"There's most always a thaw in February, but it 'pears as if it was a little early in the month."
So it was, and the weather made a sort of failure for once. To be sure, there were several hours next day when the winter seemed to have let go its hold, and while a dull, slow, cold rain came pouring down upon the snow-drifts. They settled under it a little sullenly, and then the wind shifted to the north-east, and it grew cold enough for anybody.
"I've known it to do that very thing when I was a girl," said aunt Judith. "There'll be the awfullest kind of a crust."
"Glad we had all our breaking done before this came," said her brother. "It'd be heavy work to do now."
The hard frost of that night was followed by a crisp and bracing morning, and aunt Judith's prophecy was fulfilled. The crust over the great snow-fall was strong enough to bear the weight of a man almost anywhere.
"Hurrah!" shouted Corry, as he climbed a drift, and walked away towards the open field beyond. "We'll have some fun now."
"What kind of fun?" asked Port.
"What kind? Well, all kinds,—sliding down hill, snow-shoeing in the woods, all sorts of things."
"Hurrah for all that!"
"Boys!" shouted Vosh from the front-gate, "the mill-pond was flooded yesterday, and it's frozen hard now. There's acres and acres of the best skating you ever heard of, glary as a pane of glass."