Well, that’s enough about me. I have been speaking with you at such length so that you would know who I am, and how I feel about certain important matters. If you don’t know Lizzy Allison by now, then you have been glancing away from this to watch television and losing track of what I have been saying. It’s not important whether you like me or not. What is important is that this story show you how things used to be in the woods and that you understand me.

In 1921 there was no such thing as long-range weather forecasting. We were lucky if the newspaper was right about today’s rain. The Farmer’s Almanac told us it would be a dry summer or a wet spring or a cold winter. Somehow it was usually right, although Miss Pauline poo-poohed it, claiming that it was an entertainment provided for the edification of manufacturers wishing to sell soap and patent medicines. Anyway, the Almanac promised us that the winter of 1921 was going to be a bad one, with early snow, heavy freezes, and a severe winterkill.

Winters must be warmer in the city—and no wonder, with all those furnaces and automobiles spewing smoke and steam high in the air. Why, one February day when my father drove us all the way to Albany, you could see the smoke rising above the city nearly ten miles away, and when we got inside the city limits, the snow was melted off the streets and the gutters ran wet. Back in Indian Lake, we were still driving on two feet of ice.

The city newspapers (which is, after all, the only place big papers are published) weren’t worried about the coming winter, but my father was. He had consulted the Almanac—but more important than that, he had been watching the forest and had decided that we were in for a bad one.

“The geese are flying a month too soon,” he said, pointing up at the honking “V” of southbound birds. “The deer are already out of their summer coats, and the rabbits are starting to turn white. We’re in for an early winter, and a cold one.”

Miss Pauline was knitting. “We’d better lay in plenty of firewood,” she observed.

My father pulled at his chin the way he always did when he was thinking. “Don’t worry about that,” he said absently. “I made a deal with the Birns brothers. They’re bringing over thirty cord, and they’ll stack it too. I promised them enough hides to bring sixty dollars down to Speculator.”

“If we get plenty of snow, the trapping will be good,” Tim said. Tim was twelve, and I had just turned thirteen. I remember the date, too. It was October 3, 1921.

“Not true,” said father. “The signs say we’ll get a hard freeze before snow flies. Once the frost gets in the ground, snow’ll come too late to blanket and keep the cold out. All the roots, the tubers, the buried food will be bound in. The young trees will die. The apples and berries will be frozen solid. No, Tim, I think we’re going to see a bad winterkill.”