“Shad’ll have to take a bucket and go down to the spring then, and break through the ice,” Mrs. Gorham said, comfortably. “After you’ve lived up here all your life, you don’t mind such little things. It’s natural for a pump to freeze up this sort of weather.”
“You know,” Kit said darkly to Jean, a few minutes later, in the safety of the sitting room, “I’m not sure whether I want to be an optimist or not. I think sometimes they’re perfectly deadly, don’t you, Jean? I left my window open at the bottom last night instead of the top, and this morning, my dear child, there was snow on my pillow. Yes, ma’am, and when I told that to Mrs. Gorham, she told me it was good and healthy for me, and I ought to have rubbed some on my face. Let’s pile in a lot of wood and get it nice and toasty if we do have to stay in today. Who’s Shad calling to?”
Outside they heard Shad’s full toned voice hailing somebody out in the drifts, and presently Piney came to the door stamping her feet. She wore a pair of Honey’s old “felts,” the high winter boots of the men folks of Gilead, and was muffled to her eyebrows.
“I walked over this far anyway,” she said happily. “Couldn’t get through with the horse. I wondered if we couldn’t get down to the mill, and borrow Mr. Peckham’s heavy wood sled, and try to go to school on that.”
“We can’t break through the roads,” objected Doris.
“They’re working on them now. Didn’t you hear the hunters come up in the night? The barking of the dogs wakened us, and Mother said there were four big teams going up to the camp.”
Just then the door opened and Shad came in with the morning’s milk, his face aglow, his breath steaming.
“Well, it does beat all,” he exclaimed, taking off his mittens and slapping his hands together. “What do you suppose? It was dark last night and snowing when I drove the cows up from the barnyard. They was all huddled together like, and I didn’t notice them. Well, this morning I found a deer amongst ’em, fine and dandy as could be, and he ain’t a bit scared, neither. Pert and frisky and lying cuddled down in the hay just as much at home as could be. Want to come see him? I’ve got a path shoveled.”
Out they all trooped to the barn, through the walls of snow. The air was still and surprisingly mild. Some Phoebe birds fluttered about the hen houses where Shad had dropped some cracked corn, and Jim Dandy, the big Rhode Island Red rooster, stood nonchalantly on one foot eyeing the landscape as if he would have said,
“Huh, think this a snowfall? You ought to have seen one in my day.”