IF my father and mother had been at home it would never have happened, but they started in the morning as soon as they could see the road for my Aunt Margaret’s, taking Emeline with them. I remember just how I felt when I saw them drive from our gate with Emeline sitting between them; it seemed so terrible, somehow, to think of her sitting in my place, because I was the one who always sat between father and mother. But Cousin Emeline was Aunt Margaret’s little girl, and word had come that Aunt Margaret was very sick, and that Emeline must be brought home as fast as possible; so of course they started, though there was every sign of a storm, Uncle Peter said, and he hardly ever made a mistake in the weather. He was our “signal service” in those days. Cousin Edward was at our house, too; he was Uncle Edward’s son, and always spent his short vacation with us, because his folks lived too far away for him to go home. He was thirteen years old, and thought he knew all there was to know in life. He was a smart fellow, and would have been real nice if he had not felt so sure of it himself. Father and mother had not been gone an hour when he began to plan to drive to town to the New Year festival which was to be held in one of the churches, and take me along. Kirke said everything in the world to hinder us from going; he thought it was going to storm.

“Who’s afraid of a few snowflakes?” said Edward. “I want Nannie to have a cheery time for New Year’s; it is dreadful dull for her with Auntie and Uncle both gone.”

Kirke was a boy who did chores at our house for his board, and went to school; we lived two miles nearer the schoolhouse than his mother did, and they were pretty poor, and Kirke earning his board away from home helped them a good deal. We all loved Kirke; he was a good sensible boy, and stood at the head of his classes in school. But I did not approve of him that day; I wanted to go to town. I was a silly little thing in those days, not afraid of anything; I laughed at the storm just as Edward did.

“It will be more than a few flakes,” Kirke said, shaking his head gravely; “I think we are going to have the worst storm of the season.” Then Edward began to make fun of him—call him Uncle Peter, and ask what kind of a winter it was forty years ago; because Uncle Peter was always going back to old times and telling stories about the weather. Kirke kept good-natured, and laughed with me over Edward’s speeches, but for all that he did not stop trying to keep us from going to town.

“Look here,” he said, “I have a tip-top plan for this afternoon. Mrs. Baker gave me a jug of molasses and some splendid ears of pop-corn to take home: suppose you and Nannie walk out home with me, and we will pop some corn, and make candy with hickory nuts in? We’ve got a bushel of nuts stored away in the garret, and we’ll have no end of fun. Nannie can stay all night—she has done it before, you know—and sleep with my sister Mary, and you and I will turn in with little Billy up in the attic; he likes company.”

The picture looked quite inviting to me; I had often been out to Kirke’s house, for my father and mother liked their family very much, and were always willing to have me play with their children.

But Edward was not to be persuaded. “No, you don’t, old fellow,” he said; “candy and nuts are first-rate things for any night in the year but New Year’s; a fellow needs something extra then. I’ve set my heart on seeing the festival tables, and watching them give out the prizes, and I’m going; my uncle said three days ago that I could.”

“But he did not know that it was going to snow,” Kirke said, more and more anxious. “Really, Edward, I do not think Mr. and Mrs. Baker would like to have you take Nannie out when it looks so much like a storm.” Then Edward got angry and told Kirke to mind his own business, that we were not left in his charge at least, and that he should do as he liked; and Kirke was to remember that Mr. and Mrs. Baker were his own uncle and aunt, and that he might be supposed to know as much about what they would like as a stranger could. Kirke said no more, but he looked very much troubled. I was half-disposed to give up the plan, but Edward laughed at me. The good-natured housekeeper in whose care we were left never paid much attention to the weather, and made no objection to my going. I don’t know but that it would have come out all right even then, if Edward’s pride had not got the upper hand. He took a notion to drive to town by the old road.

“O, don’t!” I urged; “you do not know that way at all, and Uncle Peter said this morning that the wind last night must have drifted the snow on the old road.”

“Poh!” said Edward, “Uncle Peter is an old croaker; he’s an old man, Nannie, and always makes mountains out of molehills. The wind will be at our backs part of the time on the old road, and I’m going that way. What if I have not driven it? The horse won’t get lost, if you think I will.”

Well, we started, and for the first ten minutes everything was right; then we began to come to drifts, and I was dreadfully scared. We almost turned over two or three times. I kept squealing out, and that provoked Edward. “Keep still,” he would say; “I did not know you were such a little coward.” To make matters worse, it began to snow harder than I ever saw it before, and grew so dark that we could hardly see our way. We had been riding a good while, and ought to have reached the town, but no sign of a town was to be seen.

After a while Edward made up his mind that he must have taken the wrong turn, and said he was going back a little way to see if he had. He tried to turn around, but the wind blew so that the snow blinded his eyes; and it was not a good place for turning around, any way. The first thing I knew over went the sleigh, and I was in a snowdrift! That was not the worst of it, either; the runner of the sleigh snapped as if it had been a pipe-stem. Good old Jim stood still, fortunately. But there we were with a driving storm, with a broken sleigh! I do not think I was ever so glad of anything in my life as I was to hear Kirke’s voice above the roar of the wind.

“What in the world are you doing there?” he said, bounding along over drifts of snow. “Is Nannie hurt? If she is not all right never mind anything else. Oh! the sleigh is broken. How came you to be on this road? This is not the way to town; it is an old wood road that was used early in the winter, but it is all snowed up; you could not have got much farther; you ought to have turned to the right a mile below here; I thought you knew the way. Now I’ll tell you what will have to be done. Nannie must go to our house—it is less than a quarter of a mile from here—and I’ll get a rope and tie up that sleigh somehow, enough to get it and Jim back to the stable; then I’ll tell your folks that you are going to stay at our house all night—shall I?”

He seemed to have forgotten how disagreeably Edward had spoken to him, and was just as nice as could be. But Edward’s cheeks were pretty red. “No, sir,” he said firmly; “I started out to have my own way and ought to have the benefit of it. If you will take Nannie to your house I’ll get this rig home myself and take care of Jim; it is not fair that you should lose your New Year’s fun to help me out. I’ll foot it out to your house if it is not too late after I have been to see Mr. Ormstead about mending this sleigh; but I’m not going to let you go for me a single step.”

No amount of coaxing could turn him from his purpose. So at last Kirke, after helping him to tie up the runner with some twine which they found in their pockets, tucked me under his arm, and we marched off to their little house.

Their kitchen was the cleanest, brightest, cheeriest place you ever saw, and the molasses taffy was splendid. I had a lovely time; but there was such a dreadful storm that Edward could not get back that night, and Jim had lamed himself somehow in stumbling through deep drifts; and it cost four dollars to mend the sleigh, which Edward had to pay, because my father said he did not believe in boys having their own way and not being willing to take the consequences. To be sure he gave the money back again, and more too, when Edward’s next birthday came. But I don’t think Edward ever forgot the lesson. I ought to have been punished too, for I pretended to agree with Edward, even when I thought he was foolish; but some way I slipped through the trouble and had all the pleasure, just as girls often do, I think.

“Mother,” said little Cathie Dunlap, “father’s middle name is Kirke; did he have anything to do with the nice boy who took care of you?”

“Why, yes,” said Mother Dunlap, laughing, “come to think of it, his full name was William Kirke Dunlap.”

Myra Spafford.