t
graveyard." It was so much better in the country to have the grain and
meadows covered with the nice warm mantle, for it was warm to them.

Father Underhill took the little girl to school, for all the walks were
not cleared. Men and boys were going around with shovels on their
shoulders, offering their services.

"I could earn a lot of money if I didn't have to go to school to-day,"
said Jim, with a longing look at the piles of snow. "If it only _was_
Saturday!"

But there was no end of fun at school. The boys began two snow-forts,
and the snowballing was something tremendous. The air was crisp and
cold, and it gave everybody red cheeks.

Before night the stage sleighs were running, for the omnibuses really
couldn't get along. Steve came home early to take the boys and Hanny
out. Hanny still wore the red cloak and a pretty red hood and looked
like a little fairy.

They went over to the Bowery. You can hardly imagine the gay sight it
was. Everything that could be put on runners was there, from the dainty
cutter to the lumbering grocery box wagon. And oh, the bells on the
frosty air! It was enough to inspire a hundred poets.

There were four horses to the long sleigh. Steve found a seat and took
the little girl on his lap, covering her with an extra shawl. The boys
dropped down on their knees in the straw. It was a great jam, but
everybody was jolly and full of good-natured fun. Now and then a
youngster threw a snowball that made a shower of snow in the sleigh, but
the passengers shook it off laughingly.

They went down to the Battery and just walked across. Castle Garden was
a great white mound. Brooklyn looked vague and ghostly. The shipping was
huddled in the piers with fleecy rigging, and only a few brave vessels
were breasting the river, bluer still than the sky. And here there was
such a splendid turnout it looked like a pageant.

They came up East Broadway. The street lamps were just being lighted.
They turned up Columbia Street and Avenue D, and stopped when they came
to Houston Street. A man on the corner was selling hot waffles as fast
as half a dozen men could bake them, and a colored woman had a stand of
hot coffee that scented up the air with its fragrance.

They had to walk up home, but Steve carried Hanny over all the
crossings. It was a regular carnival. The children decided snow in New
York was ever so much more fun than snow in the country.

But after a few days they settled to it as a regu