"Benny Withers!" sobbed the child. "Mother sent me for the clothes, but I can't get 'em!"
"Benny Withers!" cried Maine. "Why, you live close by. Why didn't you go home, child?"
"I can't!" cried the boy. "I can't see nothing. I tried to get to the school, an' I tried to get home, an' I can't get nowhere 'cept against this wall. Let me stay here now! I want to rest me a little."
He would have sunk down again, but Maine caught him up in her strong, young arms.
"Here, climb up on my back, Benny!" she said, cheerfully. "Hold on tight round my neck, and you shall rest while I take you home. So! That's a brave boy! Upsy, now! there you are! Now put your head on my shoulder—close! and hold on!"
Ah! how Maine blessed the heavy little brother at home, who would ride on his sister's back, long after mamma said he was too big. How she blessed the carryings up and down stairs, the "horsey rides" through the garden and down the lane, which had made her shoulders strong!
Benny Withers was eight years old, but he was small and slender, and no heavier than six-year-old Philip. No need of telling the child to hold on, once he was up out of the cruel snow bed. He clung desperately round the girl's neck, and pressed his head close against the woollen stuff.
Maine pulled her ball of twine from her pocket—fortunately it was a large one, and the twine, though strong, was fine, so that there seemed to be no end to it—and once more lowered her head, and set her teeth, and moved forward, keeping close to the wall, in the direction of Mrs. Withers's cottage.
For awhile she saw nothing, when she looked up under the fringe of otter fur, which, long and soft, kept the snow from blinding her; nothing but the white, whirling drift which beat with icy, stinging blows in her face. But at last her eyes caught a faint glimmer of light, and presently a brighter gleam showed her Mrs. Withers's gray cottage, now white like the rest of the world.
Bursting open the cottage door, she almost threw the child into the arms of his mother.