Mr. Clifford started up, and was about to rush from the room, but paused a moment irresolutely, then returned, sat down by his wife, and put his arm around her. He was true to his first love. The invalid had grown faint and white, but his touch and presence were the cordials she needed.

Amy fled back to the side door, and the sled soon appeared. There was no light at this entrance, and she was un.o.bserved. She saw them begin to lift some one out, and she dashed through an intervening drift nearly to her waist. Webb felt a hand close on his arm with a grip that he long remembered.

"Burt?" she cried, in a tone of agonizing inquiry.

"Heigh-ho, Amy," said the much-m.u.f.fled figure that they were taking from the sled; "I'm all right."

In strong reaction, the girl would have fallen, had not Webb supported her. He felt that she trembled and clung almost helplessly to him.

"Why, Amy," he said, gently, "you will take your death out here in the cold and snow"; and leaving the others to care for Burt, he lifted her in his arms and carried her in.

"Thank G.o.d, he's safe," she murmured. "Oh, we have waited so long! There, I'm better now," she said, hastily, and with a swift color coming into her pale cheeks, as they reached the door.

"You must not expose yourself so again, sister Amy."

"I thought--I thought when you began to lift Burt out--" But she could not finish the sentence.

"He has only sprained his ankle. Go tell mother."

Perhaps there is no joy like that which fills loving hearts when the lost is found. It is so pure and exalted that it is one of the ecstasies of heaven. It would be hard to describe how the old house waked up with its sudden accession of life--life that was so warm and vivid against the background of the shadow of death. There were murmured thanksgivings as feet hurried to and fro, and an opening fire of questions, which Maggie checked by saying:

"Possess your souls in patience. Burt's safe--that's enough to know until he is cared for, and my half-famished husband and the rest get their supper. Pretty soon we can all sit down, for I want a chance to hear too."

"And no one has a better right, Maggie," said her husband, chafing his hands over the fire. "After what we've seen to-night, this place is the very abode of comfort, and you its presiding genius;" and Leonard beamed and thawed until the air grew tropical around him.

At Mrs. Clifford's request (for it was felt that it was not best to cross the invalid), Burt, in the rocking-chair wherein he had been placed, was carried to her room, and received a greeting from his parents that brought tears to the young fellow's eyes. Dr. Marvin soon did all within his power at that stage for the sprained ankle and frost-bitten fingers, the mother advising, and feeling that she was still caring for her boy as she had done a dozen years before. Then Burt was carried back to the dining-room, where all were soon gathered. The table groaned under Maggie's bountiful provision, and lamp-light and fire-light revealed a group upon which fell the richer light of a great joy.

Burt was ravenously hungry, but the doctor put him on limited diet, remarking, "You can soon make up for lost time." He and Leonard, however, made such havoc that Amy pretended to be aghast; but she soon noted that Webb ate sparingly, that his face was not only scratched and torn, but almost haggard, and that he was unusually quiet. The reasons were soon apparent. When all were helped, and Maggie had a chance to sit down, she said:

"Now tell us about it. We just heard enough when you first arrived to curdle our blood. How in the world, Burt, did you allow yourself to get caught in such a storm?"

"If it had not been for this confounded sprain I should have come out all right;" and then followed the details with which the reader is acquainted, although little could be got out of Webb.

"The upshot of it all is," said Leonard, as he beamed upon the party with ineffable content, "between mother's praying and Webb's looking, Burt is here, not much the worse for his eagle hunt."

They would not hear of the doctor's departure, and very soon afterward old Mr. Clifford gathered them around the family altar in a thanksgiving prayer that moistened every eye.

Then all prepared for the rest so sorely needed. As Webb went to the hall to hang up his gun, Amy saw that he staggered in his almost mortal weariness, and she followed him.

"There are your colors, Amy," he said, laughingly, taking her scarf from an inner pocket. "I wore it till an envious scrub-oak tore it off. It was of very great help to me--the scarf, not the oak."

"Webb," she said, earnestly, "you can't disguise the truth from me by any such light words. You are half-dead from exhaustion. I've been watching you ever since your return. You are ill--you have gone beyond your strength, and in addition to it all I let you carry me in. Oh dear! I'm so worried about you!"

"It's wonderfully nice to have a little sister to worry about a fellow."

"But can't I do something for you? You've thought about everybody, and no one thinks for you."

"_You_ have, and so have the rest, as far as there was occasion. Let me tell you how wan and weary you look. Oh, Amy, our home is so much more to us since you came!"

"What would our home be to us to-night, Webb, were it not for you! And I said you took Burt's danger too coolly. How I have reproached myself for those words. G.o.d bless you, Webb! you did not resent them; and you saved Burt;" and she impulsively put her arm around his neck and kissed him, then fled to her room.

The philosophical Webb might have had much to think about that night had he been in an a.n.a.lytical mood, for by some magic his sense of utter weariness was marvellously relieved. With a low laugh, he thought,

"I'd be tempted to cross the mountains again for such a reward."

CHAPTER XIV

HINTS OF SPRING

When Amy awoke on the following morning she was almost dazzled, so brilliant was the light that flooded the room. Long, quiet sleep and the elasticity of youth had banished all depression from mind and body, and she sprang eagerly to the window that she might see the effects of the storm, expecting to witness its ravages on every side. Imagine her wonder and delight when, instead of widespread wreck and ruin, a scene of indescribable beauty met her eyes! The snow had draped all things in white. The trees that had seemed so gaunt and skeleton-like as they writhed and moaned in the gale were now clothed with a beauty surpa.s.sing that of their summer foliage, for every branch, even to the smallest twig, had been incased in the downy flakes. The evergreens looked like old-time gallants well powdered for a festival. The shrubbery of the garden was scarcely more than mounds of snow. The fences had almost disappeared; while away as far as the eye could reach all was sparkling whiteness. Nature was like a bride adorned for her nuptials. Under the earlier influences of the gale the snow had drifted here and there, making the undulations of her robe, and under the cloudless sun every crystal glittered, as if over all had been flung a profusion of diamond dust. Nor did she seem a cold, pallid bride without heart or gladness.

Her breath was warm and sweet, and full of an indefinable suggestion of spring. She seemed to stand radiant in maidenly purity and loveliness, watching in almost breathless expectation the rising of the sun above the eastern mountains.

A happy group gathered at the breakfast-table that morning. Best of mind and thankfulness of heart had conduced to refreshing repose, and the brightness of the new day was reflected in every face. Burt's ankle was painful, but this was a slight matter in contrast with what might have been his fate. He had insisted on being dressed and brought to the lounge in the breakfast-room. Webb seemed wonderfully restored, and Amy thought he looked almost handsome in his unwonted animation, in spite of the honorable scars that marked his face. Dr. Marvin exclaimed, exultingly:

"Miss Amy, you can begin the study of ornithology at once. There are bluebirds all about the house, and you have no idea what exquisite bits of color they are against the snow on this bright morning. After breakfast you must go out and greet these first arrivals from the South."

"Yes, Amy," put in Leonard, laughing, "it's a lovely morning for a stroll. The snow is only two feet deep, and drifted in many places higher than your head. The 'beautiful snow' brings us plenty of prose in the form of back-aching work with our shovels."

"No matter," said Webb; "it has also brought us warmth, exquisitely pure air, and a splendid covering for gra.s.s and grain that will be apt to last well into the spring. Anything rather than mud and the alternate freezing and thawing that are as provoking as a capricious friend."

"Why, Webb, what a burst of sentiment!" said Burt.

"Doctor, the bluebirds seem to come like the south wind that Leonard says is blowing this morning," Mrs. Clifford remarked. "Where were they last night? and how have they reached us after such a storm?"

"I imagine that those we hear this morning have been with us all winter, or they may have arrived before the storm. I scarcely remember a winter when I have not seen some around, and their instinct guides them where to find shelter. When the weather is very cold they are comparatively silent, but even a January thaw will make them tuneful. They are also migrants, and have been coming northward for a week or two past, and this accounts for the numbers this morning. Poor little things! they must have had a hard time of it last night, wherever they were."

"Oh, I do wish I could make them know how glad I'd be to take them in and keep them warm every cold night!" shy Johnnie whispered to Maggie.

"They have a better mother than even you could be," said the doctor, nodding at the little girl.

"Have all the bluebirds a mother?" she asked, with wondering eyes.

"Indeed they have, and all the other birds also, and this mother takes care of them the year round--Mother Nature, that's her name. Your heart may be big enough, but your house would not begin to hold all the bluebirds, so Mother Nature tells the greater part of them to go where it's warm about the 1st of December, and she finds them winter homes all the way from Virginia to Florida. Then toward spring she whispers when it is safe to come back, and if you want to see how she can take care of those that are here even during such a storm as that of last night, bundle up and come out on the sunny back piazza."

There all the household soon after a.s.sembled, the men armed with shovels to aid in the path-making in which Abram was already engaged. Burt was placed in a rocking-chair by a window that he might enjoy the prospect also. A charming winter outlook it was, brilliant with light and gemmed with innumerable crystals. To Amy's delight, she heard for the first time the soft, down-like notes of the bluebird. At first they seemed like mere "wandering voices in the air," sweet, plaintive, and delicate as the wind-swayed anemone. Then came a soft rustle of wings, and a bird darted downward, probably from the eaves, but seemingly it was a bit of the sky that had taken form and substance. He flew past her and dislodged a miniature avalanche from the spray on which he alighted. The little creature sat still a moment, then lifted and stretched one wing by an odd coquettish movement while it uttered its low musical warble.

"Why," exclaimed Amy, "he is almost the counterpart of our robin-redbreast of England!"

"Yes," replied Dr. Marvin, "he resembles your English redbreast closely both in appearance and habits, and our New England forefathers called him the 'blue robin.' To my taste the bluebird is the superior of the two, for what he lacks in stronger and more varied song he makes up in softer, sweeter notes. And then he is so beautiful! You have no blue birds of any kind in England, Amy. It seems to require our deeper-tinted skies to produce them. Ah, there comes his mate. You can tell her by the lighter blue of her plumage, and the tinge of brown on her head and back. She is a cold, coy beauty, even as a wife; but how gallant is her azure-coated beau! Flirt away, my little chap, and make the most of your courting and honeymoon. You will soon have family cares enough to discourage anybody but a bluebird;" and the doctor looked at his favorites with an exulting affection that caused a general laugh.

"I shall give our little friends something better than compliments," said Mr. Clifford, obeying his hospitable instincts, and he waded through the snow to the sunny side of an evergreen, and there cleared a s.p.a.ce until the ground was bare. Then he scattered over this little plot an abundance of bread-crumbs and hay seed, and they all soon had the pleasure of seeing half a dozen little bobbing heads at breakfast. Johnnie and Alf, who on account of the deep snow did not go to school, were unwearied in watching the lovely little pensioners on their grandfather's bounty--not pensioners either, for, as the old man said, "They pay their way with notes that I am always glad to accept."

The work of path-making and shovelling snow from the doors and roofs of the out-buildings went on vigorously all the morning. Abram also attached the farm horses to the heavy snow-plow, to which he added his weight, and a broad, track-like furrow was made from the house to the road, and then for a mile or more each way upon the street, for the benefit of the neighbors. Before the day was very far advanced, the south wind, which had been a scarcely perceptible breath, freshened, and between the busy shovels and the swaying branches the air was full of glittering crystals.

The bride-like world was throwing off her ornaments and preparing for the prose of every-day life; and yet she did so in a cheerful, lightsome mood. The sunny eaves dropped a profusion of gems from the melting snow.

There was a tinkle of water in the pipes leading to the cistern. From the cackle in the barn-yard it appeared that the hens had resolved on unwonted industry, and were receiving applause from the oft-crowing chanticleers. The horses, led out to drink, were in exuberant spirits, and appeared to find a child's delight in kicking up the snow. The cows came briskly from their stalls to the s.p.a.ce cleared for them, and were soon ruminating in placid content. What though the snow covered the ground deeper than at any time during the winter, the subtile spirit of spring was recognized and welcomed not only by man, but also by the lower creation!