Reading these books makes me feel like I am back in my home town. My hometown there was no sheriff. Just immigrant coal miners. kerosine lanterns, outhouse, and backbreaking work from morning until night. If you wanted to eat through the winter you had to either hunt it or grow it. Canning, and a root cellar to store food for the winter. Homegrown onions and carrots canned up with deer and elk and we were able to make it through the winter. Hard times, tough people.