But Edward was not to be persuaded. “No, you don’t, old fellow,” he said; “candy and nuts are first-rate things for any night in the year but New Year’s; a fellow needs something extra then. I’ve set my heart on seeing the festival tables, and watching them give out the prizes, and I’m going; my uncle said three days ago that I could.”
“But he did not know that it was going to snow,” Kirke said, more and more anxious. “Really, Edward, I do not think Mr. and Mrs. Baker would like to have you take Nannie out when it looks so much like a storm.” Then Edward got angry and told Kirke to mind his own business, that we were not left in his charge at least, and that he should do as he liked; and Kirke was to remember that Mr. and Mrs. Baker were his own uncle and aunt, and that he might be supposed to know as much about what they would like as a stranger could. Kirke said no more, but he looked very much troubled. I was half-disposed to give up the plan, but Edward laughed at me. The good-natured housekeeper in whose care we were left never paid much attention to the weather, and made no objection to my going. I don’t know but that it would have come out all right even then, if Edward’s pride had not got the upper hand. He took a notion to drive to town by the old road.
“O, don’t!” I urged; “you do not know that way at all, and Uncle Peter said this morning that the wind last night must have drifted the snow on the old road.”
“Poh!” said Edward, “Uncle Peter is an old croaker; he’s an old man, Nannie, and always makes mountains out of molehills. The wind will be at our backs part of the time on the old road, and I’m going that way. What if I have not driven it? The horse won’t get lost, if you think I will.”
Well, we started, and for the first ten minutes everything was right; then we began to come to drifts, and I was dreadfully scared. We almost turned over two or three times. I kept squealing out, and that provoked Edward. “Keep still,” he would say; “I did not know you were such a little coward.” To make matters worse, it began to snow harder than I ever saw it before, and grew so dark that we could hardly see our way. We had been riding a good while, and ought to have reached the town, but no sign of a town was to be seen.
After a while Edward made up his mind that he must have taken the wrong turn, and said he was going back a little way to see if he had. He tried to turn around, but the wind blew so that the snow blinded his eyes; and it was not a good place for turning around, any way. The first thing I knew over went the sleigh, and I was in a snowdrift! That was not the worst of it, either; the runner of the sleigh snapped as if it had been a pipe-stem. Good old Jim stood still, fortunately. But there we were with a driving storm, with a broken sleigh! I do not think I was ever so glad of anything in my life as I was to hear Kirke’s voice above the roar of the wind.
“What in the world are you doing there?” he said, bounding along over drifts of snow. “Is Nannie hurt? If she is not all right never mind anything else. Oh! the sleigh is broken. How came you to be on this road? This is not the way to town; it is an old wood road that was used early in the winter, but it is all snowed up; you could not have got much farther; you ought to have turned to the right a mile below here; I thought you knew the way. Now I’ll tell you what will have to be done. Nannie must go to our house—it is less than a quarter of a mile from here—and I’ll get a rope and tie up that sleigh somehow, enough to get it and Jim back to the stable; then I’ll tell your folks that you are going to stay at our house all night—shall I?”
“THERE WE WERE, WITH A BROKEN SLEIGH!”
He seemed to have forgotten how disagreeably Edward had spoken to him, and was just as nice as could be. But Edward’s cheeks were pretty red. “No, sir,” he said firmly; “I started out to have my own way and ought to have the benefit of it. If you will take Nannie to your house I’ll get this rig home myself and take care of Jim; it is not fair that you should lose your New Year’s fun to help me out. I’ll foot it out to your house if it is not too late after I have been to see Mr. Ormstead about mending this sleigh; but I’m not going to let you go for me a single step.”