The Long Winter (23 page)

“It seems to be hanging off,” Almanzo said. “I've been watching it from away back.”

“So have I,” said Cap. “But we better forget about being cold and drive. Let's ride awhile.”

“You bet you,” Almanzo agreed. “I could do with a few minutes' rest.”

The y said nothing more except to urge the tired horses to a faster walk. Cap led the way straight over the rises and straight across the hollows, into the teeth of the wind. Heads bent against it, they kept going until the buckskin broke through a snowcrust.

Almanzo was so close behind that he could not avoid the hidden airhole. He turned quickly aside but Prince went down near the buckskin. Between them the whole snow crust gave way and Almanzo's sled tipped, load and all, into the broken snow and grass.

Darkness slowly settled down while Cap helped Almanzo drag back the sled and dig out and carry the heavy sacks of wheat. The snow was palely luminous.

The wind had died, not a breath of air moved in the darkening stillness. Stars shone in the sky overhead and to the south and the east, but low in the north and the west the sky was black. And the blackness rose, blotting out the stars above it one by one.

“We're in for it, I guess,” Cap said.

“We must be nearly there,” Almanzo answered. He spoke to Prince and moved on ahead. Cap followed, he and the sled a bulky shadow moving over the dim whiteness of snow.

Before them in the sky, star after star went out as the black cloud rose.

Quietly Almanzo and Cap spoke to the tired horses, urging them on. There was still the neck of Big Slough to cross. The y could not see the swells or the hollows now. The y could see only a little way by the paleness of the snow and the faint starshine.

All day, while Laura turned the coffee mill or twisted hay, she remembered that Cap Garland and the younger Wilder brother were driving across the trackless snow fields, going in search of wheat to bring to town.

That afternoon she and Mary went out in the back yard for a breath of air and Laura looked fearfully to the northwest dreading to see the low-lying rim of darkness that was the sure sign of a coming blizzard.

There was no cloud but still she distrusted the bright sunshine. It was too bright and the snow-covered prairie, glittering as far as eye could see, seemed men-acing. She shivered.

“Let's go in, Laura,” Mary said. “The sunshine is too cold. Do you see the cloud?”

“There is no cloud,” Laura assured her. “But I don't like the weather. The air feels savage, somehow.”

“The air is only air,” Mary replied. “You mean it is cold.”

“I don't either mean it's cold. I mean it's savage!”

Laura snapped.

The y went back into the kitchen through the lean-to entryway.

Ma looked up from Pa's sock that she was darning.

“You didn't stay out long, girls,” she said. “You should get what fresh air you can, before the next storm.”

Pa came into the entry. Ma put away her work and took from the oven the loaf of sourdough brown bread, while Laura poured the thin codfish gravy into a bowl.

“Gravy again. Good!” Pa said, sitting down to eat.

The cold and the hard work of hauling hay had made him hungry. His eyes glittered at sight of the food.

Nobody, he said, could beat Ma at making good bread, and nothing was better on bread than codfish gravy. He made the coarse bread and the gruel of groundwheat flour with a bit of salt fish in it seem almost a treat.

“The boys have a fine day for their trip,” he said. “I saw where one of the horses went down in Big Slough, but they got him out with no trouble.”

“D o you think they will get back all right, Pa?”

Carrie asked timidly, and Pa said, “No reason why not, if this clear weather holds.”

He went out to do the chores. The sun had set and the light was growing dim when he came back. He came through the front room so they knew that he had gone across the street to get the news. The y knew when they saw him that it was not good news.

“We're in for it again,” he said, as he hung his coat and cap on the nail behind the door. “There's a cloud coming fast.”

“The y didn't get back?” Ma asked him.

“No,” Pa said.

Ma silently rocked and they all sat silent while the dusk deepened. Grace was asleep in Mary's lap. The others drew their chairs closer to the stove, but they were still silent, just waiting, when the jar of the house came and the roar and howl of the wind.

Pa rose with a deep breath. “Well, here it is again.”

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,

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'

De drif log come with a rushin' din,

An' stove both ends of my ol' boat in.

“Now, all together on the chorus!” And they all sang:

"It will neber do to gib it up so,

It will neber do to gib it up so,

It will neber do to gib it up so, Mr. Brown!

It will neber to do gib it up so!"

When they stopped singing, the storm seemed louder than ever. It was truly like a great beast worrying the house, shaking it, growling and snarling and whining and roaring at the trembling walls that stood against it.

After a moment Pa sang again, and the stately measures were suited to the thankfulness they were all feeling:

"Great is the Lord

And greatly to be prais-ed

In the city of our God,

In the mountain of His holiness."

Then Ma began:

"When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies,

I'll bid farewell to every fear

And wipe my weeping eyes."

The storm raged outside, screaming and hammer-ing at walls and window, but they were safely sheltered, and huddled in the warmth of the hay fire they went on singing.

It was past bedtime when the warmth died from the stove, and because they could not waste hay they crept from the dark, cold kitchen through the colder dark upstairs and to the beds.

Under the quilts, Laura and Mary silently said their prayers, and Mary whispered, “Laura.”

“What?” Laura whispered.

“Did you pray for them?”

“Yes,” Laura answered. “D o you think we ought to?”

“It isn't like asking for anything for ourselves,”

Mary replied. "I didn't say anything about the wheat.

I only said please to save their lives if it's God's will."

“I think it ought to be,” Laura said. “The y were doing their best. And Pa lived three days in that Christmas blizzard when we lived on Plum Creek.”

All the days of that blizzard nothing more was said about Cap Garland and the young Wilder brother. If they had found shelter they might live through the storm. If not, nothing could be done for them. It would do no good to talk.

The constant beating of the winds against the house, the roaring, shrieking, howling of the storm, made it hard even to think. It was possible only to wait for the storm to stop. All the time, while they ground wheat, twisted hay, kept the fire burning in the stove, and huddled over it to thaw their chapped, numb hands and their itching, burning, chilblained feet, and while they chewed and swallowed the coarse bread, they were all waiting until the storm stopped.

It did not stop during the third day or the third night. In the fourth morning it was still blowing fiercely.

“N o sign of a letup,” Pa said when he came in from the stable. “This is the worst yet.”

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. The y 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 merci-ful quiet.”

The snow was settling. After a while Carrie saw the sky and called Laura to see it. The y 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.

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. The y 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.

“Get up there, Prince! Get up!” Prince was startled and frightened; Almanzo had never beaten him before. He lunged against the neckyoke and jerked the sled forward, then on a downward slope he trotted.

Cap was beating the buckskin, too. But they were not sure where the town was.