The mother was too tired to answer. They had walked this way all day.
“If it had only held off a couple of hours,” the man repeated gloomily, “we’d have made the town all right. And there’s a job for me there. We’d have had a good Christmas, after all.”
“Oh well, Daddy,” said little Sandy, sturdily, “maybe the storm’ll stop soon and somebody come along and give us a ride. Wouldn’t it be fun if we could have a real sleigh-ride—at Christmas?”
But nobody came along the bleak waste, as they still plodded on. And the storm did not stop. It blew up stronger and stronger before a bitter northeast wind that sent whirling clouds of icy snow against their faces and sifted it down their necks, till they were wet and half frozen. It was only about four in the afternoon; but the wind had now risen to a howling storm that made the great trees rock and groan and scream in answer to the snoring of the white gale, and forced the three to bend almost double to force their way against it.
They were all three tired, miserably tired, and hungry and cold. The snow-laden swirls covered them till they looked like walking ghosts. Little Sandy’s feet ached dreadfully; but he was a sturdy lad, and as he walked, he kept chattering out all sorts of questions, just to keep his mind off his cold feet. He didn’t care whether his questions were answered or not—he just talked.
A big crow came swirling down the gale, veered in the shelter of a clump of pines, set his black wings, and, with a doleful caw, settled on one of the lower branches. Another did the same, and another, the three crows snuggling up to each other with a soft chuckle that said, just as plain as plain could be: “Boy, but it’s cold! And it’s going to be a cold night for old Jim Crow. Better be looking up a bed now, before it gets too dark. It’s a hummer, this gale is, a hummer!”
And the father felt just about the same. “We’d better look for some sort of a shelter, Mother,” he said; “we can’t make town to-night. We’ll be frozen stiff. Just my luck! Out of work since Thanksgiving; get a letter that there’s a good job here for me if I can make it by Christmas—and here’s this snow!” And he peered through the blinding storm to where the city lights showed once in a while deep down in the valley.
“But look, Dad!” Sandy shouted; “look! There’s just the place for us.” And he pointed down in a hollow, where a little log-cabin lay pushed into a thick clump of tall evergreens.
Snow was drifted over the roof and over the trail to the door, as they entered and looked around. In fact, it had no door, only the place for one. It had two windows, but only one had glass in it. And it had neither fireplace nor stove—only a square of logs filled in with sand, for the fire, and a hole in the roof to let the smoke out.
“Just my luck!” said the father; “just my luck!” And he shivered again as the bitter wind swirled a cloud of icy snow through the door and window.