The Long Winter (Little House 6)

Mr. Fuller and Mr. Mead and Mr. Hinz took their places in a row, facing Pa and Mr. Wilmarth and Royal Wilder. All their mittened hands were on the two long wooden handlebars that crossed the handcar, with the pump between them.

“All ready, boys! Let ’er go gallagher!” Mr. Fuller sang out and he and Mr. Mead and Mr. Hinz bent low, pushing down their handlebar. Then as their heads and their handlebar came up, Pa and the other two bent down, pushing their handlebar. Down and up, down and up, the rows of men bent and straightened as if they were bowing low to each other in turn, and the handcar’s wheels began slowly to turn and then to roll rapidly along the track toward Volga. And as they pumped, Pa began to sing and all the others joined in.

“We’ll ROLL the O-old CHARiot SLLONG,

We’ll ROLL the O-old CHARiot zLONG,

We’ll ROLL the O-old CHARiot aLONG.

And we WON’T drag ON beHIND!”

Up and down, up and down, all the backs moved evenly with the song and smoothly rolled the wheels, faster and faster.

“If the sinner’s in the way,

We will stop and take him in,

And we WON’T drag ON beHIND!

“We’ll ROLL the O-old CHARiot aLONG,

We’ll ROLL the O-old CHAR—”

Bump! and the handcar was stuck fast in a snowbank.

“All off!” Mr. Fuller sang out. “Not this time, we don’t roll it over!”

Picking up their shovels, all the men stepped down from the handcar. Bright snow dust flew in the wind from chunks of snow flung away by their busy shovels.

“We ought to be getting to school,” Laura said to Carrie.

“Oh please, let’s wait just a minute more and see…” Carrie said, gazing with squinting eyes across the glittering snow at Pa hard at work in front of the handcar.

In a moment or two all the men stepped onto it again, laying down their shovels and bending to the handlebars.

“If the Devil’s in the way,

We will roll it over him,

And we WON’T drag ON beHIND!”

Smaller and smaller grew the dark handcar and the two rows of men bowing in turn to each other, and fainter and fainter the song came back over the glittering snow fields.

“We’ll roll—the o-old—chariot along,

We’ll roll—the o-old—chariot along,

We’ll roll—the o-old—chariot along,

And we won’t drag on behind…”

Singing and pumping, rolling the car along, shoveling its way through snowbank and cuts, Pa went away to Volga.

All the rest of the day and all the next day there was an emptiness in the house. Morning and evening Mr. Foster did the chores and, after he had left the stable, Ma sent Laura to make sure that he had done them properly. “Surely Pa will be home tomorrow,” Ma said on Thursday night.

At noon the next day the long, clear train whistle sounded over the snow-covered prairie, and from the kitchen window Laura and Carrie saw the black smoke billowing on the sky and the roaring train coming beneath it. It was the work-train, crowded with singing, cheering men.

“Help me get the dinner on, Laura,” Ma said. “Pa will be hungry.”