noon
He made it wide enough so that her skirt would not sweep against the snow-bank , and trod down the trench till the footing was hard and solid . Then with ax and saw he climbed the hillside back of the house and set himself to get as much fuel as he could . The sky was still heavy with unshed snow , and he knew that with the coming of night the storm would be renewed . Came noon , mid-afternoon , the early dusk of a mountain winter , and found him still hewing and sawing , still piling load after load in the shed . Now and again she came out and watched him , laughing at the figure he made as he would come plunging through the snow with his armful of fuel . She did not know , as he did , the vital necessity of filling the lean-to before winter fell upon them in earnest and buried them deep with his frozen blanket , and she was a little piqued that he should spend the whole day away from her in such unsocial fashion . `` Let me help , '' she begged so often that he trod down a path , made boots for her out of torn gunny-sacks which he tied round her legs , and let her drag wood to the house on a pine branch which served for a sled .