The wind is swirling and howling outside and it is very cold, about the coldest day we’ve had, I think. I have put a little table over nearer the stove than my big desk-table is and here a couple of feet away from the fire, the heat is quite noticeable. It’s an amusing sight to see Miss Taylor and me doing our work down here mornings with mittens on. With those nice fingerless ones, we can typewrite or write most comfortably. It’s the wind that is making things so cold this evening. Not that it has been warm on the days when there was no wind, for it has been for over two weeks that some fire buckets in my sitting-room have been solid ice. Useful in case of fire, I can hear some one say. Yes, but to-day some chemical fire extinguishers, that I have been making a big howl for, have arrived upon the scene and I shall sleep more peacefully, for our huts are like match-boxes. Every morning the water in our pitchers is frozen and the ink in fountain pens. We have to jerk our tooth-brushes out of the glasses and pry the soap off of the soap-dishes. In the Mess, our drinking-water bottles have ice in them, like the Waldorf. There is one story that some believe and some don’t, but the nurse swears it is true, and that is--that her hot-water bottle was frozen solid in the morning in her bed. I asked about it and learned that it had been placed outside her sleeping bag and had slipped down to the foot of the bed where the blankets were loose, but it was frozen. It is most amusing the howls one hears in the mornings; it is so hard to get up. The fires don’t get things warmed up a bit, for a long time, and it is like getting up out of doors. We all have schemes about how to dress at night so that dressing in the morning will necessitate the least exposure and the least changing. It is awfully funny and doesn’t hurt us a bit. The chilblains hurt and are awful, but heroic treatment helps. There are parades of barefoot ladies who go and walk in the snow nights, then come in and rub and roar; then there are the cold-water foot baths, which are said to be worse than the snow treatment. Occasionally a day or two off duty is necessary for very bad hands or feet. Almost everybody wears two pairs of woolen stockings and monstrous shoes, and oh! the money that is being spent on having shoes made to order--very high ones with extra thick soles. But on the whole a stranger would think our group looks mighty fat and well. There are a lot of coughs that hang on. To-day, for instance, out of my 99 women, I have just three off duty sick,--one has an infected thumb; another an infected toe; and the third, poor dear, has been having a painful attack. But at home in steam-heated apartments, we could not do better than that. Some dear lambs walk with a good deal of a limp when they first go on duty in the mornings, but as the days progress their feet feel better. I have been awfully lucky, though I came near getting some trouble started.