Mother must have put all the blessed blankets in the house on the
school-teacher's bed. I don't know what she had on her own, but we only
had the old bag-quilt and a stack of old skirts, and other remnants of the
family wardrobe, on ours. In the middle of the night, the whole confounded
pile of them rolled off, and we nearly froze. Do what we boys would--tie
ourselves in knots and coil into each other like ropes--we could n't get
warm. We sat up in the bed in turns, and glared into the darkness towards
the schoolmistress's room, which was n't more than three yards away; then
we would lie back again and shiver. We were having a time. But at last
we heard a noise from the young lady's room. We listened--all we knew.
Miss Ribbone was up and dressing. We could hear her teeth chattering and
her knees knocking together. Then we heard her sneak back to bed again
and felt disappointed and colder than ever, for we had hoped she was
getting up early, and would n't want the bed any longer that night. Then
we too crawled out and dressed and tried it that way.
In answer to Mother at breakfast, next morning, Miss Ribbone said she had
"slept very well indeed.
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