The Long Winter (Little House 6)

Main Street would guide all of them except Ben Woodworth. No other buildings stood between the hotel and the depot where he lived. So Ben went into the hotel to stay till the blizzard was over. He could afford to do that because his father had a regular job.

Minnie and Arthur Johnson, taking the little Wilmarth boys, had only to cross Main Street to Wilmarth’s grocery store and their home was beside it. The others went on down Main Street, keeping close to the buildings. They passed the saloon, they passed Royal Wilder’s feed store, and then they passed Barker’s grocery. The Beardsley Hotel was next and there the little Beardsley girls went in.

The journey was almost ended now. They passed Couse’s Hardware store and they crossed Second Street to Fuller’s Hardware. Mary Power had only to pass the drugstore now. Her father’s tailor shop stood next to it.

Laura and Carrie and Teacher and Mr. Foster had to cross Main Street now. It was a wide street. But if they missed Pa’s house, the haystacks and the stable were still between them and the open prairie.

They did not miss the house. One of its lighted windows made a glow that Mr. Foster saw before he ran into it. He went on around the house corner with Teacher to go by the clothesline, the haystacks, and the stable to the Garland house.

Laura and Carrie were safe at their own front door. Laura’s hands fumbled at the doorknob, too stiff to turn it. Pa opened the door and helped them in.

He was wearing overcoat and cap and muffler. He had set down the lighted lantern and dropped a coil of rope. “I was just starting out after you,” he said.

In the still house Laura and Carrie stood taking deep breaths. It was so quiet there where the winds did not push and pull at them. They were still blinded, but the whirling icy snow had stopped hurting their eyes.

Laura felt Ma’s hands breaking away the icy muffler, and she said, “Is Carrie all right?”

“Yes, Carrie’s all right,” said Pa.

Ma took off Laura’s hood and unbuttoned her coat and helped her pull out of its sleeves. “These wraps are driven full of ice,” Ma said. They crackled when she shook them and little drifts of whiteness sifted to the floor.

“Well,” Ma said, “‘All’s well that ends well.’ You’re not frostbitten. You can go to the fire and get warm.”

Laura could hardly move but she stooped and with her fingers dug out the caked snow that the wind had driven in between her woolen stockings and the tops of her shoes. Then she staggered toward the stove. “Take my place,” Mary said, getting up from her rocking chair. “It’s the warmest.”

Laura sat stiffly down. She felt numb and stupid. She rubbed her eyes and saw a pink smear on her hand. Her eyelids were bleeding where the snow had scratched them. The sides of the coal heater glowed red-hot and she could feel the heat on her skin, but she was cold inside. The heat from the fire couldn’t reach that cold.

Pa sat close to the stove holding Carrie on his knee. He had taken off her shoes to make sure that her feet were not frozen and he held her wrapped in a shawl. The shawl shivered with Carrie’s shivering. “I can’t get warm, Pa,” she said.

“You girls are chilled through. I’ll have you a hot drink in a minute,” said Ma, hurrying into the kitchen.

She brought them each a steaming cup of ginger tea.

“My, that smells good!” said Mary, and Grace leaned on Laura’s knee looking longingly at the cup till Laura gave her a sip and Pa said, “I don’t know why there’s not enough of that to go around.”

“Maybe there is,” said Ma, going into the kitchen again.

It was so wonderful to be there, safe at home, sheltered from the winds and the cold. Laura thought that this must be a little bit like Heaven, where the weary are at rest. She could not imagine that Heaven was better than being where she was, slow

ly growing warm and comfortable, sipping the hot, sweet, ginger tea, seeing Ma, and Grace, and Pa and Carrie, and Mary all enjoying their own cups of it and hearing the storm that could not touch them here.

“I’m glad you didn’t have to come for us, Pa,” Laura said drowsily. “I was hoping you were safe.”

“So was I,” Carrie told Pa, snuggling against him. “I remembered that Christmas, on Plum Creek, when you didn’t get home.”

“I did, too,” Pa said grimly. “When Cap Garland came into Fuller’s and said you were all heading out to the open prairie, you can bet I made tracks for a rope and lantern.”

“I’m glad we got in all right,” Laura woke up to say.

“Yes, we’d have had a posse out looking for you, though we’d have been hunting for a needle in a haystack,” said Pa.

“Best forget about it,” said Ma.

“Well, he did the best he could,” Pa went on. “Cap Garland’s a smart boy.”

“And now, Laura and Carrie, you’re going to bed and get some rest,” said Ma. “A good long sleep is what you need.”

Chapter 10