food,
of which all partook with a gusto most flattering and gratifying to
the cook, who was glad to retire to her room with her baby, when the
meal was over and rest on her laurels, while the young people danced
and made merry in very gladness of heart.

Night closed around a little settlement of thoroughly grateful, happy
human beings. What if it was still cold, and there must yet be many
stormy days? No fear of suffering or starvation. God had not forgotten
us, and we should never cease to trust Him. I could not sleep for very
joy, and the delicious sense of relief from anxiety on the score of
providing for the daily meals. I seemed to see in the darkness, in
illuminated letters, "Jehovah _Jireh_," and felt He had abundantly
verified his blessed promise.[B]

In due time the days grew longer and warmer; the snow melted. Large
flocks of wild geese passing northward over our heads assured us, with
their unmusical but most welcome notes, that the long winter of '56
and '57 was over and gone. The ground was broken up, crops were
planted, and everything gave promise of a favorable season. Our home,
in its lovely, fresh robes of green, was enchanting, and we felt that
the lines had indeed fallen unto us in pleasant places. But as we take
pleasant walks through our happy valley, what means this unusual sound
that arrests our footsteps? It is like the pattering of gentle summer
rain, and yet the sky is clear and cloudless; no drops fall. What can
it be? Ah! see that moving in the grass! We stoop to examine, and find
myriads of strange-looking insects hardly larger than fleas. They must
be--yes, they are, _young grasshoppers_. And now may God help us! for
we are powerless to arrest their depredations. Day by day they grew
and increased, until they covered everything; fields of wheat which
promised a bountiful harvest were eaten up so completely that not a
green blade or leaf was left; gardens were entirely demolished;
screens of cloth put over hot-beds for protection were eaten as
greedily as the plants themselves, and the rapidity with which they
did their destructive work was amazing. So faded away all our hopes of
raising anything available that year, and we watched and waited. But
one bright June morning there was a movement and an unusual sound. We
rushed to see the cause, and beheld our dire enemy rising in masses,
like a great army with banners! They passed over us, making our home
for a time the "land shadowing with