ver indicated it. It was as smooth
and glassy as if Aunt Stanshy's flat iron had been over it and pressed
every wrinkle and ripple down. The air was light. The smoke from the
houses and the steam from the only tug that the commerce of the town could
afford to support fell, and fluttered downward in thin veils. Overhead
there was a mass of gray cloud halting directly above the town, and
looking too lazy ever to stir again.

"Storm comin'!" declared Simes Badger to all his cronies at Silas
Trefethen's store. "Wind is sou' already."

It did not stay "sou'," but swung around to the east, then worked into the
north-east, and then all through the night the wind was sifting
cotton-wool down on all the streets as if carpeting them, on all the roofs
as if blanketing them, into all the cracks in the walls of houses and
barns as if it would chink them up and make them tight for winter.

Chancing to look out of the window as soon as he was awake the morning
after the storm, Charlie shouted,

"Ice-cream!"

"Yes, all you want," said Aunt Stanshy, who, leaving her coffee-pot, her
pan of fried potatoes, and batch of biscuit on the kitchen stove, had
mounted the stairs to wake the sleepy Charlie.

"Boys will soon be here to make it."

"I warrant you! They will make their ice-cream before shoveling the folks'
paths at home."

It looked so, for half a dozen boys were out in the yard by eight o'clock,
shouting "ice-cream" to Charlie, who had not finished his breakfast.

With the help of Aunt Stanshy's "essences" enough snow was flavored to
meet the demands of customers, who, quickly notified, quickly appeared,
bringing the contents of all the nail-boxes at their homes. Even Aunt
Stanshy was prevailed upon to buy a dish, and she consistently paid cash
for it.

Her boarder, Will Somers, was induced to promise more extensive patronage.

"Will, we all think you a first-rate feller," said the artful president;
"and just to help us out at the fair, couldn't you take your meals at our
restaurant? Our mothers say they will cook us things--steak, you know, and
so on."

"Y--e--s, I will try it for--the present."

For some reason the "things" said to have been promised--"steak, you know,
and so on," did not arrive. Will gave out soon after noon the first day.

"Aunt Stanshy, I shall starve if I stay there," said Will, appearing at
her pantry door; "and if I didn't starve, they would kill me with their
abominable 'cream' that they mak