The Long Winter (Little House 6)
Then suddenly he shook his clenched fist at the northwest. “Howl! blast you! howl!” he shouted. “We’re all here safe! You can’t get at us! You’ve tried all winter but we’ll beat you yet! We’ll be right here when spring comes!”
“Charles, Charles,” Ma said soothingly. “It is only a blizzard. We’re used to them.”
Pa dropped back in his chair. After a minute he said, “That was foolish, Caroline. Seemed for a minute like that wind was something alive, trying to get at us.”
“It does seem so, sometimes,” Ma went on soothing him.
“I wouldn’t mind so much if I could only play the fiddle,” Pa muttered, looking down at his cracked and stiffened hands that could be seen in the glow of fire from the cracks of the stove.
In all the hard times before, Pa had made music for them all. Now no one could make music for him. Laura tried to cheer herself by remembering what Pa had said; they were all there, safe. But she wanted to do something for Pa. Then suddenly she remembered. “We’re all here!” It was the chorus of the “Song of the Freed Men.”
“We can sing!” she exclaimed, and she began to hum the tune.
Pa looked up quickly. “You’ve got it, Laura, but you are a little high. Try it in B flat,” he said.
Laura started the tune again. First Pa, then the others, joined in, and they sang:
“When Paul and Silas were bound in jail,
Do thy-self-a no harm,
One did sing and the other did pray,
Do thy-self-a no harm.
“We’re all here, we’re all here,
Do thy-self-a no harm,
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p; We’re all here, we’re all here,
Do thy-self-a no harm.
“If religion was a thing that money could buy,
Do thy-self-a no harm,
The rich would live and the poor would die,
Do thy-self-a no harm.”
Laura was standing up now and so was Carrie, and Grace was awake and singing with all her might:
“We’re all here, we’re all here!
Do thy-self-a no harm.
We’re all here, we’re all here!
Do thy-self-a no harm!”
“That was fine!” Pa said. Then he sounded a low note and began:
“De old Jim riber, I float down,
I ran my boat upon de groun’