I remember little that followed until I was startled out of my chair by a loud knocking. The sunlight was streaming in at the window and John Jones’s voice was at the door.
“I think we have all overslept,” I said, as I admitted him.
“Not a bit of it. Every wink you’ve had after such a day as yesterday is like money put in the bank. But the sleighing is better now than it will be later in the day. The sun’ll be pretty powerful by noon, and the snow’ll soon be slush. Now’s your chance to get your traps up in a hurry. I can have a two-hoss sled ready in half an hour, and if you say so I can hire a big sleigh of a neighbor, and we’ll have everything here by dinnertime. After you get things snug, you won’t care if the bottom does fall out of the roads for a time. Well, you have had to rough it. Merton might have come and stayed with us.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” said the boy, rubbing his eyes open as he rose from the floor, at the same time learning from stiff joints that a carpet is not a mattress.
“Nothing would suit me better, Mr. Jones, than your plan of prompt action, and I’m the luckiest man in the world in having such a longheaded, forehanded neighbor to start with. I know you’ll make a good bargain for the other team, and before I sleep tonight I wish to square up for everything. I mean at least to begin business in this way at Maizeville.”
“Oh, go slow, go slow!” said Mr. Jones. “The town will mob you if they find you’ve got ready money in March. John junior will be over with a pot of coffee and a jug of milk in a few minutes, and we’ll be off sharp.”
There was a patter of feet overhead, and soon Bobsey came tearing down, half wild with excitement over the novelty of everything. He started for the door as if he were going head first into the snow.
I caught him, and said: “Do you see that chair? Well, we all have a busy day before us. You can help a good deal, and play a little, but you can’t hinder and pester according to your own sweet will one bit. You must either obey orders or else be put under arrest and tied in the chair.”
To go into the chair today would be torture indeed, and the little fellow was sobered at once.
The others soon joined us, eager to see everything by the broad light of day, and to enter upon the task of getting settled. We had scarcely come together before John junior appeared with the chief features of our breakfast. The children scanned this probable playmate very curiously, and some of us could hardly repress a smile at his appearance. He was even more sandy than his father. Indeed his hair and eyebrows were nearly white, but out of his red and almost full moon face his mother’s black eyes twinkled shrewdly. They now expressed only goodwill and bashfulness. Every one of us shook hands with him so cordially that his boy’s heart was evidently won.
Merton, to break the ice more fully, offered to show him his gun, which he had kept within reach ever since we left the boat. It made him feel more like a pioneer, no doubt. As he took it from its stout cloth cover I saw John junior’s eyes sparkle. Evidently a deep chord was touched. He said, excitedly: “Today’s your time to try it. A rabbit can’t stir without leaving his tracks, and the snow is so deep and soft that he can’t get away. There’s rabbits on your own place.”
“O papa,” cried my boy, fairly trembling with eagerness, “can’t I go?”
“I need you very much this morning.”
“But, papa, others will be out before me, and I may lose my chance;” and he was half ready to cry.
“Yes,” I said; “there is a risk of that. Well, you shall decide in this case,” I added, after a moment, seeing a chance to do a little character building. “It is rarely best to put pleasure before business or prudence. If you go out into the snow with those boots, you will spoil them, and very probably take a severe cold. Yet you may go if you will. If you help me we can be back by ten o’clock, and I will get you a pair of rubber boots as we return.”
“Will there be any chance after ten o’clock?” he asked, quickly.
“Well,” said John junior, in his matter-of-fact way, “that depends. As your pa says, there’s a risk.”
The temptation was too strong for the moment. “O dear!” exclaimed Merton, “I may never have so good a chance again. The snow will soon melt, and there won’t be any more till next winter. I’ll tie my trousers down about my boots, and I’ll help all the rest of the day after I get back.”
“Very well,” I said quietly: and he began eating his breakfast—the abundant remains of our last night’s lunch—very rapidly, while John junior started off to get his gun.
I saw that Merton was ill at ease, but I made a sign to his mother not to interfere. More and more slowly he finished his breakfast, then took his gun and went to the room that would be his, to load and prepare. At last he came down and went out by another door, evidently not wishing to encounter me. John junior met him, and the boys were starting, when John senior drove into the yard and shouted, “John junior, step here a moment.”
The boy returned slowly, Merton following. “You ain’t said nothin’ to me about goin’ off with that gun,” continued Mr. Jones, severely.
“Well, Merton’s pa said he might go if he wanted to, and I had to go along to show him.”
“That first shot wasn’t exactly straight, my young friend John.
