"
"Foller him, foiler him; he has more sense than we jest now," said
Joe, rousing himself from his reverie.
Toby threw to the tall boy the first grateful look which had issued
from his brown eyes. Again he pulled Cecile, and the children,
obeying him, found themselves descending the path a little, and then
the next moment they were in comparative peace and comfort. Wise Toby
had led them to the sheltered side of an old wall. Here the snow did
not beat, and though eventually it would drift in this direction, yet
here for the next few hours the children might at least breathe and
find standing room.
"Bravo, Toby!" said Joe, in a tone of rapture; "we none of us seen
this old wall; why, it may save our lives. Now, if only the snow
don't last too long, and if only we can keep awake, we may do even
yet."
"Why mayn't we go to sleep?" asked Cecile; "not that I am sleepy at
two o'clock in the day."
"Why mayn't we go to sleep?" echoed Joe. "Now, Missie, dear, I'm a
werry hignorant boy, but I knows this much, I knows this much as true
as gospel, and them as sleeps in the snow never, never wakes no more.
We must none of us drop asleep, we must do hevery think but sleep--you
and me, and Maurice and Toby. We must stay werry wide awake, and 'twill
be hard, for they do say, as the cruel thing is, the snow does make
you so desperate sleepy."
"Do you mean, Joe Barnes," asked Cecile, fixing her earnest little
face on the tall boy, "that if we little children went to sleep now,
that we'd die? Is that what you mean by never waking again?"
Joe nodded.
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