“How long will it take you to drive over?”
“Let’s see. ’T ain’t over fifteen or sixteen mile. I reckon I can make it in three to four hours.”
“Well, sir, if you’ll get us over there safely before noon, I’ll give you five dollars.”
“All right; that’s enough; tew much, I guess. But see here, my friends; jest bring the young lady ’n’ the little chaps up to my house ’n’ spend the night there, all on ye. Then we can hev an airly breakfast, ’n’ start fair when we get good ’n’ ready.”
In less than five minutes the Burnhams, with bags and bundles, were following Sandy Ross to the door of the car.
This was the last that our travelers saw of their fellow passengers on the Western Express. Late the next afternoon the train rolled into Pittsfield station, but the Burnhams were busy elsewhere about that time.
It was but a few steps from the train to Sandy Ross’s house. William carried his sister through the deepest snow, and the boys trudged along with the bundles, highly pleased with the prospect of an adventure in a farmhouse. Good Mrs. Ross was as blithe and hearty as her husband, and she soon made the young folks feel quite at home.
To Miss Grace “the spar’ room,” as Mrs. Ross called it, was assigned, while Will and the two boys found a sleeping place in the attic. The dim tallow candle that lighted them to bed disclosed all sorts of curious things. In one comer, facing each other, were two old, tall clocks that had long ceased ticking, and now stood with folded hands and silent pendulums, resting from their labors. An old chest of drawers, that would have been a prize for hunters of the antique, was near the clocks; braids of yellow seed-corn hung from the rafters, and at one end of the great room stood the handloom on which the mother of Mrs. Ross had been wont to weave cloth for the garments of her household. It was an heirloom, in the literal sense. The boys thought that this garret would have been a grand place to ransack; but they were too well bred to go prying about, and contented themselves with admiring what was before their eyes. It was not long before they were sound asleep in their snug nest of feathers; and when they waked the next morning breakfast was ready, and Farmer Ross and brother Will had made all the preparations for the journey. To the excellent farmer’s breakfast of juicy ham and eggs, genuine country sausages, and delicious buckwheat cakes with maple sirup, they all did full justice.
“It does me good to see boys eat,” said the kind farmer’s wife; “they do enjoy it so”; and tears were in her eyes as she thought of the hungry boys that used to sit around this table. Farmer Ross and his wife were alone in the world. Two of their sons were sleeping in unmarked graves at Chancellorsville; the other had died when he was a baby. But they were not selfish people; they had learned to bear sorrow, and therefore their sorrow had not made them morose and miserable; it had only made them more kind and tender hearted.
Breakfast over, the wood sled came round to the door, and Mr. Ross looked in a moment to say a last word to his wife.