“You’d better make two or three pailfuls o’ strong coffee, mother, ’n’ bile three or four dozen aigs, ’n’ heat up a big batch o’ them air mince pies. The folks down here on the train ’ll be mighty hungry this mornin’, ’n’ I’ve been down ’n’ told ’em to come up here in ’bout half an hour, ’n’ git what they want. Don’t charge ’em nothin’; let ’em pay what they’ve a min’ ter. P’raps some on ’em hain’t nothin’ to pay with, ’n’ they’ll need it jest as much as the rest. We mustn’t let folks starve that git storm-stayed right at our front door. And now, all aboard for Pittsfield!”
The hearty thanks and farewells to good Mrs. Ross were soon said, and the Burnhams bundled out of the kitchen into the wood sled. It was a long rack with upright stakes from a frame and held together by side rails, through which the ends of the stakes projected a few inches. A side board, about a foot in width, had been placed within the stakes on either side, and the space so inclosed had been filled with clean oat straw. Miss Grace wrapped Mrs. Ross’s heavy blanket shawl round her sealskin sack, each of the two little boys did himself up in a blanket, William robed himself in his traveling rug, and they all sat down in the straw, two fronting forward and two backward, and placed their feet against four hot flatirons, wound in thick woolen cloth, and laid together in a nest between them. Over their laps a big buffalo robe was thrown, and Farmer Ross heaped the straw against their backs.
Away they went, shouting a merry good-by to the farmer’s wife, secure against discomfort, and happy in the hope of reaching home in time for their Christmas dinner. Down in the railroad cut they saw the shovelers and the wreckers toiling at the disabled freight cars, but not much stir was visible about the express train that lay a little farther down the track. The snow did not appear to be very deep, and the ponies skipped briskly along with their light load. Here and there was a bare spot from which the snow had been blown, but not many drifts were found, and these were easily avoided, as Mr. Ross had said, by turning into the open fields.
Farmer Ross was as blithe as the morning. From his perch on a crossboard of the wood rack he kept up a brisk talk with the group in the straw behind him.
“Fire ’nough in the stove?” he asked. “ ’T ain’t often that ye hev a stove like that to set ’round when ye go sleigh ridin’.”
“All right, sir; it’s warm as toast,” said Win. “Genuine base-burner, isn’t it?”
“I should think your feet would be cold, sitting up there,” said Grace.
“Oh, no; not in this weather. ‘Sides, if they do git cold I knock ’em together a little, or else git off ’n’ run afoot a spell, ’n’ they’re soon warm again.”
“Do you often go to Pittsfield?” asked William.
“Yes, every month or so. Gin’rally du my tradin’ thar. Tek along a little suthin’ to sell commonly,—a little jag o’ wood, or a little butter, or a quarter o’ beef, or suthin’. I meant to hev gone down last week, ’n’ I had a big pile o’ Christmas greens ’t I meant to tek along to sell, but I was hendered, ’n’ could n’t go. There’s the greens now—all piled up in the aidge o’ the wood; I’d got ’em all ready. ’Fraid they won’t be worth much next Christmas.”