"So it appears," answered Tom soberly. For once, all the fun was knocked out of him.
"Well, I am glad I didn't forget them, anyway," said Sam bravely. But he wondered how it was Grace could treat him so shabbily.
The boys passed the day as best they could in reading and playing games, and in snowballing each other and Jack Ness and Aleck Pop.
"My! my! But dis am lik old times at Putnam Hall!" said the colored man, grinning from ear to ear when Tom hit him on the head with a snowball. "Hab yo' fun while yo' am young, Massa Tom."
"That's my motto, Aleck," answered Tom. "Have another." And he landed a snowball on the colored man's shoulder.
"I move we go down to the post-office for mail," said Dick toward evening. "We don't know what we may be missing."
"Second the motion!" cried Tom. "The post-office it is, if we can get through."
"Can't no hoss git through these drifts," came from Jack Ness.
"We'll hitch up our biggest team and take our time," said Dick. "We have got to get down to the post-office somehow." He was hoping desperately that he would find a letter from Dora there.
