The Allis Family | Page 9

saw the snake in the summer. Under the shelter of
those rocks they sat down a moment to put on the cloak. Of course,
mittens must be laid aside, and the little, stiff, benumbed fingers had
hard work to fasten the garment, which had lost one of its strings in the
encounter with the rude north wind. When at last it was made fast with
a pin, Susie said,--
"I am going to rub my hands with snow, Annie! You know Dick
Matthews said that he could warm his hands with snow when they were
cold!"
Both the little ones rubbed their hands with the snow, and again set out,
holding each other firmly by the hand. Several times they repeated the
experiment, baring the little delicate fingers to the biting wind. At last
they ceased to ache; but the feet were stiff and their limbs tired and

weary.
"Do your hands ache now, Susie?"
"No; but my feet do, and my face. Oh, I'm afraid we'll never get home!
a'n't you, Annie?"
"It's hard work to walk, and I can hardly stir one step;" when I turn my
back it seems as if I should fall right down. I do wish Mary would
come down to the field and open the gate! don't you?"
"Yes, I do; for my hands are just as stiff as they can be."
"There come father and mother, Annie; let's wait and ride," said Susie.
"We'd better go and open the gate. See! there comes Mary! A'n't you
glad?"
"I can't stay for any thing; I shall run right to the fire! My feet are
freezing, almost," said Susie.
At that moment Mary came. She had been watching for the children,
and as soon as they came in sight she laid down the baby and ran to
help them come in the house. She set the gate wide open for the wagon,
and then hurried the girls in to the fire. Soon the parents came in.
"How glad we are to see you, children! We were almost afraid you
would be frozen. We tried to get home in time to take you in the wagon.
Are not your hands very cold?"
"Our feet are cold; our hands were, too, but they are not now."
"Not now?" said Mary, hastily drawing off Annie's mittens.
Alas! the little fingers were frozen! Susie's were in the same sad
condition. And now there was a brisk rubbing with snow, and the most
intense suffering as the slow-coming warmth returned to the purple
hands.
"Annie," said Mr. Allis, when the pain of the hands was somewhat
relieved, "why did you not stop at Mr. Staunton's and warm yourself?"
"Because, father," said Annie, looking up meekly through her tears,
"mother has told us _never to stop on our way home from school, and I
always try to mind what she tells us now!"_
THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Allis Family; or, Scenes of
Western Life, by American Sunday School Union
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALLIS
FAMILY ***

This file should be named allis10.txt or allis10.zip Corrected
EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, allis11.txt VERSIONS
based on separate sources get new LETTER, allis10a.txt
Produced by Ted Garvin, Erik Bent, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless
a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in
compliance with any particular paper edition.
We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the
official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please be
encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the
official publication date.
Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til midnight of
the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official
release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at Midnight, Central
Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may
often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish
to do so.
Most people start at our Web sites at: http://gutenberg.net
or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is also a
good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our
cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes
out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03
or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or