Winter came in days that were gray and still. They were the kind of days in which people locked in their animals and themselves and nothing seemed to stir but the smoke curling upwards from clay chimneys and an occasional red-winged blackbird which refused to be grounded. And it was cold. Not the windy cold like Uncle Hammer said swept the northern winter, but a frosty, idle cold that seeped across a hot land ever looking toward the days of green and ripening fields, a cold that lay uneasy during its short stay as it crept through the cracks of poorly constructed houses and forced the people inside huddled around ever-burning fires to wish it gone.

Let the Circle Be Unbroken