The hens moped all day in their coops if the day were stormy and the yard wind-driven, or some of them, frightened by the unknown cold, crept under the house where their feet were frozen. The work on the farm was halted after the tobacco was sold. Ellen did not go to the milking pens now for Mr Wakefield had told her she need not come until the cold weather passed. She helped Nellie to thaw the frozen foods and to prepare the cabin against the inroads of the frost. They found heavy sacks to lay against the crevices under the doors and at night they hung thick comforters over the ill-fitted windows. They clung close to the hearth when each task was done, returning again and again to warm their numb fingers. A visitor was doubly welcome because there was little news by the fireside. Life waited. If Jonas came he sat close to the fire, drowsed by the warmth after the long walk in the cold. He would sometimes whisper a little with Ellen when she sat beside him. He had left Dorsey’s in January and was staying at his father’s house. He whispered news of his mother and his little sisters; his little sister, the least one, was better of the misery she had had in her ear; his mother was making him a thick warm quilt for his bed. He would sit beside Ellen for a while and then leave to be well set upon the cold way before night fell.

In February the bitterness went out of the cold, the sweet acrid sting, and a hard steady frost was left which still held the ground in a firm crust. The milder weather was even yet the cold of any other winter, bitter to endure. People passed along the pike now with their teams, but none ever went along the pasture road but those of the farm, for near the end of February Scott MacMurtrie closed the road which ran across his land, building a high strong fence across the way at the top of the lane that gave into the glen. Nellie was lonely for the sight of the passing horses and wagons and fretted often at the stillness of the farm.

One Sunday in February Ellen went to the O’Shay cabin with Jonas, walking by the footpath that avoided MacMurtrie’s land, a path that had been broken through the snow after the old road was forbidden. Eli was working now beyond the river, making fence; he would marry Rosie soon and take her beyond the river to live. In the large cabin room a half dozen men of the river glen were sitting or standing, among them old Dan O’Shay and Nannie, his wife. Jonas joined this group but Ellen went to the inner room where Rosie was helping her mother put the dishes away. Rosie talked of going beyond the river to live. Her mother had given her some feathers and had bought her a carpet from Mrs Turpin’s loom. ‘Try on my new hat,’ Rosie said, and Ellen went to the larger room and put on the hat before the glass that hung above the chest of drawers. The hat was bright and new, a token of spring in its warmth and brightness. The men about the fire talked with low muttering, complaining at the closing of the road. The hat was fresh and fragrant, a promise of Rosie’s wedding, but the low muttering of the men came into her pleasure in the hat, a faint menace that lay under the air, so that her joy in the hat was magnified as it stood out brightly before their threatenings.