at she was forever working by lamp-light The prairies
were brown and forbidding, the sky often a mere gray pall. The monotony
of the life began to seem terrible. Sometimes her ears ached for a
sound. For a time in the summer so many had seemed to need her that
she had been happy in spite of her poverty and her loneliness. Now,
suddenly, no one wanted her. She could find no source of inspiration.
She wondered how she was going to live through the winter, and keep her
patience and her good-nature.

"You'll love me," she said, almost fiercely, one night to the
children--"you'll love mamma, no matter how cross and homely she gets,
won't you?"

The cold grew day by day. A strong winter was setting in. Catherine took
up her study of medicine again, and sat over her books till midnight.
It occurred to her that she might fit herself for nursing by spring, and
that the children could be put with some one--she did not dare to think
with whom. But this was the only solution she could find to her problem
of existence.

November settled down drearily. Few passed the shack. Catherine, who
had no one to speak with excepting the children, continually devised
amusements for them. They got to living in a world of fantasy, and
were never themselves, but always wild Indians, or arctic explorers,
or Robinson Crusoes. Kitty and Roderick, young as they were, found a
never-ending source of amusement in these little grotesque dreams and
dramas. The fund of money was getting so low that Catherine was obliged
to economize even in the necessities. If it had not been for her two
cows, she would hardly have known how to find food for her little ones.
But she had a wonderful way of making things with eggs and milk, and she
kept her little table always inviting. The day before Thanksgiving she
determined that they should all have a frolic.

"By Christmas," she said to Kitty, "the snow may be so bad that I cannot
get to town. We'll have our high old time now."

There is no denying that Catherine used slang even in talking to the
children. The little pony had been sold long ago, and going to town
meant a walk of twelve miles. But Catherine started out early in the
morning, and was back by nightfall, not so very much the worse, and
carrying in her arms bundles which might have fatigued a bronco.

The next morning she was up early, and was as happy and ridiculously
excited over the prospect of the day's merrymaking as if she had been
Kitty. Busy as