and try to shovel out a path
from one of the doors.

"I ought to know more about the water-pipes," said Mr. Peterkin. "Now, I
shut off the water last night in the bath-room, or else I forgot to; and
I ought to have shut it off in the cellar."

The little boys came back. Such a wind at the front door, they were
going to try the side door.

"Another thing I have learned to-day," said Mr. Peterkin, "is not to
have all the doors on one side of the house, because the storm blows the
snow against all the doors."

Solomon John started up.

"Let us see if we are blocked up on the east side of the house!" he
exclaimed.

"Of what use," asked Mr. Peterkin, "since we have no door on the east
side?"

"We could cut one," said Solomon John.

"Yes, we could cut a door," exclaimed Agamemnon.

"But how can we tell whether there is any snow there?" asked Elizabeth
Eliza,--"for there is no window."

In fact, the east side of the Peterkins' house formed a blank wall. The
owner had originally planned a little block of semi-detached houses. He
had completed only one, very semi and very detached.

"It is not necessary to see," said Agamemnon, profoundly; "of course,
if the storm blows against this side of the house, the house itself must
keep the snow from the other side."

"Yes," said Solomon John, "there must be a space clear of snow
on the east side of the house, and if we could open a way to that "--"We
could open a way to the butcher," said Mr. Peterkin, promptly.

Agamemnon went for his pick-axe. He had kept one in the house ever since
the adventure of the dumb-waiter.

"What part of the wall had we better attack?" asked Mr. Peterkin.

Mrs. Peterkin was alarmed.

"What will Mr. Mudge, the owner of the house, think of it?" she
exclaimed. "Have we a right to injure the wall of the house?"

"It is right to preserve ourselves from starving," said Mr. Peterkin.
"The drowning man must snatch at a straw!"

"It is better that he should find his house chopped a little when the
thaw comes," said Elizabeth Eliza, "than that he should find us lying
about the house, dead of hunger, upon the floor."

Mrs. Peterkin was partially convinced.

The little boys came in to warm their hands. They had not succeeded in
opening the side door, and were planning trying to open the door from
the wood-house to the garden.

"That would be of no use," said Mrs. Peterkin, "the butcher cannot get
into the garden."

"But we might shovel off