cutter as a possible shelter, and turned them loose.  They floundered off into the drifts, and left us alone.  Cuffed and mauled by the storm, I made a circuit of the stack, and stumbled over the tumbling-rod of the threshing-machine, which was still standing where it had been used.  Leaning against the wheel was a shovel, carried for use in setting the separator.  This I took with me, with some notion of building a snow-house for us; for I somehow felt that if there was any hope for us, it lay in the shelter of that straw.  As I passed the side of the stack, just where the ground was scraped bare by the wind, I saw what seemed to be a hole under and into the great loose pile of dry straw.  It looked exactly like one of those burrows which the children used to make in play in such places.

Virginia was safe for the moment, sitting covered up snugly with her hands warmed by the little dog; but the cold was beginning to penetrate the robes.  I could leave her for the moment while I investigated the burrow with the shovel.  As I gained a little advantage over the snow which was drifted in almost as fast as I could shovel it out, my heart leaped as I found the hole opening out into the middle of the stack; and I plunged in on my hands and knees, found it dry and free from snow within ten feet of the mouth, and after enlarging it by humping up my back under it where the settling had made it too small, I emerged and went to Virginia; whom I took out with her dog, wrapped her in the robes so as to keep them from getting snowy inside, and backing into the burrow, hauled the pile of robes, girl and dog in after me, like a gigantic mouse engaged in saving her young.  I think no mouse ever yearned over her treasures in such case more than I did.

And then I went back to get the dinner-basket, which was already buried under the snow which had filled the cutter; for I knew that there was likely to be something left over of one of the bountiful dinners which a farmer’s wife puts up for the teacher.  Then I went back into the little chamber of straw in which we had found shelter, stopping up the mouth with snow and straw as I went in.  I drew a long breath.  This was far better than I had dared hope for.  There is a warmth generated in such a pile, from the slow fermentation of the straw juices; even when seemingly dry as this was:  and far in the middle of the stack, vegetables might have been stored without freezing.  The sound of the tempest did not reach us here; it was still as death, and dark as tar.  I wondered that Virginia did not say anything; but she kept still because she did not understand where she was, or what I had done with her.

Finally, when she spoke it was to say, “Unwrap me, Teunis!  I am smothering with the heat!”

I laughed a long loud laugh.  I guess I was almost hysterical.  The change was so sudden, so complete.  Virginia was actually complaining of the heat!

I unwrapped her carefully, and kissed her.  Did ever any peril turn to any one a face so full of clemency and tenderness as this blizzard to me?