"I 'll be careful, mother."
"Better give your promise to your mother, March; she 'll feel better 'bout you 're not startin' out," said Chi.
"I promise, little Mother Blossom." He threw himself off the horse, and gave her another kiss; "I would n't go to-day except for the exams.--I can't miss them."
"Good luck, dear," said his mother, and her eyes followed the horse and rider down the Mountain.
"I 'll go over the first thing 'n' give them posies to Marier-Ann, 'n' then I 'll make tracks for home, 'n' get my snow-shed up before it begins to come down."
"Do you think we shall need it?"
"Sure 's fate," replied Chi, laconically, and went into the barn to harness Bess.
It was noon before Chi had set up his snow-shed, a long, low, wooden tunnel, which he had manufactured to connect the woodshed door with a side door of the barn. By means of this he was enabled, in unusually heavy storms, to communicate with the barn and attend to the stock without "shovelling out."
It was about three in the afternoon when the first flakes began to fall, or rather to "spit," as Chi expressed it, and the snow fell intermittently and lightly until four, when there was a sudden change of wind. It veered to the north-east, and blast after blast, charged with icy particles, hurled itself against the Mountain. Within half an hour it was almost as dark as at midnight, and the snow swept in drifting clouds over woodlands and pasture. When the wind ceased for a moment, white, soft avalanches descended upon farmhouse, barn, and mountain-road, until, by six o'clock, the road was impassable and the drifts at the back of the house a foot above the bedroom windows. Chi had made all snug for the night.
"This beats anything I ever saw, Mis' Blossom. I 'm mighty glad Ben ain't comin' home to-day, 'n' that March gave you the promise to stay at Barton's if it stormed hard."