“We’ll have to dig a tunnel through to the shed door after breakfast,” declared Mrs. Hogan. “We’ve got to get through the shed to the barn, an’ then into the hen house. Surely, we can’t l’ave the critters ter starve. And there’s no knowing when this storm will stop. Ye’ll not git to school this day, I’m thinkin’, me young lady.”
“I am only glad that I am not out there in the lane under all this snow,” replied Dorothy, gravely.
After breakfast she went upstairs with Celia to peer out at the storm. It was, indeed, a blizzard. Scarcely a landmark was visible through the falling snow. The fences were, of course, long since drifted over; and the snow had been blown into the farmyard in a great mound, piled against the side of the house to the sill of the second floor windows, and completely covering the roofs of the lower buildings.
Mrs. Hogan put a huge boiler on the stove when they came down. She had not thawed her pump as yet; but she opened the barricaded door and into this boiler shoveled snow, from time to time, until she had melted sufficient to well fill the receptacle, and had dug quite a cavern in the snowbank.
Then, dressed in her half-mannish costume, the Amazon set to work with a steel shovel to really excavate a tunnel through the drift to the woodshed door. Dorothy and Celia helped by “trimming” the sides and roof of the tunnel, and trampling down the excavated snow under foot.
The passage to the woodshed door was short. Beyond the shed the snow filled all the space to the stables, and was heaped fifteen feet high. They cut out the snow in blocks and heaped it to one side within the shed. In two hours Mrs. Hogan, working as though tireless, opened the way to the stables and they could feed the stock. Fortunately there was a trap between the barn and the hennery through which they could throw corn and oats to the flock.
Tunneling through the snowbank Celia thought to be lots of fun; and Dorothy found it amusing. Mrs. Hogan’s grim face and grimmer remarks, however, proved that she considered the situation quite serious.
“You young’uns kape yer feet dry. Have no chills, nor colds, nor other didoes, now; for ’tis no knowin’ how long ’twould take a dochter to git here through these drifts—an’ however would we git word to such, anyhow, I dunno?”
Dorothy and Celia wrapped shawls around their shoulders again and went to the upper windows to look out. Although the flakes were bigger now, and the snow was not gathering so fast, they could not see far along the lane; and not a moving object appeared upon the surface of the drifts.
“Oh, I’m glad you are here, Dorothy Dale,” whispered Celia. “It would jes’ be dreadful to be smothered in with snow like this, with only Mrs. Ann Hogan—yes, it would!”