"All right, mother; I'm just coming."
A minute later a stout, hearty lad of fifteen presented himself before his mother, and dutifully awaited her commands.
"Why, Wilby," said she, "I was just thinking I had better send you over to Aunt Matilda's to tell her that your father was going to town to-morrow. She's pretty sure to want him to do something for her, and he goes so seldom nowadays she'll be disappointed if we don't let her know."
"Well, mother," replied the boy, looking rather doubtfully out of the window, from which a vast expanse of desolate, snow-covered fields could be seen, "it's not just the best kind of an afternoon to be going away over to aunty's. There's a heap of snow on the ground, it's awfully cold, and the wind's rising."
"Tut! what does a big strong boy like you care for the cold? Besides, you can put on your snow-shoes, and take the short cut through the wood-lot. You won't feel the wind in the woods. I really must send Aunt Matilda word, and father won't have time to go over himself."
"Very well, mother, if I must I must, I suppose; but, all the same, I wish it could wait till to-morrow."
So saying, Wilby, with a sigh of resignation, went off to get ready for his tramp.
It was no trifling affair, this errand over to Aunt Matilda's, I can tell you. She lived six good miles away by the road, and even taking the short cut through the pasture and wood-lot, it was not less than four miles.
Of course, with fine weather and good going, four miles was not much of a task for Wilby's sturdy legs, and he never failed to get so warm a welcome and such delicious cake at his aunt's that generally he was only too glad to go. But in mid-winter, with four feet of snow on the ground, the thermometer right down to zero, and the wind cutting like a knife, it seemed a very different matter.
However, Wilby, as his mother called him for short (Wilberforce being kept for company or for when she wanted to be very emphatic), was quite as plucky as he was obedient, and a quarter of an hour after his mother first called him he started out on his errand, muffled up to the eyes, with his snow-shoes well strapped to his feet, and his good dog Oscar trotting along beside him. It was well for him that he did have wise old Oscar, as we shall presently see.