steered me for the shack. It was
a fight, but we made it. And Dinky-Dunk was still out looking after his
stock and doesn't know how nearly he lost his Lady Bird. I've made Olie
promise not to say a word about it. But the top of my nose is red and
swollen. I think it must have got a trifle frost-nipped, in the
encounter. The weather has cleared now, and the wind has gone down. But
it is very cold, and Dinky-Dunk has just reported that it's already
forty-eight below zero.

_Tuesday the Nineteenth_

The days slip away and I scarcely know where they go. The weather is
wonderful. Clear and cold, with such heaps of sunshine you'd never dream
it was zero weather. But you have to be careful, and always wear furs
when you're driving, or out for any length of time. Three hours in this
open air is as good as a pint of Chinkie's best champagne. It makes me
tingle. We are living high, with several barrels of frozen game--geese,
duck and prairie-chicken--and also an old tin trunk stuffed full of
beef-roasts, cut the right size. I bring them in and thaw them out
overnight, as I need them. The freezing makes them very tender. But they
must be completely thawed before they go into the oven, or the outside
will be overdone and the inside still raw. I learned that by experience.
My appetite is disgraceful, and I'm still gaining. Chinkie could never
again say I reminded him of one of the lean kine in Pharaoh's dream.

I have been asking Dinky-Dunk if it isn't downright cruelty to leave
horses and cattle out on the range in weather like this. My husband says
not, so long as they have a wind-break in time of storms. The animals
paw through the snow for grass to eat, and when they get thirsty they
can eat the snow itself, which, Dinky-Dunk solemnly assures me, almost
never gives them sore throat! But the open prairie, just at this season,
is a most inhospitable looking pasturage, and the unbroken glare of
white makes my eyes ache.... There's one big indoor task I finally have
accomplished, and that is tuning my piano. It made my heart heavy,
standing there useless, a gloomy monument of ironic grandeur.

As a girl I used to watch Katrinka's long-haired Alsatian putting her
concert grand to rights, and I knew that my ear was dependable enough.
So the second day after my baby grand's arrival I went at it with a
monkey-wrench. But that was a failure. Then I made a drawing of a
tuning-hammer and had Olie secretly convey it to the Buckho