Connie nodded her little wise head, wiser in some respects than her aunt suspected. She was wondering what the old-fashioned things were she was to see, and what _quaint_ and _hunks_ meant. She liked to know the meaning of things, and hunted for the words in a dictionary. She missed _hunks_, but found _quaint_, the multiplicity of whose definitions bewildered her. She fixed, however, upon two, _odd_ and _antique_. She knew what the latter meant. Her aunt had a craze for antiques, and gave a great price for them. Perhaps she could buy some at the farmhouse out of her pocket money, and give her aunt for a Christmas present. Hers, bought in advance, was the doll-house, for which twenty-five dollars had been paid. She was rather sorry to leave it, but a trip in the cars was always delightful to her, and it was a very happy child who, on the day before Christmas, started for The 4 Corners. Meantime, at the farmhouse there had been a good deal of excitement on the receipt of Mrs. Hart’s letter. “What shall we do with ’em if it stays as cold as it is now, and nothing but a fireplace in the best room and guest chamber? They’ll freeze to death. I wish they had come in the summer,” Mrs. Stannard said, while Kenneth took a more hopeful view of the situation. He would much rather they had come in the summer, but would make the best of it and try to keep them warm, he said. If there was any work Kenneth hated it was splitting wood. Now, however, he put aside his dislike, and, remembering how cold the parlor and guest chamber were, he employed his leisure time when out of school in sawing and splitting wood, until his mother said he had enough “to roast an ox.” There were two piles, the parlor pile and the upstairs pile, the latter finer and of a kind which would kindle quickly. “If Mrs. Hart doesn’t mind I shall creep into her room before she is wake and make a roaring fire. That’s the way Tom Haynes’ niggers do, and he thinks we are niggers,” Kenneth said to his mother, with some bitterness in his tone, for Harry’s letter rankled a little.