sandy wrote:
Explanation
The “while” tells you that the second part of the sentence will contrast with pushing forward — due to the approaching winter, the colonists need to stay put and conserve what they have.
Only steward and husband mean this. Sell and peddle don’t work because there’s nothing in the sentence to indicate commerce or contrast with it (and why would you sell your resources when a hard winter is coming?) Note that procure, which means “get” or “acquire,” doesn’t work because of the word existing.
Hence Steward, husband are correct options!
How can "steward" work, although it is a noun and not a verb ?