Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/103

 muttered Cope to himself presently, and began to cast about for other company. Amy Leffingwell was strolling along alone: he caught a branch of haw from before her meditative face and proffered a general remark about the beauty of the day and the interest in the changing prospect.

Amy's pretty pink face brightened. "'It is a lovely day," she said. "And the more of this lovely weather we have in October—and especially in November—the more trouble it makes."

"Surely you don't want rain or frost?"

"No; but it becomes harder to shut the house up for good and all. Last fall we opened and closed two or three times. We even tried coming out in December."

"In mackintoshes and rubber boots?"

"Almost. But the boots are better for February. At least, they would have been last February."

"It seems hard to imagine such a future for a place like this,—or such a past."

"Things can be pretty rough, I assure you. And the roads are not always as good as they are to-day." And when the pump froze, she went on, they had to depend upon the lake; and when the lake froze they had to fall back on melted snow and ice. And even when the lake didn't freeze, the blowing waters and the flying sands often heaped up big ridges that quite cut them off from the open sea. Then they had to prospect along those tawny hummocks for some small inlet that would yield a few buckets of frozen spray,—keeping on the right side of the deep fissures that