Grace Brooks Hill

“ Suppose the little folks should be under that heap of snow? Nor did Luke bear the uncertainty in lighter vein. There were tears frozen on his cheeks as they pressed on.
The falling snow and sleet, driven by the wind, seemed like a solid wall ahead of them. This buffeted the searchers with tremendous power. It took all their individual force to stand against the storm.
When they finally reached the summit of the road, where the young people had started the bobsled for the long slide that forenoon, they had found no sign of Sammy and the little girls. ”

“ I don’t like mice,” reiterated the smallest Corner House girl.
“Huh!” declared Sammy, wickedly, “maybe there’ll be wolves under there.”
“Wolfs? Well, I haven’t my Alice-doll here, so I don’t care about wolfs. But mice I am afraid of!”
At that Sammy took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and dived out of sight. He found that there was quite a sharp incline over hard snow to the bottom of the hole. All around the trunk of the tree, and next to it, was bare, hard ground. It made a roomy shelter, and it was just as warm as any house could be without a fire. ”

“ Tom Jonah! why don’t you behave?” demanded Tess. “And I have been telling Rowdy and Rafe, these nice boys, just how good and smart you are.”
“Je-ru-sa-lem!” gasped Sammy, finally getting his breath. “They ain’t boys!”
“Who aren’t boys?” asked Tess, wonderingly.
“Well—well, this one isn’t,” said Sammy, pointing at Rowdy. “He’s a girl, that’s what he is.”
“Why, Rowdy! I thought there was something funny about you,” Tess Kenway said. “You—you were so much nicer than boys are. I declare!” ”

“ Oh, no!”
“Now, Agnes!” admonished the older girl, blushing.
“I don’t care! It’s too good a joke, and it shows just why those people over on Meadow Street worship Ruth,” went on the younger sister. “Did you see that biggest Pederman girl? Olga, the one with the white eyebrows and no lashes?”
“Yes,” said Cecile. “Her face looks almost like a blank wall.”
“And a white-washed wall at that,” went on Agnes. “She’s a grown woman, but she hasn’t any too much intelligence. She was awfully sick with diphtheria last spring, and Ruth went to see her—carrying gifts, of course.” ”

“ Tess followed her sister with less precipitation. Like Sammy, she felt the burden of their situation much more than did Dot. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” was Dot’s opinion.
Sammy crawled out again and rescued the sled which was already buried in the snow. He dragged it to the opening and left it right over the hole so as to keep the snow from drifting in upon them.
“But it makes it so dark, Sammy!” said Tess, a little sharply.
“Wait a while. You can see better pretty soon. Your eyes get used to the dark—just like you went down cellar at night for a hod of coal.” ”

“ Of course Ike M’Graw could see for himself very easily that Tom Jonah had a nose. It was pointed just then at the fox pelt in the old woodsman’s hands, and was wrinkled as the dog sniffed at the skin.
So Neale O’Neil knew that the man meant something a little different from what he said. He, in fact, wanted to know if Tom Jonah was keen on the scent, and Neale answered him to that end.
“We think he’s got a pretty good nose, Mr. M’Graw, for a Newfoundland. Of course, Tom Jonah is not a hunting dog. If he runs a rabbit he runs him by sight, not by scent. ”

“ The guardian of the Birdsall twins rather hesitatingly told the old man just why he had not brought Ralph and Rowena to Red Deer Lodge at this time.
“Ran away? Now listen to that!” murmured the old man. “That don’t sound right. Wasn’t they with folks able to take keer of ’em?”
“I thought they were,” said Mr. Howbridge. “Rodgers, the butler, and his wife.”
“Whoof!” exclaimed the backwoodsman, expelling his breath in a great snort of disgust. “That butler! Wal, what for a man wants to buttle for, I don’t know. I never could make it out that it was a real man’s job, anyway. ”

“ And had Rowdy made the dumplings all right and seasoned the stew so that it would be palatable?
“The housekeeping arrangements of the cave were primitive.”
“Why, you’re all sitting around here and sniffing at that stew every time I lift the pot cover like hungry dogs,” declared Rowdy. “I guess if it doesn’t turn out right, you’ll eat me.”
“Oh, no,” said Dot. “We wouldn’t like to do that, for we aren’t cannon balls.”
“You aren’t what?” cried the boy, amazed.
“Oh, dear, Dot! Why will you get so mixed up in your words?” Tess wailed. “She doesn’t mean ‘cannon balls,’ Rowdy; she means cannibals. ”

“ Surely, as Neale had told Agnes, no tubercular germ could live in such an atmosphere.
“Just the same,” said Ruth, wisely, when Agnes mentioned this scientific statement fathered by the ex-circus boy, “you children keep well wrapped up. What is one man’s medicine is another man’s poison, Mrs. Mac often says. And it is so with germs, I guess. What will kill one germ, another germ thrives on. A bad cold up here will be almost sure to turn into pneumonia. So beware!”
“Don’t keep talking about being sick,” cried Cecile. “You are almost as bad as Neighbor.” ”

“ Something was scratching there, dragging the sled away from over the hole in the snowdrift. Sammy did not know that even the hungriest animal in the forest was snugly housed during this storm. The creatures of the wild do not hunt when the weather is so boisterous.
It might have been a wolf, or a bear, or a lynx, or a tiger, as far as the small boy knew. Just the same, having the responsibility of Tess and Dot on his mind, he had to stay and face the unknown. ”

“ Stop them!” moaned Ruth, really alarmed.
It seemed to her that the boat she was riding in was going much too fast for safety; but the scooter flew up the lake at a pace that made the big boats seem to stand still.
Neale plainly knew how to handle the racer. He passed the two barges and then tacked, aiming to cross the bows of the bigger craft.
Instantly, as the boom swung around, Agnes’ end of the crossbeam went into the air! They saw her sail upward, the flashing steel runners at least four feet above the ice!
The girl’s wind-whipped face was still smiling. ”

“ Tom Jonah whined, sniffed again, and then lifted up his muzzle and barked, straining at the leash.
“Looks like he understands,” said the old man, reaching for the leash and taking the bight of it from Mr. Howbridge’s hand. “Good dog! Now, go to it. These here footprints—if that’s what they are—are fillin’ in fast.”
Tom Jonah put his nose to the marks in the snow. He sniffed, threw some of the light snow about with his nose, and started off. He followed the faint trail into the woods. But Neale doubted if the dog followed by scent. ”

“ With her Alice-doll hugged in the crook of one arm—the Alice-doll was her chiefest treasure—Dot hunted high and low for the elusive Sammy Pinkney. Of course, occasional household happenings interfered with the search; but Dot took up the quest again as soon as these little happenings were over, for Sammy still remained in hiding.
For instance, Alfredia Blossom and one of her brothers came with the family wash in a big basket with which they had struggled through the snowdrifts. Of course they had to be taken into the kitchen and warmed and fed on seed cookies. ”

“ We can go back under that tree—can’t we, Sammy?”
“I’m not going back there,” Dot said stubbornly. “There’s no fire there. If this other boy doesn’t like us because we are girls, can’t he go out and live under the tree himself?”
This idea seemed to amuse Rowdy a good deal. He laughed aloud—and the laugh did not sound just like a boy’s laugh, either. Tess stared at him wonderingly.
“If Rafe’s going to be so mean,” he said, “he ought to be put out. Go ahead and peel the potatoes and onions, Rafe.”
“Sha’n’t. That’s girl’s work,” growled Rafe.
“Oh! If you’ve got a knife I’ll peel them,” said Tess. ”

“ Lawrence was the worst off of them all. Neale and Luke literally dragged him through the storm from the sheds to the rear door of the Lodge. He would probably have died in the drifts had he been alone.
The girls and Mrs. MacCall, as well as Mr. Howbridge, were awaiting the return of the searchers with the utmost anxiety. Not only were they disturbed over the loss of the three children, but the possibility of the men themselves not returning had grown big in their minds. The rapidity with which the snow was gathering and the fierceness of the gale threatened disaster to the searchers. ”

“ But I think Rowdy’s cave is very nice, and we are having a very nice time here.”
Dot frankly yawned. She had been doing that, off and on, all through supper.
“I’m afraid there won’t be anybody to put my Alice-doll to bed tonight,” she said. “And I haven’t any nightgown with me. Why, Tess! what shall we do?”
“I guess you wouldn’t want to take off your clothes here. It isn’t warm enough,” said Rowdy.
“But can’t we say our prayers?” murmured the startled Dot. “Of course, Tess and I spent the night once right out under a tree—didn’t we, Tessie? ”

“ Oh! You mean one is a boy and one is a girl.”
“Ralph and Rowena Birdsall.”
“That is better than having two of either sex, I should say,” Ruth observed with more gravity. “They sort of—sort of balance each other.”
“I guess they are ‘some kids,’ as our friend Neale would say,” suddenly laughed Mr. Howbridge. “I knew Birdsall very well. I might say we were very close friends, both socially and in business. Poor fellow! The last two years of his life were very sad indeed.”
“Has he left plenty for the twins?” asked Ruth.
“More than ‘plenty,’” said Mr. Howbridge. “He was very, very wealthy. ”

“ The roadside inn was in sight now, and presently the big sleigh pulled up before it with the bells jangling and the horses steaming, as Dot remarked, “just as though they had boiling water in ’em and the smoke was leaking out.”
The whole party ran into the grillroom and chased Jack Frost away with hot chocolate and cakes. There the idea of going to Red Deer Lodge for the Christmas holidays was well thrashed out. ”

“ That was a flock of partridges. They can make some noise, can’t they? Food in the swamps must be getting mighty scarce, or they would not be away up here.”
“Who ever would have thought it?” murmured Cecile. “Partridges!”
“Wish I had a gun,” said Luke.
“Don’t be afraid. They won’t bite,” chuckled Neale O’Neil. “And we won’t be likely to meet anything much more dangerous than birds in the day time.”
“Yet we saw that big cat yesterday,” Ruth said.
“It ran all right. We might have brought Tom Jonah; only he was playing with the kids,” said Neale. ”

“ The spoor of the two animals led into this path, and the boy and girl tramped along after them.
“I guess nothing frightened them,” said Neale, “for they appear to be trotting right along at an easy gait. They must have passed this way in the night. And that’s kind of funny, too.”
“What is funny?” asked Agnes.
“Why, deer—especially two, alone—ought to have been hiding in some clump of brush during the night. They don’t go wandering around much unless they are hungry. And there is plenty of brush fodder for them to eat along the edge of the swamps, that is sure.” ”

“ I am their guardian, the administrator of their estate, just as I was made administrator of the Stower estate and guardian of you girls. It is no joke, I assure you,” and he finished rather ruefully.
“Goodness me! you don’t mean it?” cried Ruth.
“Yes, I do. I mean it very much. I do, indeed, think it rather mean. If all my friends who die and go to a better world leave me their children to take care of, I shall be in a worse pickle than the Little Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe.”
“Like old Mrs. Bobster at Pleasant Cove,” laughed Ruth. “But even she did not have twins. ”

“ A winter vacation in the deep woods, and to live in “picnic” fashion, as they supposed, lent a charm to the plan that delighted every member of the Corner House party.
Ruth and Agnes wrote to the Shepards—to Cecile at home with her Aunt Lorena, and to Luke at college—and they were immediately enamored of the plan and returned enthusiastic acceptances of the invitation, thanking Mr. Howbridge, of course, as well.
The lawyer was having a great deal to do at this time, and he came to the old Corner House more than once to talk about the Birdsall twins to Ruth and the others. ”

“ This scooter carried a huge boom for a leg-o’-mutton sail, and it was a type of the very fastest ice-boats on the lake.
Neale helped the eager Agnes down a rude ladder to the ice. She was just reckless enough to desire to try the new means of locomotion. Her exclamations of delight drew Ruth to the edge of the wharf over their heads.
“What are you two doing down there?” asked the older girl.
“Oh, now, Ruthie!” murmured Agnes, “do let me go with Neale in this pretty boat. There isn’t room for us in the bigger boats. Do!” ”

“ Why, they are savage!”
“Course they are savage,” said Sammy.
“But—but Mr. Howbridge, our guardian, wouldn’t let any wolves stay around that Darling Lodge. They might eat my Alice-doll!”
“Sure,” agreed the boy, as Agnes was not within hearing. “Like enough the wolf pack will chase us when we are sleighing, and you’ll have to throw that doll over to pacificate ’em so we can escape with our lives. They do that in Russia. Throw the babies away to save folks’ lives.”
“Well!” exclaimed Tess, half doubting this bold statement. “Babies must be awful cheap in Russia. Cheaper than they are here. ”