Miracles on Maple Hill (Harcourt Young Classics) by Virginia Sorensen Read Free Book Online

not so important after all.
    When Marly woke up the next morning, there was another miracle right outside her window. The sun was coming up, and it was clear and frosty out. And there were ten million little crystals shining on every single branch of every single tree, down to the littlest twig. The tree right next to her window was a wilderness of shining threads, as if every branch, every twig, was spun from ice. Among the threads hopped the cold little black figures of the birds.
    Marly felt as if she could never in the world look at it long enough.
    She heard the door downstairs open and close again. Was Daddy going out into all that icy cold? When he first came home, he was always having chills, she remembered, and had to stay in bed mornings with the hot pad at his feet. Now there he went, out into a world of solid ice! She could hear the tree at her window clicking its boughs together when she leaned close to look.
    But it wasn't Daddy, after all. It was Joe. He was dressed in his heavy coat and boots and gloves and had his green earmuffs on. Marly tugged at the window, but it wouldn't budge. So she pounded on it and shouted, and Joe turned and looked up at her. From even that distance she could see the disgusted look on his face. His mouth made motions that looked like the words "shut up!" to her. And then he turned and hurried off up the hill, and she watched him disappear.
    Well! Didn't he think he was smart, though, going out on a secret adventure before anybody was up? She felt so jealous for a minute that she felt it go clear to her toes, which were folded up from the cold floor. But who wanted to go out into all that ice, anyhow? The last time Joe disappeared over a hill, he hadn't been such a great hero as he thought he was. When she thought of that, she felt better. If she wanted, she could go, too. Why not? She dressed with her teeth chattering.
    As she slipped along the hall she heard Daddy sleeping. Brrr! Even the kitchen was cold. She opened the door, and a blast of cold air came in.
Goodness,
she thought,
Joe is welcome to all outdoors this morning! Who wanted to go out?
    Then she had an idea. She would surprise everybody. She would build a fine fire and get breakfast all ready. And when Mother and Daddy came down, they'd stand by the door and stare and say, "Well, would you look at who's up and around so early? We thought we smelled something good."
    Plenty of paper and wood and coal. She lifted the first lid on the funny old stove and stuffed in some of each. She would boil water and make coffee and then—then she would just mix up a batch of pancakes!
    It was exciting to build a fire. She had never built a fire all by herself in her whole life. She filled the stove with things to burn and then she struck a match. The paper caught right away and flared out brightly. How lovely fire was, she thought, and remembered Mr. Chris putting logs on the sugarhouse fire. She put the lid back on and waited.
    But something began to go wrong with that fire right away. Instead of just blazing and getting warm, the way it should, little curls of smoke began to come up around all of the stove lids. She opened the lid to look. The paper had stopped burning and was just sitting there smoking. She found another match and tried again, coughing.
    But the same thing happened—only more smoke came out this time, simply pouring out around every lid. She opened one and stuffed in a lot more paper quickly, and lighted another match. Now the smoke was simply pouring out, not only out of the paper but out of the kindlings, too.
    Oh, dear! What in the world—? And there was Mother's voice. "Dale! Something's burning!"
    Daddy's feet hit the floor. He was running along the hall and down the stairs, with Mother right behind.
    "Marly! What on earth—" He pushed her aside with a hard big sweep of his arm that almost knocked her down. He opened the stove lid and out came
the smoke in another huge cloud, simply billowing. And then he