"But I don't want to sleep upstairs alone without March, Martie,"
protested Budd, trying to be brave, but showing his fear.
"You can sleep in Hazel's room to-night, Budd, and Cherry can get into my bed and sleep with me."
The twins looked relieved. "Oh, that's different, Martie," said Budd, with a grateful look. Cherry begged for a little cotton wool to stuff in her ears:--"Then I can't hear Tell and this awful noise." A novel idea, which Budd at once adopted and put into practice. Their mother looked relieved when they were safely bestowed in their new quarters.
About ten minutes afterwards they heard Chi's steps in the shed. Then the door opened slowly, as he shoved Tell aside. When he entered the room Mrs. Blossom gave one look at his face.
"Oh, Chi, what has happened!" She cried out as if hurt.
Chi's face showed grayish white and drawn in the lamplight. His hand shook a little as he reached for a second lantern, turning his back on the three terrified faces.
"Horse stalled, that's all. Had a tough tussle to get him round, but he 's all right now." His voice sounded hoarse.
"Was it Bob or Bess?" asked Rose.
Chi, without answering, turned quickly to Tell, who was pressing him nearly off his feet, and at the same time, lashing his tail as if in fury.
"What ails you, anyway?" said Chi, roughly. "D' you want to get out?"
For answer the dog rushed to the front door that opened on the porch, rose on his hind legs, stemmed his powerful forepaws against the panels and, throwing back his massive head, sent forth from his deep throat a roar that seemed to shake the rafters.
"Mis' Blossom," Chi's voice shook and his hand trembled till the glass globe of the lantern tinkled in the wire frame, "I 'm goin' to let him out, 'n' I 'm goin' to follow on--there 's trouble somewhere on the Mountain, 'n' I 'm goin' to find out where 't is."
All three cried out, protesting, entreating, praying him to desist. But Chi shook his head.
"I tell you I 've _got_ to go, Mary Blossom"--Chi had never called her that but once before, and Mrs. Blossom, recalling the time, felt her heart as lead within her--"you're brave,--brave as a woman can be; don't say nothin', but let me go. Have plenty of hot water 'n' flannels, 'n'
some spirits ready 'gainst I come back--"
"Lady-bird, give me the dog collar with the bell you gave Tell last Chris'mus; 'n' Molly Stark, fill your mother's hot water-bag--'n' hurry up; 'n' Mis' Blossom, give me Ben's brandy flask, he didn't take it with him."
Chi, while issuing these orders, was strapping down his trousers over his long boots; then he poured out a brimming cup of hot water, and mixed with it some of the brandy from the flask. He put the collar on Tell, the bell ringing loud and clear with every movement. He opened the door; the dog bounded out into the night. Chi followed him, a coil of rope around his neck, a shovel over one shoulder with a lantern suspended from the handle, and in his hand a second lantern. The hot-water bag he had put beneath his sweater, and a leathern belt girded him.
So equipped he went out into the drifting snows and the night of storm.
The terrified women were left alone.
"Mother, oh, mother!" cried Rose, wringing her hands, "I know it's something dreadful; Chi would never look that way."
Mary Blossom could not answer. Her silence was prayer. It was all of which she was capable at that time.
"I don't know what the matter was in the barn, mother," again cried Rose, in an agony of fear. "Chi did n't tell us all, I 'm sure. Let me go through the tunnel and find out, do, mother!"
"Oh, Rose, I can't--I can't!" Mrs. Blossom spoke under her breath.
"Please, mother. It 's all safe, and the wind has gone down a little since Chi went; let me go--I can't rest till I do. You can hold the light at the shed door end and I won't be gone but a minute or two. I 'll take the dark lantern with me--Oh, mother! do, do--!"
"Well, Rose, perhaps it's for the best. I 'll watch you through."
"May I watch, too?" asked Hazel, eagerly.
"No, dear, I want you to stay here in case the children should wake.
Come, Rose."
They were gone but a few minutes; then Mrs. Blossom came in followed by her daughter. The girl's teeth were chattering; she looked blue and pinched.
"What did you find, Rose?" Her mother's voice was scarce above a whisper.
"_I found Fleet!_"
The two women sat down on the settle, holding each other close; and the wind rose again in its fury.
Wrapping a heavy shawl about her Hazel crept away upstairs to the back garret and the window overlooking the woods'-road, which formed the approach to the house. There was a little snow-drift beneath it where the flakes had sifted through; but the wind was felt less severely on that side of the house. She opened the window a few inches, propping it on a corn cob she had stepped upon; then, kneeling, she put her ear to the opening and strained her hearing in every lull of the storm.
At last--she knew not how long she had listened--she heard Tell's deep roar. It came muffled, but distinct. She scarce trusted her ears; but again she heard it, and, this time, in a dead silence, she caught the sound of the bell. Surely Tell was nearing the house. She ran downstairs.
"They 're coming!" she cried, hardly realizing what she said in her excitement. Mrs. Blossom and Rose leaped to their feet. They threw open the door.
"Chi! Chi!" they called out into the night. There was a joyous bark for answer---then a groan, and Chi staggered across the snow-laden porch and fell with his heavy burden on the threshold.
At midnight the wind went down, but the snow continued to fall. All the next day it fell steadily, but at sunset it ceased, and a young moon looked over the shoulder of Mount Hunger upon an unbroken white coverlet that, in some places, was drifted to the depth of twenty feet.
There was twilight in Aunt Tryphosa's little cabin "over eastwards," for the snow was piled to the eaves, and the tulips furnished their only sunshine for two days.
There was consternation at Hunger-ford, for the family were cut off from their neighbors and the outside world of letters and papers.
There were councils at Lemuel's and the Spillkinses'--for how could they gather their forces to break out the Mountain?
There were heavy hearts and reddened eyelids in the farmhouse, for March, rescued by Chi and revived by vigorous treatment, had succumbed to the exposure and chill, and lay unconscious in fever--and no help at hand.
Chi, spent to exhaustion, had rallied at midnight, but knew that it was beyond human powers to attempt to reach Barton's or even Lemuel Wood's, their next neighbor, through the drifts.
So they waited, helpless--one day, two days. On the second day the white expanse showed no tracks. Then March began to wander, and clutch his breast, where his mother had found the telegram, which his father had sent to him from Ogdensburg:--
"Heavy blizzard. Roads blocked. Tell mother at once. Don't worry."
Chi walked the house night and day in his misery of helplessness. At last, on the third day, looking eastwards he descried a black blotch on the white,--it was a four-ox team breaking out from the Fords'. Later in the day, when the men were within two hundred yards of the house, he saw another black spot on the lower road. It was the Mill Settlement road-team, with a full equipment of men and tools, to cut a way through the drifts.
Soon there was help and to spare. Alan Ford was riding down the narrow way between high walls of glittering white to Barton's for aid, and bringing back telegrams of anxious inquiry from Mr. Blossom and Mr.
Clyde. On the fourth day, the blockade was raised, and the south-bound express to Barton's River brought Mr. Blossom from the north, and another train brought Mr. Clyde from the south. Two days after all the Lost Nation knew that March would live.
XXI
A LITTLE DAUGHTER OF THE RICH