the Arnolds had only lived in Tennessee for two years. Berry was nine years old when, with her father and mother and her older brother Francis, she had left the big white house in the pleasant Vermont village near Montpelier and come to this hillside cabin where Mr. Arnold hoped to regain something of his former health and strength. This was the second winter, and this fall of snow in early January was the first real snowfall since their arrival.11 There had been many “flurries,” but, until this January morning, not enough had fallen to whiten wood and trail; and the Arnolds ran to door and windows exclaiming over the new beauty of the slopes and forest     beneath their white coverlets.   

11

     “What would Francis say to this?” exclaimed Berry, as her father came out and stood beside her.   

     Francis was now a soldier, with the Northern forces in Virginia, and Berry’s thoughts were often with her brother; wondering why he had been so determined, a year ago, to return to Vermont and enlist in a Northern regiment in the conflict to prevent the Southern States from leaving the Union, and to bring an end to the slavery of the negroes in America. Francis had been only eighteen when he had become a soldier, and Berry knew that her father and mother had both been willing that he should go. The little girl had often puzzled about it, for she had heard her father say that when Abraham Lincoln became President the United States would soon understand each other and all the talk of war would come to an end. But even Mr. Lincoln had not been able to avert the conflict; and the12 hillside cabin, ten miles distant from the flourishing town of Corinth, was shadowed by the news of far-off battles.   

12

     “You must write Francis about it,” responded Berry’s father; “tell him the slope is as white as the main street at home in Vermont in midwinter.” And Berry nodded smilingly.   

     “It will be gone before noon, so we can go out to the river road, and see what the mail-rider left for us yesterday,” continued Mr. Arnold.   

     “And, if ’tis not too muddy, can we not walk as far as Lick Creek and try for fish?” asked Berry, her brown eyes shining with eagerness at the thought of a long tramp with her father through the winter woods, and, best of all, the fun of catching a pickerel or bass from the waters 

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