generally they sat or lay in a kind of stupor from which she
often found it alarmingly difficult to arouse them. When the gray
evening twilight drew its deepening curtain over the cold glittering
heavens and the icy waste, and when the famishing bodies had been
covered from the frost that pinched them with but little less keenness
than the unrelenting hunger, the solitude seemed to rend her very brain.
Her own powers faltered. But she said her prayers over many times in the
darkness as well as the light, and always with renewed trust in Him who
had not yet forsaken her, and thus she sat out her weary watch. After
the turning of the night she always sat watching for the morning star,
which seemed every time she saw it rise clear in the cold eastern sky,
to renew the promise, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be."

Their fire had melted the snow to a considerable depth, and they were
lying on the bank above. Thus they had less of its heat than they
needed, and found some difficulty in getting the fuel she gathered
placed so it would burn. One morning after she had hailed her messenger
of promise, and the light had increased so as to render objects visible
in the distance, she looked as usual over the white expanse that lay to
the south-west, to see if any dark moving specks were visible upon its
surface. Only the tree-tops, which she had scanned so often as to be
quite familiar with their appearance, were to be seen. With a heavy
heart she brought herself back from that distant hope to consider what
was immediately about her. The fire had sunk so far away that they had
felt but little of its warmth the last two nights, and casting her
eyes down into the snow-pit, whence it sent forth only a dull glow, she
thought she saw the welcome face of beloved mother Earth. It was such
a renewing sight after their long, freezing separation from it She
immediately aroused her eldest son, John, and with a great deal of
difficulty, and repeating words of cheer and encouragement, brought him
to understand that she wished him to descend by one of the tree-tops
which had fallen in so as to make a sort of ladder, and see if they
could reach the naked earth, and if it were possible for them all to go
down. She trembled with fear at the vacant silence in which he at first
gazed at her, but at length, after she had told him a great many times,
he said "Yes, mother," and went.

He reached the bottom safely, and presently spoke to her. There