“Yes, mother; I know—but—” She paused. What could she say, but that she wished to keep the children asleep, because there was so little to give them when they awoke? She saw from her mother’s face that she understood her reason, and she hastened to say, “I must go to the village, mother. It is no use waiting any longer. I ought to have gone yesterday. They have forgotten to send the things—or my father has forgotten to get them,” she added to herself, with a sense of pain and shame.
“I ought to have gone yesterday, mother,” repeated Sophy, “but I was afraid of losing my way in the snow. I was foolish, I know, but I could not help thinking of the little lad you told us about once, who never came back.”
“We must do something,” said her mother; “and I am afraid it would be impossible for me to go to the village myself. Surely the road must be opened by this time. Is it still as cold, do you think? You must take John with you. Two are better than one.”
“No; it is not so cold, I think,” said Sophy. “And, dear mother, you are not to fret. We can go easily, and it will all come right, you’ll see.” And Sophy made a great pretence of hastening the dressing of her little brothers, that she might get their breakfast first and then hurry away.
Chapter Four.
Help in the Hour of Need.
The breakfast was prepared and eaten, such as it was. Sophy made all things neat, and kept the baby while her mother dressed herself, and then she prepared for her walk to the village. But she was not to struggle through the snow that day. Just as she was bidding her good-bye, they were startled by the sound of voices quite near, and the boys rushed out in time to see a yoke of oxen plunging through the drift that rose like a wall before the door. The voice of Stephen Grattan fell like music on their ears. The things were come at last, and plenty of them. There were bags and bundles manifold, and a great round basket of Dolly Grattan’s, well known to the little Morelys as capable of holding a great many good things, for it had been in their house before.
“I don’t know as you would speak to me, if you knew all, mother,” said Stephen at last, approaching Mrs Morely, who was sitting by the fire with her baby in her arms. “You are all alive, I see,—at least the boys are. How is baby, and my little Sophy? Why, what ails the child?”