Autumn turned into winter. It was a very cold, very dry winter. Not one drop of sleet or snow fell, but the lakes and ponds and harbor had all turned into ice overnight and a cutting, bitter wind sliced over them. It was too cold to skate--to cold to walk anywhere but school and home again.
"I wish it would snow," Cecilia said to herself as she braced against the biting wind. "Somehow I don't mind the cold where it's lovely and snowy outside, because there's some reward then."
She thought the red sandstone cliffs looked lovely still against the frozen harbor and bleak grey sky, but the Ingleside garden had been made ugly by the winter and the trees had been stripped of their leaves-- oh, for a plot of gentle white drifts and branches dripping with diamond ice!
Cecilia did go out, however, and braved the cold one dismal afternoon, for a quite secret errand. She made sure to slip out of the back-- Grandmother and Grandfather would have surely wanted to know where she was going if they saw her armed with a hammer and nails, and boards she had picked up in the scrap pile near the school. On her way home last week she had noticed that some of the boards on the windows of the house at Red Apple Farm were looked banged by the wind and rotted by damp. And nothing must happen to those crystal, diamond-paned windows-- Cecilia didn't dare ask anyone else to do it for her. But that was all right-- she quite relished the idea of doing it herself.
The house was sleeping in the gray afternoon sun, and when she neared it a wind tossed its shingled and pounded its boards. A long creaking groan came at her, as if the house was rebuking her, not unkindly, though. Where have you been! It was asking.
Cecilia had a fine hour of pounding away until all of the lower windows were tightly covered. She whistled and sang while she worked, and let her mind roam in an orgy of daydreams. How she had missed this dear little house! She wanted so to go in-- but remembered her vow not to, since Blythe had desecrated it with Joy's prescence. She had to harden her heart-- oh drat, she had forgotten about the eyebrow window above the door!
She eyed it warily. It was a long way up from the ground-- but it was Cecilia's favoritest window in the house. Such a dear, charming window, like an inverted smile, or a vent in pie crust. And it threw such bewitching shadows over the hall floor on sunny days. And whistled when there was a north wind!
"Of course I'll nail it," she said. "I'm done with being afraid of anything."
She had not quite thought about how she would perch on the roof with hammer and nail in her hand, without falling. Or how she would manage to get the board up with her as she climbed the trellis. That ended up being easy-- walking on the roof over to the gable was hard. Surely if any of the grownups had seen her they would have died of fright. But Cecilia was as nimble as a cat, and made her way to the front gable gracefully.
Almost there-- and then it happened! She stumbled. No, our young heroine did not fall to her death-- though if she had been walking one inch more to her right, she might have. Instead she slipped to the left, and came down hard on the shingles. She clutched desperately at the drainpipe to keep herself from sliding--that was the first priority. That done, she realized something was dreadfully wrong with her leg.
The roof of that house was made of cedar shingles, which, while beautiful, were not the most durable of surfaces. They were meant to be replaced every few years, and these particular shingles had not been seen to in a dozen. If Cecilia had known how unsound the roof was while she was still safely on the ground, she never would have climbed up. Well, she was finding it out now!
When she crashed down, her leg went through a rotted place and anchored her there. She couldn't pull it up, for long splinters were sticking into her. Cecilia kicked her dangling leg furiously-- what a site it must have been, if one had been able to see it from the inside! She shouted for help but her voice was lost in the wind, which had picked up, and dark clouds rolled across the sky, ferried by it.
"It looks like snow," said Cecilia-- quite calmly. It looked like more than snow-- and if Cecilia had known the truth, she might not have been so calm about it. In fact, a great storm-- a blizzard-- had struck upper Maine and decided to move North at a very rapid rate. It was one of the worst winter storms the Island would ever know. But Cecilia did not know that-- and someone would come along soon and set her free. She was sure of it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
But no one came. It grew darker and colder, and still-- no one came. A hard, freezing rain began to fall and Cecilia shivered inside her thin coat. Why had she worn this silly peacoat instead of her down one? And oh, for a muffler!
"At least I've got on my long underwear," she consoled herself. "And one leg is warm, even though it aches so."
She was still quite sure that someone would come. Trudy went down to visit the Douglas girls after school-- she'd be walking by any minute. Only she did not know that Uncle Ken had somehow managed to predict this storm and told Trudy she may not go. Perhaps Gil and Walt had gone skating? They often did-- despite the biting wind. Oh, how it bit and howled now, like a fierce angry savage!
A light snow began to fall.
Cecilia was on the point of despair-- frozen, trapped, and aching, and almost began to panic. Then, far down the lane, she saw a figure hurrying in the direction of Ingleside. She began to scream and shout-- she hardly knew what sounds she was making, her teeth were chattering so. But the far-off figure looked up, and changed his course to walk toward her.
"Hey! Is anybody up there?"
It was Blythe. Cecilia momentarily hardened her heart. She did not want to be rescued by Blythe. But-- she could not stay up here in the storm all night! Pride battled with Necessity, and finally she gave in.
"Blythe! Blythe!" she shouted. "I'm up here-- on the roof!"
Blythe stared up in astonishment. He had expected a calm but blustery walk home, after an afternoon of playing at Matt Elliot's. He had not expected to become a sudden rescuer of errant cousins.
"How in heaven's name did you come to be there?" he asked exasperatedly, looking for all the world like Uncle Jerry.
"Oh, please," said poor Cecilia. "It's a long story-- I'll tell you later-- go around to the woodshed and get an axe and climb up and get me out! My leg is caught. But oh, be careful, Blythe-- the roof is rotted through and it will be no good for either of us if you fall in, too."
Blythe did as he was bade-- carefully, for the roof was now slippery wet with ice. He cut through the shingles holding Cecilia's poor leg calmly and carefully, not wanting to hurt her, and after a few moments her leg was free. Blythe held up his axe, triumphant, and Cecilia pulled her leg through with a gasp of relief-- and was about to spring into his arms--!
But the added weight of Blythe on the rotted part of the roof made the whole section they were standing on give way. The two fell down through the widening hole into the garrett of Red Apple Farm.
If there had not been a plump old sofa littered with piles of old quilts directly underneath the hole, they might have broken their backs and been paralyzed forever. But the sofa was there. They were really so very lucky, though neither would have thought themselves that at the particular moment that they fell. Blythe fell on the sofa, and Cecilia fell on Blythe, and the wind was knocked out of both of them.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It was hard to say how long they laid there, fighting for air, but when Cecilia finally pulled herself up she was covered with a dusting of snow that was coming in through the gap in the roof.
"Blythe," she whispered, terrified. "Are you killed?"
"Noo-oo-o," Blythe groaned. "But--owwww--I kind of wish I were."
The two trundled downstairs to the darkened parlor.
"What is that sound?" Cecilia asked. There was a low, groaning, terrible sound all around them and the walls of the little house were shaking.
"I think it is-- the wind," said Blythe increduously, and peeked out of the peephole in the door. "Come look! The roads are covered-- I don't know how we'll get home now."
"Oh!" said Cecilia desperately. "But-- we have to! I'm supposed to go to Abby Penhallow's party tonight. Sid was coming to pick me up."
"Likely Sid won't drive over in this," said Blythe reasonably. "The roads aren't going to be passable. This storm looks like a real doozy. Besides," he grumbled, not so reasonably and a little jealously. "You shouldn't be hanging around with Sid Gardiner anyway."
"And why is that?" Cecilia asked haughtily.
"There's no poetry in him," Blythe said with disdain.
"Oh! And I suppose you think that is the worst thing," cried Cecilia. How had Leslie put it? "You, who are always mooning over things and never doing anything. Sid is a doer-- and a wonderful person-- and I'd rather have him than all the poetry in the world. I won't talk to you anymore, Blythe Meredith. And I won't stand for another bad word about Sid."
"I would have left you on the roof if I'd had any sense," said Blythe hotly.
They stared at each other furiously, then all at once, without speaking, decided to call a truce. At least for the time they were stuck in the house.
"Well, we can't go home tonight," Blythe said. "Look out there-- we can't walk in that. I can use the extra wood to build a fire, but we haven't any paper to start it with."
"Use Monopoly money," Cecilia suggested. "And there's bound to be cans of something we can eat in the pantry-- even if they are old, they won't kill us. Oh, no! I hope they aren't too worried about us at home."
"They know we're smart," Blythe said. "They'll know we found shelter somewhere-- but I suppose a little bit of worrying can't be helped. They are only grownups, after all."
In no time, Blythe had a little but merry fire crackling and Cecilia served up bowls of pork and beans. The flames made jolly shapes on the walls, and despite everything, Cecilia started to feel warm and contented. She and Blythe gave themselves in to the adventure.
It felt good to talk again! They both poured out all of the things that had been on their minds the past few months, when they hadn't talked. Blythe recited several new poems-- and he had been the 'Anonymous' in the Glen notes! Cecilia told Blythe some of the things about Sid-- not all, for some things were too lovely to tell. She also told him about Miss Branston and Uncle Bruce.
"What a mystery!" said Bly. "Why, he should have let her have it, I think. Oh, this is fun, Cecilia. I can't believe we've gone so long without a good talk."
"Well, if you hadn't--" Cecilia began, then stopped. But Blythe knew what she was going to say.
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. No one knew how much those words had cost Blythe-- he was the son of Nan, the proudest of the proud Blythes. But he did mean it, and he knew it must be said, because even more than he felt pride, he knew he had been wrong. "It was awful of me to bring Joy here-- I wasn't thinking-- I'd do anything to take it back. Oh, Cecilia-- don't you think we can ever be friends again?"
Cecilia considered this. Was it worth it, to give up the warm companionship she felt now, for the sake of a grudge? All at once she decided, "Yes. We can."
The cousins clasped hands over it and talked until they began to feel drowsy and laid rugs out before the fire.
"It looks like a veritable fairyland outside," Blythe said. "Oh, what fun it will be to walk around in it tomorrow, when the wind stops. I'll dig us out in the morning-- what an adventure this is!"
"Mm," Cecilia agreed. "We'll do it together-- oh it feels good to do things together again! But," she yawned. "You really mustn't say anything else bad about Sid because I care for him-- and for you to disapprove-- oh, it hurts me, Bly."
"I won't say anything bad," Blythe promised. But in his secret soul, he knew he would never approve. There was no one on the earth wonderful enough for this angel, who fell into sleep beside him. Not even he, Blythe Meredith, was fit to touch her hand. But he was-- she had pressed it into his as she drifted off. And especially not Sid Gardiner!