The people all squall out: "Why,
ain't you 'most froze?" and if you answer, "Yes sum," it's as much
as ever. Generally you can't do anything but just stand and snuffle
and look as if you hadn't a friend on earth. And about the time you
get so that some spots are pretty warm, and other spots aren't as
cold as they were, why then you wrap up, and go home again with the
same experience, only more so. Fine! fine!
It's nice, too, when there's a whole crowd out together in a
wagon-bed with straw in it. There's something so cozy in straw!
And the tin horns you blow in each other's ear, and the songs you
sing: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way," and
"Waw-unneeta! Waw-unneeta, ay-usk thy sowl if we shud part," and
"Nearer, my God, to Thee," and "Johnny Shmoker," and that variation
of "John Brown's Body," where every time you sing over the verse
you leave off one more word, and somebody always forgets, and you
laugh fit to kill yourself, and just have a grand time. And maybe
you take a whole lot of canned cove oysters with you, and when you
get out to Makemson's, or wherever it is you're going, Mrs.
Makemson puts the kettle on and makes a stew, cooking the oysters
till they are thoroughly done. And she makes coffee, the kind you
can't tell from tea by the looks, and have to try twice before you
can tell by the taste.
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