“I am afraid not, Celia,” returned Dorothy, yet wishing, too, that it were possible. “You try your best to please Mrs. Hogan. And meantime I’ll find your brother as quick as I can.”
Had Dorothy known what was written on that postal card from the secretary of the ironworkers’ union, which message had so puzzled her friend Tavia, she could not have spoken with the assurance she did.
Dorothy dressed hurriedly and managed to get enough of the ice in the pitcher melted, meanwhile, on the stove hearth, to enable her to make her toilet. The sting of the icy water upon her eyes and temples served to wake her up and started her pulse at a quicker beat. She ran out into the smoky kitchen, to see Celia setting the table while Mrs. Hogan fried the usual pork and johnny cakes.
“Oh, that does smell so good!” cried the girl from Glenwood School.
Mrs. Hogan smiled—and her smile was rare indeed!—when she heard this. She considered that she could safely tack on an additional quarter for breakfast in the final bill she meant to present for Dorothy’s entertainment.
“Oh, see here!” exclaimed Celia, and ran to open the door. A white wall of packed snow faced them.
“Oh, dear me! we are really snowed in,” said Dorothy. “However will we manage to dig a way out?”
“Come away from that, now, ye little plague,” spoke Mrs. Hogan to Celia. “Arrah, now! see what ye’ve done. Looker that mess of snow on the floor.”
A hodful, at least, had become detached and fallen inward. Dorothy ran for the brush and dustpan which hung against the bricks behind the stove.
“I’ll clean it up, Mrs. Hogan,” she said. “You go about your work, Celia.”