And then in the days which followed, came grim tales of suffering and heroism. Tales of the finding of stage-coaches with the driver frozen on his seat and all his passengers within; tales of travelers striving to reach home and families. Cattle had starved and frozen in their stalls, and sheep lay buried in heaps beside the fences where they had clustered together to keep warm. These days gave Lincoln a new conception of the prairies. It taught him that however bright and beautiful they might be in summer under skies of June, they could be terrible when the Norther was abroad in his wrath. They seemed now as pitiless and destructive as the polar ocean. It seemed as if nothing could live there unhoused. All was at the mercy of that power, the north wind, whom only the Lord Sun could tame. This was the worst storm of the winter, though the wind seemed never to sleep. To and fro, from north to south, and south to north, the dry snow sifted till it was like fine sand that rolled under the heel with a ringing sound on cold days. After each storm the restless wind got to work to pile the new-fallen flakes into ridges behind every fence or bush, filling every ravine and forcing the teamsters into the fields and out on to the open prairie. It was a savage and gloomy time for Lincoln, with only the pleasure of his school to break the monotony of cold. NOTES AND QUESTIONS =Biography.= Hamlin Garland (1860-⸺) was born in Wisconsin. His father was a farmer-pioneer, who, always eager to be upon the border line of agricultural development, moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Iowa, and from Iowa to Dakota. The hope of cheaper acres, better soil, and bigger crops lured him on. When Hamlin Garland turned his attention to literature he was keen enough to see the literary value of his early experiences. He resolved to interpret truthfully the life of the western farmer and its great hardships and limitations, no less than its hopes, joys, and achievements. In doing this, through a succession of short stories and novels, he won fame and success. In _A Son of the Middle Border_, an autobiography, he has written an intensely interesting and valuable record of typical experiences in the development of the Middle West. This selection is taken from _Boy Life on the Prairie_.