The Corner House Girls at School Part 23

The snow came thicker and faster. They were in the midst of a world of white and had there been any shelter at all at hand, Neale would have insisted upon taking advantage of it. But there was nothing of the kind.

CHAPTER XIV

UNCLE RUFUS' STORY OF THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE

"Trix is going to stay all night with Carrie. If we go back she will only laugh at us," Ruth Kenway said, decidedly.

"We-ell," sighed Agnes. "I don't want to give that mean thing a chance to laugh. We can't really get lost out here, can we, Neale?"

"I don't see how we can," said Neale, slowly. "I'm game to go ahead if you girls are."

"It looks to me just as bad to go back," Ruth observed.

"Come on!" cried Agnes, and started forward again through the snow.

And, really, they might just as well keep on as to go back. They must be half way to the edge of Milton by this time, all three were sure.

The "swish, swish, swish" of the slanting snow was all they heard save their own voices. The falling particles deadened all sound, and they might have been alone in a wilderness as far as the presence of other human beings was made known to them.

"Say!" grumbled Neale, "she said there was a brook here somewhere--at the bottom of a hollow."

"Well, we've been going down hill for some time," Ruth remarked. "It must be near by now."

"Is--isn't there a--a bridge over it?" quavered Agnes.

"A culvert that we can walk over," said Neale. "Let me go ahead. Don't you girls come too close behind me."

"But, goodness, Neale!" cried Agnes. "We mustn't lose sight of you."

"I'm not going to run away from you."

"But you're the last boy on earth--as far as we can see," chuckled Agnes. "You have suddenly become very precious."

Neale grinned. "Get you once to the old Corner House and neither of you would care if you didn't ever see a boy again," he said.

He had not gone on five yards when the girls, a few paces behind, heard him suddenly shout. Then followed a great splashing and floundering about.

"Oh! oh! Neale!" shrieked Agnes. "Have you gone under?"

"No! But I've gone through," growled the boy. "I've busted through a thin piece of ice. Here's the brook all right; you girls stay where you are. I can see the culvert."

He came back to them, sopping wet to his knees. In a few moments the lower part of his limbs and his feet were encased in ice.

"You'll get your death of cold, Neale," cried Ruth, worriedly.

"No, I won't, Ruth. Not if I keep moving. And that's what we'd all better do. Come on," the boy said. "I know the way after we cross this brook. There is an unfinished street leads right into town. Comes out there by your store building--where those Italian kids live."

"Oh! If Mrs. Kranz should be up," gasped Agnes, "she'd take us in and let you dry your feet, Neale."

"We'll get her up," declared Ruth. "She's as good-hearted as she can be, and she won't mind."

"But it's midnight," chattered Neale, beginning to feel the chill.

They hurried over the culvert and along the rough street. Far ahead there was an arc light burning on the corner of Meadow Street. But not a soul was astir in the neighborhood as the trio came nearer to the German woman's grocery store, and the corner where Joe Maroni, the father of Maria, had his vegetable and fruit stand.

The Italians were all abed in their miserable quarters below the street level; but there was a lamp alight behind the shade of Mrs. Kranz's sitting room. Agnes struggled ahead through the drifts and the falling snow, and tapped at the window.

There were startled voices at once behind the blind. The window had a number of iron bars before it and was supposed to be burglar-proof.

Agnes tapped again, and then the shade moved slightly.

"Go avay! Dere iss noddings for you here yedt!" exclaimed Mrs. Kranz, threateningly. "Go avay, or I vill de berlice call."

They saw her silhouette on the blind. But there was another shadow, too, and when this pa.s.sed directly between the lamp and the window, the girls saw that it was Maria Maroni. Maria often helped Mrs. Kranz about the house, and sometimes remained with her all night.

"Oh, Maria! Maria Maroni!" shrieked Agnes, knocking on the pane again.

"Let us in--_do_!"

The Italian girl flew to the window and ran up the shade, despite the expostulations of Mrs. Kranz, who believed that the party outside were troublesome young folk of the neighborhood.

But when she knew who they were--and Maria identified them immediately--the good lady lumbered to the side door of the store herself, and opened it wide to welcome Ruth and Agnes, with their boy friend.

"Coom in! Coom in by mine fire," she cried. "Ach! der poor kinder oudt in dis vedder yedt. Idt iss your deaths mit cold you vould catch--no?"

Ruth explained to the big-hearted German widow how they came to be struggling in the storm at such an hour.

"Undt dot boy iss vet? Ach! Ledt him his feet dake off qvick! Maria!

make de chocolate hot. Undt de poy--ach! I haf somedings py mine closet in, for _him_."

She bustled away to reappear in a moment with a tiny gla.s.s of something that almost strangled Neale when he drank it, but, as he had to admit, "it warmed 'way down to the ends of his toes!"

"Oh, this is _fine_!" Agnes declared, ten minutes later, when she was sipping her hot chocolate. "I _love_ the snow--and this was almost like getting lost in a blizzard."

Mrs. Kranz shook her head. "Say nodt so--say nodt so," she rumbled. "Dis iss pad yedt for de poor folk. Yah! idt vill make de coal go oop in brice."

"Yes," said Maria, softly. "My papa says he will have to charge twelve cents a pail for coal to-morrow, instead of ten. He has to pay more."

"I never thought of _that_ side of it," confessed Agnes, slowly. "I suppose a snow storm like this _will_ make it hard for poor people."

"Undt dere iss blenty poor folk all about us," said Mrs. Kranz, shaking her head. "Lucky you are, dot you know noddings about idt."

"Why shouldn't we know something about it?" demanded Ruth, quickly. "Do you mean there will be much suffering among _our_ tenants because of this storm, Mrs. Kranz?"

"Gott sie dank! nodt for _me_," said the large lady, shaking her head.

"Undt not for Maria's fadder. Joe Maroni iss doin' vell. But many are nodt so--no. Undt der kinder----"