well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkins
and sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milk
all winter; and on the eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon,
and salt codfish, I and my boarders managed to live tolerably well.

Pie I missed very much, and cookies and apple dumplings and such
things, all of which my mother used to make very freely at home, and
never keeping them hid. I looked longingly at the pumpkins, and once
fetched a quantity of ginger from Joyce's, vowing I would attempt
pumpkin pie; but I never got up my courage. Bread, also, I never
attempted, though I got a package of yeast from the store and looked
at it many times. The place of this was taken by pancakes, which I
made almost every day, big and thick, which with molasses went very
well; though a good cook, as like as not, would have said they were
somewhat leathery.

There was not an apple in town, nor any kind of fresh fruit, but there
were dried apples and prunes, and canned fruit and vegetables,
especially tomatoes. Of the canned things I liked the strawberries
best, and ate many, though they tasted somewhat of the tin. There were
plenty of crackers in the stores, and some dry round things,
dark-colored, which called themselves gingersnaps; I took home a large
package in great glee, thinking I had made a find; I ate one of them
by main strength and gave the rest to the cow. Butter I made several
times, with fair success, though it was not like mother's, being more
greasy.

Fresh meat I missed very much, though the few jack-rabbits I got
helped out, and were good eating, as I have said, and smelled as good
as anything could while cooking. Some other fresh meat I had also, as
you shall see directly. Once I made up my mind to have some chicken.
There was one hen who was very fat and never, I was sure, laid an egg.
I took the hatchet, which was sharp enough, and went to the barn,
intending to behead her, having it all planned how I should cook her
for my Sunday dinner. When I got to the barn the hen seemed to know
what I intended, and she looked at me with one eye, very reproachful,
and I went back to the house with my hatchet and never made any more
plans for fried chicken.

There was much bad weather in January. Often I noticed that this was
the way of it: It would snow for one day, blizzard for three, and then
for two be still, steady, bitter cold. On these latter the thermometer
would often go over forty degrees be