“No, they didn't send anything,” I wheezed when my breath came. “The conductor told me I should find the farmhouse over the hill--and--” “Yes, that's so; it's back a piece, you must have missed it.” “Yes--I must have missed it,” I continued in a dazed way. “The folks at the farmhouse is goin' to hear ye speak, so they told me. Must be startin' now.” “Would you please let them know I am here, and--” “Sure! Wait till I get on my boots! Hello!--that's him now.” Again the door swung wide. This time it let in a fur overcoat, coon-skin cap, two gray yarn mittens, a pair of raw-beefsteak cheeks and a voice like a fog-horn. “Didn't send for ye? Wall, I'll be gol-durned! And yer had to fut it? Well, don' that beat all. And yer ain't the fust one they've left down here to get up the best way they could. Last winter--Jan'ry, warn't it, Bill?” Bill nodded--“there come a woman from New York and they dumped her out jes' same as you. I happened to come along in time, as luck would have it--I was haulin' a load of timber on my bob-sled--and there warn't nothin' else, so I took her up to the village. She got in late, of course, but they was a-waitin' for her. I really wasn't goin' to hear you speak to-night--we git so much of that sort of thing since the old man who left the money to pay you fellers for talkin' died--been goin' on ten years now--but I'll take yer 'long with me, and glad to. But yer oughter have somethin' warmer'n what yer got on. Wind's kinder nippy down here, but it ain't nothin' to the way it bites up on the ridge.” This same thought had passed through my own mind. The unusual exertion had started every pore in my body; the red-hot stove had put on the finishing touches and I was in a Russian bath. To face that wind meant all sorts of calamities. The Madonna-like wife with the cherub in her arms rose to her feet. “Would you mind wearing my fur tippet?” she said in her soft voice; “'tain't much, but it 'ud keep out the cold from yer neck and maybe this shawl'd help some, if I tied it round your shoulders. Father got his death ridin' to the village when he was overhet.” She put them on with her own hands, bless her kind heart! her husband holding the baby; then she followed me out into the cold and helped draw the horse-blanket over my knees; the man in the coon-skin cap lugging the bags and the umbrella. I looked at my watch. After eight o'clock, and two miles to drive! “Oh, I'll git yer there,” came a voice from inside the fur overcoat. “Darter wanted to go, but I said 'twarn't no night to go nowhars. Got to see a man who owes me some money, or I'd stay home myself. Git up, Joe.”