AN IDLE AFTERNOON 217 



Finally, out of sheer desperation, I stepped into 

 the yard of a little adobe house, and being obliged 

 to walk almost to the door, said to the motherly- 

 looking woman who came forward to see what 

 was wanted, " Excuse me, please, but I only wish 

 to stand a few minutes in the shade of your 

 house." She looked surprised, as well she might. 

 No doubt she took me for an invalid, as Arizona 

 people say, a "lunger." Probably, sitting in- 

 doors, and used to summer temperature in these 

 parts, she had been thinking of the day as rather 

 cool, not to say wintry. Would n't I come in and 

 sit awhile ? She was sure I should be welcome. 

 But I answered no ; I only desired to stand a few 

 minutes in the shade. And two or three hours 

 afterward, within five minutes after the sun went 

 down, though it had been shining in at my 

 west window, I needed a fire. 



Forty-eight hours later we had a snowfall, 

 the third within ten days, the whole world 

 white, with " storm rubbers " barely equal to the 

 emergency ; and the next morning, the snow hav- 

 ing gone, ice was thick in a big tub of water 

 outside my door. 



" Cold ? " said an Illinois gentleman, with 

 whom I fell into conversation yesterday, " I Ve 

 been here three weeks, and in that time I Ve suf- 

 fered more from cold than in all my forty years." 



