“He’s as deaf as a post,” Ted said. “That’s a blessing – this time, at least.”
“There goes Peter in the barn,” Dorothy remarked. “He has got that far safely, at any rate.”
A strained silence followed this announcement. Yes, Peter had gone into the barn. It seemed night would come before he could possibly secure the old horse, and get to the roadway to give the necessary pull to the stalled Fire Bird. They waited, eagerly watching the barn door. Finally it opened. Yes, Peter was coming, leading the horse.
“Now!” said Peter, standing with an emergency rope ready, “if only he gets past the house – ”
He stopped. The door of the snow-covered cottage opened, and there stood the unapproachable Sanders.
“Oh!” gasped Mabel. “Now we are in for it!”
“Then,” said Dorothy, “let us be ready for it. I’ll prepare the defence,” and before they realized what she was about to do she had selected one of the very choicest Christmas trees, and with it on her fur-covered shoulder, actually started up the box-wood lined walk to where the much-dreaded Sanders was standing, ready to mete out vengeance on the man who had dared to enter his barn, and take from it his horse.
“Oh Mr. Sanders!” called Dorothy. “Have you that dear little grand-daughter with you? The pretty one we had at the church affair last year?”
“You mean Emily?” he drawled. “Yep, she’s here, but – ”
“Then, you wonder why we have taken your horse? And why we were stalled here?” The others could hear her from the roadway. They could see, also, that Sanders had stopped to listen. “Now we want Emily to have a Christmas tree, all her own,” went on Dorothy, “and Peter is good enough to donate it. But our machine – those cars are not like horses,” she almost shouted, as Sanders being deaf, and watching the inexorable Peter leading his horse away, had cause to be aroused from his natural surprise. “After all,” persisted Dorothy, “a horse is the best.”
By this time Peter was outside the big gate. Sanders made a move as if to follow, when Dorothy almost dropped the clumsy tree.
“Oh, please take it!” she begged. “I want to see Emily while they are towing the machine out. It’s a lucky thing it happened just here, and that you are kind enough to let us have your horse.”
“Well what do you think of that!” exclaimed Ted, in a voice loud enough for those near him to hear. “Of all the clever tricks!”
“Oh, depend on Doro for cleverness,” replied Nat, proudly. “You just do your part, Ted, and make this rope fast.”
Mabel stood looking on in speechless surprise. She saw now that Dorothy and old Sanders were entering the cottage. Dorothy was first, and the man, with the Christmas tree, followed close behind her. The boys with Peter were busy with rope, horse and auto. Soon they had the necessary connection made, with Nat at the wheel, and all were tugging with might and main to get the Fire Bird free from the ditch.
If there is anything more nerve-racking than such an attempt, it must be some other attempt at a balking auto. Would it move, or would it sink deeper into the mud that lay hidden beneath the newly-fallen snow?
Nat turned the wheel first this way and then that. Ted had his weight pressed against the rear wheel of the machine, while Peter coaxed and led the horse. Suddenly the old horse, as if desperate, gave a jerk and pulled the Fire Bird clear out into the roadway!
“Hurrah!” yelled Ted, bounding through the snow.
“Great stunt!” corroborated Nat. “Peter, you are all right!”
“Peter did some,” replied the old man, freeing the horse from the rope that held him to the machine; “but that young lady – if she hadn’t kept Sanders busy – we might all have been arrested for horse-stealing.”
“She knew his weak spot,” agreed Nat. “That little Emily seems to be the one weak and soft spot in old Sanders’s life.”
“I had better go up and see what’s going on,” suggested Mabel, as everything seemed about in readiness to start off again.
“Good idea,” assented her brother, “he might be eating her up.”
Mabel rather timidly found her way up to the cottage. It was already dusk, but the light of a dim lamp showed her the way, as it gleamed through a gloomy window, onto the glistening snow.
“Won’t it be perfectly lovely, Emily?” she heard Doro saying, as she saw her with her arms about a little red-haired girl, both sitting on a sofa, while Sanders attempted to prop the Christmas tree up in a corner, bracing it with a wooden chair. Mabel raised the latch without going through the formality of knocking. As she entered the room, all but Dorothy started in surprise.
“This is my friend,” Dorothy hurried to explain, “it is she who is going to help me trim the tree up for Emily. We will come to-morrow,” and she rose to leave. “Mabel will fetch the doll, Emily. That is, of course, if we can persuade Santa Claus to give us just the kind we want,” she tried to correct.
“A baby dolly – with long hair and a white dress,” Emily ordered. “And I want eyelashes.”
“Perticular,” said Sanders, with a proud look at the child, who, as the boys had said, made up the one tender spot in his life. “If her ma’s cold is better, she is coming up herself.”
“Is she sick?” Emily ventured, glad to be able to say something intelligent.
“Yep,” replied the old man, sadly. “She’s been sick a long time. I fetched Emily over this afternoon in the sleigh.”
“Well, we are so much obliged,” remarked Dorothy. “And good-bye, Emily. You’ll have everything ready for Santa Claus; won’t you?”
“I’ve got my parlor set from last year,” said the child, “and mamma says Santa Claus always likes to see the other things, to know we took care of them.”
“Thanks, Sanders,” called Peter, at the window. “The horse is as good as ever. Don’t sell him without giving me a chance. I could do something if I owned a mare like that.”
“All right,” called back Sanders, whose pride was being played upon. “He might be worse. Did you put her in the far stall?”
“Just where I got her. And I tell you, Sanders, even a horse can play at Christmas. Only for him I never could get those trees to town.”
“And only for Peter,” put in Dorothy, “we could not have gotten Emily her tree. Now that’s how a horse can turn Santa Claus. Good-bye, Mr. Sanders, you may expect us before Christmas.”
And then the two girls followed the chuckling Peter back to the Fire Bird, where the boys impatiently awaited them, to complete the delayed party bound for home, and for the Christmas holidays.
CHAPTER IV
A REAL BEAUTY BATH
“This is some,” remarked Bob Niles, before he knew what he was talking about. They had just been ensconsed in Daddy Brennen’s sleigh. Tavia was beside him – that is, she was as close beside him as she was beside Daddy Brennen, but the real fact was, that in this sleigh, no one could be beside anyone else – it was ever a game of toss and catch. But that was not Daddy’s fault. He never stopped calling to his horse, or pulling at the reins. It must have been the roads, yet everyone paid taxes in Dalton Township.
“Don’t boast,” Tavia answered, adjusting herself anew to the last jolt, “this never was a sleigh to boast of, and it seems to be worse than ever now. There!” she gasped, as she almost fell over the low board that outlined the edge, “one more like that, and I will be mixed up with the gutter.”
“Perhaps this is a safer place,” Bob ventured. “I seem to stay put pretty well. Won’t you change with me?”
“No, thanks,”