CHAPTER XXIICAUGHT IN A STORM
Theboys helped the three girls down the bank and, slipping and sliding, they made their way across the river to the other side. Scrambling up this bank, they found the building was further back than they had supposed.
“I’m so co-old!” shivered Margy. “I don’t see any smoke coming out of a chimney. I don’t believe any one lives there.”
“I don’t see any chimney,” declared Ward, trying to brush the snow away from before his face so that he could see clearly—a hopeless task.
“Well, some one must live there,” said Fred, impatiently. “Hurry up, or we’ll freeze standing here.”
It was dark now, and they were stiff and tired. Their clothes were damp and their gloves soaked through. Worse still, they were hungry, and Artie, who had often sighed to be an explorer, began to wonder whether he was going to starve to death in the snow.
Fred led the way toward the building and the others followed him, longing for the sight of a bright fire and a lighted lamp. The ground was humpy, and Margy began to cry when she fell down.
“I’m so tired,” she sniffed, as Polly pulled her up. “If any one lives in that house they’re not at home, because it’s dark.”
“Perhaps there’s a light at the back,” said Fred. “Maybe they only have a light in the kitchen.”
“Do you know what I think, Fred?” called Polly, raising her voice above the wind which still buffeted them unmercifully. “I think that is a barn! It doesn’t look like a house to me.”
“If it’s a barn, that means there’s a house near here,” shouted Fred. “That’s good luck.”
But when they had reached the barn—for it was a barn, after all—another disappointment awaited them. The building was open on both sides, and the wind swept through the wide doorways and hurled the snow into the corners, where it lay in heaps.
The barn was an old one, evidently abandoned years before!
“Come on in,” said Fred, refusing to be discouraged. “It can’t be as cold as it is outside. And because the barn isn’t used is no sign thereisn’t a house near. There must be a house!”
The six forlorn chums stepped inside the dark doorway and found themselves in a cavern, or so it seemed to them.
“Be careful,” warned Polly. “Some of the boards may be rotten and we might step through them, or fall into a hole.”
They felt their way carefully, following the wall, till they were well back from the doorway through which they had entered. Protected in a measure from the wind, they felt warmer at once.
“You stand still,” commanded Fred. “I’m going over to that other doorway and look out.”
He felt his way around slowly, and when he felt the wind blow full in his face he knew he had reached the other doorway.
“Say, I see a light!” he called to the others. “A little light, and that must be in a house. It looks a mile away, but I’ll bet you it is a house.”
“I won’t go another step,” declared Margy, sitting down on the floor. “Not another step. I’m too tired to move.”
“But you’ll freeze here,” said Polly. “Won’t she, Fred?”
“I’d just as lief freeze as to break my leg walking over that humpy ground again,” retorted Margy, bitterly.
“Well, I’d rather stay here, too,” announced Jess. “You don’t know positively that that light is in a house. And if it is in a house, it may be miles and miles away. I’d rather stay here till morning.”
They were all so tired and cold that a quarrel might easily have developed, had not Polly proposed a plan.
“I tell you what let’s do,” she said good-temperedly. “Let Jess and Margy stay here and Ward and Artie take care of them; then I’ll go with you, Fred, and we’ll see if that light is in a house. Perhaps we’ll find the house that goes with this barn first, and that will be nearer.”
Ward and Artie wanted to go with Polly and Fred, but were finally persuaded to remain with the two girls.
“Don’t stay all night,” begged Artie, as Polly whispered to him to be good and not let Margy get frightened.
“Say, Polly, you’re all right,” Fred told her, striking off in the direction of the twinkling light. “I know you’re dead tired and cold, too, but you don’t grunt. Uh!” and Fred gave a grunt himself.
“What’s the matter?” cried Polly, anxiously. “What is it, Fred?”
“I walked into something,” said Fred.“Nearly knocked my teeth out. Don’t know what it is, but it feels like a tower of some sort.”
“I know,” cried Polly, feeling the “tower.” “It’s one of the brick foundations of a porch, Fred. Feel the loose bricks under the snow? This is probably where the house that goes with that old barn stood, and it either burned down or fell down.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Fred. “See, here’s the cellar. I won’t grumble because I walked into that column of bricks—if I hadn’t we might have both stepped into that cellar, and that wouldn’t have been any fun.”
Carefully and feeling each step of the way, they skirted the open cellar. The wind and the snow made going very slow, and the twinkling light seemed to come no nearer.
“Want to stop and get your breath, Polly?” asked Fred, a little anxiously, when they had been walking some minutes in silence.
“I’m—all—right,” gasped Polly. “But I’ve got my scarf tied over my mouth to keep the wind out. I can’t talk.”
They plodded on after that, and to Fred’s delight the light came nearer and nearer at last. Soon they could see that it shone from the window of a house and streamed feebly out on a broken picket fence.
“At least they’re at home,” said Fred, thankfully. “You can stay and get warm, Polly, and I’ll go back and get the others.”
He was sure their troubles were over, and he rapped loudly on the door with visions of a hot supper dancing before his eyes.
No one answered his knock, and he rapped again. Still silence.
“We’ll both knock,” said Polly, and the two of them beat a tattoo on the door.
“Some one’s coming,” whispered Polly. “Hark!”
They heard a bolt drawn back and a key in the lock turned. Then the door opened slowly and an old woman peered out.
“Who’s there?” she asked. “What do you want?”
“Please, we’re caught in the storm,” said Polly. “May we come in and get warm?”
“Why, you’re children!” said the old woman, in astonishment. “Come in—come in. Though you can’t get warm, I’m thinking. I got out of bed to answer your knock, and there’s no wood in the house to make a fire.”
She opened the door wider and beckoned them to come in. They saw a square room, neatly furnished and evidently used as a combination sitting room and kitchen.
“You must be chilled through,” said the old woman. “I can fix a fire for you, if this boy will go out to the woodshed and get some wood; there’s plenty cut there, but I couldn’t go out in the storm. My rheumatism took me this afternoon, and I had to go to bed.”
“There are four more of us, waiting in a barn,” explained Polly, as Fred went out to find the woodshed, carrying a lantern the old woman gave him. “We were out skating this afternoon and lost our way.”
“Dear, dear, you must be hungry, too! Now, if you could cook, there’s eggs in that bowl on the shelf and bread and butter and jam a-plenty. I have cold baked beans left over, too.”
The old woman could hardly walk, and Polly said at once that she would cook the eggs.
“Then let your brother build up a good fire and put a kettle of water on to heat, and you set the table and get the supper ready. I’ll tell you where to find things. I declare, I feel better already, having some one to talk to. And that fire feels good, too. I won’t be caught this way again; I’ll fill up my woodbox when I have a chance, and then when I’m flat on my back I won’t have to worry.”
Fred built a roaring fire in the stove, filled the woodbox, and then, not stopping to dry his gloves—tosay nothing of his shoes, which were soaked through—he set off to the barn to bring the rest back with him.
While he was gone, Polly first made some tea and boiled an egg for their kind hostess. Then she set the table at the old woman’s directions, told her who they were and explained about the Riddle Club and that Fred was not her brother. She cut the bread and scrambled the eggs, and when Fred and the others returned they found a cheerful picture awaiting them—a warm kitchen and a table set with six bowls of milk and a mound of bread already buttered, not to mention a pan of baked beans, the reddest of red currant jam, and the yellowest of golden eggs sizzling in a pan on the stove.
“Take off your wet things,” ordered the old woman. “I guess I have enough bedroom slippers to go round. I have ten nieces, and every blessed one of them has, at some time or other, knit me a pair of bedroom slippers. They don’t seem to think I wear anything else.”
The girls and boys laughed, but when they had taken off their heavy, wet shoes, the red and pink and blue and purple wool knitted slippers felt very cozy and warm to their tired feet. Their gloves and mittens were hung on a line behind the stove and the shoes arranged in a row on the hearth,and then they sat down to enjoy their belated supper.
“I suppose your folks will be worried to death about you, but we can’t help it,” said the old woman. Her name, she told them, was Mrs. Wicks. “There’s a telephone in a house about half a mile away, but a storm like this always breaks down the wires, even if you were fit to go out again to-night, which you’re not. I never saw a storm come up quicker than this one did, and it’s lucky for me you came along. I haven’t a fancy to have a rheumatic attack and no wood for a fire in the house.”
Artie and Ward went to sleep at the table, and that brought up the question of where they were to sleep.
“I’ve got two bedrooms, besides mine,” said Mrs. Wicks. “But they haven’t been used this winter. I’m afraid they’re damp.”
“That will be all right,” said Polly, politely.
“No, it won’t be all right,” declared Mrs. Wicks, with vigor. “I don’t aim to have you take cold, sleeping in damp sheets. I can’t get the things out, but you go in and bring the sheets and blankets off those two beds and hang ’em on chairs before the fire; that will dry them. You can put the two little fellows on my bed till theirs is ready.”
But neither Polly nor Fred would hear to this, so Artie and Ward were finally shaken awake and set to work carrying out blankets while the girls washed the dishes. Mrs. Wicks had had a nap before their arrival, and she was enjoying herself, but Polly and Margy confided to each other that never, never, never had they been half so tired and sleepy.
Finally the blankets and sheets were pronounced dry, the beds made up again, and, leaning on Fred and Polly, Mrs. Wicks hobbled to her own room. In two minutes after they had lain down, the six members of the Riddle Club were fast asleep, and though the wind howled all night and shook the windows and rattled loose shutters, not a sound did they hear.