Jim Burden describes his first winter on the farm

"The basement kitchen seemed heavenly safe and warm in those days--like a tight little boat in a winter sea. The men were out in the fields all day, husking corn, and when they came in at noon, with long caps pulled down over their ears and their feet in red-lined overshoes, I used to think they were like Artic explorers. In the afternoon, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making husking-gloves, I read The Swiss Family Robinson aloud to her, and I felt that the Swiss family had no advantage over us in the way of an adventurous life. I was convinced that man's strongest antagonist is the cold. I admired the cheerful zest with which grandmother went about keeping us warm and comfortable and well-fed. She often reminded me, when she was preparing for the return of the hungry men, that this country was not like Virginia; and that here a cook had, as she said, 'very little to do with'....Our lives centered around warmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb and their hands cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously..."
From Book One, The Shimerdas, My Antonia by Willa Cather