One night when Daddy was away all night, a snow storm blew in. All the children were asleep in their beds, and it was getting very cold in the house.  At that time Mama had 4 children, and one was a baby. 

 She looked out one of the window panes and could see nothing, so she puffed her breath on a space and made a hole to look out by erasing it with the sleeve of her nightgown.    There was the woodpile, just a few steps from the house, but it was covered in snow. 

 She didn't want to go out there and so one by one, she lifted each sleeping child and put them in her bed, including the baby, whom she placed next to her own space in the bed.  Then she got every coat and jacket in the house she could find, and put those on top of the blankets, on the children. 

 She climbed back into bed.  After a few moments of shivering, she remembered the dog and the puppies, and wondered if they were cold, so she got back out and went to another room to check on them.  They seemed fine, in fact, very warm.  I don't know what kind of dog it was, but the puppies were short haired, heavy, fat, and blonde.

  She took 3 of the sleepy puppies and placed them on the feet of 3 of the children.  We must have had a very warm night, because we didn't wake up and the baby didn't have his usual middle of the night cry.

When we did wake up, mother was not in the bed, and some of the children began to cry, not knowing where they were. I was about 5 years old and I looked around in wonderment at this new world. 

 I had never been in mother's room, and never slept in her bed.  Beds were small, by comparison of today's mammoth mattresses, and I suppose there was no way she could have had us all in there all the time.

This was a special treat, and when she came in, she said, "It was cold last night, so I moved you all in here so we could keep each other warm."  Hereafter, it was called the "Three Puppy Night." 

 This may seem like a corny story to you, but many people in Alaska who lived in the log cabins let their dogs lie on the end of the beds to keep their feet warm at night.

  With the dogs, they didn't have to get up in the night and rebuild the fire if it went out, although my parents did take turns keeping the fire going, waking up every few hours to check on it.  If it went completely out, the water would freeze, and the furniture, clothes, dishes, floor, and other things would be as cold as ice, almost as though you were camping in the snow.

Regarding the use of coats and jackets for blankets at night, it is still something I do. I did it for so long, that I can only get warm if I have a coat on my bed, so I put the prettiest coat in the house on the end of the bed, making sure, of course, that it matches the decor of the room ;-)

May I repeat that although this story seems romantic to some, in reality it wasn't very comfortable, and I wouldn't repeat those days on purpose, for anything. I do think, however, that everyone ought to know how to do it, and how to manage, in difficult situations like this.

I saw the series "Brat Camp" which was supposed to cure kids of their addictions and destructive behaviour, by taking them to the wilderness and making them camp out, free from modern conveniences and trappings.  Although they had to take lots of hikes, and do many other tasks, I think it would have been better if they'd been required to do something more constructive, such as build a house together. It would have given them some skills to take home.  I suppose the labor laws forbade them to make the kids work, so all they did was hike.  If I'd been in charge, they would have had to build a house, dig a well, and learn to make a road, or something like that.