The Long Winter (Little House 6)

“I can’t say. It’s piled up considerably deeper than the lean-to roof,” Pa answered.

“You don’t mean to say this house is buried in snow!” Ma exclaimed.

“A good thing if it is,” Pa replied. “You notice the kitchen is warmer than it has been this winter?”

Laura ran upstairs. She scratched a peephole on the window and put her eyes to it. She could hardly believe them. Main Street was level with her eyes. Across the glittering snow she could see the blank, square top of Harthorn’s false front sticking up like a short piece of solid board fence.

She heard a gay shout and then she saw horses’ hoofs trotting rapidly before her eyes. Eight gray hoofs, with slender brown ankles swiftly bending and straightening, passed quickly by, and then a long sled with two pairs of boots standing on it. She crouched down, to look upward through the peephole, but the sled was gone. She saw only the sky sharp with sunlight that stabbed her eyes. She ran down to the warm kitchen to tell what she had seen.

“The Wilder boys,” Pa said. “They’re hauling hay.”

“How do you know, Pa?” Laura asked him. “I only saw the horses’ feet, and boots.”

“There’s no one in town but those two, and me, that dares go out of town,” said Pa. “Folks are afraid a blizzard’ll come up. Those Wilder boys are hauling in all their slough hay from Big Slough and selling it for three dollars a load to burn.”

“Three dollars!” Ma exclaimed.

“Yes, and fair enough for the risk they take. They’re making a good thing out of it. Wish I could. But they’ve got coal to burn. I’ll be glad if we have enough hay to last us through. I wasn’t counting on it for our winter’s fuel.”

“They went by as high as the houses!” Laura exclaimed. She was still excited. It was strange to see horses’ hoofs and a sled and boots in front of your eyes, as a little animal, a gopher, for instance, might see them.

“It’s a wonder they don’t sink in the drifts,” Ma sa

id.

“Oh, no.” Pa was wolfing his toast and drinking his tea rapidly. “They won’t sink. These winds pack the snow as hard as a rock. David’s shoes don’t even make tracks on it. The only trouble’s where the grass is lodged and loose underneath.”

He got into his wraps in a hurry. “Those boys have got the start of me this morning. I was digging the tunnel. Now I’ve got to dig David out of the stable. Got to haul hay while the sun shines!” he joked, as he shut the door behind him.

“He’s feeling chipper because he’s got that tunnel,” said Ma. “It’s a blessing he can do the chores in some comfort, out of the wind.”

That day they could not watch the sky from the kitchen window. So little cold came through the snow that Laura led Mary into the lean-to and taught her how to twist hay. Mary had wanted to learn but the lean-to had been too cold. It took her some time because she could not see how Laura twisted and held the strands and tucked in the ends, but at last she did it well. They stopped to warm themselves only a few times while they twisted the whole day’s supply of hay sticks.

Then the kitchen was so warm that they need not crowd around the stove. The house was very still. The only sounds were the little sounds of Ma and Mary rocking, the slate pencil on the slate, the teakettle’s pleasant hum, and their own low voices speaking.

“What a blessing this deep snowdrift is,” Ma said.

But they could not watch the sky. Watching it did no good. If the low gray cloud was swiftly rising, they could not stop it. They could not help Pa. He would see the cloud and reach shelter as quickly as he could. Laura thought this many times, but just the same she hurried upstairs through the cold to peep from the window.

Ma and Carrie looked at her quickly when she came down, and she always answered them out loud so that Mary would know. “The sky’s clear and not a thing is stirring but millions of glitters on the snow. I don’t believe there’s a breath of wind.”

That afternoon Pa dragged hay through the tunnel to cram the lean-to full. He had dug the tunnel past the stable door so that David could get out, and beyond the stable he had turned the tunnel at an angle, to check the winds that might blow into it.

“I never saw such weather,” he said. “It must be all of forty degrees below zero and not a breath of air stirring. The whole world seems frozen solid. I hope this cold holds. Going through that tunnel it’s no chore at all to do the chores.”

Next day was exactly the same. The stillness and the dusk and the warmth seemed to be a changeless dream going on forever the same, like the clock’s ticking. Laura jumped in her chair when the clock cleared its throat before it struck.

“Don’t be so nervous, Laura,” Ma murmured as if she were half-asleep. They did not recite that day. They did not do anything. They just sat.

The night was still, too. But morning woke them with a howling fury. The winds had come again and the lashing whirl of snow.

“Well, the tunnel’s going fast,” Pa said, when he came into breakfast. His eyebrows were frozen white with snow again and his wraps were stiff with it. Cold was pressing the warmth back again to the stove. “I did hope my tunnel would last through one of these onslaughts, anyway. Gosh dang this blizzard! It only lets go long enough to spit on its hands.”

“Don’t swear, Charles!” Ma snapped at him. She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror. “Oh, Charles, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. But this wind, blowing and blowing…” Her voice died away and she stood listening.

“I know, Caroline,” Pa answered. “I know just how it makes you feel. It tires you out. I’ll tell you what, after breakfast we’ll read for a while about Livingston’s Africa.”

“It’s too bad I’ve burned so much hay this morning, Charles,” Ma said. “I’ve had to burn more, trying to get the place warm.”