“What is it, mother? Can I do anything?”
“Yes, love; you must do all for me and your brothers. I am quite unfitted for anything to-night. If I can keep quiet, I shall be better to-morrow. Give me baby, and keep the boys out a little while. Oh! I must get strong again!”
The house was quiet enough; the boys needed no bidding to stay out among the falling snow; and Sophy, having covered the window, that her mother might sleep, crept in behind the curtain to watch the snow-flakes.
Before it grew dark the earth was white as far as the eye could see; the snow fell all night too, and when Sophy opened the door in the morning, it lay on the threshold as high as her waist. In the single glimpse of sunshine that flashed forth, how dazzling the earth looked! The fields around, the valleys beneath, the river, the pond, and the hills beyond, all were white.
“How beautiful!” she repeated many times. It was a little troublesome, too, she was willing to acknowledge by the time she had gone backward and forward through it to the spring for water, and to the wood-pile for wood, to last through the day. It was neither pleasant nor easy to do all that she had to do in the snow that morning; but little Sophy had a cheerful heart and a willing mind, and came in rosy and laughing, though a little breathless when all was done. She needed all her courage and cheerfulness, for her mother was quite unable to rise; and whatever was to be done either in the house or out of it, must be done by her to-day.
“I am afraid the storm may prevent the coming of the things your father was to get for us,” said her mother; “and, Sophy dear, you must make the best of the little we have till I am strong again.”
“Oh, mother, never fear; there’s plenty,” said the cheerful little Sophy. “There’s some meal and flour, and some tea and bread, and—that’s all,” she added, coming to a sudden stop. She had not been accustomed of late to a very well-stored pantry, yet even with her limited idea of abundance she was a little startled at the scantiness of the supply.
“There’s no use in vexing mother, though,” said she to herself; “if the things don’t come to-day, they will be sure to come to-morrow. There’s enough till then if we take care.”
It snowed all the morning, but it cleared up a little in the afternoon; that is, there was every now and then a glimpse of sunshine as the hurrying clouds failed to overtake each other in the changing sky. Now and then, before it grew dark, down the shallow ravine where the road lay there came driving clouds of snow—tokens of the mountainous drifts that were to pile themselves up there before the storm should be over.
How the wind raved round the little house all night, threatening, as it seemed to Alice Morely, to tear it down and scatter its fragments far and wide! The first sight the weary little Sophy saw in the morning was her mother’s pale, anxious face looking down upon her.