ny house can look. Smoke curled up from
its chimney and rose in a nearly perpendicular column. I became aware
of the colder evening air, and with the chill that crept over me I was
again overwhelmed by the pitifully lonesome looks of the place.

Mostly I shouted when I drew near to tell of my coming. To-day I
silently swung up through the shrubby thicket in which the cottage and
the stable behind it lay embedded and turned in to the yard. As soon as
the horses stopped, I dropped the lines, jerked the door of the cutter
back, and jumped to the ground.

Then I stood transfixed. That very moment the door of the cottage
opened. There stood my wife, and between her knee and the door-post a
curly head pushed through, and a child's voice shouted, "Daddy, come to
the house! Daddy, come to the house!"

A turn to the better had set in sometime during the morning. The fever
had dropped, and quickly, as children's illness will come, it had
gone. But the message had sped on its way, irrevocable and, therefore,
unrevoked. My wife, when she told me the tale, thought, well had she
reason to smile, for had I not thus gained an additional holiday?

SEVEN. Skies and Scares

We had a "soft spell" over a week end, and on Monday it had been
followed by a fearful storm--snowstorm and blizzard, both coming from
the southeast and lasting their traditional three days before they
subsided. On Thursday, a report came in that the trail across the wild
land west of Bell's corner was closed completely--in fact, would be
impassable for the rest of the winter. This report came with the air
of authority; the man who brought it knew what he was talking about;
of that I had no doubt. For the time being, he said, no horses could
possibly get through.

That very day I happened to meet another man who was habitually driving
back and forth between the two towns. "Why don't you go west?" he said.
"You angle over anyway. Go west first and then straight north." And he
described in detail the few difficulties of the road which he followed
himself. There was no doubt, he of all men should certainly know which
was the best road for the first seventeen miles. He had come in from
that one-third-way town that morning. I knew the trails which he
described as summer-roads, had gone over them a good many times, though
never in winter; so, the task of finding the trail should not offer any
difficulty. Well and good, then; I made up my mind to follow the advice