The Long Winter (Little House 6)

“Oh, Mary will beat,” Carrie said, discouraged before she began.

“Come on! I’ll help you,” Laura urged.

“Two against one isn’t fair,” Mary objected.

“It is too fair!” Laura contradicted. “Isn’t it, Ma? When Mary’s been learning Bible verses so much longer than Carrie has.”

“Yes,” Ma decided. “I think it is fair enough but Laura must only prompt Carrie.”

So they began, went on and on until Carrie could remember no more even when Laura prompted her. Then Mary and Laura went on, against each other, until at last Laura had to give up.

She hated to admit that she was beaten, but she had to. “You beat me, Mary. I can’t remember another one.”

“Mary beat! Mary beat!” Grace cried, clapping her hands and Ma said, smiling, to Mary, “That’s my bright girl.”

They all looked at Mary who was looking at nothing with her large, beautiful blue eyes that had no sight in them. She smiled with joy when Ma praised her and then her face changed as the light does when a blizzard comes. For a minute she looked as she used to look when she could see, and she and Laura were quarreling. She nev

er would give up to Laura because she was the older and the boss.

Then her whole face blushed pink and in a low voice she said, “I didn’t beat you, Laura. We’re even. I can’t remember another verse, either.”

Laura was ashamed. She had tried so hard to beat Mary at a game, but no matter how hard she tried she could never be as good as Mary was. Mary was truly good. Then for the first time Laura wanted to be a schoolteacher so that she could make the money to send Mary to college. She thought, “Mary is going to college, no matter how hard I have to work to send her.”

At that moment the clock struck eleven times. “My goodness, the dinner!” Ma exclaimed. She hurried into the kitchen to stir up the fire and season the bean soup. “Better put more coal in the heater, Laura,” she called. “Seems like the house hasn’t warmed up like it should have.”

It was noon when Pa came in. He came in quietly and went to the heater where he took off his coat and cap. “Hang these up for me, will you, Laura? I’m pretty cold.”

“I’m sorry, Charles,” Ma said from the kitchen. “I can’t seem to get the house warm.”

“No wonder,” Pa answered. “It’s forty degrees below zero and this wind is driving the cold in. This is the worst storm yet, but luckily everyone is accounted for. Nobody’s lost from town.”

After dinner Pa played hymn tunes on his fiddle, and all the afternoon they sang. They sang:

“There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar…”

And

“Jesus is a rock in a weary land,

A weary land, a weary land,

Jesus is a rock in a weary land,

A shelter in the time of storm.”

They sang Ma’s favorite, “There Is a Happy Land, Far, Far Away.” And just before Pa laid the fiddle in its box because the time had come when he must get to the stable and take care of the stock, he played a gallant, challenging tune that brought them all to their feet, and they all sang lustily,

“Then let the hurricane roar!

It will the sooner be o’er.

We’ll weather the blast

And land at last

On Canaan’s happy shore!”