258 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



a pound of butter from their first churning. The 

 last entry of my diary for January reads : " Thanks 

 be, to-morrow is February i ! " 



Blowing and snowing came February. Then 

 frost hard and obstinate, even in the shining face 

 of the sun, which contrived to win its way through 

 the storm-clouds from time to time. One night 

 just as I had watered the last beast I heard the 

 sound of sleigh-bells, and Roddy McMahon came 

 in view hauling a simply ripping load of wood. 

 My diary contains an entry concerning this occasion 

 which should have been in scarlet letters : " I have 

 been WARM all day ! It seems that it is quite 

 easy to keep warm if one has plenty of the right kind 

 of fuel," I finished my baking, got through all the 

 outside chores, and came in for a cup of tea and a 

 lazy, restful evening. It was so perfectly delightful 

 to be comfortable again. Pax revelled in the 

 warmth and wouldn't move from the stove even at 

 the music of the preparation for tea. 



On February 5 I went to South Qu'Appelle on 

 financial business, and as I drove back I hardly 

 dared believe it true, but there was an impression 

 that the oasis of the mirage of spring was waiting 

 round the very next corner. My neighbour, who 

 was very kind when he forgot to be furious about a 

 woman doing everything he considered she shouldn't, 

 was busy with the buck-saw. He had put the stable 

 in apple-pie order, filled the mangers with hay, 

 cut a reserve supply with a hay-knife he borrowed 

 from another neighbour, lit the kitchen fire and 

 boiled the kettle, and after the warmth-producing 

 power of all this physical exertion he was absolutely 

 cocksure that the mirage was at hand and spring 



