It was winter in Nebraska on a day after a blizzard. The thermometer was down to 16 below zero. If you were foolhardy enough to go out, the icy winds slashed at your face like a razor-edged scalpel.

The telephone rang and a voice said, "Doctor, I've got an awfully sick boy. I can't get him to you. Can you get to us?"

It was F. L. Sebastian, a farmer who lived eleven miles out of Battle Creek, the town where I was practicing. His son was running a fever of 105.

I doubted if I could make it to the Sebastian farm. Most of the roads were blocked with snow. But a 105 fever was nothing to fool with. "O.K.," "I'll try."

At a local cafe I found three townsmen, Bud Story, Walter Rouse, and Bud Bridges, sitting around a warm stove. "Sebastian's kid is real sick," I said, "Will one of you guys ride along with me and help shovel me out if I get stuck?" All three men said they would come.

The direct route south which ran over the hills, was impassable. It was six feet deep in snow. We had to swing west through the flat lands, turn south and east, doing three sides of a square. It meant 25 miles extra driving, but it was our only chance.

For the first few miles the going wasn't too bad. Then the wind changed and the snow began to gather in ridge-like drifts, three to four feet high.

"Looks mighty bad, Doc," one of the fellows said. "Maybe we'd better head back while we can." "Let's try it a little farther," I said. Sure enough we got stuck. And it was still nine miles to the Sebastian home.

Abandoning the car, we hiked to a farm house about a half mile down the road. "Will you lend me a horse?" I asked the farmer. "Sure," he said.

Leaving my shovelmen in the warm farmhouse kitchen, I mounted the horse and set out. I had never been what might be called a horseman. Furthermore, I hadn't been in the saddle for years. Each jog of the horse's hoofs felt like a hammer blow in every part of my body. And was it cold! My face, my legs, my arms, became numb. I almost fell off the horse.

Somehow I made it to the Sebastians. It was lucky I did, because 17 year old Curtis was critically ill. He had a severe streptococcus infection of the throat, sinuses and ears. His temperature was now over 105.