The Long Winter (Little House 6)

Laura gave him the mowing-machine section, and she and Carrie watched while he opened the tool-box, took the cutter-bar from the machine, and knocked out the broken section. He set the new one in its place and hammered down the rivets to hold it. “There!” he said. “Tell your Ma I’ll be late for supper. I’m going to finish cutting this piece.”

The mowing machine was humming steadily when Laura and Carrie went on toward the shanty.

“Were you much scared, Laura?” Carrie asked.

“Well, some, but all’s well that ends well,” Laura said.

“It was my fault. I wanted to go that way,” said Carrie.

“It was my fault because I’m older,” Laura said. “But we’ve learned a lesson. I guess we’ll stay on the road after this.”

“Are you going to tell Ma and Pa?” Carrie timidly asked.

“We have to if they ask us,” said Laura.

Chapter 3

Fall of the Year

Pa and Laura stacked the last load of slough hay on a hot September afternoon. Pa intended to mow another patch next day, but in the morning rain was falling. For three days and nights the rain fell steadily, slow, weepy rain, running down the windowpanes and pattering on the roof.

“Well, we must expect it,” Ma said. “It’s the equinoctial storm.”

“Yes,” Pa agreed, but uneasily. “There’s a weather change, all right. A fellow can feel it in his bones.”

Next morning the shanty was cold, the windowpanes were almost covered with frost, and all outdoors was white.

“My goodness,” Ma said shivering, while she laid kindling in the stove. “And this is only the first day of October.”

Laura put on her shoes and a shawl when she went to the well for water.

The air bit her cheeks and scorched the inside of her nose with cold. The sky was coldly blue and the whole world was white. Every blade of grass was furry with frost, the path was frosted, the boards of the well were streaked with thick frost, and frost had crept up the walls of the shanty, along the narrow battens that held the black tar-paper on.

Then the sun peeped over the edge of the prairie and the whole world glittered. Every tiniest thing glittered rosy toward the sun and pale blue toward the sky, and all along every blade of grass ran rainbow sparkles.

Laura loved the beautiful world. She knew that the bitter frost had killed the hay and the garden. The tangled tomato vines with their red and green tomatoes, and the pumpkin vines holding their broad leaves over the green young pumpkins, were all glittering bright in frost over the broken, frosty sod. The sod corn’s stalks and long leaves were white. The frost had killed them. It would leave every living green thing dead. But the frost was beautiful.

At breakfast Pa said, “There’ll be no more haying, so we’ll get in our harvest. We can’t get much from a first year on sod-ground, but the sods will rot this winter. We’ll do better next year.”

The plowed ground was tumbled slabs of earth still held together by the grass-roots. From underneath these sods, Pa dug small potatoes and Laura and Carrie put them into tin pails. Laura hated the dry, dusty feeling of earth on her fingers. It sent shivers up her backbone but that couldn’t be helped. Someone must pick up the potatoes. She and Carrie trudged back and forth with their pails, till they had filled five sacks full of potatoes. That was all the potatoes there were.

“A lot of digging for a few potatoes,” said Pa. “But five bushels are better than none, and we can piece out with the beans.”

He pulled the dead bean-vines and stacked them to dry. The sun was high now, all the frost was gone, and the wind was blowing cool over the brownish and purple and fawn-colored prairie.

Ma and Laura picked the tomatoes. The vines were wilted down, soft and blackening, so they picked even the smallest green tomatoes. There were enough ripe tomatoes to make almost a gallon of preserves.

“What are you going to do with the green ones?” Laura asked, and Ma answered, “Wait and see.”

She washed them care

fully without peeling them. She sliced them and cooked them with salt, pepper, vinegar, and spices.

“That’s almost two quarts of green tomato pickle. Even if it’s only our first garden on the sod and nothing could grow well, these pickles will be a treat with baked beans this winter,” Ma gloated.

“And almost a gallon of sweet preserves!” Mary added.

“Five bushels of potatoes,” said Laura, rubbing her hands on her apron because they remembered the horrid dusty feeling.