There is no place like the woods for bringing a storm down on you quick; the trees are so thick you don’t mind the first few flakes, till, first you know, there’s a whirl of ’em, and the wind is up.

I was minding less about it than usual, for I was thinking of Nannie,—­that’s what I used to call her, Johnny, when she was a girl, but it seems a long time ago, that does.  I was thinking how surprised she’d be, and pleased.  I knew she would be pleased.  I didn’t think so poorly of her as to suppose she wasn’t just as sorry now as I was for what had happened.  I knew well enough how she would jump and throw down her sewing with a little scream, and run and put her arms about my neck and cry, and couldn’t help herself.

So I didn’t mind about the snow, for planning it all out, till all at once I looked up, and something slashed into my eyes and stung me,—­it was sleet.

“Oho!” said I to myself, with a whistle,—­it was a very long whistle, Johnny; I knew well enough then it was no play-work I had before me till the sun went down, nor till morning either.

That was about noon,—­it couldn’t have been half an hour since I’d eaten my dinner; I eat it driving, for I couldn’t bear to waste time.

The road wasn’t broken there an inch, and the trees were thin; there’d been a clearing there years ago, and wide, white, level places wound off among the trees; one looked as much like a road as another, for the matter of that.  I pulled my visor down over my eyes to keep the sleet out,—­after they’re stung too much they’re good for nothing to see with, and I must see, if I meant to keep that road.

It began to be cold.  You don’t know what it is to be cold, you don’t, Johnny, in the warm gentleman’s life you’ve lived.  I was used to Maine forests, and I was used to January, but that was what I call cold.

The wind blew from the ocean, straight as an arrow.  The sleet blew every way,—­into your eyes, down your neck, in like a knife into your cheeks.  I could feel the snow crunching in under the runners, crisp, turned to ice in a minute.  I reached out to give Bess a cut on the neck, and the sleeve of my coat was stiff as pasteboard before I bent my elbow up again.

If you looked up at the sky, your eyes were shut with a snap as if somebody’d shot them.  If you looked in under the trees, you could see the icicles a minute, and the purple shadows.  If you looked straight ahead, you couldn’t see a thing.

By and by I thought I had dropped the reins, I looked at my hands, and there I was holding them tight.  I knew then that it was time to get out and walk.

I didn’t try much after that to look ahead; it was of no use, for the sleet was fine, like needles, twenty of ’em in your eye at a wink; then it was growing dark.  Bess and Beauty knew the road as well as I did, so I had to trust to them.  I thought I must be coming near the clearing where I’d counted on putting up overnight, in case I couldn’t reach the deaf old woman’s.