haustion; and the mud, which had splashed over their shoe tops, was drying in grayish flakes on their stockings. A tremendous wood fire, built by some of the older boys, blazed in the big box stove and made the room so hot that the children, tired from their long walk and entering that close, heated atmosphere from the chilly freshness of the outdoors, almost fell asleep over their copybooks.
It was worse still as the winter advanced and snow began to fall. The melted snow mixed with the mud and made a thin, oozy, penetrating slush, which usually meant wet feet for the Pippingers. It was not always possible for Bill to provide five new pairs of shoes and five new pairs of rubbers or overshoes with the oncoming of the bad season. And so the shoes were often broken and the rubbers worn into holes in the heels, which gave an easy entrance to the cold winter slush. For this reason and because the air of the schoolhouse was kept so close and overheated, coughs and colds were of very frequent occurrence. The winter, in fact, was one long stretch of barking, sniveling, wheezing, and nose-blowing, with sometimes a more severe attack which kept one or other of the children from school. Mrs. Pippinger always kept on hand in a stone jar a homemade cough syrup consisting of butter, sugar, and vinegar. It did not seem to have any very great curative effect on the coughs and colds; but the children were always glad to take it because it tasted so good.
Then too, as the winter advanced, the pantry and smokehouse grew more and more empty. "Roasin' ears," tomatoes, cucumbers and such garden delicacies were gone with the early frosts. Sweet potatoes, dried out on a shelf behind the kitchen stove, lasted a while longer, but were soon eaten up. White potatoes, cabbage, and pumpkins lasted till about Christmas. After that the frost always got what was left of them, as the Pippingers had no cellar. Christmas, too, saw the last of the apples; for Kentucky is too far south to grow good winter apples. The cured and smoked hog meat hanging in the smokehouse sometimes lasted till spring; but more often it was gone by February. The few jars of jam and cans of peaches and
