"Aren't you ashamed?" cried Ruth.

Agnes only laughed. They both knew that Agnes did not mean all that she
said.

Ruth was already attacking the loose, fluffy snow under the arbor, and
Agnes seized a spade and followed her older sister. It did not take such
a great effort to get to the end of the arbor; but beyond that a great
mass of hard-packed snow confronted them. Ruth could barely see over it.

"Oh, dear me!" groaned Agnes. "We'll never be able to dig a path through
_that_."

This looked to be true to the older girl, too; so she began thinking.
But it was Dot, trying to peer around the bigger girls' elbows, who
solved the problem.

"Oh, my! how nice it would be to have a ladder and climb up to the top
of that snowbank," she cried. "Maybe we could go over to Mabel
Creamer's, right over the fence and all, Tess!"

"Hurray!" shouted Agnes. "We can cut steps in the bank, Ruth. Dot has
given us a good idea--hasn't she?"

"I believe she has," agreed the oldest Kenway.

Although the snow had floated down so softly at first (and was now
coming in feathery particles) during the height of the storm, the wind
had blown and it had been so cold that the drifts were packed hard.

Without much difficulty the girls made four steps up out of the mouth of
the grape-arbor, to the surface of the drift. Then they tramped a path
on top to the door of the henhouse.

By this same entrance they could get to the goat's quarters. The snow
had drifted completely over the henhouse, but that only helped to keep
the hens and Billy Bumps warm.

Later the girls tunneled through the great drift at the back porch,
leaving a thick arch which remained for the rest of the week. So they
got a path broken to the gate on Willow Street.

The snowman had disappeared to his shoulders. It continued to snow most
of that day and the grape-arbor path became a perfect tunnel.

There was no school until Monday. Even then the streets were almost
impassable for vehicles. The Highway Department of the town was removing
the drifts in the roads and some of this excavated snow was dumped at
the end of the Parade Ground, opposite the schools.

The boys hailed these piles of snow as being fine for fortifications,
and snowball battles that first day waxed furious.

Then the leading spirits among the boys--including Neale O'Neil--put
their heads together and the erection of the enchanted castle was begun.
But more of _that_ anon.

Tess had had plenty of