SNOWBOUND
The earnestness in the little, shrewd face, the quaver of her voice,
the clutch of her fingers around Dorothy’s neck, all impressed the girl
from Glenwood Hall as to just how much the finding of the big, lost
brother meant to little Celia Moran.
“I haven’t found him yet, dear,” she said, brokenly. “But I will--_I
will_--find him. I have written a letter, and I am going to keep on
searching--Oh, my dear! I _know_ I shall find him for you in the end.
Just you have patience.”
“That’s what the matron used to say at the Findling,” said Celia. “But,
do you know patience is a nawful hard thing to keep?”
“I expect it is, dear.”
“And you’ll be sure to find the _right_ Tom Moran,” urged the little
girl. “You know, he’s big, and he’s got ever so red hair, and he builds
bridges and things.”
“I shall find the right one,” promised Dorothy.
“You see, Mrs. Hogan don’t want me to talk about him,” said the child,
faintly. “When I forgets and does, she says: ‘Drat the young ’un! Ain’t
she thankful for havin’ a home?’
“But, do you know,” pursued Celia, her voice dropping to a whisper
again, “I’se afraid I ain’t as thankful as I doughter be--no, I ain’t.”
“Not thankful?”
“No, ma’am! I can’t somehow jes’ feel thankful for Mrs. Ann Hogan.”
Dorothy could not blame her for this, but she did not feel it right to
agree with her. “Oh, my dear! I expect Mrs. Hogan is kind to you--in
her way,” she said.
“Yes, I ’spect so,” sighed Celia, nodding slowly. “But you can’t
jes’ get uster some folkses’ ways; can you? It--it was better in the
Findling--yes, it was, Dorothy. And I hoped if any lady took me away it
would be a nice, cuddly one.”
“A cuddly one?” repeated Dorothy. “What sort of a lady is that?”
“Why, you know,” Celia said, with eagerness. “The kind that cuddles
you, and makes a-much over you. Of course, you never was a Findling,
Dorothy?”
“Oh, no, dear! I haven’t any mother, any more than you have; but I have
a dear, dear father and two brothers----”
“Well, you see,” interrupted the eager little one, “some of the ladies
what come for the findlings just fall right in love with them. The
matron lady always dresses ’em up real pretty, and curls their hair,
and makes ’em look as pretty as they can look.
“You see,” she added, in an explanatory way, “I was so nawful
thin--scrawny, the matron said--the mother-ladies what comed to find a
findling didn’t care much for me.”
Dorothy could understand that it was the pretty, plump children who
would mostly attract those lonely hearts reaching out for the babies
that God had denied them.
“You see,” pursued Celia, “Mrs. Hogan wanted a young one that could
_work_. She told the matron so. I was gettin’ so big that they had
to let somebody have me pretty soon, or I’d have to go to the Girls’
School--an’ the matron said ‘God forbid!’ so I guess the Girls’ School
ain’t a very nice place for little girls to go,” and Celia shook her
head wisely.
“But, you see, I hoped an’ hoped that one of the cuddly ladies would
take me. I seen one carry Maisie--she was my little friend--right out
of the Findling, and down the steps, and into a great, big, be-youtiful
ortermobile. She hugged her tight all the way, too, an’ I _think_--she
cried over her. The matron said she’d lost a little girl that looked
like Maisie.
“But I didn’t look like nobody that was lost--not at all. They all
said when they looked at me: ‘She’s jes’ the cutest little thing!’ But
somehow they didn’t love me.”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Dorothy, gathering Celia into her arms again. “I
don’t see why all the lonesome mothers that came there to the asylum
didn’t fall in love with you right away!”
There was a great stamping upon the porch and the door flew open.
Dorothy saw that the whole world outside seemed to be one vast
snowbank. Mrs. Hogan, puffing and blowing, in knee boots and her man’s
outfit, was covered with snow.
“That Jim Bentley’s gone home--bad ’cess t’ him. Though ’tis me saves
a supper thereby. An’ he niver got the hoss up at all, at all!” she
cried, wiping her red face on a towel hanging by the sink, and then
shedding her outside garments, boots and all, in a heap by the hot
stove.
“’Tis an awful night out,” she pursued. “’Tis lucky ye came here as ye
did, Miss. We’re safe and sound, the saints be praised! An’ I got the
ould hoss on his feet, mesilf, an’ no thanks to that lazy spalpane, Jim
Bentley. The Lord is good to the poor Irish.”
Dorothy decided that the man, Jim Bentley, must be a neighbor whom Mrs.
Hogan hired to do some of her heavy work. But the Amazon seemed quite
capable of doing a good deal of farm work herself.
Now she set about getting supper, and she kept Celia Moran hopping to
run her errands, fetch and carry, and otherwise aid in the preparation
of the meal. It was no banquet; merely hot bread and fried pork, with
some preserves, the latter evidently opened for the delectation of the
“paying guest.”
Mrs. Hogan made it plain at every turn that she expected to be paid
for everything she did for Dorothy. She was a veritable female miser.
Dorothy had never imagined such a person in all her life before.
And, although the woman did not really put her hand upon little Celia,
she was continually threatening her and hustling her about. She seemed
even to begrudge the poor child her food, and the infinitesimal portion
of preserve that was put upon Celia’s plate was, to Dorothy’s mind,
“the last straw.”
The school girl boldly changed saucers with Celia and gave the little
one _her_ share of the sweetmeat.
Mrs. Hogan would not let her guest assist in clearing up after supper.
Celia, in a long apron tied around her throat by its strings, and
dragging on the floor so that her little feet in their worn shoes were
impeded when she tried to walk, stood upon a box at the kitchen sink
and washed the pile of dishes, while her mistress dried them--scolding
and admonishing all the time.
“Av all the young imps of Satan! looker that now! D’ye not know tis
wrong ter wash the greasy dishes first? How often must I tell ye? An’
her water’s not hot.
“That’s it! pour in some more. ’Tis too hot for ye? ’Twill cool. An’
yer han’s no bether nor mine, an’ w’en I was your age I washed dishes
for a boardin’ house--twinty hear-r-rty men sat doon to the table, too.
And they made a wash-basket o’ dishes iv’ry male, so they did!
“What’s the mather with yer han’s? Is ut a cute lady ye expict ter be?
Ha! ye’ll l’arn some practical things, then, while yer wid me. Arrah!
there’s a plate that ain’t clane. What d’ye mane by ut? ’Tis a good
lickin’ ye oughter have!”
And thus she went on all during the task. Poor Celia was not struck, or
really abused, as far as Dorothy could see. But she was sensitive, and
the lashing of Mrs. Hogan’s coarse tongue hurt Celia more than physical
punishment would have hurt some other child.
When the smoke of battle had passed away, and little Celia had washed
out and hung up the dish-towels to dry on the line behind the stove,
Dorothy took her on the settee beside her. Mrs. Hogan made no
objection, nor did she scarcely speak to them as the evening advanced.
Dorothy whispered stories to the round-eyed child--Oh! she had had
plenty of practise in story-telling while her brothers, Joe and Roger,
were little. Celia was too old to care much for “The Little Rid Hin”,
or “The Frog He Would A-Wooing Go”; but Dorothy could repeat “Aspinax;
or, the Enchanted Dwarf” almost word for word, and the marvellous
adventures of that appealing hero held Celia’s enthralled attention for
the evening.
Perhaps Mrs. Hogan had been listening, too; for she never said a word
about its being bedtime until the story was finished. All the time the
snow had been beating against the house, while the wind moaned in the
chimney and occasionally rattled a loose shutter.
It was really an awful night out, and Dorothy felt that she was being
snowbound here in this lonely farmhouse. She was only afraid that Tavia
and the other girls, as well as Mrs. Pangborn, would be frightened for
her.
“I’ll be puttin’ youse in the spare room. ’Tis a betther bed than those
above stairs,” said Mrs. Hogan. “I suppose ye’ll be willin’ to pay a
mite extry for th’ accommidation? There’s a stove and a fire laid ready
to light. Ye kin undress where ’tis war-r-rm, and I’ll heat the sheets
for ye. In the marnin’ I’ll sind Celia down airly, an’ she kin light
the fire for ye, Miss Dale. ’Tis goin’ to be a cold night, an’ we may
be snowed ter th’ eaves by marnin.”
“Oh! I hope not,” replied Dorothy, warmly.
“Ye nade have no fear. There’s plenty of fuel and atein’, I’d have ye
know.”
“But are you going to let me sleep down here all alone?” queried
Dorothy.
“Sure, the upstairs rooms are not fit for the likes o’ ye,” said the
woman, quickly. “And there’s no manes of heatin’ them. In the marnin’
ye’ll have a nice, hot fire to git up by. I’ll see that Cely lights
it----”
“Oh, Mrs. Hogan!” cried Dorothy, “let Celia sleep down here with me.
Your bed is big enough for two, surely.”
“Well, I dunno----”
“Then she will be right on hand to light the fire in the morning,”
suggested Dorothy, who could not think calmly of the little girl
getting up in the cold to come downstairs and light a fire for _her_.
“And I’d love to have her sleep with me. She’d be company.”
“Well, if ye wish it,” said the woman, slowly. “But mind ye, Cely!
if ye’re not a good gur-rl--an’ kick an’ thrash in yer sleep--I’ll
certainly spank ye. Now, mind that!”
The woman got up and went through the hall to open the guest chamber.
The room was like a refrigerator, and the cold air swept out of it into
the kitchen and made Dorothy and Celia “hug the stove.” It was a bitter
cold night and Dorothy secretly longed for her own warm room, with
Tavia, at Glenwood Hall.
But Celia was delighted at the permission given her. She wriggled out
of Dorothy’s arms and ran upstairs for her nightie. Mrs. Hogan brought
forth one of her own sleeping garments for Dorothy--voluminous enough,
it seemed to the girl, to be used as a tent if one wished to go camping
out.
The nightgown was of coarse muslin, but as white as it could be, and
had evidently been folded away in lavender for some special occasion.
Mrs. Hogan did not give one the impression of being a lady who paid
much attention to the niceties of life.
And there was Celia’s little nightie--a coarse, unbleached cotton
garment, with not even a frill of common lace about the throat. When
the child got into it and knelt by the kitchen settee to say her
prayers, Dorothy thought she looked as though she was dressed in a
little meal-sack!
Meanwhile Mrs. Hogan had brought down an old-fashioned brass “bed
warmer” from the wall--a long handle, covered pan (the cover being
perforated) into which she shoveled some glowing coals from the
stove fire-box. With this bed-warmer she ironed the bed in the guest
room. These bed-warmers were common enough in the pioneer homes of
New England and the upper New York counties, and Dorothy decided that
Mrs. Hogan must have found this one in the old farmhouse when she had
purchased the place.
“Come on wid ye, now!” the woman called from the cold bed chamber.
“Oi’ve taken the desp’rit cold out o’ the shates, and’ yez kin cuddle
in here an’ kape war-r-rm. But ye’ll git no sich notion in yer head
that I’ll be warmin’ yer bid for yez on other nights, Cely; for I won’t
do ut! I never have me own bed warmed, and it’s well fer youse ter
l’arn ter live harsh, too.”
This was her good-night to them. When the two girls had scrambled into
bed, all of a shiver from crossing the cold hall and the big chamber,
Mrs. Hogan banged the door, and the next moment they heard her fixing
the kitchen fire for the night.
Dorothy had gathered the little, starved body of Celia in her arms.
The little one sighed, sobbed, and then lay still. Before Dorothy had
realized it, Celia was fast asleep--so wearied was the little one.
But the older girl lay, broad awake, for some minutes. Her breath
puffed out in plainly visible mist, the air of the room was so cold.
The freezing water in the pitcher on the washstand snapped and
crackled. A shade had been raised to the top of the sash, and that
ghostly light always present when it is snowing at night, faintly
illuminated the bare room.
“Swish! swish! swish!” the snow beat upon the clapboards outside. She
saw that the lower sash was completely covered by the snow. The drifts
were piling up on this side of the house, and Dorothy finally dropped
to sleep, hugging her little charge, with the feeling that she was
being buried alive beneath the soft, white mantle.