Antonia and I sat erect, but I held the reins
clumsily, and my eyes were blinded by the wind a good deal of the time. It
was growing dark when we got to their house, but I refused to go in with
them and get warm. I knew my hands would ache terribly if I went near a
fire. Yulka forgot to give me back my comforter, and I had to drive home
directly against the wind. The next day I came down with an attack of
quinsy, which kept me in the house for nearly two weeks.
The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--like a
tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all day,
husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled down
over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used to think
they were like Arctic explorers.
In the afternoons, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making
husking-gloves, I read "The Swiss Family Robinson" aloud to her, and I
felt that the Swiss family had no advantages over us in the way of an
adventurous life. I was convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the
cold. I admired the cheerful zest with which grandmother went about
keeping us warm and comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when
she was preparing for the return of the hungry men, that this country was
not like Virginia, and that here a cook had, as she said, "very little to
do with.
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