David’s mind was full of the happenings of the days that had passed, and of future plans. Everything had been as fine as a boy could wish, but he did not want it to stop. Here it was two days before Christmas, and he was quite sure there was still a lot to be found. The question was, where should he look for it now that the matter of neighbors had been exhausted?
As for the plans, they were growing every minute; but he had decided to say nothing about them to Johanna and Barney until the next day, when they were full-grown. Of one thing David felt certain: nothing could keep Christmas away this year. And so when Barney began to tease him on one of his trips to the woodshed and say that if this weather lasted he guessed the Christmas present from father would get there about Washington’s Birthday and that he guessed it would take a Santa Claus with seven-league boots to make the hilltop this year, David just smiled and looked very wise. Something was going to happen; he knew perfectly well that something was going to happen. And so, when it actually did happen, about half-way between dinner and supper time, he was not nearly as surprised as Johanna and Barney, who in a way might have expected it.
They were all three startled by a banging on the door and a stamping and pounding of feet outside. So loud did it sound in the midst of the silence that David thought there must be at least a dozen men. Great was his astonishment, therefore, when Barney swung open the door and a solitary figure stepped in, muffled in fur to the eyes.
“Burrrrrrrrrrr!” boomed the figure, and then he swept off his cap and made a laughing bow.
“Hello, Johanna! Hello, Barney! You never thought I would remind you right in the midst of a Christmas blizzard of that promise you made last summer. Come now, did you?”
“Holy St. Patrick!” gasped Johanna.
“Mr. Peter!” ejaculated Barney. “But how in the name of all the saints did ye ever make it in this storm?”
The man laughed again.
“Just the usual nerve of the tenderfoot. I left my painting-kit, bag, and canvases with the station-agent. He has promised to send them up if the storm ever stops. And I made a wager with him—a gallon can of next spring’s syrup against a box of cigars—that I’d be here by four o’clock. What’s the time?”
He had his things off by this time and was looking at his watch.