dresses under their shawls; they kept shivering
beneath the buffalo robes and hugging each other for warmth. But
they were so glad to get away from their ugly cave and their mother's
scolding that they begged me to go on and on, as far as Russian Peter's
house. The great fresh open, after the stupefying warmth indoors, made
them behave like wild things. They laughed and shouted, and said they
never wanted to go home again. Couldn't we settle down and live in
Russian Peter's house, Yulka asked, and couldn't I go to town and buy
things for us to keep house with?

All the way to Russian Peter's we were extravagantly happy, but when we
turned back--it must have been about four o'clock--the east wind grew
stronger and began to howl; the sun lost its heartening power and the
sky became grey and sombre. I took off my long woollen comforter and
wound it around Yulka's throat. She got so cold that we made her hide
her head under the buffalo robe. Antonia and I sat erect, but I held the
reins clumsily, and my eyes were blinded by the wind a good deal of the
time. It was growing dark when we got to their house, but I refused to
go in with them and get warm. I knew my hands would ache terribly if I
went near a fire. Yulka forgot to give me back my comforter, and I had
to drive home directly against the wind. The next day I came down with
an attack of quinsy, which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks.

The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--like
a tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all
day, husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled
down over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used
to think they were like Arctic explorers. In the afternoons, when
grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making husking-gloves, I read 'The
Swiss Family Robinson' aloud to her, and I felt that the Swiss family
had no advantages over us in the way of an adventurous life. I was
convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the cold. I admired the
cheerful zest with which grandmother went about keeping us warm and
comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when she was preparing
for the return of the hungry men, that this country was not like
Virginia; and that here a cook had, as she said, 'very little to do
with.' On Sundays she gave us as much chicken as we could eat, and on
other days we had ham or bacon or sausage meat. She baked either pies
or