What was coming down was the snow. It had been falling, thicker and faster, since a little after daylight, and now it was nearly dark. Stumps of trees and gate posts were capped with great white masses of it; here and there a path, cleared up to the back door of a farmhouse, showed on either hand a high bank of it fluted with broom or shovel.
The boy, whose observation about its coming down I have just recorded, was Master Winfield Scott Burnham. He was a slender boy, with a pale face, dark eyes and brown hair, and he sat pressing his face against the pane of a car window, looking with rather a rueful countenance upon the fast-falling snow. The young gentleman sitting opposite to him, whom he made bold to address as Bill, was his big brother, a junior in college, who had long been Win’s hero; and he was worthy to be the hero of any small boy, for he was not only strong and swift and expert in all kinds of muscular sports, but he was too much of a man ever to treat small boys, even though they might be his own brothers, roughly or contemptuously.
Just across the aisle, on the other side of the car, sat Win’s eldest sister, Grace, who was a sophomore at Smith College; and fronting her on the reversed seat was Win’s younger brother, Philip Sheridan.
The reason why these Burnhams happened to be traveling together was this: The Christmas vacation had come, and William and Grace were on their way to their home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The two small boys, whose school at home had closed a week earlier than the colleges, had been visiting their cousins in Hartford for a few days; and it was arranged that William should come over from Amherst and join Grace at Northampton, and that the two should wait at Springfield for the little boys, who were to be put on the northern train at Hartford by their uncle. But the trains on all the roads had been greatly delayed by the snow, and it was four o’clock before the noon express, with the Burnhams on board, left Springfield for the west. The darkness was closing in, and the wind was rising, and William had already expressed some fear of a snow-blockade upon the mountain. This remark had made Win rather sober, and he had been watching the snow and listening to the wind with an anxious face.
“How long shall we be going to Pittsfield?” he asked his brother.
“There’s no telling,” answered Will. “We ought to get there in two hours, but at this rate it will be four, at the shortest.”
“That will make it eight o’clock,” sighed Win. “I’m afraid the Christmas tree will all be unloaded before that time.”
“Yes, my boy; I’m sorry, but you might as well make up your mind to that.”
Win started across the car. This disappointment was too big for one. He must share it with Phil.
“Hold on, General!” said William in a low tone. “What’s the good of telling him? Let him be easy in his mind as long as he can.”