Here a light flashed--a mere speck of a light--not to the right, where
lay the clump of trees--but to my left; then a faint wave of warm color
rose from a chimney and curled over a low roof buried in snow. Again the
light flashed--this time through a window with four panes of glass--each
one a beacon to a storm-tossed mariner!
On once more--into a low hollow--up a steep slope--slipping, falling,
shoving the hand-gripped bag ahead of me to help my footing, until I
reached a snow-choked porch and a closed door.
Here I knocked.
For some seconds there was no sound; then came a heavy tread, and a man
in overalls threw wide the door.
“Well, what do you want at this time of night?” (Time of night, and it
but seven-thirty!)
“I'm the lecturer,” I panted.
“Oh, come! Ain't they sent for ye? Here, I'll take 'em. Walk in and
welcome. You look beat out. Well--well--wife and I was won-derin' why
nothin' driv past for the six-ten. We knowed you was comin'. Then agin,
the station master's sick, and I 'spose ye couldn't warm up none. And
they ain't sent for ye? And they let ye tramp all--Well--well!”
I did not answer. I hadn't breath enough left for sustained
conversation; moreover, there was a red-hot stove ahead of me, and a
rocking-chair,--comforts I had never expected to see again--and there
was a pine table--oh, a lovely pine table, with a most exquisite white
oil-cloth cover, holding the most beautiful kerosene lamp with a
piece of glorious red flannel floating in its amber fluid; and in the
corner--a wife--a sweet-faced, angelic-looking young wife, with a baby
in her arms too beautiful for words--must have been!
I dropped into the chair, spread my fingers to the stove and looked
around--warmth--rest-peace--comfort--companionship--all in a minute!
“No, they didn't send anything,” I wheezed when my breath came. “The
conductor told me I should find the farmhouse over the hill--and--”
“Yes, that's so; it's back a piece, you must have missed it.”
“Yes--I must have missed it,” I continued in a dazed way.
“The folks at the farmhouse is goin' to hear ye speak, so they told me.
Must be startin' now.”
“Would you please let them know I am here, and--”
“Sure! Wait till I get on my boots! Hello!--that's him now.”
Again the door swung wide. This time it let in a fur overcoat, coon-skin
cap, two gray yarn mittens, a pair of raw-beefsteak cheeks and a voice
like a fog-horn.
“Didn't send for ye? Wall, I'll be gol-durned! And yer had to fut it?
Well, don' that beat all. And yer ain't the fust one they've left down
here to get up the best way they could. Last winter--Jan'ry, warn't it,
Bill?” Bill nodded--“there come a woman from New York and they dumped
her out jes' same as you. I happened to come along in time, as luck
would have it--I was haulin' a load of timber on my bob-sled--and there
warn't nothin' else, so I took her up to the village. She got in late,
of course, but they was a-waitin' for her. I really wasn't goin' to hear
you speak to-night--we git so much of that sort of thing since the old
man who left the money to pay you fellers for talkin' died--been goin'
on ten years now--but I'll take yer 'long with me, and glad to. But yer
oughter have somethin' warmer'n what yer got on. Wind's kinder nippy
down here, but it ain't nothin' to the way it bites up on the ridge.”
This same thought had passed through my own mind. The unusual exertion
had started every pore in my body; the red-hot stove had put on the
finishing touches and I was in a Russian bath. To face that wind meant
all sorts of calamities.
The Madonna-like wife with the cherub in her arms rose to her feet.
“Would you mind wearing my fur tippet?” she said in her soft voice;
“'tain't much, but it 'ud keep out the cold from yer neck and maybe this
shawl'd help some, if I tied it round your shoulders. Father got his
death ridin' to the village when he was overhet.”
She put them on with her own hands, bless her kind heart! her husband
holding the baby; then she followed me out into the cold and helped draw
the horse-blanket over my knees; the man in the coon-skin cap lugging
the bags and the umbrella.