Going out into the storm, out on the treacherous ice, was a figure that she had watched during the long years from behind the curtains of her front room. It was the most familiar figure in the world to her.
She had seen it change from a youthful, willowy shape to a solid, substantial, middle-aged figure during these years. She had seen it aging before its time. No wonder she could visualise it now so plainly out there on the ice.
“Joe! Joe!” she muttered each time that she bore down on the bell rope, and the iron tongue shouted the word for her, far across the snow-blotted cove.
CHAPTER XXII—CHET GORMLEY’S AMBITION
Carolyn May was not the first of the trio caught out on the moving ice to be frightened. Perhaps because she had such unbounded faith in the good intentions of everybody towards her, the child could not imagine anything really hurting her.
That is, excepting wildcats. Carolyn May was pretty well convinced that they did not like little girls.
“Oh, isn’t this fun!” she crowed, bending her head before the beating of the storm. “Do hang on, Princey.”
But Prince could not hang on so well, now that they faced the wind. He slipped off the sled twice, and that delayed them. Under his skates, Chet could feel the ice heave, while the resonant cracks followed each other like a file-fire of musketry.
“Goodness me!” gasped Carolyn May, “the ice seems to be going all to pieces, Chet. I hope it won’t till we get back to the shore.”
“I’m hopin’ that, too,” returned the boy.