The Long Winter (Little House 6)

“Tomorrow we’ll read a story,” Carrie said happily.

“Tomorrow we have to do the ironing,” Laura reminded her.

“Yes, and we should air the bedding and give the upstairs a thorough cleaning, in this good weather,” said Ma.

Pa came in and heard them. “Tomorrow I’m going to work on the railroad,” he said.

Mr. Wood worth had word to put at work on the tracks all the men he could get. The superintendent at the Tracy cut was driving the work there and shovel gangs were shoveling eastward from Huron.

“If muscle and will-power can do it, we’ll have a train through by Christmas!” Pa declared.

That night he came back from work with a broad smile on his sun-red face. “Good news!” he called out. “The work train will come through sometime tomorrow! The regular train’ll come next, day after tomorrow probably.”

“Oh, good! Good! Goody!” Laura and Carrie exclaimed together, and Ma said, “That is good news, indeed. What is wrong with your eyes, Charles?”

His eyes were red and puffed. He answered cheerfully, “Shoveling snow in the sunshine is hard on eyes. Some of the men are snow-blind. Fix me up a little weak salt-water, will you, Caroline? And I’ll bathe them after I do the chores.”

When he had gone to the stable, Ma dropped into a chair near Mary. “I’m afraid, girls, this will be a poor Christmas,” she said. “What with these awful storms and trying to keep warm, we’ve had no time to plan for it.”

“Maybe the Christmas barrel…” Carrie began.

“We mustn’t count on it,” said Mary.

“We could wait for Christmas till it comes,” Laura suggested. “All but…” and she picked up Grace who was listening wide-eyed.

“Can’t Santa Claus come?” Grace asked, and her lower lip began to tremble.

Laura hugged her and looked over her golden head at Ma.

Ma said firmly, “Santa Claus always comes to good little girls, Grace. But girls,” she went on, “I have an idea. What do you think of saving my church papers and your bundle of Youths Companions to open on Christmas day?”

After a moment Mary said, “I think it is a good idea. It will help us to learn self-denial.”

“I don’t want to,” Laura said.

“Nobody does,” said Mary. “But it’s good for us.”

Sometimes Laura did not even want to be good. But after another silent moment she said, “Well, if you and Mary want to, Ma, I will. It will give us something to look forward to for Christmas.”

“What do you say about it, Carrie?” Ma asked, and in a small voice Carrie said, “I will, too, Ma.”

“That’s my good girls,” Ma approved them. She went on. “We can find a little something in the stores for…” and she glanced at Grace. “But you older girls know, Pa hasn’t been able to get any work for wages this year. We can’t spare money for presents, but we can have a happy Christmas just the same. I’ll try to contrive something extra for dinner and then we’ll all open our papers and read them, and when it’s too dark to read, Pa will play the fiddle.”

“We haven’t much flour left, Ma,” Laura said.

“The storekeepers are asking twenty-five cents a pound for flour so Pa’s waiting for the train,” Ma replied. “There’s nothing to make a pie, anyway, and no butter or eggs for a cake and no more sugar in town. But we’ll think of something for Christmas dinner.”

Laura sat thinking. She was making a little picture frame of cross-stitch in wools on thin, silver-colored cardboard. Up the sides and across the top she had made a pattern of small blue flowers and green leaves. Now she was outlining the picture-opening in blue. While she put the tiny needle through the perforations in the cardboard and drew the fine, colored wool carefully after it, she was thinking how wistfully Carrie had looked at the beautiful thing. She decided to give it to Carrie for Christmas. Someday, perhaps, she could make another for herself.

How fortunate it was that she had finished knitting the lace for her petticoat. She would give that to Mary. And to Ma she would give the cardboard hair receiver that she had already embroidered to match the picture frame. Ma could hang it on the corner of her looking glass, and when she combed her hair she would put the combings in it to use later in the hairswitch she was making.

“But what can we do for Pa?” she asked.

“I declare I don’t know,” Ma worried. “I can’t think of a thing.”

“I’ve got some pennies,” Carrie said.

“There’s my college money,” Mary began, but Ma said, “No, Mary, we won’t touch that.”