"You can begin by yourselves, and I'll be through with her pretty soon,"

said Mrs. Owen.

It kept on snowing fast all day, and, toward the end of the afternoon, Diana began to wonder how she was to get home. Mrs. Owen went to the telephone to call up the Carters, but could not make it work. She tried again and again. The line was out of order. This had happened once before that winter in another snowstorm. Diana began to look a little sober. She was not exactly homesick, but the thought of home with her father and mother and her two brothers seemed very pleasant. It seemed forlorn not to be able to reach them by telephone. They knew where she was, however, and it was pleasant to have Peggy and Alice so overjoyed at the great storm.

"They never can come for Diana to-day," Peggy said. "The roads aren't broken out."

When night came, both Diana and Alice begged Peggy to sleep with them, and this was a triumph. They asked her to sleep in the middle, as each wanted Peggy next to her; and they kept her telling stories of what she saw on the wall until Mrs. Owen came up and said, "Children, you must stop talking, or I shall take Peggy into my room again."

Peggy saw wonderful things. They were all snow scenes, in deep forests where every twig was coated with diamonds or powdered with snow. She saw the Frost King there, having his revels, and finally, just before Mrs.

Owen came up to stop their talking, she saw the roads being broken out, and Tom and Christopher coming for Diana with the big sled. Diana went to sleep with this pleasant picture in her mind, and, toward the end of the next day, it really happened. It stopped snowing early the next morning, but the snow-plough did not get around in time for the children to go to school. It was just after dinner when Tom and Christopher appeared.

"We've come to make a path to your front door, Mrs. Owen," Tom said.

"And we'll make one to the hen-house, too."

They had brought their snow-shovels along with them, and they began to dig with a will. Peggy got her shovel and went out to help them, and Alice and Diana watched the merry trio from the window.

"I can't bear to have Diana go," said Peggy. "I wish she could live here always."

"I've had a lovely time," said Diana.

But, like Lady Jane Grey, she was glad to get back to the other house.

CHAPTER XVI

GRANDMOTHER OWEN'S VISIT

There were other great storms before the winter was over, and spring was very late that year, but when it did come it seemed to the children as if the world had never been so beautiful. This was the joy of living in New England. There was no monotony about the seasons. After a winter with banks and banks of snow, and coasting enough to satisfy one's wildest dreams, the snow vanished; and the brown earth soon became ready for planting; the same miracle began again, of green points poking their heads up to the light.

And if other springs had been delightful, this was so thrilling Peggy wanted to dance and shout with joy--for her own dearly beloved Henrietta c.o.x was sitting on a dozen eggs, and one day some downy, fluffy chickens were hatched out. Yes, actually, these tiny creatures--living, moving, breathing creatures, all of them Peggy's very own--were chipping their sh.e.l.ls, and making their entrance into this wonderful world. Alice took the chickens more calmly, but she was greatly interested in them in her quiet way.

"Oh, mother, I do hope grandmother likes chickens," Peggy said, when Mrs. Owen told the children that she had a letter from their grandmother, fixing the time of her annual spring visit.

"Peggy, you never seem to be able to think of but one thing at a time,"

said her mother. "What difference will it make whether your grandmother likes chickens? She won't have to do anything about them."

The children were very much interested in helping arrange the spare room for their grandmother. Alice got out the prettiest bureau cover from the linen closet, and the children helped their mother wash the china for the washstand. It was pretty china, covered with small pink roses, with green leaves. And there was a pincushion, that was white over pink, on the bureau. Peggy went out and picked some of the hemlock and put that in a green vase on the table.

It was a pleasant excitement to have their grandmother come. She always brought them presents. She was a quiet, dignified woman, and she had brown eyes very like Alice's, but her hair, that was once brown, was now snow-white. They all went down to the station to meet her, and they rode back with her in the taxi, and that was great fun.

Their grandmother was not a person who expressed a great deal, so, when she came into the house and said, "Mary, how pleasant you have made this little house look," they were all very much pleased.

The children could hardly wait for her trunk to be unpacked, for they were eager to see what she had brought. They did not venture to go into her room; she liked to have her room to herself. She was tired, and it was almost supper-time before she came down. She had some things in her hands.

"I have some blue gingham here for a dress for Peggy, and some pink for Alice," she said. "I have brought some material for new white dresses, too."

The children were delighted with the thought of their new frocks. Their grandmother brought them each a book besides.

Lady Janet wandered into the parlor.

"You have the same cat, I see," said their grandmother.

"Oh, no, grandmother, she's different," Alice said. "Don't you see how different she is? She's her daughter. She hasn't so many stripes on her tail, and she's a lighter gray. And she's got a different character."

"Has she?" said their grandmother, as p.u.s.s.y began to sharpen her claws on the sofa. "It seems to me her nature is very much the same. Do you let her come into the parlor?"

"Sometimes," said Mrs. Owen. "If the children see that she doesn't go up into the bedrooms and make small footmarks on the bed quilts--that is all I ask."

"You don't like cats very well, do you, grandmother?" said Peggy.

"Yes, I like them in their proper place."

"What is their proper place?" Peggy asked.

"I like to see a cat sitting patiently in front of a mouse-hole, or lying on the bricks in front of the kitchen stove; but I don't like to see it scratching the parlor furniture."

"Neither do I," said Mrs. Owen. "Put Lady Janet out into the kitchen, Alice."

They all went out to supper, and again the older Mrs. Owen praised the dainty appearance of the table.

"Mary, I don't know how you have done it, but you have made this tiny house just as attractive as your large one."

"All the paper and paint are new and fresh here, and I got rid of all my ugly furniture and have only kept the old pieces."

"I wish you would come and do my house over for me. And, by the way, I am hoping you and the children will come and spend three months with me this summer. I am sure the sea air will do the children good."

She did not notice how their faces clouded over. The mere suggestion filled them with despair. Leave her beloved Rhode Island Reds, Peggy was thinking, just as Henrietta had hatched out twelve downy, fluffy b.a.l.l.s?

Why, they would be big chickens when they came back. Leave Lady Janet?

was Alice's thought. No sea-bathing and boating could make up for the loss of her friendly little face.

"Could I take Lady Janet with me, grandmother?" Alice asked.

"I hardly think so. A cat does not like to be moved."

"It is very kind of you to think of it," said Mrs. Owen, "but I am afraid I shall have to stay right here by my garden and my hens."

"Oh, have you hens?" Mrs. Owen asked.

"Yes, grandmother, seven of them and a c.o.c.k," Peggy said; "and twelve teenty, tinety chickens, the dearest, cunningest things. Don't you remember," she added, reproachfully, "how I wrote and told you we had a birthday surprise party of hens for mother?"

"I do remember it now."

Peggy said no more about the hens. How terrible it was to be so old that the idea of seven hens and a c.o.c.k and twelve chickens made no more impression on one than that! And yet, Miss Betsy Porter must be nearly as old as her grandmother, and Miss Betsy was deeply interested in hens.

After all, it was the kind of person you were, and not the age.

Two or three days later, as Mrs. Owen was writing letters, she heard Peggy say to Alice, "I like it better when grandmother isn't here."