Forty Minutes Late — Francis Hopkinson Smith / F. Hopkinson Smith

" ...]from New York and they dumped her out jes' same as you. I happened to come along in time, as luck would have it-I was haulin' a load of timber on my bob-sled-and there warn't nothin' else, so I took her up to the village. She got in late, of course, but they was a-waitin' for her. I really wasn't goin' to hear you speak to-night-we git so much of that sort of thing since the old man who left the money to pay you fellers for talkin' died-been goin' on ten years now-but I'll take yer 'long with me, and glad to. But yer oughter have somethin' warmer'n what yer got on. Wind's kinder nippy down here, but it ain't nothin' to the way it bites up on the ridge." ...]."