Winter Fun. Stoddard William Osborn
he had not killed more than one.
CHAPTER IV.
WINTER COMFORT
Susie and Pen had a grand ride to the farmhouse on the wood-sleigh.
Perched away up there on top of the brushwood, they could get the full effect of every swing and lurch of the load under them. Vosh Stebbins had to chuckle again and again, in spite of his resolute politeness; for the girls would scream a little, and laugh a great deal, when the sleigh sank suddenly on one side in a snowy hollow, or slid too rapidly after the oxen down a steeper slope than common. It was great fun; and, when they reached the house, Susie Hudson almost had to quarrel with aunt Judith to prevent being wrapped in a blanket, and shoved up in a big rocking-chair into the very face of the sitting-room fireplace.
"Do let her alone, Judith," said aunt Farnham. "I don't believe she's been frost-bitten."
"I'm not a bit cold."
"I'm real glad o' that," said aunt Judith; "but ain't you hungry? – Pen, you jest fetch up some krullers."
Susie admitted that she could eat a kruller, and Pen had no need to be told twice.
When Vosh came back from the woods with his second load, it was dinner-time; and Deacon Farnham came with him. Only a few minutes later, there was a great shouting at the kitchen-door, and there were the two boys. The whole family rushed out to see what they had brought home, and Susie thought she had never seen her brother look quite so tall.
"Corry beat ye, did he?" said Vosh as he turned the rabbits over. Something in the tone of that remark seemed to add, "Of course he did;" and Port replied to it, —
"Well, he's used to it. I never fired a gun before in all my life."
That was a frank confession, and a very good one to make; for the deacon exclaimed, —
"You never did! I declare! then you've done tip-top. You'll make a marksman one of these days."
"I hit two of my rabbits on the full run, anyhow."
"How about the deer?" said Vosh with a sly look. "Did you hit him on the run?"
"When you meet him," said Corry, "you can just ask him. He's the only fellow that knows: I don't."
"Like as not he doesn't either."
"Vosh," said Mrs. Farnham, "tell your mother to come over with you after tea, and spend the evening."
"She'll come: I know she will. I'll finish my chores early."
He swung his axe to his shoulder, and marched away, very straight, with a curious feeling that some city people were looking at him.
The boys and the girls and the older people were all remarkably ready for that dinner as soon as it was on the table.
"Pen," said Susie, "I didn't know chopping down trees would make me so hungry."
"Yes," said Deacon Farnham, "it's as bad as killing deer. Port and Corry are suffering from that. You did your chopping, as they did their deer-killing, at a safe distance."
After dinner it was a puzzle to everybody where the time went, it got away so fast. Pen took Susie all over the house, and showed her every thing in it, from the apples in the cellar to the spinning-wheel that had been carried up stairs the day before, and would have to come down again to-morrow.
"Aunt Judith's got a pile of wool, Susie. You ought to see it. She's going to spin enough yarn to last her all next summer."
"I'll get her to teach me to spin."
"Can you knit? If you can't, I'll teach you how. It's awful easy, as soon as you know."
Susie told Pen about her tidies and crochet-work and some other things, and was getting a little the best of it, until Pen asked very doubtfully, —
"Can you heel a stocking? It's worse, a good deal, than just to narrow 'em in at the toes. Aunt Judith says there ain't many women nowadays that can heel a stocking."
"I'll make her show me how. Dear me, Pen! did you know how late it is? Where can all the time have gone to?"
Corry and Porter knew where a part of theirs had gone, after they got back from the barns, and delivered to Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith the eggs they had found. Corry got out his checker-board, and laid it on the table in the sitting-room.
"It's a big one," said Porter. "Where are your men?"
"Hanging up there in that bag. The wooden men got lost. We take horse-chestnuts for black men, and walnuts for white ones."
"S'pose you make a king?"
"That's a butternut, if it's black. If it's white, you put on one of those chunks of wood."
There was no danger of their getting out of checker-men; but Corry Farnham had a lesson to learn.
Porter Hudson knew a great deal more about checkers than he did about tree-chopping or rabbits.
Game after game was played, and it seemed to Corry as if his cousin "hit some of them on a full run." He got up from the last one they played, feeling a very fair degree of respect for Port; and the latter was pretty well restored to his own good opinion of himself.
That was something, for all his morning's experiences had been a little the other way; and he was not half sure he could again hit a running rabbit, if he should have a chance to try.
Susie and Pen had watched them for a while, but both boys had been very obstinate in not making any of the good moves Pen pointed out to them.
There were chores to do both before and after tea; and Porter went out with Corry, determined on undertaking his share of them.
"Did you ever milk cows, Port?"
"Well, no, I never did; but I guess I could if I tried."
"Well, I guess you'd best not try to-night, but you can learn before you go home. Some of our cows are skittish in cold weather."
Port was quite contented, after getting into the cowyard, to let the milking be done by some one who knew how; and he had the satisfaction of seeing Corry kicked over into the snow – pail, milk, and all – by a brindled heifer who had no need of any kind of weather to bring out her natural skittishness.
There were pigs and cattle and horses to feed, and supper to be eaten; and when, at last, the boys had finished their duties, the rest of the family was already gathered in the sitting-room.
Mrs. Farnham and aunt Judith had their knitting; and the deacon had a newspaper in his lap, with his spectacles lying in the middle of it. It seemed, however, the most natural thing in the world, that they should all be sitting in a great semicircle in front of the fireplace. The night promised to be a cold one, and the fire had been built for it in the most liberal manner.
"Corry," said Porter, "what are all those flat-irons and hammers for?"
"Why, to crack nuts. I'm going down cellar to bring 'em up, – butternuts and hickory-nuts. There was a big crop of 'em last fall."
"I'll go with you."
"So will I," said Pen. "Come, Susie, and we'll bring up the apples and pears and some cider."
"Now, Pen," said aunt Judith, "look out you don't leave the cider runnin', like you did once. You may fetch up a cake of maple-sugar, if anybody wants any. And don't you tetch them hard russets. They won't be fit to eat till spring."
Aunt Judith's instructions continued almost without cessation, till the young folk were all at the bottom of the cellar-stairs. Corry and Pen carried candles; but the light of these only served to make that cellar look ten times larger and darker and more mysterious. It seemed as if it had neither sides nor ends; but the heavy black beams overhead were not so wonderfully far away. Pen showed Susie bin after bin of carefully selected winter apples and pears, and there were half a dozen barrels of cider ranged against the wall.
"It's all pretty sweet now, but it'll be hard enough some time. Then some of it'll make vinegar."
"What's in the little barrel?"
"Aunt Judith's currant-wine. She says it'll be the best