“Let us drive on the river,” said the four little Blossoms with one voice.

“That’s nothing but a creek, where you go to skate,” Sam answered a little scornfully.  “This river I’m talking about was a real river—­wide and deep; boats came up it in summer time.  We lived two or three hundred miles north of here and it was three times as cold.”

“Well, it’s cold enough now,” said Dot wisely.  “Isn’t it, Meg?”

“Yes,” Meg agreed absently, “but look how pretty it is—­I think snow is lovely.  And the bells sound so pretty, too.  Here comes another sleigh.”

The children stood up to look, holding on to the back of the seat, to steady themselves.  Coming toward them were two horses, harnessed to a sleigh much like the one Sam was driving—­a light box set on two sets of runners.

“From the creamery,” said Sam, as his quick eyes saw the heavy milk cans.

The man driving the sleigh called “Howdy!” and shook his whip at them and Dot gasped and held on to Meg as Sam turned out for the other team.

The road was fairly well trampled in the center, but when it became necessary for two vehicles to pass, they had to turn into the drifts.  The four little Blossoms felt their sleigh tilt alarmingly, but before they had time to be frightened they were back on the level road again.

“Do—­do sleighs ever tip over?” asked Dot anxiously.

“Oh, sometimes,” Sam said cheerfully.  “But if you are going to be turned over in anything, Dot, always pick out a sleigh for the accident; a motor car can pin you down and a railroad wreck is serious, but when a sleigh turns over, you just slip out into the snow and there’s nothing to hurt you.”

This sounded comforting, but the children agreed that they would rather not be tipped over.

“I think we’ll take this cross road over,” said Sam, when they came to a place where four roads met.  “It may be a bit harder going and more drifts to get through, but we’ll save time at that.”

“We don’t have to save time, do we?” Bobby put in.  “We’re always saving time, Sam—­at least you are.  And I think it would be fun to drive as much as we want to, just once.”

Sam laughed good-naturedly as he turned the horse into the road he had chosen.

“You’d like a good time to last as long as possible, wouldn’t you, Bobby?” he said.  “Well, with all the short cuts and all the time saving I can do, we won’t be home before dark; does that suit you?”

That suited Bobby exactly and he began to whistle.

“Say,” Twaddles cried, interrupting the whistling suddenly.  “Say, Sam, I want to get out.”

“You do?  Why?” asked Sam, without turning his head.

“I saw a glove back there in the road,” Twaddles announced.  “A nice glove, Sam, that somebody lost.”

Sam said “Whoa!” to the horse and turned to look at Twaddles.

“How far back—­a mile?” he asked suspiciously.