In her book, The Long...
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In her book, The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder tells the story of how difficult life could be on the frontier especially during the winter. She recalls one winter in particular when it started snowing in October and did not seem to stop until April. The temperature dropped to 40 below. Snow reached the roof tops and the townspeople nearly starved. Things became so bad that two young men, Cap Garland and Almanzo Wilder set out on a 40-mile round trip to bring back wheat for the village. It was a slow difficult trip, with the 19- and 24-year-old boys enduring frostbite and a wagon that turned over in the drifts. It was a long trip back and the boys realized they were down to the last mile but because of the darkness and snow they were not sure that they had not passed by the town. Almanzo headed for the town, which was somewhere in the thick darkness, as well as he could. Almanzo yelled to Cap, "You see anything?" "Nope. We're in for it, I guess," Cap answered. "Town cannot be far ahead," Almanzo told him. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a gleam of light. He looked toward it and then saw nothing in the storm but dark. Then he saw it again, a glow that shone bright, then abruptly went out. He knew what it was; light shining out from a door that had quickly opened and closed. Near where it had been, he thought he saw the faint glow of a frost-covered window and yelled to Cap, "See that light? Come on!" -- Angus
