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Page 84
The clouds had an ugly look,--a few flakes had fallen already,--and the
snow was purple, deep in as far as you could see under the trees.
Something made me think of Ben Gurnell, as I drove on, looking along
down the road to keep it straight. You never heard about it? Poor Ben!
Poor Ben! It was in '37, that was; he had been out hunting up blazed
trees, they said, and wandered away somehow into the Gray Goth, and went
over,--it was two hundred feet; they didn't find him, not till
spring,--just a little heap of bones; his wife had them taken home and
buried, and by and by they had to take her away to a hospital in
Portland,--she talked so horribly, and thought she saw bones round
everywhere.
There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick;
the trees are so thick you don't mind the first few flakes, till, first
you know, there's a whirl of 'em, and the wind is up.
I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of
Nannie,--that's what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl,
but it seems a long time ago, that does. I was thinking how surprised
she'd be, and pleased. I knew she would be pleased. I didn't think so
poorly of her as to suppose she wasn't just as sorry now as I was for
what had happened. I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down
her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck
and cry, and couldn't help herself.
So I didn't mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at
once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,--it
was sleet.
"Oho!" said I to myself, with a whistle,--it was a very long whistle,
Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till
the sun went down, nor till morning either.
That was about noon,--it couldn't have been half an hour since I'd eaten
my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn't bear to waste time.
The road wasn't broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there'd
been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white, level places wound off
among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the
matter of that. I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet
out,--after they're stung too much they're good for nothing to see with,
and I _must_ see, if I meant to keep that road.
It began to be cold. You don't know what it is to be cold, you don't,
Johnny, in the warm gentleman's life you've lived. I was used to Maine
forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold.
The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow. The sleet blew every
way,--into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks.
I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to
ice in a minute. I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the
sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up
again.
If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if
somebody'd shot them. If you looked in under the trees, you could see
the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows. If you looked straight
ahead, you couldn't see a thing.
By and by I thought I had dropped the reins, I looked at my hands, and
there I was holding them tight. I knew then that it was time to get out
and walk.
I didn't try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the
sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of 'em in your eye at a wink; then
it was growing dark. Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so
I had to trust to them. I thought I must be coming near the clearing
where I'd counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn't reach the
deaf old woman's.
There was a man just out of Bangor the winter before, walking just so
beside his team, and he kept on walking, some folks said, after the
breath was gone, and they found him frozen up against the sleigh-poles.
I would have given a good deal if I needn't have thought of that just
then. But I did, and I kept walking on.
Pretty soon Bess stopped short. Beauty was pulling on,--Beauty always
did pull on,--but she stopped too. I couldn't stop so easily, so I
walked along like a machine, up on a line with the creaturs' ears. I
_did_ stop then, or you never would have heard this story, Johnny.
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