I quit singing in the choir in the fall, when it was hard getting back and forth with no horses, and the heavy snow of the winter of 1855-6 began coming down.
It was a terrible winter.

The deer were all killed in their stamping grounds in the timber, where they trod down the snow and struggled to get at the brush and twigs for forage.

The settlers went in on snowshoes and killed them with clubs and axes.

We never could have preserved the deer in a country like this, where almost every acre was destined to go under plow--but they ought to have been given a chance for their lives.
I remember once when I was cussing[12] the men who butchered the pretty little things while Magnus Thorkelson was staying all night with me to help me get my stock through a bad storm--it was a blizzard, but we had never heard the word then--and as I got hot in my blasting and bedarning of them (though they needed the venison) he got up and grasped my hand, and made as if to kiss me.
[12] "Cussing" and "cursing" are quite different things, insists the author.

He would never have cursed any one, he protests; but a man is always justified in cussing when a proper case for it is presented .-- G.v.d.M.
"It is murder," said he, and backed off.
I felt warmed toward him for wanting to kiss me, though I should have knocked him down if he had.