No more make-believe winter for a while,--the snow lay white and crisp on the ground, and the frosty air stung every nose and every finger it could reach.
Tip's study, at the foot of the hill under the elm, had been quite broken up, and he found it very hard to study at home,--especially this morning.

His father's cough had been bad all night, and this made his mother troubled and cross.
Kitty, these days, seemed trying to see just how cross and disagreeable she could be; and the kitchen--at best a dismal place--was just now at the worst.

The wet wood in the stove sizzled and stewed and made a smoke; and in the midst of Tip's fifth trial on an example which was puzzling him terribly, he was called on to split some kindlings.
"This instant!--I won't wait a minute!" Kitty said in a provokingly commanding tone; and Tip went at it sullenly, saying, with every spiteful drive of his axe through the pine board which he had picked up, "It's no use; I _cant_ do that sum, and I ain't going to try.

I don't know anything, and never will.

I've done it over fifty times, and twisted it every way I can think of.