“I almost envy you both,” said Dorothy, good humoredly. “Just see it snow! I can see you under Daddy’s horse blanket.”
“It’s surely a horse blanket,” replied Tavia. “We cannot count on his having a steamer rug.”
“I suppose,” said Mr. Niles, “the sleigh answers all stage-coach purposes out that way?”
“As well as freight and express,” returned Dorothy. “Dear old Dalton! I have had some good times out there!”
“Why don’t you come out now, Doro?” asked Tavia, mischievously. “There may be some good times left.”
The gentleman who had vacated the seat taken by Mr. Niles was now coming back. This, of course, was the signal for the latter to leave.
“We are almost at the Birchlands!” he said, “I hope, Miss Dale, that those boy cousins of yours do not get buried in the snow, and leave you in distress. I remember that auto of theirs had a faculty for doing wild things.”
“Oh, yes. We had more than one adventure with the Fire Bird. But I do not anticipate any trouble to-night,” said Dorothy. “I heard from Aunt Winnie this morning.”
With a word about seeing them before the end of their journey, he took his chair, while Tavia sat perfectly still and silent, for, it seemed to Dorothy, the first time in her life.
“What is it?” she asked. “Don’t you feel well, Tavia?”
“I feel like bolting. I have a mind to get off at Bridgeton. Fancy me riding with that angel!”
“I’m sure he is very nice,” Dorothy said, in a tone of reproof. “I should think you would be glad to have such pleasant company.”
“Tickled to death!” replied Tavia, mockingly.
“I’m sure you will have some adventure,” declared Dorothy. “They always begin that way.”
“Do they? Well, if I fall in love with him, Doro, I’ll telegraph to you,” and Tavia helped her friend on with hat and coat, for the Birchlands had already been announced.
CHAPTER III
“GET A HORSE!”
“Hello there, Coz!” shouted Nat White, as Dorothy stepped from the train. “And there’s Tavia – and well! If it isn’t Bob Niles!”
“Yes,” said Dorothy, postponing further greetings until the train should pull out, and Tavia’s last hand-wave be returned. “We met him coming up, and he goes to Dalton.”
“Well I’ll be jiggered! And he has Tavia for company!” exclaimed the young man, who for years had regarded Tavia as his particular property, as far as solid friendship was concerned.
“And Tavia has already vowed to be mean to him,” said Dorothy, as she now pressed her warm cheek against that of her cousin, the latter’s being briskly red from the snowy air. “She would scarcely speak to him on the train.”
“A bad sign,” said Nat, as he helped Dorothy with her bag. “There are the Blakes. May as well ask them up; their machine does not seem to be around.”
The pretty little country station was gay with holiday arrivals, and among them were many known to Dorothy and her popular cousin. The Blakes gladly accepted the invitation to ride over in the Fire Bird, their auto having somehow missed them.
“You look – lovely,” Mabel Blake complimented Dorothy.
“Doesn’t she?” chimed in Mabel’s brother, at which Dorothy buried her face deeper in her furs. Nat cranked up; and soon the Fire Bird was on its way toward the Cedars, the country home of Mrs. Nathaniel White, and her two sons, Nat and Ned. Mrs. White was the only sister of Major Dale, Dorothy’s father, and the Dale family, Dorothy and her brothers, Joe and little Roger, had lately made their home with her.
It lacked but a few days of Christmas, and the snowstorm added much to the beauty of the scene, while the cold was not so severe as to make the weather unpleasant. All sorts of happy remembrances were recalled between the occupants of the automobile, as it bravely made its way through drifts and small banks.
“Oh, there’s old Peter!” exclaimed Dorothy, as a man, his stooped shoulders hidden under a load of evergreens, trudged along.
“And such a heavy burden,” added Mabel. “Couldn’t we give him a lift?”
Nat slowed up a little to give the old man more room in the roadway. “Those Christmas trees are poor company in a machine,” he said. “I have tried them before.”
“But it is so hard for him to travel all the way to the village?” pleaded Dorothy. “We could put his trees on back, and he could – ”
“Sit with you and Mabel?” and Ted Blake laughed at the idea.
“No, you could do that?” retorted Dorothy, “and Peter could ride with Nat. Please, Nat – ”
“Oh, all right, Coz, if it will make you happy. I wish, sometimes, I were lame, halt and old enough – to know.” Whereat he stopped the machine and insisted on old Peter doing as the girls had suggested.
It was no easy matter to get the trees, and the bunches of greens, securely fastened to the back of the auto, but it was finally accomplished. Peter was profuse in his thanks, for the greens had been specially ordered, he said, and he was already late in delivering them.
“Which way do you go?” asked Nat.
“Out to the Squire’s,” replied Peter. “But that road is soft, I wouldn’t ask you take it.”
“Oh, I guess we can make it,” proposed Nat. “The Fire Bird is not quite a locomotive.”
“She goes like a bird, sure enough,” affirmed Peter. “But that road is full of ditches.”
“We will try them, at any rate,” insisted Nat, as he turned from the main road to a narrow stretch of white track that cut through woods and farm lands.
“If we are fortunate enough not to meet anything,” said Dorothy. “But I have always been afraid of a single road, bound with ditches.”
“Of course,” growled Nat, “there comes Terry with his confounded cows.”
Plowing along, his head down and his whip in hand came Terry, the half-witted boy who, Winter and Summer, drove the cows from their field or barn to the slaughter house. He never raised his head as Nat tooted the horn, and by the time the machine was abreast of the drove of cattle, Nat was obliged to make a quick swerve to avoid striking the animals.
“Oh!” gasped both Dorothy and Mabel. The car lunged, then came to a sudden stop, while the engine still pounded to get ahead.
“Hang the luck!” groaned Nat, vainly trying to start the car, which was plainly stalled.
“I told you,” commented Peter, inappropriately. “This here road – ”
“Oh, hang the road!” interrupted Nat. “It was that loon – Terry.”
As the young man spoke Terry passed along as mutely as if nothing had happened.
“I’d like to try that whip on him, to see if I could wake him up,” said Ted, as he leaped out after Nat to see what could be done to get the car back on the road.
But it was an impossible task. Pushing, pulling, prying with fence rails – all efforts left the big, red car stuck just where it had floundered.
“I know,” spoke Peter, suddenly. “I’ll get Sanders’s horse.”
“Sanders wouldn’t lend his horse to pull a man out of a ditch,” said Nat. “I’ve asked him before.”
“That’s where you made a mistake,” replied Peter. “I won’t ask him,” and he awkwardly managed to get out of the car, and was soon out on the road and making his way across the snow-covered fields.
“We