The Long Winter (Little House 6)

After a while, when they were all eating their morning bread, Ma roused herself and answered, “I hope everyone is all right in town.”

There was no way to find out. Laura thought of the other houses, only across the street, that they could not even see. For some reason she remembered Mrs. Boast. They had not seen her since last summer, nor Mr. Boast since the long-ago time when he brought the last butter.

“But we might as well be out on a claim too,” she said. Ma looked at her, wondering what she meant, but did not ask. All of them were only waiting for the blizzard noises to stop.

That morning Ma carefully poured the last kernels of wheat into the coffee mill.

There was enough to make one last small loaf of bread. Ma scraped the bowl with the spoon and then with her finger to get every bit of dough into the baking pan.

“This is the last, Charles,” she said.

“I can get more,” Pa told her. “Almanzo Wilder was saving some seed wheat. I can get to it through the blizzard if I have to.”

Late that day, when the bread was on the table, the walls stopped shaking. The howling shrillness went away and only a rushing wind whistled under the eaves. Pa got up quickly, saying, “I believe it’s stopping!”

He put on his coat and cap and muffler and told Ma that he was going across the street to Fuller’s store. Looking through peepholes that they scratched in the frost, Laura and Carrie saw snow blowing by on the straight wind.

Ma relaxed in her chair and sighed, “What a merciful quiet.”

The snow was settling. After a while Carrie saw the sky and called Laura to see it. They looked at the cold, thin blue overhead and at the warm light of sunset on the low-blowing snow. The blizzard really was ended. And the northwest sky was empty.

“I hope Cap Garland and young Mr. Wilder are somewhere safe,” Carrie said. So did Laura, but she knew that saying so would not make any difference.

Chapter 29

The Last Mile

Almanzo thought that perhaps they had crossed the neck of Big Slough. He could not be sure where they were. He could see Prince and the slowly moving bulk of the loaded sled. Beyond them the darkness was like a mist thickening over a flat, white world. Stars twinkled far away around part of its rim. Before him, the black storm climbed rapidly up the sky and in silence destroyed the stars.

He shouted to Cap, “Think we’ve crossed Big Slough?”

He had forgotten that they need not shout since the wind had stopped. Cap said, “Don’t know. You think so?”

“We haven’t broken down,” Almanzo said.

“She’s coming fast,” Cap said. He meant the rising black storm.

There was nothing to say to that. Almanzo spoke encouragingly to Prince again and trudged on. He stamped his feet as he walked but he could hardly feel the shock; his legs were like wood from the knees down. Every muscle in his body was drawn tight against the cold. He could not relax the tightness and it hurt his jaws and ached in his middle. He beat his numb hands together.

Prince was pulling harder. Though the snow underfoot looked level, it was an upward slope. They had not seen the hole where Prince had broken down in Big Slough that morning, but they must somehow have crossed the slough.

Yet everything seemed unfamiliar. The darkness mixed with faint starshine coming up from the snow made the way strange. In the blackness ahead there was no star to steer by.

“Guess we’ve crossed it!” Almanzo called back. Cap’s sled came on behind him and after a while Cap answered, “Looks that way.”

But Prince still pulled hesitatingly, trembling not only from cold and tiredness but from fear that his footing would give way.

“Yep! We’re across!” Almanzo sang out. He was sure of it now. “We’re on the upland, all right!”

“Where’s town?” Cap called.

“We must be pretty near there,” Almanzo answered.

“It’ll take fast driving,” Cap said.

Almanzo knew that. He slapped Prince’s flank. “Get up, Prince! Get up!” But Prince quickened only one step, then plodded again. The horse was tired out and he did not want to go toward the storm. It was rising fast now; almost half the sky was blotted and the dark air was stirring.

“Get on and drive or we won’t make it!” Cap said. Almanzo hated to do it, but he stepped onto the sled and taking the stiff lines from his shoulders he beat Prince with the knotted ends.