ll falling. A wind had
arisen, and on one side of the old Corner House the drift entirely
masked the windows. At eight o'clock they ate breakfast by lamplight.

Uncle Rufus did not get downstairs early, as he usually did, and when
Tess ran up to call him, she found the old man groaning in his bed, and
unable to rise.

"I done got de mis'ry in my back, chile," he said, feebly. "Don' yo'
worry 'bout me none; I'll be cropin' down erbout noon."

But Mrs. MacCall would not hear to his moving. There was a small
cylinder stove in his room (it was in the cold wing of the house) and
she carried up kindling and a pail of coal and made a fire for him. Then
Tess and Dot carried up his hot breakfast on one of the best trays, with
a nice white napkin laid over it.

"Glo-_ree_! Chillen, yo' mak' a 'ninvalid out o' Unc' Rufus, an' he
nebber wanter git up out'n hes baid at all. I don't spec' w'ite folkses
to wait on me han' an' foot disher way--naw'm!"

"You're going to be treated just like one of the family, Uncle Rufus,"
cheerfully cried Ruth, who had likewise climbed the stairs to see him.

But somebody must do the chores. The back porch was mainly cleared; but
a great drift had heaped up before it--higher than Ruth's head. The way
to the side gate was shut off unless they tunneled through this drift.

At the end of the porch, however, was the entrance to the woodshed, and
at the other end of the shed was a second door that opened upon the
arbor path. The trellised grapevine extended ten yards from this door.

Ruth and Agnes ventured to this end door of the shed, and opened the
swinging window in it. There was plenty of soft, fluffy snow under the
grape-arbor, but not more than knee deep.

Against the arbor, on the storm side, the drift had packed up to the
very top of the structure--and it was packed hard; but the lattice on
the side had broken the snowfall and the path under the arbor could
easily be cleared.

"Then we can get to the henhouse, Ruthie," said Agnes.

"And Billy Bumps, too, sister! Don't forget Billy Bumps," begged Tess
from the porch.

"We'll try it, anyway," said Ruth. "Here are all the shovels, and we
ought to be able to do it."

"Boys would," proclaimed Agnes.

"Neale would do it," echoed Dot, who had come out upon the porch
likewise.

"I declare! I wish Neale were here right now," Ruth said.

"'If wishes were horses, beggars could ride,'" quoted Agnes. "Come on,
Ruthie! I guess it's up to us."