Page:Frank Stockton--The casting away of Mrs Lecks and Mrs Aleshine.djvu/152

138 sides with my shovel, to get the whole into a condition in which it would retain the form of a rude chimney.

Now I hurried to bring wood and twigs, and having made a hearth of green sticks, which I cut with my ax, I built a fire in this snowy fireplace. Mrs. Leeks, Mrs. Aleshine, and Ruth had been watching my proceedings with great interest; and when the fire began to burn, and the smoke to go out of my chimney, the coach door was opened, and the genial heat gradually pervaded the vehicle.

"Upon my word," exclaimed Mrs. Aleshine, "if that is n't one of the brightest ideas I ever heard of! A fire in the middle of a snowbank, with a man there attendin' to it, an' a chimney! 'T is n't every day that you can see a thing like that!"

"I should hope not," remarked Mrs. Leeks, "for if the snow drifted this way every day, I 'd be ready to give up the seein' business out and out! But I think, Mr. Craig, you ought to pass that shovel in to us so that we can dig you out when the fire begins to melt your little house and it all caves in on you."

"You can have the shovel," said I, "but I don't believe this snowbank will cave in on me. Of course the heat will melt the snow, but I think it will dissolve gradually, so that the caving in, if there is any, won't be of much account, and then we shall have a big open space here in which we can keep up our fire."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Ruth, "you talk as if you expected to stay here ever so long, and we certainly can't do that. We should starve to death, for one thing."