The Long Winter (Little House 6)

“He brought us each a tin cup and a stick of candy,” Laura remembered. She got up slowly and began to help Ma and Carrie clear the table. Pa went to his big chair by the stove.

Mary lifted her handkerchief from her lap, as she started to leave the table, and something fluttered to the floor. Ma stooped to pick it up. She stood holding it, speechless, and Laura cried, “Mary! A twenty dollar—You dropped a twenty dollar bill!”

“I couldn’t!” Mary exclaimed.

“That Edwards,” said Pa.

“We can’t keep it,” Ma said. But clear and long came the last farewell whistle of the train.

“What will you do with it, then?” Pa asked. “Edwards is gone and we likely won’t see him again for years, if ever. He is going to Oregon in the spring.”

“But, Charles… Oh, why did he do it?” Ma softly cried out in distress.

“He gave it to Mary,” said Pa. “Let Mary keep it. It will help her go to college.”

Ma thought for a moment, then said, “Very well,” and she gave the bill to Mary.

Mary held it carefully, touching it with her fingertips, and her face shone. “Oh, I do thank Mr. Edwards.”

“I hope he never has need of it himself, wherever he goes,” said Ma.

“Trust Edwards to look out for himself,” Pa assured her.

Mary’s face was dreamy with the look it had when she was thinking of the college for the blind. “Ma,” she said, “with the money you made keeping boarders last year, this makes thirty-five dollars and twenty-five cents.”

Chapter 12

Alone

On Saturday the sun was shining and the wind was blowing softly from the south. Pa was hauling hay from the homestead, for the cow and the horses must eat a great deal of hay to keep themselves warm in cold weather.

In the sunshine from the western windows Mary rocked gently, and Laura’s steel knitting needles flashed. Laura was knitting lace, of fine white thread, to trim a petticoat. She sat close to the window and watched the street, for she was expecting Mary Power and Minnie Johnson. They were coming to spend the afternoon, bringing their crocheting.

Mary was talking about the college that perhaps someday she could go to.

“I am keeping up with you in your lessons, Laura,” she said. “I do wish, if I do go to college, that you could go, too.”

“I suppose I’ll be teaching school,” Laura said, “so I couldn’t go anyway. And I guess you care more about it than I do.”

“Oh, I do care about it!” Mary softly exclaimed. “I want it more than anything. There’s so much to learn, I always wanted to go studying on and on. And to think that I can, if we can save the money, even now that I’m blind. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes, it is,” Laura agreed soberly. She did hope that somehow Mary could go. “Oh, bother! I’ve miscounted the stitches!” she exclaimed. She unraveled the row and began to pick the tiny stitches up again on the fine needle.

“Well,” she said, “‘The Lord helps them that help themselves’ and you surely will go to college, Mary, if…” She forgot what she was saying. The little loops of thread were dimming before her eyes as if she were going blind. She could not see them. The spool of thread dropped from her lap and rolled away on the floor as she jumped up.

“What’s the matter?” Mary cried out.

“The light’s gone!” Laura said. There was no sunshine. The air was gray and the note of the wind was rising. Ma came hurrying in from the kitchen.

“It’s storming, girls!” she had time to say, then the house shook as the storm struck it. The darkening store fronts across the street disappeared in a whirl of snow. “Oh, I wish Charles had got home!” Ma said.

Laura turned from the window. She drew Mary’s chair over to the heater, and from the coal hod she shoveled more coal on the fire. Suddenly the storm wind howled into the kitchen. The back door slammed hard and Pa came in, snowy and laughing.

“I beat the blizzard to the stable by the width of a gnat’s eyebrow!” he laughed. “Sam and David stretched out and came lickety-split! We made it just in the nick of time! This is one blizzard that got fooled!”

Ma took his coat and folded it to carry the snow out to the lean-to. “Just so you’re here, Charles,” she murmured.

Pa sat down and leaned to the heater, holding out his hands to warm them. But he was uneasily listening to the wind. Before long he started up from his chair.