"Oh, no," answered Aunt Jo. "Falling under snow isn't like falling under water. There is a little air in snow but not any in water—at least not any we can breathe, though a fish can. But still if a person was kept under heavily packed snow too long he would smother, I suppose. However, that won't happen to Teddy. They're getting to him."
Uncle Frank and Daddy Martin were tossing the snow away from the drift by big shovelfuls. In a little while they had dug down to where Teddy stood in a little hollow place he had scooped out for himself with his hands. He was covered with snow, but was not hurt, for falling in the big drift, he said, was like tumbling into a feather bed—the kind Trouble had once cut up when he was at his grandmother's on Cherry Farm.
"Well, how in the world did you get down there?" asked Teddy's father, when the little boy was lifted up safe on the path again, and the snow had mostly been brushed from him.
"I—I just jumped," Teddy answered. "I wanted to see how far I could go and I didn't think about that being the edge of the terrace."
For the big drift was on the edge of a terrace, where the front lawn was raised up from the rest of the yard. So the drift was deeper than any of the other piles of snow around it.
"However, you're not hurt as far as I can see," went on Mr. Martin. "But please don't go in any more drifts. Uncle Frank and I won't have time to dig you out, for we must keep at work on the tunnel."
"Isn't it finished yet?" asked Aunt Jo.
"No. And I don't believe it will be to-night. It's getting late now and we can't work much longer. It's going to snow more, too," added the father of the Curlytops as he looked up at the sky, from the gray clouds of which more white flakes were falling.
"Can't we go into the tunnel?" asked Teddy, who did not seem much frightened by what had happened to him.
"Well, yes, I s'pose you could go in a little way," his father answered. "We won't do any more digging to-night," he said to Uncle Frank.