The Long Winter (Little House 6)

It came with a shriek. The windows rattled and the house shook.

“She must be a daisy!” Pa said. He went to the window but he could not see out. Snow came on the wind from the sky. Snow rose from the hard drifts as the wind cut them away. It all met in the whirling air and swirled madly. The sky, the sunshine, the town, were gone, lost in that blinding dance of snow. The house was alone again.

Laura thought, “The train can’t come now.”

“Come, girls,” Ma said. “We’ll get these dishes out of the way, and then we’ll open our papers and have a cosy afternoon.”

“Is there coal enough, Ma?” Laura asked.

Pa looked at the fire. “It will last till suppertime,” he said. “And then we’ll burn hay.”

Frost was freezing up the windowpanes and the room was cold near the walls. Near the stove, the light was too dim for reading. When the dishes were washed and put away, Ma set the lamp on the red-checked tablecloth and lighted it. There was only a little kerosene in the bowl where the wick coiled, but it gave a warm and cheery light. Laura opened the bundle of Youths Companions and she and Carrie looked eagerly at the wealth of stories printed on the smooth white paper.

“You girls choose a story,” Ma said. “And I will read it out loud, so we can all enjoy it together.”

So, close together between the stove and the bright table, they listened to Ma’s reading the story in her soft, clear voice. The story took them all far away from the stormy cold and dark. When she had finished that one, Ma read a second and a third. That was enough for one day; they must save some for another time.

“Aren’t you glad we saved those wonderful stories for Christmas day?” Mary sighed happily. And they were. The whole afternoon had gone so quickly. Already it was chore time.

When Pa came back from the stable, he stayed some time in the lean-to and came in at last with his arms full of sticks.

“Here is your breakfast fuel, Caroline,” he said, laying his armful down by the stove. “Good hard sticks of hay. I guess they will burn all right.”

“Sticks of hay?” Laura exclaimed.

“That’s right, Laura.” Pa spread his hands in the warmth above the stove. “I’m glad that hay’s in the lean-to. I couldn’t carry it in through the wind that’s blowing now, unless I brought it one bale at a time, in my teeth.”

The hay was in sticks. Pa had somehow twisted and knotted it tightly till each stick was almost as hard as wood.

“Sticks of hay!” Ma laughed. “What won’t you think of next? Trust you, Charles, to find a wa

y.”

“You are good at that yourself,” Pa smiled at her.

For supper there were hot boiled potatoes and a slice of bread apiece, with salt. That was the last baking of bread, but there were still beans in the sack and a few turnips. There was still hot tea with sugar, and Grace had her cup of cambric tea made with hot water because there was no more milk. While they were eating, the lamp began to flicker. With all its might the flame pulled itself up, drawing the last drop of kerosene up the wick. Then it fainted down and desperately tried again. Ma leaned over and blew it out. The dark came in, loud with the roar and the shrieking of the storm.

“The fire is dying, anyway, so we may as well go to bed,” Ma said gently. Christmas day was over.

Laura lay in bed and listened to the winds blowing, louder and louder. They sounded like the pack of wolves howling around the little house on the prairie long ago, when she was small and Pa had carried her in his arms. And there was the deeper howl of the great buffalo wolf that she and Carrie had met on the bank of Silver Lake.

She started trembling, when she heard the scream of the panther in the creek bed, in Indian territory. But she knew it was only the wind. Now she heard the Indian war whoops when the Indians were dancing their war dances all through the horrible nights by the Verdigris River.

The war whoops died away and she heard crowds of people muttering, then shrieking and fleeing screaming away from fierce yells chasing them. But she knew she heard only the voices of the blizzard winds. She pulled the bedcovers over her head and covered her ears tightly to shut out the sounds, but still she heard them.

Chapter 19

Where there’s a Will

The hay made a quick, hot fire, but it burned away more swiftly than kindling. Ma kept the stove’s drafts closed and all day long she was feeding the fire. All day long, except when he went through the storm to do the chores, Pa was twisting more sticks of hay in the lean-to. The storm grew fiercer and the cold more cruel.

Often Pa came to the stove to warm his hands. “My fingers get so numb,” he said, “I can’t make a good twist.”

“Let me help you, Pa,” Laura begged.

He did not want to let her. “Your hands are too small for such work,” he told her. Then he admitted, “But somebody’s got to help. It is going to be more than one person can do, to keep this stove going and haul hay for it.” Finally he decided, “Come along. I’ll show you how.”

Laura put on Pa’s old coat and her hood and muffler and went into the lean-to with Pa.