“It’s snowing hard,” reported Russ.

“I like it,” said Rose.  “We can have some sleigh rides, and coast downhill.”

“And build snow men,” added Violet, giving a little wriggle of pleasure.

“And snow forts, and have snowball fights!” exclaimed Laddie.

Mun Bun and Margy were eating some cookies their mother had saved for them, so they didn’t say anything, just then.

“Could you ever make a snow man that would talk?” asked Vi, when she and the others had tired of looking out at the swirling flakes.

“’Course not!” exclaimed Laddie.  “That would be like a riddle.”

“I could make a snow man talk,” declared Russ.

“You could not!  How could you?” asked Laddie.

“I could scoop out a hollow place in his back and put a phonograph inside, and when I wound it up the snow man would talk.”

“The phonograph would freeze inside a snow man,” said Laddie.

“No, it wouldn’t.  If it did I could build a little fire and melt it,” Russ went on.  “Maybe I’ll do it, too; that is, if I can find a phonograph.”

“But if you built a fire to thaw out the phonograph it would melt the snow man,” said Rose.

Russ seemed to be puzzled by this.

“Well, I’d do it somehow,” he declared.  “I’d just build a little fire, and that wouldn’t melt the snow man very much.”

Back into the car came trooping some of the men who had gone out to see the switch and rails clogged with the snow.

“Are we able to go on?” asked Grandpa Ford of one of these men.

“I think so,” was the answer.  “The snow has been shoveled away from the switch, and the engineer is going to try again.  But it is a bad storm, and I doubt if we get through to-night.”

“Won’t we get home to your place, Grandpa?” asked Laddie.

“It’s hard to tell,” answered the old gentleman.  “But, if worst comes to worst, we can stay on the train all night.  We can sleep here and eat here, but perhaps we can get almost to Tarrington, and drive in a big sled the rest of the way.”

“Where can you get a sled?” asked Violet, always ready with a question.

“Oh, I can hire one, if I can’t get my own,” said Grandpa Ford.  “I told one of my men to meet us at the depot with a big carriage.  But when he sees it snowing, as it is now up at Great Hedge, he’ll take out the sled, I’m sure.”

“I like to ride in a sled,” said Rose.  “It’s such fun to cuddle down in the fur robes.”

“Have you got fur robes, Grandpa?” Vi inquired.

“Oh, yes, plenty of them,” he answered.  “But I hope we’ll get to Tarrington,” he added in a low voice to Mr. and Mrs. Bunker.  “I would not want to drive in an open sled through this cold storm with the children.”

“They wouldn’t mind it,” said Daddy Bunker.  “If they were well-wrapped they would like it.”

“I suppose I should have waited until warmer weather to bring you to Great Hedge,” went on Grandpa Ford.  “But I wanted to have the children with me, and so did their grandmother.  She hasn’t seen them all together for some time.  So I just thought I’d bring you in the winter, and not wait for summer.”