The day was extremely cold here. The snow, which had seemed to her very deep at Montrose, lay piled up in huge drifts, not a fence nor a shrub to be seen. All around were spurs of the White Mountains, white, literally, as she looked up to them, from their base to their summit. There were great brown trees clinging stiff and frozen to their steep sides; sharp-pointed rocks, raising their great heads here and there from among the trees.
Majestic, awful, solemn they looked to this prairie child, as she stood on the cold platform of the little station gazing up at them.
A voice said behind her, startling her,— 139
“You’d better come in, marm. It’s what we call a terrible cold day for Thanksgiving week. Come in, and warm you.”
Marion turned, to see a man in a buffalo overcoat, with whiskers the same color as the fur, eyes that looked the same, a big red nose, a buffalo fur cap pulled well down over his ears, with mittens to match.
He stood in an open door, to which he gave a little push, as if to emphasize his invitation.
Inside the ladies’ room of the station a red-hot stove sent out a cheerful welcome. To this the man added stick after stick of dry pine wood, much to Marion’s amusement and comfort, as she watched him.
“Come from down South?” he asked, after he had convinced himself of the impossibility of crowding in another.
“From the West,” said Marion pleasantly.
“You don’t say so. You ain’t Aunt Betty Parke’s niece, now, be ye?”