“GET UP!”
Last night at bedtime the wind had risen. At some midnight hour the stove went out for I awoke at two and found the cold all about us and the wind hard at it. So with a generous use of kerosene the fire was made to burn again and I returned to a good night’s rest. Somehow one doesn’t mind short exposures to the cold. Many a day I have stood naked out in the wind and then become at once glowing warm again in the hot cabin. Baked bread to-day and it turned out very well. Painted, shivered, wrote, and to-night shall try to design a picture of the “Weird of the Gods.” But at this moment our supper is ready and two hungry, cold mortals cannot be kept from their corn mush.
Saturday, December seventh.
Late! Now that we have a clock—I stole one in Seward—we live by system, our hours are regular. The clock I set by the tide, marking the rise of the water in the new-fallen snow. We rise at 7.30. It is then not yet sunrise but fairly light. Breakfast is soon cooked and eaten. To start the blood going hard for a good day’s work we spring out-of-doors and chop and split and saw in the glorious, icy north-wind. Then painting begins. I have scared Olson away—poor soul—but I make it up by calling on him just at dark when my painting hours are over.
Now it’s eleven at night and I’ve still my bit to read. Whew, but it’s cold to-night and the wind is rising to a gale. And last night!—what a bitter one. I got up four times to feed the ravenous fire. And even so the water pails froze. We cannot afford to let it freeze much in the cabin for our stores are all exposed. What if the Christmas cider should freeze and burst! I painted out of doors to-day—in sneakers! and stood it just about as long as one would imagine. To love the cold is a sign of youth—and we do love it, the Awakener.
Sunday, December eighth.
Log cabins stuffed with moss should be wonderful in the tropics. I’m about frozen. On this work table I must weight my papers down to keep them from flying about the room. And the wind is icy; it is bitterly, bitterly cold. Olson says we need expect no colder weather than this all winter. Of course we don’t really mind it. The stove is red hot and we may go as close to it as we please, and the bed is warm—except towards morning. At night I move my jugs of yeast and cider toward the stove, fill the “air-tight” to the top, pile blankets and wrappers upon the bed, and sleep happily.
The gale still rages, fortunately not with its utmost fury. This morning Rockwell and I hurried through our chores and then climbed to the low ridge of the island. The snow in the woods is crusted and bore us up well so that we traveled with ease and soon reached the crest. Ah, there it was glorious; such blue and gold and rose! We looked down upon the spit and saw the sea piling upon it; we looked seaward and saw the snow blown from the land, the spray and the mist rising in clouds toward the sun,—and the sun, the beautiful sun shone on us. We took a number of pictures and then with numbed fingers and toes raced down the slope playing man-pursued-by-a-bear. Rockwell was wonderful to look at with his cheeks so red and clear. He loved our little excursion.
And for the rest of the day we’ve worked. I stretched and coated three large canvases, hateful job! painted, sawed wood, felled a tree—which the wind carried over onto another so that there it hangs neither up nor down,—and that’s about all. It’s again eleven and time for bed. The night is beautiful even if it is terrible; and the young moon is near setting.