n held a lantern as he stood before me, the
blaze flickering. There was a fearsome darkness all around.

'Come, Willy, make haste,' he whispered, as I rubbed my eyes. 'Put on
yer boots, an' here's yer little coat 'n' muffler.'

There was a mighty roar in the forest and icy puffs of snow came
whistling in upon us. We stored the robes and pails and buckets and
covered the big kettle.

The lofty tree-tops reeled and creaked above us, and a deep, sonorous
moan was sweeping through the woods, as if the fingers of the wind had
touched a mighty harp string in the timber. We could hear the crash and
thunder of falling trees.

'Make haste! Make haste! It's resky here,' said Uncle Eb, and he held my
hand and ran. We started through the brush and steered as straight as
we could for the clearing. The little box of light he carried was soon
sheathed in snow, and I remember how he stopped, half out of breath,
often, and brushed it with his mittens to let out the light. We had made
the scattering growth of little timber at the edge of the woods when the
globe of the lantern snapped and fell. A moment later we stood in utter
darkness. I knew, for the first time, then that we were in a bad fix.

'I guess God'll take care of us, Willy,' said Uncle Eb. 'If he don't,
we'll never get there in this world never!'

It was a black and icy wall of night and storm on every side of us.
I never saw a time when the light of God's heaven was so utterly
extinguished; the cold never went to my bone as on that bitter night.
My hands and feet were numb with aching, as the roar of the trees grew
fainter in the open. I remember how I lagged, and how the old man urged
me on, and how we toiled in the wind and darkness, straining our eyes
for some familiar thing. Of a sudden we stumbled upon a wall that we had
passed an hour or so before.

'Oh!' he groaned, and made that funny, deprecating cluck with his
tongue, that I have heard so much from Yankee lips.

'God o' mercy!' said he, 'we've gone 'round in a half-circle. Now we'll
take the wall an' mebbe it'll bring us home.'

I thought I couldn't keep my feet any longer, for an irresistible
drowsiness had come over me. The voice of Uncle Eb seemed far away,
and when I sank in the snow and shut my eyes to sleep he shook me as a
terrier shakes a rat.

'Wake up, my boy,' said he, 'ye musn't sleep.'

Then he boxed my ears until I cried, and picked me up and ran with me
along the side of the wall. I was