idn't you?"

"Ay tank Ay fergit hem."

"Well, you don't want to forget. A feller forgot his clothes once, an'
he got froze."

"Ay gass dose taller vas ketch in a sbring snowstorm. Vas dose biscuits
done, Sharlie?"

"You bet they are, Nels," replied Charlie, looking into the pan.

"Dan subbar vas ready. Yom on!"

Nels picked up the frying-pan and Charlie the biscuits, and set them
on the oilcloth-covered table, where a plate of butter, a jar of plum
jelly, and a coffee-pot were already standing.

Outside the frozen kitchen window the snow-covered fields and meadows
stretched, glistening and silent, away to the dark belt of timber by the
river. Along the deep-rutted road in front a belated lumber-wagon passed
slowly, the wheels crunching through the packed snow with a wavering,
incessant shriek.

The two men hitched their chairs up to the table, and without ceremony
helped themselves liberally to the steaming food. For a few moments they
seemed oblivious to everything but the demands of hunger. The potatoes
and biscuits disappeared with surprising rapidity, washed down by
large drafts of coffee. These men, labouring steadily through the short
daylight hours in the dry, cold air of the Dakota winter, were like
engines whose fires had burned low--they were taking fuel. Presently,
the first keen edge of appetite satisfied, they ate more slowly, and
Nels, straightening up with a sigh, spoke:

"Ay seen Seigert in town ta-day. Ha vants von hundred fifty fer dose
team."

"Come down, eh?" commented Charlie. "Well, they're worth that. We'd
better take 'em, Nels. We'll need 'em in the spring if we break the
north forty."

"Yas, et's a nice team," agreed Nels. "Ha vas driven ham ta-day."

"Is he haulin' corn?"

"Na; he had his kids oop gettin' Christmas bresents."

"Chris--By gracious! to-morrow's Christmas!"

Nels nodded solemnly, as one possessing superior knowledge. Charlie
became thoughtful.

"We'll come in sort of slim on it here, I reckon, Nels. Christmas ain't
right, somehow, out here. Back in Wisconsin, where I came from, there's
where you get your Christmas!" Charlie spoke with the unswerving
prejudice of mankind for the land of his birth.

"Yas, dose been right. En da ol' kontry dey havin' gret times
Christmas."

Their thoughts were all bent now upon the holiday scenes of the past.
As they finished the meal and cleared away and washed the dishes they
related incidents of their boyhood's time, compa