The Long Winter (Little House 6)

“And turnips, lots of turnips!” Carrie cried. Carrie loved to eat a raw turnip.

Pa laughed. “When I get those beans threshed and winnowed and sacked there’ll be pretty near a bushel of beans. When I get those few hills of corn cut, husked, and stored down cellar in a teacup, we’ll have quite a harvest.”

Laura knew that it was a very small harvest. But the hay and corn would winter the horses and the cow through till spring, and with five bushels of potatoes and nearly a bushel of beans and Pa’s hunting they could all live.

“I must cut that corn tomorrow,” Pa said.

“I see no special rush, Charles,” Ma remarked. “The rain is over and I never saw nicer fall weather.”

“Well, that’s so,” Pa admitted. The nights were cool now and the early mornings were crisp, but the days were sunny-warm.

“We could do with some fresh meat for a change,” Ma suggested.

“Soon as I get the corn in I’ll go hunting,” said Pa.

Next day he cut and shocked the sod corn. The ten shocks stood like a row of little Indian tepees by the haystacks. When he had finished them, Pa brought six yellow-gold pumpkins from the field.

“The vines couldn’t do much on tough sod,” he made excuse, “and the frost caught the green ones, but we’ll get a lot of seed out of these for next year.”

“Why such a hurry to get the pumpkins in?” Ma asked.

“I feel in a hurry. As if there was need to hurry,” Pa tried to explain.

“You need a good night’s sleep,” said Ma.

A misty-fine rain was falling next morning. After Pa had done the chores and eaten breakfast, he put on his coat and the wide-brimmed hat that sheltered the back of his neck.

“I’ll get us a brace of geese,” he said. “I heard them flying over in the night. There’ll be some in the slough.”

He took down his shotgun and sheltering it under his coat he went out into the weather.

After he had gone Ma said, “Girls, I’ve thought of a surprise for Pa.”

Laura and Carrie turned round from the dishpan and Mary straightened up from the bed she was making. “What?” they all asked her.

“Hurry and get the work done,” said Ma. “And then, Laura, you go to the corn-patch and bring me a green pumpkin. I’m going to make a pie!”

“A pie! But how…” Mary said, and Laura said, “A green pumpkin pie? I never heard of such a thing, Ma.”

“Neither did I,” said Ma. “But we wouldn’t do much if we didn’t do things that nobody ever heard of before.”

Laura and Carrie did the dishes properly but in a hurry. Then Laura ran through the cool, misty rain to the corn-patch and lugged back the biggest green pumpkin.

“Stand by the oven door and dry yourself,” said Ma. “You’re not very big, Laura, but you’re old enough to put on a shawl without being told.”

“I went so fast I dodged between the raindrops,” Laura said. “I’m not much wet, Ma, honestly. Now what do I do?”

“You may cut the pumpkin in slices and peel them while I make the piecrust,” said Ma. “Then we’ll see what we’ll see.”

Ma put the crust in the pie pan and covered the bottom with brown sugar and spices. Then she filled the crust with thin slices of the green pumpkin. She poured half a cup of vinegar over them, put a small piece of butter on top, and laid the top crust over all.

“There,” she said, when she had finished crimping the edges.

“I didn’t know you could,” Carrie breathed, looking wide-eyed at the pie.

“Well, I don’t know yet,” said Ma. She slipped the pie into the oven and shut the door on it. “But the only way to find out is to try. By dinnertime we’ll know.” They all sat waiting in the tidy shanty. Mary was busily knitting to finish warm stockings for Carrie before cold weather. Laura was sewing two long breadths of muslin together to make a sheet. She pinned the edges together carefully and fastened them with a pin to her dress at the knee. Carefully holding the edges even, she whipped them together with even, tiny stitches.

The stitches must be close and small and firm and they must be deep enough but not too deep, for the sheet must lie smooth, with not the tiniest ridge down its middle. And all the stitches must be so exactly alike that you could not tell them apart, because that was the way to sew.