ODDS AND 



way southward, and that Florida would feel its first breath 

 that night. 



The warning was significant enough to set some men to 

 work hauling wood and piling it among their trees, and 

 making ready for cordons of fire around their groves to 

 the north and west, whence came our ordinary cold 

 winds. 



All Friday morning it rained a heavy down-pour ; ' this, 

 too, had been predicted by the weather prophets; and 

 early in the night the first cold breath of the coming en- 

 emy reached us and such a breath as it was ! All night 

 the bitter northwest wind blew and howled and whistled 

 in every nook and corner, and our people, growing hourly 

 more fully alive to what might possibly be the outcome, 

 were too anxious to rest or to sleep, and yet it was too cold 

 to do aught but to lie still under what, for Florida, was a 

 mountain of coverings, until daylight should come, and 

 with it, perchance, relief. But not so; it came indeed, 

 but brought with it no hope of better things, rather the 

 certainty of worse to come ; as yet we had felt but a light 

 touch of the Ice King's hand. 



The leaden heavens gave no sign of cheer, and the cold, 

 fierce wind continued to howl and shriek as if in derision 

 of the puny efforts of mortals to snatch their property from 

 its icy grasp. The huge fires kept burning day and night 

 were useless to arrest or change the fiat that had gone 

 forth. This was no "ordinary frost," whose cold hand 

 could be held in check by human devices, but one of those 

 rare, all-powerful strokes of the elements that teach us now 

 and again our own insignificance. 



During the afternoon of Saturday, the 10th, the sky par- 

 tially cleared, and the sun tried to struggle through the 

 clouds and send down his rays to warm his shivering friends ; 

 but it was of no use. The clouds gathered again, the gale 



