“Look out, Cricket! Look out! Look out!”
I was in a panic of fear, knowing not the peril that threatened me. I struggled through the drifts and ran till I 'could see the lights of the village. The sight allayed my fear a little.
I had heard that hymn-singing was good in time of peril, and I began to walk and sing, with a trembling voice, the Christmas hymn which my mother had lately taught me.
Soon I knelt for a moment in the snow and said my prayers. Then I rose and ran on, singing as I went, and thought less of my peril. Soon teams began to pass me, coming and going, and my fear was gone.
I felt for my horruck. It was in my pocket, all right, and the feel of it began to fill me with wonder. I forgot it when I came to one of the stores, and entered behind the legs of a tall man, and stopped before a basket of oranges, and stood looking down at them. There were a number of people in the store.
“Would you like one?” a man asked me.
“I—I haven't any money,” was my answer.
“Put one in your pocket,” he whispered; “they wouldn't know.”
I shook my head, and answered in a voice so low that he held his ear down to catch the words:
“It doesn't belong to me.”