Read "The Witch Sheep" by Alice Morse Earle online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the darkness of Christmas morning, in the year 1811, old Benny Nichols could not sleep. He was not thinking of Santa Claus nor of Christmas gifts; he was watching for the first gray dawn which marked his regular rising hour, and he tossed and turned, wondering why he was so wakeful, until at last he rose in despair and lighted a candle to discover how long he had to wait ere daybreak. To his amazement he found the hands of the old clock pointing to the hour of nine, and as he stood shivering, candle in hand, staring at the apparently deceitful, bland face the clock raised its voice and struck nine, loudly and brassily, as if to prove that its hands and face told the truth. Benny then walked quickly to the window, and saw that the apparent darkness and length of the night came from a great wall of snow which covered the entire window and which had nearly all fallen since the previous sunset.
Keenly awake at once when he recognized the lateness of the hour, the old man wakened his wife Debby, and bade her "hurry up and git somethin' to eat. It's nine o'clock, and we've had the wust snowstorm ye ever see, and me a-laying' here in bed, and them new sheep a-walkin' into the sea and gittin' drownded!"