CHAPTER X.
The winter set in before its time, and with almost unprecedented severity.
Early in the last week in November, the whole country was white with snow, the streams were frozen solid, and the cold was intense.

Week after week the mercury ranged from zero to ten, fifteen, and even twenty below, and fierce winds howled night and day.

It was a terrible winter for old people.

They dropped on all sides, like leaves swept off of trees in autumn gales.

It was startling to read the death records in the newspapers, so large a proportion of them were of men and women past sixty.