ii8 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



supper and our " lord of creation " retired con- 

 siderably earlier, or whether he failed to put on the 

 usual number of logs I never knew, but about four 

 o'clock I awoke to the fact that every bone in my 

 body was rebelling against the low temperature. 

 I think it was the only occasion on which I was 

 uncomfortably cold during that first winter season, 

 but I only rode about three times and seldom drove, 

 and I walked a great deal. My weekly eight- mile 

 journey to the farm I accomplished on foot without 

 difficulty, and on one occasion I walked to the 

 farm, sleighed fourteen miles to South Qu'Appelle 

 and back with Dick in the cutter, then changed 

 horses and got back to the Clyst all within eight 

 hours. There is no path in all sorts and conditions 

 of trails so light and easy as a thoroughly well- 

 packed snow path. 



Every day I looked just a little more gaily forward 

 to my visit to New York. I had taken Canada and 

 I expect myself much too seriously that winter, 

 and instead of writing up this ordinary little every- 

 day adventure on the prairie I wrote solemn articles 

 on emigration which the literary agent who controls 

 such matters for me returned at once with the 

 frankest intimation that they were unsaleable ; and 

 in the still franker interpretation of time I easily 

 recognized the truth in the saying that " a little 

 knowledge is a dangerous thing," and thanked the 

 gods, and the agent, that those special papers never 

 reached the shame of printer's ink. But I was a 

 little sore to think that it was possible my work 

 could fall from quite a high price to " unsaleable," 

 and I felt that a breath of New York and the atmo- 

 sphere of my fellow craftsmen would put wrong 



