So that, when on May first, 1887, the snow began to fall about our cabin on Pumpkin creek, it was a most wonderful sight, and when it continued for the greater part of the day and lay a foot deep across the prairie, it was little short of marvellous to me. Snow in Illinois had meant the death of any green herbage and I anticipated that it meant the same here. We have since found that plants on the high plains become, in a measure, immune to freezing weather.

Our horses drifted away in the storm and, toward evening, I sallied forth to find them. They had gone less than half a mile and were standing in a smother of snow when it fell over an embankment protected from the wind. Their tracks indicated that they had left the protecting bank, starting for the house a number of times, but had not the courage to face it very far. I took the lead, and they followed me in single file through the still raging storm.

The next day was beautiful and sunny, and before evening the snow had melted and gone into the ground and was of great benefit to crops and cropping that year.

The snow will occasionally fall as late as the first of June, but in very small quantity. The latest snow storm of consequence that has occurred here began on May 19, 1914, and continued for three days. On May 23 we went to our buried garden, dug down through about sixteen inches of wet snow, and pulled some crisp radishes for our dinner. That night it froze quite hard, but as everything was covered with a blanket of snow, no damage was done except to fruit blossoms. Some of these were not yet far enough advanced.