ldn't have been much deeper without smothering us all.
Our street was a sight to be seen, or, rather, it was a sight not to
be seen; for very little street was visible. One huge drift completely
banked up our front door and half covered my bedroom window.

There was no school that day, for all the thoroughfares were impassable.
By twelve o'clock, however, the great snowploughs, each drawn by four
yokes of oxen, broke a wagon-path through the principal streets; but the
foot-passengers had a hard time of it floundering in the arctic drifts.

The Captain and I cut a tunnel, three feet wide and six feet high, from
our front door to the sidewalk opposite. It was a beautiful cavern, with
its walls and roof inlaid with mother-of-pearl and diamonds. I am sure
the ice palace of the Russian Empress, in Cowper's poem, was not a more
superb piece of architecture.

The thermometer began falling shortly before sunset and we had the
bitterest cold night I ever experienced. This brought out the Oldest
Inhabitant again the next day--and what a gay old boy he was for deciding
everything! Our tunnel was turned into solid ice. A crust thick enough
to bear men and horses had formed over the snow everywhere, and the air
was alive with merry sleigh-bells. Icy stalactites, a yard long, bung
from the eaves of the house, and the Turkish sentinels at the gate
looked as if they had given up all hopes of ever being relieved from
duty.

So the winter set in cold and glittering. Everything out-of-doors was
sheathed in silver mail. To quote from Charley Marden, it was "cold
enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey,"--an observation which
seemed to me extremely happy, though I knew little or nothing concerning
the endurance of brass monkeys, having never seen one.

I had looked forward to the advent of the season with grave
apprehensions, nerving myself to meet dreary nights and monotonous
days; but summer itself was not more jolly than winter at Rivermouth.
Snow-balling at school, skating on the Mill Pond, coasting by moonlight,
long rides behind Gypsy in a brand-new little sleigh built expressly for
her, were sports no less exhilarating than those which belonged to the
sunny months. And then Thanksgiving! The nose of Memory--why shouldn't
Memory have a nose?--dilates with pleasure over the rich perfume of Miss
Abigail's forty mince-pies, each one more delightful than the other,
like the Sultan's forty wives. Christmas was another red-letter d