OUT IN THE COLD.
9. "I could not creep under the warm blanket and forget him. No one will see him but us, for only our window looks this way. So I am just going to run out and get the shed open for him."
10. "Oh, sister, you will be so cold! Cannot you ask father to go?"
"Oh, you heard him say that he had pains in all his bones. Now be a good child, Nelly, and get quick into bed. I shall soon be back."
11. With these words Mercy tied on a great scarf which was once her father's round her neck, crept down stairs without making the least noise, and out at the back door.
12. Once out of shelter of the house, it was, as she thought with a shiver, "a bitter night." The snow was no longer falling, but a keen wind swept over the white face of the earth and stirred up the snow.
13. It piled heaps of it up into strange shapes. The frost was so hard that the feet of the child did not sink into it as she ran along.
14. Very soon she reached the shed, outside of which the donkey stood, a picture of patient despair. She plunged through a great heap of drifted snow and reached its side. She patted his rough coat.
15. "Oh, Brownie," she cried, "how cold you are! I must get this door open for you somehow." She pulled it, she jerked it, she kicked it, she shook down showers of snow on herself, and that was all.
16. It was in vain to try. It was frozen hard, and do what she would, she could not stir it an inch. It was hopeless. "Oh, what can I do for you, Brownie?" she thought, ready to cry with grief.