The Long Winter (4 page)

Pa had gone to the stable. Laura was glad that they had so many haystacks in a row between the stable and the shanty. Going from haystack to haystack, Pa would not get lost.

“A b-b-b-b-blizzard!” Ma chattered. “In Oc-October. I n-n-never heard of...”

She put more wood in the stove and broke the ice in the water pail to fill the teakettle.

The water pail was less than half-full. The y must be sparing of water for nobody could get to the well in that storm. But the snow on the floor was clean. Laura scooped it into the washbasin and set it on the stove to melt, for washing in.

The air by the stove was not so cold now, so she rolled Grace in quilts and brought her to the stove to dress her. Mary and Carrie shiveringly dressed themselves, close to the open oven. The y all put on their stockings and shoes.

Breakfast was waiting when Pa came back. He blew in with a howl of wind and swirling snow.

“Well, those muskrats knew what was coming, didn't they, Laura?” he said as soon as he was warm enough to speak. “And the geese too.”

“No wonder they wouldn't stop at the lake,” said Ma.

“The lake's frozen by now,” Pa said. “Temperature's down near zero and going lower.”

He glanced at the wood box as he spoke. Laura had filled it last night, but already the wood was low. So as soon as he had eaten breakfast, Pa wrapped himself well and brought big armfuls from the woodpile.

The shanty was growing colder. The stove could not warm the air inside the thin walls. There was nothing to do but sit huddled in coats and shawls, close to the stove.

“I ' m glad I put beans to soak last night,” said Ma.

She lifted the lid of the bubbling kettle and quickly popped in a spoonful of soda. The boiling beans roared, foaming up, but did not quite run over.

“There's a little bit of salt pork to put in them too,”

Ma said.

Now and then she spooned up a few beans and blew on them. When their skins split and curled, she drained the soda-water from the kettle and filled it again with hot water. She put in the bit of fat pork.

“There's nothing like good hot bean soup on a cold day,” said Pa. He looked down at Grace, pulling at his hand. “Well, Blue-Eyes, what do you want?”

“A tory,” Grace said.

“Tell us the one about Grandpa and the pig on the sled,” Carrie begged. So, taking Grace and Carrie on his knees, Pa began again the stories that he used to tell Mary and Laura in the Big Woods when they were little girls. Ma and Mary knitted busily, in quilt-covered rockers drawn close to the oven, and Laura stood wrapped in her shawl, between the stove and the wall.

The cold crept in from the corners of the shanty, closer and closer to the stove. Icy-cold breezes sucked and fluttered the curtains around the beds. The little shanty quivered in the storm. But the steamy smell of boiling beans was good and it seemed to make the air warmer.

At noon Ma sliced bread and filled bowls with the hot bean broth and they all ate where they were, close to the stove. The y all drank cups of strong, hot tea.

Ma even gave Grace a cup of cambric tea. Cambric tea was hot water and milk, with only a taste of tea in it, but little girls felt grown-up when their mothers let them drink cambric tea.

The hot soup and hot tea warmed them all. The y ate the broth from the beans. Then Ma emptied the beans into a milk-pan, set the bit of fat pork in the middle, and laced the top with dribbles of molasses.

She set the pan in the oven and shut the oven door.

They would have baked beans for supper.

Then Pa had to bring in more wood. The y were thankful that the woodpile was close to the back door.

Pa staggered in breathless with the first armful. When he could speak he said, "This wind takes your breath

away. If I'd thought of such a storm as this, I'd have filled this shanty with wood yesterday. Now I'm bringing in as much snow as wood."

That was almost true. Every time Laura opened the door for him, snow swirled in. Snow fell off him and the wood was covered with snow. It was snow as hard as ice and as fine as sand, and opening the door made the shanty so cold that the snow did not melt.

“That's enough for now,” Pa said. If he let in any more cold, the wood he brought would not make enough heat to drive the cold out.

“When you get that snow swept up, Laura, bring me the fiddle,” he said. "Soon as I can thaw out my fingers, we'll have a tune to drown the yowl of that wind.

In a little while he was able to tune the strings and rosin the bow. Then he set the fiddle to his shoulder and sang with it.

"Oh, If I were young again,

I'd lead a different life,

Lay up some money and buy some land

And take Dinah for my wife.

But now I'm getting old and gray

I cannot work any more.

Oh carry me back

Oh, carry me back

To the old Virginia shore.

So carry me 'long and carry me 'long

And carry me till I die...."

“For pity's sakes!” Ma broke in. “I'd as soon listen to the wind.” She was trying to keep Grace warm and Grace was struggling and whimpering. Ma set her down. “There, run if you're bound to! You'll be glad enough to come back to the stove.”

“I'll tell you what!” Pa exclaimed. “Laura and Carrie, you get out there with Grace and let's see you quick-step march! It'll warm up your blood.”

It was hard to leave the shelter of their huddled shawls, but they did as Pa said. Then his strong voice rang out with the singing fiddle:

"March! March! Ettrick and Teviotdale!

Why, my lads, dinna ye march forward in order?

March! March! Eskdale and Liddesdale!

All the blue bonnets are over the border!

Many a banner spread flutters above your head, Many a crest that is famous in story."

Round and round they marched, Laura and Carrie and Grace, singing with all their might, thumping loud thumps of their shoes on the floor.

"Mount, and make ready, then,

Sons of the mountain glen,

Fight! for your homes and the old Scottish glory!"

They felt that banners were blowing above them and that they were marching to victory. The y did not even hear the storm. The y were warm to the tips of their toes.

Then the music ended and Pa laid the fiddle in its box. “Well, girls, it's up to me to march out against this storm and make the stock comfortable for the night. Blamed if that old tune don't give me the spunk to like fighting even a blizzard!”

Ma warmed his coat and muffler by the oven while he put away the fiddle-box. The y all heard the wind howling furiously.

“We'll have hot baked beans and hot tea waiting when you get back, Charles,” Ma promised him.

“And then we'll all go to bed and keep warm, and likely the storm'll be over by morning.”

But in the morning Pa sang again his sunflower song. The window was the same white blur, the winds still drove the scouring snow against the shivering little shanty.

The blizzard lasted two more long days and two more nights.

On the fourth morning, there was a queer feeling in Laura's ears. She peeped from the quilts and saw snow drifted over the bed. She heard the little crash of the stove lid and then the first crackling of the fire. Then she knew why her ears felt empty. Thenoise of the blizzard had stopped!

“Wake up, Mary!” she sang out, poking Mary with her elbow. “The blizzard's over!”

She jumped out of the warm bed, into air colder than ice. The hot stove seemed to give out no heat at all. The pail of snow-water was almost solidly frozen.

But the frosted windows were glowing with sunshine.

“It's as cold as ever outside,” Pa said when he came in. He bent over the stove to thaw the icicles from his mustache. The y sizzled on the stove-top and went up in steam.

Pa wiped his mustache and went on. " The winds tore a big piece of tar-paper off the roof, tight as it was nailed on. No wonder the roof leaked rain and snow."

“Anyway, it's over,” Laura said. It was pleasant to be eating breakfast and to see the yellow-glowing windowpanes.

“We'll have Indian summer yet,” Ma was sure.

“This storm was so early, it can't be the beginning of winter.”

“I never knew a winter to set in so early,” Pa admitted. “But I don't like the feel of things.”

“What things, Charles?” Ma wanted to know.

Pa couldn't say exactly He said, “There's some stray cattle by the haystacks.”

“Are they tearing down the hay?” Ma asked quickly.

“No,” said Pa.

“Then what of it, if they aren't doing any harm?”

Ma said.

“I guess they're tired out by the storm,” said Pa.

“The y took shelter there by the haystacks. I thought I'd let them rest and eat a little before I drove them off. I can't afford to let them tear down the stacks, but they could eat a little without doing any harm. But they aren't eating.”

“What's wrong then?” Ma asked.

“Nothing,” Pa said. “They're just standing there.”

“That's nothing to upset a body,” said Ma.

“No,” Pa said. He drank his tea. "Well, I might as well go drive them off."

He put on his coat and cap and mittens again and went out.

After a moment Ma said, “You might as well go with him, Laura. He may need some help to drive them away from the hay.”

Quickly Laura put Ma's big shawl over her head and pinned it snugly under her chin with the shawl-pin. The woolen folds covered her from head to foot.

Even her hands were under the shawl. Only her face was out.

Outdoors the sun-glitter hurt her eyes. She breathed a deep breath of the tingling cold and squinted her eyes to look around her. The sky was hugely blue and all the land was blowing white. The straight, strong wind did not lift the snow, but drove it scudding across the prairie.

The cold stung Laura's cheeks. It burned in her nose and tingled in her chest and came out in steam on the air. She held a fold of the shawl across her mouth and her breath made frost on it.

When she passed the corner of the stable, she saw Pa going ahead of her and she saw the cattle. She stood and stared.

The cattle were standing in sunshine and shadow by the haystacks—red and brown and spotted cattle and one thin black one. The y stood perfectly still, every head bowed down to the ground. The hairy red necks and brown necks all stretched down from bony-gaunt shoulders to monstrous, swollen white heads.

“Pa!” Laura screamed. Pa motioned to her to stay where she was. He went on trudging, through the low-flying snow, toward those creatures.

The y did not seem like real cattle. The y stood so terribly still. In the whole herd there was not the least movement. Only their breathing sucked their hairy sides in between the rib bones and pushed them out again. Their hip bones and their shoulder bones stood up sharply. Their legs were braced out, stiff and still.

And where their heads should be, swollen white lumps seemed fast to the ground under the blowing snow.

On Laura's head the hair prickled up and a horror went down her backbone. Tears from the sun and the wind swelled out her staring eyes and ran cold on her cheeks. Pa went on slowly against the wind. He walked up to the herd. Not one of the cattle moved.

For a moment Pa stood looking. Then he stooped and quickly did something. Laura heard a bellow and a red steer's back humped and jumped. The red steer ran staggering and bawling. It had an ordinary head with eyes and nose and open mouth bawling out steam on the wind.

Another one bellowed and ran a short, staggering run. Then another. Pa was doing the same thing to them all, one by one. Their bawling rose up to the cold sky.

At last they all drifted away together. The y went silently now in the knee-deep spray of blowing snow.

Pa waved to Laura to go back to the shanty, while he inspected the haystacks.

“Whatever kept you so long, Laura?” Ma asked.

“Did the cattle get into the haystacks?”

“No, Ma,” she answered. “Their heads were...I guess their heads were frozen to the ground.”

“That can't be!” Ma exclaimed.

“It must be one of Laura's queer notions,” Mary said, busily knitting in her chair by the stove. "How could cattle's heads freeze to the ground, Laura? It's really worrying, the way you talk sometimes."

“Well, ask Pa then!” Laura said shortly. She was not able to tell Ma and Mary what she felt. She felt that somehow, in the wild night and storm, the stillness that was underneath all sounds on the prairie had seized the cattle.

When Pa came in Ma asked him, “What was wrong with the cattle, Charles?”

“Their heads were frozen over with ice and snow,”

Pa said. “Their breath froze over their eyes and their noses till they couldn't see nor breathe.”

Laura stopped sweeping. "Pa! Their own breath!

Smothering them," she said in horror.

Pa understood how she felt. He said, "They're all right now, Laura. I broke the ice off their heads.

They're breathing now and I guess they'll make it to shelter somewhere."

Carrie and Mary were wide-eyed and even Ma looked horrified. She said briskly, “Get your sweeping done, Laura. And Charles, for pity's sake, why don't you take off your wraps and warm yourself?”

“I got something to show you,” Pa said. He took his hand carefully out of his pocket. “Look here, girls, look at what I found hidden in a haystack.”

Slowly he opened his hand. In the hollow of his mitten sat a little bird. He put it gently in Mary's hands.

“Why, it's standing straight up!” Mary exclaimed, touching it lightly with her finger-tips.

The y had never seen a bird like it. It was small, but it looked exactly like the picture of the great auk in Pa's big green book, The Wonders of the Animal World.

It had the same white breast and black back and wings, the same short legs placed far back, and the same large, webbed feet. It stood straight up on its short legs, like a tiny man with black coat and trousers and white shirt front, and its little black wings were like arms.

“What is it, Pa? Oh, what is it?” Carrie cried in delight and she held Grace's eager hands. “Mustn't touch, Grace.”