They went into the cloakroom to get their wraps, and Miss Davis had to
turn on the light for them because it was so dark. The window was high
in the wall, and the wind had blown so much snow against it that the
room was "like five o'clock at night," Carleton Marsh said.
"Now remember, don't play, but hurry home," said Miss Davis, when the
last legging was buttoned and all the mittens were matched. Perry
Phelps lost one of his mittens regularly every day and Miss Davis
always had to find it for him. "Don't stop to play in the snow till
you have been home and had your lunch. You'll have the whole afternoon
to play in."
It was much colder than it had been in the morning. Sunny Boy knew
that as soon as he went out on the steps. But he did not know how cold
it was till he and the other children turned the first corner. Then
the wind struck them and Dorothy Peters cried that she couldn't breathe!
"Turn your back to it," Sunny Boy advised her, pulling his fur cap down
over his ears.
But the wind seemed to blow in several directions at once. It swooped
down around the children and blew stinging snowflakes into their eyes.
It howled and shrieked and tore over the roofs of the houses, bringing
great sheets of snow with it.
"It wasn't like this, this morning," complained Carleton, stamping his
feet to warm them.
Though none of them knew it, the storm was now a blizzard and it was
cold enough and windy enough and snowy enough to make grown-ups most
uncomfortable, to say nothing of small boys and girls who had to walk
through the storm. It was a mistake for the teacher to send the
children home alone.
"I can't see where I'm going!" gasped Jimmie Butterworth, trying to
wipe the snow from his face with his mittens.
Jessie Smiley stubbed her toe against something and began to cry.
"I'm so cold!" she wailed. "My nose is frozen, I know it is. And I
never saw that funny fence before."
Sunny Boy looked up at the great iron fence. The snow had blown
against it till it was almost covered. There was a row of ash cans set
out on the curb in front of this fence and they were so completely
covered with snow that poor Jessie had walked into them without seeing
them.
"No, I never saw that fence, either," declared Jimmie. "Is this the
way you go home to your house, Sunny Boy?"
"I don't know whose fence that is," replied Sunny Boy. "I never saw it
before. Gee, doesn't the wind blow!"
The wind was blowing harder than ever and the snow seemed to be coming
down faster and faster. There was not a horse or wagon or motor truck
to be seen on the street, and not even a single person. Every one who
could get in out of the storm had done so. And as it was noon by this
time even those whose work forced them to be out had managed to find
shelter somewhere for the lunch hour.
"I want to go home!" cried Dorothy Peters, just as Ruth Baker had cried
the day she went coasting with Sunny Boy and Nelson. Sunny Boy decided
that all girls acted the same way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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