It was too late in the Fall then to think o’ buildin’ even the onryest kind o’ shanty, and so Ezry moved in with Bills.  And Bills used to say ef it had n’t a-be’n far Ezry he’d a-never a-had no house, ner nuthin’ to put in it, nuther.  You see, all the household goods ’at Bills had in the world he’d got of Ezry, and he ’lowed he’d be a triflin’ whelp ef he didn’t do all in his power to make Ezry perfeckly at home ’s long as he wanted to stay there.  And together they managed to make room far ’em all, by a-buildin’ a kind o’ shed-like to the main house, intendin’ to build when Spring come.  And ever’thing went along first-rate, I guess; never heerd no complaints—­that is, p’ticular.

Ezry was kind o’ down far a long time, though; didn’t like to talk about his trouble much, and didn’t ‘tend meetin’ much, like he used to; said it made him think ‘bout his house burnin’, and he didn’t feel safe to lose sight o’ the mill.  And the meetin’s kind o’ broke up altogether that winter.  Almost broke up religious doin’s, it did.  ’S long as I’ve lived here I never seed jist sich a slack in religion as ther’ was that winter; and ‘fore then, I kin mind the time when ther’ wasn’t a night the whole endurin’ winter when they didn’t have preachin’ er prayer-meetin’ o’ some kind a-goin’ on.  W’y, I ricollect one night in p’ticular—­the coldest night, whooh! And somebody had stold the meetin’-house door, and they was obleeged to preach ’thout it.  And the wind blowed in so they had to hold the’r hats afore the candles, and then one’t-in-a-while they’d git sluffed out.  And the snow drifted in so it was jist like settin’ out doors; and they had to stand up when they prayed—­yessir! stood up to pray.  I noticed that night they was a’ oncommon lot o’ jiners, and I believe to this day ’at most of ’em jined jist to git up wher’ the stove was.  Lots o’ folks had the’r feet froze right in meetin’; and Steve come home with his ears froze like they was whittled out o’ bone; and he said ’at Mary Madaline Wells’s feet was froze, and she had two pair o’ socks on over her shoes.  Oh, it was cold, now I tell you!

They run the mill part o’ that winter—­part they couldn’t.  And they didn’t work to say stiddy tel along in Aprile, and then ther’ was snow on the ground yit—­in the shadders—­and the ground froze, so you couldn’t hardly dig a grave.  But at last they got to kind o’ jiggin’ along agin.  Plenty to do ther’ was; and old Ezry was mighty tickled, too; ’peared to recruit right up like.  Ezry was allus best tickled when things was a-stirrin’, and then he was a-gittin’ ready far buildin’, you know, wanted a house of his own, he said—­and of course it wasn’t adzackly like home, all cluttered up as they was there at Bills’s.  They got along mighty well, though, together; and the women-folks and childern got along the best in the world.  Ezry’s woman used to say she never laid eyes on jist sich another woman as Annie was.  Said it was jist as good as a winter’s schoolin’