THE WINTER RIDE.

“I’m going to be warm,” said Walter Plympton’s father, a man with rather sharp features, of slender build, and nervous, sensitive temperament. “Yes, I’m going to be warm, and bundle up accordingly.”

“You will look like an Eskimo,” replied his wife, who in her very laugh, so easy and deliberate, as well as in her stout physical build, was the opposite of her husband. “Those who see you, Ezra, won’t fall in love with such a stuffed creature.”

“They may keep the love, Louisa, and I’ll hold on to the comfort. I believe in going warm like the Chinese, who are said in cold weather to increase the amount of their clothing, rather than their heating apparatus. How that may be, I don’t know; but I do know that I mean to be warm. Kitty harnessed, Walter?”

“Yes, father, and she’s waiting in the stable.”

“We will go out then. Oh, the family umbrella!”

The family umbrella was an immense institution, suspended like a big blue dome above its holder, and promising to make a good parachute. It had been bought at an auction, and was one of those peculiarities often coming up to the surface at such sales. For years, it had proved a good friend on rough, rainy days.

“Do you expect a rain, father?”

“No, but I want to hold it up against the wind. Hoist the sail, and our craft will be off. Good–bye, Louisa. We will be home to–morrow night, if a possible thing.”

“Good–bye, mother.”

“Good–bye. Do take care of yourselves.” And after she said this, she watched the departing team as Kitty slowly pulled the sleigh through the white snow that had not settled since its fall the day before, but stretched its diminutive drifts in almost uninterrupted succession across the road.

Kitty patiently plodded on, but she found the snow deeper than she liked to pull the sleigh through. The wind blew keen and strong, and was like an axe–blade wielded by winter; but the riders in the sleigh were safe behind the blue umbrella.

Walter Plympton differed, as well as his mother, from Mr. Plympton. He was in looks a “mother’s boy,” though his character was varied with some of his father’s features of mind. He was a stout, heavy youth of sixteen, one of those growing boys too, from whose feet their trousers, recently new, are soon discovered to be running away, and whose wrists persist in getting far below their coat–sleeves. He had his mother’s round, full face. His complexion was a rich brown, rather than fair and white. His eyes were a bright hazel, and his hair of a shade between brown and black. His voice was rather heavy for one of his years, and was certain to be heard among those shouting at “baseball,” or “fox in the wall.” He shared in his father’s sensitiveness of temperament, and like him was enthusiastic. Unlike either father or mother, the imaginative element was strongly developed in his character. As to other qualities, he was generous, rather thoughtless, and his strong, ringing voice put him among those unfortunate boys who are often told, “Don’t speak so loud.” He had a very good sized estimate of himself, was quite sure to be among the speakers—and successful speakers—at a school exhibition, and was ambitious to throw, in after years, as large a shadow across the surface of life’s events as Walter Plympton’s abilities would possibly permit. There was no concealment in his moves or motives; but open, honest, and naturally confiding, he was sometimes the dupe of boys cunning and suspicious. He was too bright to be a dupe twice in the same day, and when he discovered an enemy’s tricks, would resent an invasion of rights as promptly, stoutly, and noisily, as anybody. His good nature and sociability made him popular. He was rather fond of his books, was not afraid to ask questions, and this made him an interesting, intelligent companion. While there was a large lump of the “boy” in him, he was a youth of promise, and bade fair to be in after years a success. His mother stated his greatest need, when she said, “Walter needs a rudder to steer him. He needs conversion, that is it. He prays, and once in awhile reads his Bible, and has no really bad habits. I want him to go farther. I would like to see him beginning an active religious life, openly, avowedly; and I do hope soon he will confess his Saviour.”

Motherly Mrs. Plympton! How her thoughts and her prayers went after her boy, like the wings of a mother bird, flying after and hovering over her young. And this winter morning she had not forgotten to put up the often ascending prayer for her boy’s better life. She stood at the window awhile, watching Kitty and her load, and then stepped back to her kitchen duties.

“Pretty hard going, father,” said the younger occupant of the sleigh.

“It will be better out in the main road, and we shall strike it soon. I wouldn’t start to–day, but this is the last chance for going to the life saving station as I promised, before you leave for school; and you leave day after to–morrow, and it is evident we must go to the station to–day, if we go at all. But I think it will be all right out in the main road.”

“Don’t the trees look handsome?”

“Yes, I never saw them prettier.”

The late fall of snow had draped forest and field.

As our travelers proceeded on their journey, the drifts deepened, rather than lessened. It was toilsome traveling. By and by, they came to a road skirted with telegraph–poles. Here they were obliged to jump out and push the sleigh.

“Father, let us begin to count the telegraph–poles. That will help pass the time.”

“All right. One!” shouted Mr. Plympton, as they passed the first of the long line of tall, wooden travelers lining the highway, and stretching ahead into the dark, green forest.

“Two–o–o!” cried Walter, so glad when he could count off a single pole. They trudged through the snow, pushing the sleigh, pulling Kitty forward, calling out at intervals, “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!”

“Look, father! See those men!”

“I notice. I wonder what they are doing!”

Two men, a little distance ahead, ran out of the woods dragging a long piece of timber.

“I guess they’re going to fix the telegraph wire, Walter. The storm broke down some of the wires.”

The men dropped the long timber directly across the road and then darted into the woods again.

“That’s cool, Walter! What do they want to drop that in our path for?” The men were now back again, sticking forked branches in the snow; and they then laid the timber in the forks.

“Can’t we go through?” asked Mr. Plympton in a somewhat provoked tone.

“I wouldn’t advise you to, Cap’n,” replied one of the men who wore a red woolen jacket. “You see the snow up ’long, is piled higher than your horse’s back. We know, ’cause we’ve been breakin’ out the road; but the snow does blow in wuss than pizen, and we concluded to quit until the wind quits. Where you goin’, Cap’n?”

“Down to the life saving station.”

“Wall, that’s your right road to take, the one to the right, Cap’n. Of course, you can go ahead, if you wish, but we don’t advise it, as we have been thar, and know how rough it is. That t’other road is the one you want to take.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Father, I want to ask—”

Mr. Plympton laughed, knowing Walter’s disposition to ask questions, and that the process once begun might be protracted too far for the convenience of travelers.

“I will hold on if you will only ask two questions.”

“I—I promise,” and laughing, Walter leaped out into the snow, and walked up to the men. He did not like to be limited to two questions, but he submitted to his chains, and having inquired about the depth of the snow and the length of the road, he returned to the sleigh.

“Only three miles by the road we take, father, to Uncle Boardman’s.”

“It is a new way to me. I have been accustomed to travel by the road that is blocked, but if this is a better road I am glad.”

As Kitty began to jingle her bells again, Mr. Plympton said, “There, Walter! That’s a good lesson. I call that a lesson about God’s providence, which stops us from taking a certain course, and we may feel as I did when those men stopped me; but we are led to take a better way. Left to ourselves, just now, we would have run into a big drift.”

“I see, though in this life Providence does not always make explanations, father.”

“No, we must wait till we get into another life, to have all things explained.”

The road led through a forest of pines, heavily coated. In a slow, stately fashion, these swayed their tall, plumy tops. Beyond this forest, the road was drifted once more. The travelers had now a long tug at road–breaking, but the drifts were all conquered. The country grew more and more familiar. “The last woods!” said Walter, as they passed a strip of trees, whose trunks, coated on one side by the storm, seemed like marble pillars, bearing up a roof of green porphyry. Just beyond this, Walter cried out, “Look, father!”

Mr. Plympton raised his eyes, and beyond the white glitter of the snow, saw a strip of vivid blue.

“The sea, father!”

“Ah, so it is!”

The sea stretched far away under the cold, dark, frowning sky, and out of its waves rose distant snow–covered islands, like frosted cakes on a very blue table.

“There is Uncle Boardman’s, too, Walter.”

This was a farmhouse located near one corner of the forest.

“Wonder if Uncle Boardman knows we are so near, Walter?” asked Mr. Plympton, as Kitty pulled the sleigh up to the open space between the road and the green front door.

“Knows?” At that very moment, Boardman Blake’s much loved, but much worn old beaver, was about turning the corner of the house, and under the beaver was Boardman. Aunt Lydia’s spectacles were already at the front door, and it was now swinging on its hinges.

“Land sakes! Where did you come from? I seed you from our back winder the moment you turned out of the woods,” shrieked Aunt Lydia. “I told Boardman it was some of our folks, but he thought he knew better.”

“Well, well,” said a deeper, more agreeable voice, under the beaver, “what are you up to? Why didn’t you wait till six feet more of snow had fallen? Come in, come in. I’ll look after your horse.”

The green front door quickly closed on the travelers, and soon after Kitty disappeared behind a red barn–door.

The wind had its own way once more in the road, and undisturbed, kept the light snow whirling, as if its mission were that of a broom, to sweep if possible the open space before the home of that honored couple, Boardman and Lydia Blake.