CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

A HAPPY FATHER

The next day dawned gloriously, but the snow was still too deep in the cañon for the children to attend the morning session of the log-cabin school.

“The snow-plow will be along soon, I suppose,” Carol said, as she peered up toward the highway.

Sylvia, who stood at Carol’s side exclaimed: “Look! Look! There’s a shining white cloud flying low. Did you suppose clouds ever came so far down the mountain?”

Carol gleefully clapped her hands. “It’s the plow going up the road this very minute,” she cried in joy. “It throws up the snow in clouds just like that.” Then she added: “I’ll tell my brother. He’ll want to finish shoveling our path now.”

“Oh-ee! How I’d love to help shovel,” Sylvia exclaimed. “Couldn’t you and I help, Carol?”

“Of course we could, and maybe it would be kind of fun! We haven’t been out of the house for ’most four days. I’ll ask Dixie.”

The older girl thought the plan a splendid one, and she bundled up Jimmy-Boy, that he might accompany them. With the three children away from the cabin, Mr. Edrington might get the undisturbed sleep that he so needed to restore his strength.

The younger girls climbed to the loft and put on their leggings, rubbers, and heavy coats and hoods; then, getting small shovels, they joined the boy who was already working with a will, his cheeks the color of the muffler that was tied about his neck.

When they were far enough away from the cabin to shout, without being heard by the injured man, they paused now and then in their path-making to have a snowball battle, and, at last, when they had cleared the trail to the highway, the four children stood looking admiringly at the road that had been so recently smoothed by the snow-plow.

Suddenly Ken sang out, “Hark, what do I hear?”

“Sleigh-bells, I do believe,” Carol cried.

“Jingle! Jingle! Somebody’s coming. Let’s guess who.” Sylvia, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling, watched the bend in the road expectantly. “I’ll guess it’s Mr. Piggins,” she concluded.

“I’ll guess it’s—” Ken began, but before he could mention a name, a trim little cutter, drawn by a spry white horse, appeared.

There was a cry of joy from one of the children.

“It’s my dad! My dear, dear dad!” Leaping from the trail into the highway, Sylvia waved her red-mittened hand, laughing and shouting. The man in the rapidly-approaching sleigh looked at the small girl as though he could not think who she might be.

Then with an expression of radiant gladness, he called “Whoa!” tossed the reins to Ken and held out his arms to catch the small figure that was flying toward him.

“My Miggins!” the father’s voice was tender with emotion. “This can’t be you!”

He held her off at arm’s length to gaze at her with admiring eyes.

The small girl laughed up at him happily, her eyes bright, her cheeks as rosy as Carol’s. Then again holding her close, he said softly: “Little girl, your mother is at home now, and she wants to see you. She has been asking every day since the storm set in if I wouldn’t go and get her baby for her.” Then he added anxiously: “Are you old enough, I wonder, to see the great change that there is in your mother, and not let her know? Our loved one is very frail yet, little daughter, but I believe, when you are with her, she will be more content and will grow stronger again. We will try to help her, for she longs to get well, that she may enjoy the simple home life which, somehow, we have always missed.” Then, smiling down at the other three children, the genial banker called, “Pile in, all of you, and I’ll give you a sleigh-ride.”

Up they scrambled, stowing the shovels away as best they could. Then again the horse started, turning down the drive toward the cabin. How the sleigh-bells rang, and how the children shouted! Jimmy-Boy was most hilarious of all, and he wanted to keep on riding, even when Dixie appeared to lift him out and carry him into the warm kitchen. “I want more sleigh-ride,” the little fellow kept saying. Then Dixie had an inspiration. “Maybe big brother will be able to make a bob-sled, and maybe Pegasus will pull it, and then Jimmy can go riding.”

“Will there be a ting-a-ling?” The small boy had been about to cry, but he waited to hear his big sister’s reply. Dixie hesitated. She never liked to promise anything that she could not grant.

“What’s the matter with that little man?” the kind banker asked as he entered the kitchen.

Jimmy-Boy, from his place on Dixie’s lap, hastened to tell him. “I want ting-a-ling to put on Pegthus.”

Mr. Clayburn looked so truly mystified that Dixie had to explain that Pegasus was their burro, and that the little fellow wished they had a string of bells to put about his neck.

“A splendid suggestion!” the genial man exclaimed. “I was wondering what I could do with the old bells, now that I have bought a new harness. Pegasus shall have them. Come with me, little chap, and we’ll see how your burro likes them.”

Ken accompanied them to the barn while Dixie went up to the loft where she found the two smaller girls busily packing the suit-case which Sylvia had brought with her.

That little maid stood up, and, throwing her arms about Dixie’s neck, she said: “Oh, I just don’t know how to tell you what a nice time I’ve had. How I do hope that I can come again!”

“Of course you’ll come again—lots and lots of times,” Dixie assured her.

Ten minutes later they were all out on the porch. Mr. Clayburn took the hand of the oldest girl as he said earnestly, “Dixie, I shall never be able to repay you four little Martins for all that you have done for my small daughter, but promise that you will call on me if ever you need help in any way.”

Dixie was glad to promise. Then, when the sleigh had been driven away, Ken said: “I didn’t tell Mr. Clayburn the reason for Mr. Edrington’s being here. That’s his secret. He doesn’t want any one to know.”

“Nobody shall know!” Dixie promised, but she was mistaken.