AN EXPEDITION AFOOT
“Yes,” said Miss Olaine, who became deeply interested when she thought
she had the attention of her class, and the matter under discussion was
one that appealed particularly to herself. “What we want in literature
is direct and simple English.
“I wish you young ladies to mark this: Epigrams, or flowers of
rhetoric, or so-called ‘fine writing,’ does not mark scholarship. The
better understanding one has of words and their meanings, the more
simply thought may be expressed.
“Do you attend me?” she added, sharply, staring straight at Tavia.
“Then to-morrow each of you bring me, expressed in her own language
upon paper, her consideration of what simple English means.”
And Tavia received another “condition” for presenting and reading aloud
to the class, as requested, the following:
“Those conglomerated effusions of vapid intellects, which posed in
lamented attitudes as the emotional and intellectual ingredients
of fictional realism, fall far short of the obvious requirements
of contemporary demands and violate the traditional models of the
transcendent minds of the Elizabethan era of glorious memory.”
“You consider yourself very smart, I have no doubt, Miss Travers,” said
Miss Olaine, sneeringly, “in inventing a specimen of so-called English
exactly opposed to the simple language I demanded. You evidently
consider that you have been sent here to school to _play_. We will see
what a little extra _work_ will do for you.”
And so Tavia had certain tasks to perform that kept her indoors on the
next Saturday half-holiday. That is why Dorothy chanced to set out
alone from the school for a long walk.
It was a cold afternoon, and the sun was hidden. There seemed to be a
haze over the whole sky. But there was no snow on the ground, and the
latter was as hard as iron and rang under her feet.
Jack Frost had fettered the ponds and streams and frozen the earth, in
preparation for the snow that was coming. But Dorothy, not being very
weatherwise, did not guess what the atmospheric conditions foretold.
It seemed to her to be a very delightful day for walking, for there
was no rough wind, and the paths were so hard. She was only sorry that
Tavia was not with her.
It was the apparent peacefulness of the day that tempted her off the
highroad into a piece of wood with which she was not very familiar.
Indeed, she would better have turned back toward the school at the time
she entered the wood, for she had then come a long way.
The path she finally struck into was narrow and winding, and the trees
loomed thickly on either hand. Before she realized her position, it was
growing dusk and fine snow was sifting down upon her--from the thick
branches of the trees, she thought at first.
“But no! that can’t be,” urged Dorothy, suddenly, and aloud. “There
hasn’t been any snow for a week, and surely that which fell last would
not have lain upon the branches so long. I declare! it’s a storm
started. I must get back to Glenwood.”
She turned square around--she was positive she did so--and supposedly
took the back track. But there were intersecting paths, and all she
could see of the sky overhead was a gray blotch of cloud, out of which
the snow sifted faster and faster. She had no idea of the points of the
compass.
She went on, and on. “I really must get out of this and reach the
road,” Dorothy told herself. “Otherwise I shall be drifting about the
woods all night--and it’s altogether too cold to even contemplate
_that_ as a possibility.”
Being cheerful, however, did not culminate in Dorothy’s finding the end
of the path at once. And when she did so--coming suddenly out into an
open place which she did not recognize--the fine snow was driving down
so fast that it almost blinded her.
“This is not the road,” thought the girl, with the first shiver of fear
that she had felt. “I have got turned about. I shall have to ask----”
Whom? Through the snow she could see no house--no building of any kind.
She stood and listened for several moments, straining her ears to catch
the faintest sound above the swish of the driving snow.
There was no other sound. The wind seemed to be rising, and the snow
had already gathered to the depth of several inches while she had been
rambling in the woods.
“Really,” thought Dorothy. “I never saw snow gather so fast before.”
She had little trouble at first following the path on the edge of the
wood. She knew very well it was not the highway; but it must lead
somewhere--and to _somewhere_ she must very quickly make her way!
“If I don’t want to be snowed under completely--be a regular lost ‘babe
in the wood’--I must arrive at some place very soon!” was her decision.
The path was a cart track. There was a half-covered worm-fence on one
hand and the edge of the wood on the other. She had no idea whether
she was traveling in the direction of Glenwood Hall, or exactly the
opposite way.
“Swish! swish! swish!” hissed the snow. It had a sort of soothing
sound; but the fact that she was lost in it was not a soothing idea at
all to Dorothy.
She staggered on, stumbling in the frozen path, and realizing very
keenly that the snow was gathering no faster than the cold was
increasing. With the dropping of night the temperature was sliding
downward with great rapidity.
Dorothy Dale was in real peril. The driving snow blinded her; she lost
the line of the fence finally, and knew that she was staggering through
an open field. She was still in the winding cart-path, for she fell
into and out of the ruts continually; but she was traveling across an
open farm. The sheltering wood was behind her and the snow drove down
upon her, harder than before.
She halted, her back to the increasing wind, and tried to peer ahead.
A wall of drifting snow limited the view. She raised her voice and
shouted--again and again!
There came no reply. Not even a dog barked. She seemed alone in a world
of drifting snow, and now she was really terrified.
She was benumbed by the cold and it would be impossible for her to
travel much farther. If she did not reach some refuge soon----
Dorothy plunged on into the storm, scrambling over the rough path,
and occasionally raising her voice in cries for help. But she was so
breathless and spent that she traveled slowly.
Here was a fence corner. The way was open into a narrow lane. Several
huge oak trees in a row bulked big before her as she pressed on. She
could not remember ever having seen the spot before.
But Dorothy believed a house must be near. Surely she would not be
lost--covered up by the snow and frozen to death--near to a human
habitation?
“There must be somebody living around here!” she murmured, plowing on
through the drifts. “Help; help!”
Her faint cry brought no response. She was becoming confused as well
as weary. The wind increased in force so rapidly that when she again
halted and leaned back against it, it seemed to the weakened girl as
though she were lying in somebody’s arms!
The snow swept around her like a mantle. It gathered deeply at her
feet. She no longer felt the keen air, but was sinking into a pleasant
lethargy.
There was peril in this, and at another time Dorothy would have
understood it fully. But she was not now in a state to understand what
threatened her. She was only drowsy--weak--almost insensible. Another
moment and she would have fallen in the snow and sunk into that sleep
from which there would be no awakening.
And then, to her dim eyes, appeared a sudden glow of lamplight ahead.
It could not be far away, for she heard the hinges of a door creak, and
then a voice reached her ears:
“Come in here! What are you doing out in that snow--ye
good-for-nothin’? Ain’t ye got no sinse, I wanter know? Av all the
young ’uns that iver was bawn, it’s you is the wust av th’ lot. Come in
here!”
Dorothy was aroused by these words. For a moment she thought the woman
who spoke must be addressing her. Then she heard a thin little voice
answer:
“Oh, Mrs. Hogan! I _know_ I heard somebody hollerin’ in the snow. It’s
somebody what’s lost, Mrs. Hogan.”
“Nonsinse! Come away, now--I’ll have no more av yer foolin’, Cely
Moran. I’ll sind ye ter bed widout yer supper if ye don’t come in out
o’ that snow----”
Dorothy hardly understood yet; but almost involuntarily she raised her
voice in a cry of:
“Celia! Celia Moran!”
[Illustration: SHE STAGGERED FORWARD INTO THE DIM RADIANCE OF THE LIGHT.
_Dorothy Dale’s Promise._ _Page 77._]
“Do you hear that, Mrs. Hogan?” shrieked the shrill voice of the child.
“Bless us an’ save us!” gasped the woman. “The saints preserve us! ’Tis
a ghost, it is.”
“What’s a ghost, Mrs. Hogan?” demanded the inquisitive Celia, quick to
seize upon a new word.
“’Tis a Pixie. Who knows yer name in this place? Come away, child!”
Dorothy, who heard them plainly now, cried out again. She staggered
forward into the dim radiance of the light that shone from the
farmhouse kitchen.
“There she is!” Dorothy heard the little one say. Then she plunged
forward to her knees. Mrs. Ann Hogan, the grenadier, came flying out of
the doorway and gathered Dorothy right up in her strong arms.
“Git out from under fut, ye nuisance!” she commanded, speaking to
Celia. “Av coorse ’tis somebody in trouble. Make way, there! Lemme near
the stove wid her.
“Sure, ’tis a most be-uchiful young leddy as ever was. An’ she was lost
in the snow--thrue for yez! Sure her folks will be payin’ well for her
bein’ saved from death this night.
“Shut the door, Cely. Put on the kettle--she must have somethin’ hot.
Stir yer stumps, Cely Moran, or I’ll be the death of ye!”