“Then what?”
“I try not to repeat them,” said Sam simply. “I don’t know any better rule.”
“There is none,” said his father decidedly. “And, on the whole, you’ll find that if you follow the rule, it still leaves plenty of good, clean fun in life as well as a reasonable share of adventure. Not that I imagine you’ll run across much of the latter in Sugar Valley, though!”
“It isn’t very likely,” said Sam.
“Well, Lon can drive you over,” said his father. “The big sleigh will take you all in. I’ll guarantee it, though I won’t do as much for the sleighing. The snow has lasted unusually long, but the season is now so late that if it once begins to go, it will go very fast.”
“But there’s such a lot of it,” Sam objected.
“There is an uncommon amount—that’s true. I’ve seen late spring thaws, though, when the greater the depth of snow, the faster it seemed to vanish. Still, with the amount we now have, it would need fast work to clear the ground before Friday.”
“That’s my notion, too, sir,” said Sam, half regretfully. The truth was, he was in two minds about the expedition. Considering only his own preferences, he might have chosen to stay at home; but there was Varley to be taken into account, and Varley undoubtedly was very desirous of seeing Sugar Valley. The boys of the club, too, would like to go. All of them said so, at once and emphatically. So Sam held conference with Lon Gates, who readily promised to have the big sleigh ready; though he was far from an optimist when the subject of the weather was broached.
“Take it this time o’ year, Sam,” he explained, “and guessin’ on that’s like buyin’ a pig in a poke, only more so. You see, everything’s betwixt and between, same’s butter that ain’t quite made up its mind whether to come or not. And all the signs are mixed and confusin’. Why, jest t’other day I heard two of the oldest inhabitants squabblin’ over whether the groundhog really see his shadow Candlemas day; and ’sfar’s I can find out the most reliable goose-bones in town are actin’ every which way except alike. But if you insist on havin’ my forecast, personal-like, I’m votin’ for a change in weather. I’ve got a rheumaticky spot or two that’s been tunin’ up lately; and there was a mighty funny lookin’ sunset t’other night. Still, nobody can tell. And if you’ll be ready for me Friday, I’ll be ready for you.”
Sam, thus advised, tried to study the weather signs for himself. Thursday dawned mild and calm, with a thin haze in the air and a marked rise in temperature. The eaves were dripping briskly when he started for school, and when he came home for dinner, the snow layer seemed to have shrunk amazingly. Where foot travel was greatest the sidewalks showed black and bare; puddles formed in low places; the compacted and leveled track of the sleighs grew dingier than ever. Throughout the afternoon the same conditions held, until with the coming of darkness the temperature dropped a trifle, and a thin coating of ice formed on the little ponds of snow-water.