“I’m used to that,” said Roger. “Say, Elizabeth Ann, perhaps I can find a short cut; wouldn’t it be fun if we should get to school on time, after all?”
Elizabeth Ann beamed at the idea. She did so hate to be late, and she didn’t want all the pupils to stare at her when she and Roger came in, and wonder where Catherine was. If they could get to school at the usual time, it would be the other boys and girls who would be surprised.
“I’m not exactly sure, but I think there is a road that goes across behind a piece of woods,” said Roger. “If it’s the one I think it is, it will bring us out on one side of the school building. The only trouble is, I don’t think any teams go through it in winter and it may be drifted.”
“It hasn’t snowed much yet,” Elizabeth Ann declared cheerfully. “And I think it’s going to stop now.”
She squinted at the sky, as she had seen Uncle Hiram do, and the wet white flakes fell into her eyes and down the collar of her coat. It was snowing steadily and there were no signs whatever that it meant to stop any time soon.
“Well, we can try the short road, at least,” said Roger. “We turn off here. Are you warm enough, Elizabeth Ann?”
“Oh, my, yes,” that small girl assured him. “Only don’t walk quite so fast, please Roger; my knees won’t stretch only just so far.”
“I’ll walk the way you want to,” promised Roger. “I forgot you can’t walk as fast as a boy. Want me to carry your lunch?”
Roger had forgotten all about the two small books and the lunch box Elizabeth Ann carried, till this moment. He wasn’t very used to girls, anyway, and he was rather apt to let them wait on themselves. Now, however, he took Elizabeth Ann’s things and that left her hands free. She could put them into the two big flannel-lined pockets of her coat and let them both get warm at once.
The road down which Roger had turned apparently was not used at all in the winter. Not a single track marked the whiteness of the snow that covered it. The underbrush of the woods which bordered it on either side showed gleaming red berries here and there and Elizabeth Ann saw a few birds picking at the berries, but they did not seem to think they were very good.