Sallie's feet were white with cold. Ola rubbed them in her hands, alternating right to left, left to right. She pushed Sallie closer to the fire, then pulled her back again, afraid of the pain that would grab Sallie when her blood began to flow through her feet again. When her feet began to barely pinken from the warmth of the fire and Ola's hands, Ola went after the canvas britches, which covered yet another pair of pants, this one denim.

The canvas had not been treated, or had been poorly treated, and in several places the pants were frozen together. She had a hard time tugging them down from Sallie's waist because she could not get Sallie to raise her bottom from the chair. Ola had to pull the pants and try to lift Sallie with her shoulder at the same time. When the pants finally tugged down, past Sallie's knees and, finally, over her ankles, Ola saw that Sallie's lower lip had begun to tremble, a sign she was starting to chatter, a sign that she was coming around.

Ola tried to pull Sallie up on her feet, but Sallie went back down, heavily, into the chair. Ola took a piece of worn burlap and began rubbing Sallie's skin with it, easily at first and then harder and harder, trying to get her dry, trying to get her blood to move again and course through her body. On the third attempt, Sallie stood while Ola wrapped her in the quilt. She gently but firmly pushed on Sallie's shoulders until Sallie let her knees bend and slowly knelt before the fire.

Ola still feared letting her frozen friend warm too quickly. She pulled Sallie the rest of the way down until she was prone on the planked floor of the cabin, and she rolled her away from the fire and toward the middle of the room. Quickly, she took off her own clothes and crawled under the quilt and held Sallie to her as you should with people near frozen.

They lay like that for a long time, Ola May holding Sallie to herself, rubbing her back, repeating her name over and over. She tried to stay like that, holding her body still, squeezing tightly, trying to press the heat of her body into Sallie's. When Sallie began to shiver down the length of her body, Ola May ran her hands up and down Sallie's back and legs, feeling the fine hair over the cold flesh. The fire was starting to die down now, but Ola didn't dare risk letting go of her friend to stoke the fire.