172 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



of an inch thick until noon, the thermometer marking 

 thirty-one — it had been twenty-nine at day-light ; and that 

 was the lowest we ever saw^ it until the winter of 1886. 

 It was our first winter, and we felt as if we had met with 

 a pretty cool reception in our new home, and wondered in 

 rather a dazed, dumbfounded fashion if this was the way 

 that Florida winters usually behaved. We felt rather dis- 

 consolate over it until assured by the old settlers of nine 

 and ten years' standing that they had never seen such a 

 cold storm before, and they told the truth too. For three 

 days the wind blew and the rain fell, and the thermometer 

 fell too, steadily going lower and lower until it reached 

 the point we have named. 



Florida houses, as a rule, are not built for cold weather ; 

 there is so little of it that many think it is not w^orth while 

 to go to the expense of a tight building; still, on all ordi- 

 nary occasions, there is no trouble in keeping warm and 

 comfortable. 



But this occasion we have referred to was not an ordin- 

 ary one at all ; such a storm, we are happy to say, was 

 almost unprecedented. There was a small stove in the 

 hall, quite enough to take the chill off the adjoining rooms 

 during the usual *'cool snaps," but now it proved totally 

 inadequate ; a high, damp, rain-laden wind, sifting in 

 every where, which practically dropped the temperature 

 many degrees lower than the thermometer marked, and 

 could not be endured by mortal frames without suffering. 

 The dining-table was "toted" bodily into the kitchen, 

 fortunately a large one ; but the floor thereof, like those 

 of most Florida houses, built as they are of unseasoned 

 lumber, was decidedly open. Four pairs of feet, numbed 

 and cold, led their desperately astonished owners to the 

 attic, where a legion of comfortables, quilts, and blankets 

 were hauled out from the resting-places where they had 



