Since the sled accident that had crippled him for life, Billy was full of nervous terrors, and the night had been charged with mysterious noises. Within the lonely wooden house weather-boards and beams cracked; without, twigs snapped and branches crashed; at times Billy heard reports as loud as pistol-shots. One of these shots meant the bursting of the wash-basin on the bedroom bench, Matt having forgotten to empty its contents, which had expanded into ice.
Matt curled himself up more comfortably and almost covered his face with the blanket, for the cold in the stoveless attic was acute. In the gray half-light the rough beams and the quilts glistened with frozen breaths. The little square window-panes were thickly frosted, and below the crumbling rime was a thin layer of ice left from the day before, solid up to the sashes, and leaving no infinitesimal dot of clear glass, for there was nothing to thaw it except such heat as might radiate through the bricks of the square chimney that came all the way from the cellar through the centre of the flooring to pop its head through the shingled roof.
“Matt!” Billy was nudging his brother in the ribs again.
“Hullo!” grumbled the boy.
“Thet thar ain’t the frost. Hark!”
“ ‘Tis, I tell ye. Don’t you hear the pop, pop, pop?”
“Not thet; t’other down-stairs.”
“Oh, thet’s the wind, I reckon.”
“No; it’s some ’un screamin’!”
Matt raised himself on his elbow, and listened.