They always averred they never closed an eye. Four things prevented them from sleeping. In the first place Peg snored loudly; in the second place the fitful gleams of firelight kept flickering over the skull for half the night and making gruesome effects on it; in the third place Peg's pillows and bedclothes smelled rankly of tobacco smoke; and in the fourth place they were afraid the rat Peg had spoken of might come out to make their acquaintance. Indeed, they were sure they heard him skirmishing about several times.
When we wakened in the morning the storm was over and a young morning was looking through rosy eyelids across a white world.
The little clearing around Peg's cabin was heaped with dazzling drifts, and we boys fell to and shovelled out a road to her well.
She gave us breakfast--stiff oatmeal porridge without milk, and a boiled egg apiece. Cecily could NOT eat her porridge; she declared she had such a bad cold that she had no appetite; a cold she certainly had; the rest of us choked our messes down and after we had done so Peg asked us if we had noticed a soapy taste.
"The soap fell into the porridge while I was making it," she said.
"But,"--smacking her lips,--"I'm going to make yez an Irish stew for dinner. It'll be fine."
An Irish stew concocted by Peg! No wonder Dan said hastily, "You are very kind but we'll have to go right home."
"Yez can't walk," said Peg.
"Oh, yes, we can. The drifts are so hard they'll carry, and the snow will be pretty well blown off the middle of the fields. It's only three-quarters of a mile. We boys will go home and get a pung and come back for you girls."
But the girls wouldn't listen to this. They must go with us, even Cecily.
"Seems to me yez weren't in such a hurry to leave last night," observed Peg sarcastically.
"Oh, it's only because they'll be so anxious about us at home, and it's Sunday and we don't want to miss Sunday School," explained Felicity.
"Well, I hope your Sunday School will do yez good," said Peg, rather grumpily. But she relented again at the last and gave Cecily a wishbone.
"Whatever you wish on that will come true," she said. "But you only have the one wish, so don't waste it."
"We're so much obliged to you for all your trouble," said the Story Girl politely.
"Never mind the trouble. The expense is the thing," retorted Peg grimly.
"Oh!" Felicity hesitated. "If you would let us pay you--give you something--"
"No, thank yez," responded Peg loftily. "There is people who take money for their hospitality, I've heerd, but I'm thankful to say I don't associate with that class. Yez are welcome to all yez have had here, if yez ARE in a big hurry to get away."
She shut the door behind us with something of a slam, and her black cat followed us so far, with stealthy, furtive footsteps, that we were frightened of it. Eventually it turned back; then, and not till then, did we feel free to discuss our adventure.
"Well, I'm thankful we're out of THAT," said Felicity, drawing a long breath. "Hasn't it just been an awful experience?"
"We might all have been found frozen stark and stiff this morning," remarked the Story Girl with apparent relish.
"I tell you, it was a lucky thing we got to Peg Bowen's," said Dan.
