First they went back into the kitchen to put on the warmest things they
had--boots to keep their feet dry, and sweaters under their school
coats, with stockingnet caps drawn down over their ears.

"I not only wish we _had_ a boy in the family," grumbled Agnes, "but I
wish _I_ were that boy. What cumbersome clothes girls have to wear!"

"What do you want to wear--overalls and a jumper?" demanded Ruth,
tartly.

"Fine!" cried her reckless sister. "If the suffragettes would demand the
right to wear male garments instead of to vote, I'd be a suffragette in
a minute!"

"Disgraceful!" murmured Ruth.

"What?" cried Agnes, grinning. "To be a suffragette? Nothing of the
kind! Lots of nice ladies belong to the party, and _we_ may yet."

They had already been to the front of the old Corner House. A huge drift
filled the veranda; they could not see Main Street save from the upper
windows. And the flakes were still floating steadily downward.

"We're really snowbound," said Agnes, in some awe. "Do you suppose we
have enough to eat in the house, to stand a long siege?"

"If we haven't," said Mrs. MacCall, from the pantry, "I'll fry you some
snowballs and make a pot of icicle soup."

CHAPTER XIX

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

It was plain that the streets would not be cleared _that_ day. If the
girls were able to get to school by the following Monday they would be
fortunate.

None of the four had missed a day since the schools had opened in
September, and from Ruth down, they did not wish to be marked as absent
on their reports. This blizzard that had seized Milton in its grasp,
however, forced the Board of Education to announce in the _Post_ that
pupils of all grades would be excused until the streets were moderately
passable.

"Poor people will suffer a good deal, I am afraid," Ruth said, on this
very first forenoon of their being snowbound.

"Our folks on Meadow Street," agreed Agnes. "I hope Mrs. Kranz will be
kind to them."

"But we oughtn't to expect Mrs. Kranz, or Joe Maroni, to give away their
food and coal. Then _they'd_ soon be poor, too," said the earnest Ruth.
"I tell you what, Aggie!"

"Well--shoot!"

Ruth overlooked her sister's slang for once. "We should leave money with
Mrs. Kranz to help our poor folk, when we can't get over there to see
them so frequently."

"Goodness, Ruth!" grumbled Agnes. "We won't have any spending money left
for ourselves if we get into this charity game any deeper."