On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Then Laura swept the floor while Mary cleared the table. Mary washed the dishes and Laura wiped them and put them in the cupboard. They put the red-checked cloth on the table. Now the whole long afternoon was before them and they could do as they pleased.
First, they decided to play school. Mary said she must be Teacher, because she was older and besides she knew more. Laura knew that was true. So Mary was Teacher and she liked it, but Laura was soon tired of that play.
“I know,” Laura said. “Let’s both teach Carrie her letters.”
They sat Carrie on a bench and held the book before her, and both did their best. But Carrie did not like it. She would not learn the letters, so they had to stop that.
“Well,” said Laura, “let’s play keeping house.”
“We are keeping house,” said Mary. “What is the use of playing it?”
The house was empty and still, with Ma gone. Ma was so quiet and gentle that she never made any noise, but now the whole house was listening for her.
Laura went outdoors for a while by herself, but she came back. The afternoon grew longer and longer. There was nothing at all to do. Even Jack walked up and down restlessly.
He asked to go out, but when Laura opened the door he would not go. He lay down and got up, and walked around and around the room. He came to Laura and looked at her earnestly.
“What is it, Jack!” Laura asked him. He stared hard at her, but she could not understand, and he almost howled.
“Don’t, Jack!” Laura told him, quickly. “You scare me.”
“Is it something outdoors?” Mary wondered. Laura ran out, but on the doorstep Jack took hold of her dress and pulled her back. Outdoors was bitter cold. Laura shut the door.
“Look,” she said. “The sunshine’s dark. Are the grasshoppers coming back?”
“Not in the winter-time, goosie,” said Mary. “Maybe it’s rain.”
“Goosie yourself!” Laura said back. “It doesn’t rain in the winter-time.”
“Well, snow, then! What’s the difference?” Mary was angry and so was Laura. They would have gone on quarreling, but suddenly there was no sunshine. They ran to look through the bedroom window.
A dark cloud with a fleecy white underside was rolling fast from the north-west.
Mary and Laura looked out the front window. Surely it was time for Pa and Ma to come, but they were nowhere in sight.
“Maybe it’s a blizzard,” said Mary.
“Like Pa told us about,” said Laura.
They looked at each other through the gray air. They were thinking of those children who froze stark stiff.
“The woodbox is empty,” said Laura.
Mary grabbed her. “You can’t!” said Mary. “Ma told us to stay in the house if it stormed.” Laura jerked away and Mary said, “Besides, Jack won’t let you.”
“We’ve got to bring in wood before the storm gets here,” Laura told her. “Hurry!”
They could hear a strange sound in the wind, like a far-away screaming. They put on their shawls and pinned them under their chins with their large shawl-pins. They put on their mittens.
Laura was ready first. She told Jack, “We’ve got to bring in wood, Jack.” He seemed to understand. He went out with her and stayed close at her heels. The wind was colder than icicles. Laura ran to the woodpile, piled up a big armful of wood, and ran back, with Jack behind her. She could not open the door while she held the wood. Mary opened it for her.
Then they did not know what to do. The cloud was coming swiftly, and they must both bring in wood before the storm got there. They could not open the door when their arms were full of wood. They could not leave the door open and let the cold come in.
“I tan open the door,” said Carrie.
“You can’t,” Mary said.
“I tan, too!” said Carrie, and she reached up both hands and turned the door knob. She could do it! Carrie was big enough to open the door.
Laura and Mary hurried fast, bringing in wood. Carrie opened the door when they came to it, and shut it behind them. Mary could carry larger armfuls, but Laura was quicker.
They filled the woodbox before it began to snow. The snow came suddenly with a whirling blast, and it was small hard grains like sand. It stung Laura’s face where it struck. When Carrie opened the door, it swirled into the house in a white cloud.
Laura and Mary forgot that Ma had told them to stay in the house when it stormed. They forgot everything but bringing in wood. They ran frantically back and forth, bringing each time all the wood they could stagger under.
They piled wood around the woodbox and around the stove. They piled it against the wall. They made the piles higher, and bigger.
Bang! they banged the door. They ran to the woodpile. Clop-clop-clop they stacked the wood on their arms. They ran to the door. Bump! it went open, and bang! they backbumped it shut, and thumpity-thud-thump! they flung down the wood and ran back, outdoors, to the woodpile, and panting back again.
They could hardly see the woodpile in the swirling whiteness. Snow was driven all in among the wood. They could hardly see the house, and Jack was a dark blob hurrying beside them. The hard snow scoured their faces. Laura’s arms ached and her chest panted and all the time she thought, “Oh, where is Pa? Where is Ma?” and she felt “Hurry! Hurry!” and she heard the wind screeching.
The woodpile was gone. Mary took a few sticks and Laura took a few sticks and there were no more. They ran to the door together, and Laura opened it and Jack bounded in. Carrie was at the front window, clapping her hands and squealing. Laura dropped her sticks of wood and turned just in time to see Pa and Ma burst, running, out of the whirling whiteness of snow.
Pa was holding Ma’s hand and pulling to help her run. They burst into the house and slammed the door and stood panting, covered with snow. No one said anything while Pa and Ma looked at Laura and Mary, who stood all snowy in shawls and mittens.
At last Mary said in a small voice, “We did go out in the storm, Ma. We forgot.”
Laura’s head bowed down and she said, “We didn’t want to burn up the furniture, Pa, and freeze stark stiff.”
“Well, I’ll be darned!” said Pa. “If they didn’t move the whole woodpile in. All the wood I cut to last a couple of weeks.”
There, piled up in the house, was the whole woodpile. Melted snow was leaking out of it and spreading in puddles. A wet path went to the door, where snow lay unmelted.
Then Pa’s great laugh rang out, and Ma’s gentle smile shone warm on Mary and Laura. They knew they were forgiven for disobeying, because they had been wise to bring in wood, though perhaps not quite so much wood. Sometime soon they would be old enough not to make any mistakes, and then they could always decide what to do. They would not have to obey Pa and Ma any more.
They bustled to take off Ma’s shawl and hood and brush the snow from them and hang them up to dry. Pa hurried to the stable to do the chores before the storm grew worse. Then while Ma rested, they stacked the wood neatly as she told them, and they swept and mopped the floor.
The house was neat and cosy again. The tea-kettle hummed, the fire shone brightly from the draughts above the stove hearth. Snow swished against the windows.
Pa came in. “Here is the little milk I could get here with. The wind blew it up out of the pail. Caroline, this is a terrible storm. I couldn’t see an inch, and the wind comes from all directions at once. I thought I was on the path, but I couldn’t see the house, and—well, I just barely bumped against the corner. Another foot to the left and I never would have got in.”
“Charles!” Ma said.
“Nothing to be scared about now,” said Pa. “But if we hadn’t run all the way from town and beat this storm here—” Then his eyes twinkled, he rumpled Mary’s hair and pulled Laura’s ear. “I’m glad all this wood is in the house, too,” he said.
Chapter 36
Prairie Winter
Next day the storm was even worse. It could not be seen through the windows, for sn
When Pa started to the stable, snow whirled thick into the lean-to, and outdoors was a wall of whiteness. He took down a coil of rope from a nail in the lean-to.
“I’m afraid to try it without something to guide me back,” he said. “With this rope tied to the far end of the clothes-line I ought to reach the stable.”
They waited, frightened, till Pa came back. The wind had taken almost all the milk out of the pail, and Pa had to thaw by the stove before he could talk. He had felt his way along the clothes-line fastened to the lean-to, till he came to the clothes-line post. Then he tied an end of his rope to the post and went on, unwinding the rope from his arm as he went.
He could not see anything but the whirling snow. Suddenly something hit him, and it was the stable wall. He felt along it till he came to the door, and there he fastened the end of the rope.
So he did the chores and came back, holding on to the rope.
All day the storm lasted. The windows were white and the wind never stopped howling and screaming. It was pleasant in the warm house. Laura and Mary did their lessons, then Pa played the fiddle while Ma rocked and knitted, and bean soup simmered on the stove.
All night the storm lasted, and all the next day. Fire-light danced out of the stove’s draught, and Pa told stories and played the fiddle.
Next morning the wind was only whizzing, and the sun shone. Through the window Laura saw snow scudding before the wind in fast white swirls over the ground. The whole world looked like Plum Creek foaming in flood, only the flood was snow. Even the sunshine was bitter cold.
“Well, I guess the storm is over,” said Pa. “If I can get to town tomorrow, I am going to lay in a supply of food.”
Next day the snow was in drifts on the ground. The wind blew only a smoke of snow up the sides and off the tops of the drifts. Pa drove to town and brought back big sacks of cornmeal, flour, sugar, and beans. It was enough food to last a long time.
“Seems strange to have to figure out where meat is coming from,” Pa said. “In Wisconsin we always had plenty of bear meat and venison, and in Indian Territory there were deer and antelope, jackrabbits, turkeys, and geese, all the meat a man could want. Here there are only little cotton-tail rabbits.”
“We will have to plan ahead and raise meat,” said Ma. “Think how easy it will be to fatten our own meat, where we can raise such fields of grain for feed.”
“Yes,” Pa said. “Next year we will raise a wheat crop, surely.”
Next day another blizzard came. Again that low, dark cloud rolled swiftly up from the north-west till it blotted out the sun and covered the whole sky and the wind went, howling and shrieking, whirling snow until nothing could be seen but a blur of whiteness.
Pa followed the rope to the stable and back. Ma cooked and cleaned and mended and helped Mary and Laura with their lessons. They did the dishes, made their bed, and swept the floors, kept their hands and faces clean and neatly braided their hair. They studied their books and played with Carrie and Jack. They drew pictures on their slate, and taught Carrie to make her A B C’s.
Mary was still sewing nine-patch blocks. Now Laura started a bear’s-track quilt. It was harder than a nine-patch, because there were bias seams, very hard to make smooth. Every seam must be exactly right before Ma would let her make another, and often Laura worked several days on one short seam.
So they were busy all day long. And all the days ran together, with blizzard after blizzard. No sooner did one blizzard end with a day of cold sunshine, than another began. On the sunny day Pa worked quickly, chopping more wood, visiting his traps, pitching hay from the snowy stacks into the stable. Even though the sunny day was not Monday, Ma washed the clothes and hung them on the clothes-line to freeze dry. That day there were no lessons. Laura and Mary and Carrie, bundled stiff in thick wraps, could play outdoors in the sunshine.
Next day another blizzard came, but Pa and Ma had everything ready for it.
If the sunny day were Sunday, they could hear the church bell. Clear and sweet it rang through the cold, and they all stood outdoors and listened.
They could not go to Sunday school; a blizzard might come before they could reach home. But every Sunday they had a little Sunday school of their own.
Laura and Mary repeated their Bible verses. Ma read a Bible story and a psalm. Then Pa played hymns on the fiddle, and they all sang. They sang,
“When gloomy clouds across the sky
Cast shadows o’er the land,
Bright rays of hope illume my path,
For Jesus holds my hand.”
Every Sunday Pa played and they sang:
“Sweet Sabbath school more dear to me
Than fairest palace dome,
My heart e’er turns with joy to thee,
My own dear Sabbath home.”
Chapter 37
The Long Blizzard
A storm was dying down at supper-time one day, and Pa said: “Tomorrow I’m going to town. I need some tobacco for my pipe and I want to hear the news. Do you need anything, Caroline?”
“No, Charles,” said Ma. “Don’t go. These blizzards come up so fast.”
“There’ll be no danger tomorrow,” said Pa. “We’ve just had a three-days’ blizzard. There’s plenty of wood chopped to last through the next one, and I can take time to go to town now.”
“Well, if you think best,” Ma said. “At least, Charles, promise me that you will stay in town if a storm comes up.”
“I wouldn’t try to stir a step without safe hold on a rope, in one of these storms,” said Pa. “But it is not like you, Caroline, to be afraid to have me go anywhere.”
“I can’t help it,” Ma answered. “I don’t feel right about your going. I have a feeling—it’s just foolishness, I guess.”
Pa laughed. “I’ll bring in the woodpile, just in case I do have to stay in town.”
He filled the woodbox and piled wood high around it. Ma urged him to put on an extra pair of socks, to keep his feet from being frost-bitten. So Laura brought the bootjack and Pa pulled off his boots and drew another pair of socks over those he already wore. Ma gave him a new pair which she had just finished knitting of thick, warm wool.
“I do wish you had a buffalo overcoat,” said Ma. “That old coat is worn so thin.”
“And I wish you had some diamonds,” said Pa. “Don’t you worry, Caroline. It won’t be long till spring.”
Pa smiled at them while he buckled the belt of his old, threadbare overcoat and put on his warm felt cap.
“That wind is so bitter cold, Charles,” Ma worried. “Do pull down the earlaps.”
“Not this morning!” said Pa. “Let the wind whistle! Now you girls be good, all of you, till I come back.” And his eyes twinkled at Laura as he shut the door behind him.
After Laura and Mary had washed and wiped the dishes, swept the floor, made their bed, and dusted, they settled down with their books. But the house was so cosy and pretty that Laura kept looking up at it.
The black stove was polished till it gleamed. A kettle of beans was bubbling on its top and bread was baking in the oven. Sunshine slanted through the shining windows between the pink-edged curtains. The red-checked cloth was on the table. Beside the clock on its shelf stood Carrie’s little brown-and-white dog, and Laura’s sweet jewel-box. And the little pink-and-white shepherdess stood smiling on the wood-brown bracket.
Ma had brought her mending-basket to her rocking-chair by the window, and Carrie sat on the footstool by her knee. While Ma rocked and mended, she heard Carrie say her letters in the primer. Carrie told big A and little a, big B and little b, then she laughed and talked and looked at the pictures. She was still so little that she did not have to keep quiet and study.
The clock struck twelve. Laura watched its pendulum wagging, and the black hands moving on the round white face. It was time for Pa to come home. The beans were cooked, the br
Laura’s eyes strayed to the window. She stared a moment before she knew that something was wrong with the sunshine.
“Ma!” she cried, “the sun is a funny color.”
Ma looked up from her mending, startled. She went quickly into the bedroom, where she could see the north-west, and she came quietly back.
“You may put away your books, girls,” she said. “Bundle up and bring in more wood. If Pa hasn’t started home he will stay in town and we will need more wood in the house.”
From the woodpile Laura and Mary saw the dark cloud coming. They hurried, they ran, but there was time only to get into the house with their armloads of wood before the storm came howling. It seemed angry that they had got the two loads of wood. Snow whirled so thickly that they could not see the doorstep, and Ma said:
“That will do for now. The storm can’t get much worse, and Pa may come in a few minutes.”
Mary and Laura took off their wraps and warmed their cold-stiff hands. Then they waited for Pa.
The wind shrieked and howled and jeered around the house. Snow swished against the blank windows. The long black hand of the clock moved slowly around its face, the short hand moved to one, and then to two.
Ma dished up three bowls of the hot beans. She broke into pieces a small loaf of the fresh warm bread.
“Here, girls,” she said. “You might as well eat your dinner. Pa must have stayed in town.” She had forgotten to fill a bowl for herself.
Then she forgot to eat until Mary reminded her. Even then she did not really eat; she said she was not hungry.
The storm was growing worse. The house trembled in the wind. Cold crept over the floor, and powdery snow was driven in around the windows and the doors that Pa had made so tight.
“Pa has surely stayed in town,” Ma said. “He will stay there all night, and I’d better do the chores now.”