A long and severe winter lay before the little family, and they had but little corn garnered to carry them through till the next harvest.

But the young widow was a brave woman and a devoted mother.
"God will provide for us," she said, but sometimes it seemed a mystery how that provision was to come.

More than once, when the corn was low in the bin, she went to bed without her own supper, that her four children, who were blessed with hearty appetites, might be satisfied.

But when twelve months had gone by, and the new harvest came in, the fields which she and her oldest boy had planted yielded enough to place them beyond the fear of want.

God did help them, but it was because they helped themselves.
But beyond the barest necessaries the little family neither expected nor obtained much.