I 



WINTER COLD 



cold of autumn, when the wind blows from the east 

 over the freezing sea, but the grim cold of winter. 

 Oddly enough, it does not feel so very cold ; it is a 

 dry air, coming from the trackless desert of the in- 

 terior of Labrador, bracing and keen, and lacking 

 some of the sting of the sea wind ; but night by 

 night my minimum thermometer sank lower, until, 

 towards the end of January, it could go no further, 

 and the indicator used to stick each night at minus 

 forty. It is the little things one does not think of 

 that show best the power of the winter cold. 



One learns to watch one's neighbour's nose on the 

 daily walk ; lips stiffen with icicles ; hands cannot 

 bear to be without gloves for a moment. Our sitting- 

 room was rather stuffy one day, after a visit from a 

 merry crowd of Eskimos, so I opened the window 

 for fresh air. In a twinkling the pictures on the 

 walls were covered with frost, and the plants on the 

 side table my wife's own pet little hobby drooped 

 their heads with one accord and died. I shut the 

 double window with a slam, but it was too late ; the 

 plants were dead, and tears began to run down the 

 faces of the pictures. That was my first lesson about 

 King Frost in his own country ! 



There was a little pantry built next to our kitchen, 

 a tiny room with a felt padded door and a huge brick 

 stove, and there we stored the potatoes and eggs and 

 other things that must not freeze. 



On the windy nights I used to make a chilly 

 pilgrimage at one or two o'clock to fill up the stove 

 and save the potatoes. 



And ours was a warm house, built of boards and 

 felt in alternate layers. Labrador is a cold place- 

 colder than folks realise. I have heard that in th< 



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