” he replied. “Nothing on earth can keep me from doing what I ought to, the way I feel about it now. I only hope and pray that I won’t be too late. There’s the stage at the gate. Good-by!”
“Good-by, Dannie! God bless you and comfort you!”
He went down the path by the light of the lamp held in the kitchen doorway, knocking aside the loose snow as he walked. At the invitation of the stage driver he climbed up to the front seat with him, and started on his fifteen-mile journey to Mooreville, the county-seat. It was still very dark, and the snow was falling steadily, though it was not yet so deep but that the horses could trot along at their usual monotonous gait until they reached the foot of the long hill that leads to Oak Ridge. Here the driver stopped to extinguish the light in his lantern, for it was now daybreak. But, with the coming of day, the snow fell faster, the wind arose, and long before the stage and its occupants had reached the summit of Oak Ridge the horses were plunging now and again through drifts that reached to their knees. At High Rock post-office they stopped for ten minutes to receive and deliver mail. From there to Lawrence’s the road was mostly through the woods and was not badly drifted. Then came the two-mile drive down the northwest face of the hill range to the poor-house. It was a tedious, toilsome, terrible journey. They were obliged to break down fences and go through fields to avoid deep drifts in the roadway. Many a time it seemed as though the horses, exhausted by their efforts, would never be able to break through the huge banks of snow that enveloped them. And constantly, driving into their faces, blinding their eyes, chilling them to the bone, the storm beat down upon the travellers. When, at last, they drove up to the poor-house gate, the stage driver gave a great sigh of relief.
“Them horses don’t go no further to-day,” he declared.
“But,” exclaimed Dannie, while his teeth chattered with the cold, “I’ve got to get to Mooreville, you know. I’ve simply got to get there.”
He felt that he could not afford to entertain for a moment the idea of delay.
“Well,” was the response, “if you’ve got to go, you an’ me can try to foot it for the next stretch; mebbe we can get along, but them horses has got to stay here. I can’t afford to lose ’em jest yet.”