. She clutched the baby closer, and turned
and lifted the flap of the white curtain at the back of the wagon,
and looked out with a wild and terror-stricken eye. The red clay road
stretched curveless, a long way visible and vacant. The black bare trees
stood shivering in the chilly blast on either side; among them was an
occasional clump of funereal cedars. Away off the brown wooded hills
rose; snow lay in thin crust-like patches here and there, and again the
earth wore the pallid gray of the crab-grass or the ochreous red of the
gully-washed clay.

"I don't see nuthin'," she said, in the bated voice of affrighted
suspense.

While she still looked out flakes suddenly began to fly, hardly falling
at first, but poised tentatively, fluctuating athwart the scene,
presently thickening, quickening, obscuring it all, isolating the woods
with an added sense of solitude since the sight of the world and
the sound of it were so speedily annulled. Even the creak of the
wagon-wheels was muffled. Through the semicircular aperture in the front
of the wagon-cover the horns of the oxen were dimly seen amidst the
serried flakes; the snow whitened the backs of the beasts and added its
burden to their yoke. Once as they jogged on she fancied again that she
heard hoof-beats--this time a long way ahead, thundering over a little
bridge high above a swirling torrent, that reverberated with a hollow
tone to the faintest footfall. "Jes somebody ez hev passed we-uns,
takin' the short-cut by the bridle-path," she ruminated. No pursuer,
evidently.

Everything was deeply submerged in the snow before they reached the dark
little cabin nestling in the Cove. Motionless and dreary it was; not
even a blue and gauzy wreath curled out of the chimney, for the fire had
died on the hearth in their absence. No living creature was to be seen.
The fowls were huddled together in the hen-house, and the dogs had
accompanied the family to town, trotting beneath the wagon with lolling
tongues and smoking breath; when they nimbly climbed the fence their
circular footprints were the first traces to mar the level expanse of
the door-yard. The bare limbs of the trees were laden; the cedars bore
great flower-like tufts amidst the interlacing fibrous foliage. The
eaves were heavily thatched; the drifts lay in the fence corners.

Everything was covered except, indeed, one side of the fodder-stack that
stood close to the barn. Evelina, going out to milk the cow, gazed at