his season, would be
sartain destruction. No, sir; all we can do, now, is to lay up for the
winter, and that with great care and prudence. We must turn ourselves
into so many ants, and show their forethought and care."

"What would you recommend as our first step, Stimson?" asked Daggett, who
had been an attentive listener.

"I would advise, sir, to begin hardening the men as soon as I could. We
have too much fire in the stove, both for our stock of wood and for the
good of the people. Make the men sleep under fewer clothes, and don't let
any on 'ern hang about the galley fire, as some on 'em love to do, even
now, most desperately. Them 'ere men will be good for nothin' ten weeks
hence, unless they're taken off the fires, as a body would take off a pot
or a kettle, and are set out to harden."

"This is a process that may be easier advised than performed, perhaps,"
Roswell quietly observed.

"Don't you believe that, Captain Gar'ner. I've known the most shiverin',
smoke-dried hands in a large crew, hardened and brought to an edge, a'ter
a little trouble, as a body would temper an axe with steel. The first
thing to be done is to make 'em scrub one another every mornin' in cold
water. This gives a life to the skin that acts much the same as a suit of
clothes. Yes, gentlemen; put a fellow in a tub for a minute or two of a
mornin', and you may do almost anything you please with him all day
a'terwards. One pail of water is as good as a pee-jacket. And above all
things, keep the stoves clear. The cooks should be told not to drive their
fires so hard; and we can do without the stove in the sleeping-room a
great deal better now than most on us think. It will help to save much
wood, if we begin at once to caulk and thicken our siding, and make the
house warmer. Was the hut in a good state, we might do without any other
fire than that in the camboose for two months yet."

Such was the general character of Stephen's counsel, and very good advice
it was. Not only did Roswell adopt the scrubbing process, which enabled
him to throw aside a great many clothes in the course of a week, but he
kept aloof from the fires, to harden, as Stimson had called it That which
was thus enforced by example was additionally enjoined by precept. Several
large, hulking, idle fellows, who greatly loved the fire, were driven away
from it by shame; and the heat was allowed to diffuse itself more equally
through the building.

Any one who has ever had