They made a picnic of it, and her spirits skipped upon the
hilltops. For the first time she ate from tin plates, drank from a tin
cup, and used a tin spoon the worse for rust. What mattered it to her that
the teapot was grimy and the fryingpan black with soot! It was all part of
the wonderful new vista that had suddenly opened before her gaze. She had
awakened into life and already she was dimly realizing that many and
varied experiences lay waiting for her in that untrodden path beyond her
cloistered world.
A reconnaissance in the shed behind the house showed him no plethora of
firewood. But here was ax, shovel, and saw, and he asked no more. First he
shoveled out a path along the eaves of the house where she might walk in
sentry fashion to take the deep breaths of clear sharp air he insisted
upon. He made it wide enough so that her skirt would not sweep against the
snow-bank, and trod down the trench till the footing was hard and solid.
Then with ax and saw he climbed the hillside back of the house and set
himself to get as much fuel as he could. The sky was still heavy with
unshed snow, and he knew that with the coming of night the storm would be
renewed.
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