The Long Winter (26 page)

“Here's that Christmas barrel!” Pa called to Ma.

He brought his hammer and began pulling nails out of the barrel-head, while they all stood around it waiting to see what was in it. Pa took off the barrel-head.

Then he lifted away some thick brown paper that covered everything beneath.

Clothes were on top. First Pa drew out a dress of beautifully fine, dark-blue flannel. The skirt was full pleated and the neat, whaleboned basque was buttoned down the front with cut-steel buttons.

“This is about your size, Caroline,” Pa beamed.

“Here, take it!” and he reached again into the barrel.

He took out a fluffy, light-blue fascinator for Mary, and some warm flannel underthings. He took out a pair of black leather shoes that exactly fitted Laura.

He took out five pairs of white woolen stockings, machine-knit. The y were much finer and thinner than home-knit ones.

Then he took out a warm, brown coat, a little large for Carrie, but it would fit her next winter. And he took out a red hood and mittens to go with it.

Next came a silk shawl!

“Oh, Mary!” Laura said. " The most beautiful thing—a shawl made of silk! It is dove-colored, with fine stripes of green and rose and black and the rich-est, deep fringe with all those colors shimmering in it.

Feel how soft and rich and heavy the silk is," and she put a corner of the shawl in Mary's hand.

“Oh, lovely!” Mary breathed.

“Who gets this shawl?” Pa asked, and they all said,

“Ma!” Such a beautiful shawl was for Ma, of course.

Pa laid it on her arm, and it was like her, so soft and yet firm and well-wearing, with the fine, bright colors in it.

“We will all take turns wearing it,” Ma said. “And Mary shall take it with her when she goes to college.”

“What is there for you, Pa?” Laura asked jealously.

For Pa there were two fine, white shirts, and a dark brown plush cap.

“That isn't all,” said Pa, and he lifted out of the barrel one, two little dresses. One was blue flannel, one was green-and-rose plaid. The y were too small for Carrie and too big for Grace, but Grace would grow to fit them. Then were was an A-B-C book printed on cloth, and a small, shiny Mother Goose book of the smoothest paper, with a colored picture on the cover.

There was a pasteboard box full of bright-colored yarns and another box filled with embroidery silks and sheets of perforated thin cardboard, silver-colored and gold-colored. Ma gave both boxes to Laura, saying,

“You gave away the pretty things you had made. Now here are some lovely things for you to work with.”

Laura was so happy that she couldn't say a word.

The delicate silks caught on the roughness of her fingers, scarred from twisting hay, but the beautiful colors sang together like music, and her fingers would grow smooth again so that she could embroider on the fine, thin silver and gold.

“Now I wonder what this can be?” Pa said, as he lifted from the very bottom of the barrel something bulky and lumpy that was wrapped around and around with thick brown paper.

“Je-ru-salem crickets!” he exclaimed. “If it isn't our Christmas turkey, still frozen solid!”

He held the great turkey up where all could see.

“And fat! Fifteen pounds or I miss my guess.” And as he let the mass of brown paper fall, it thumped on the floor and out of it rolled several cranberries.

“And if here isn't a package of cranberries to go with it!” said Pa.

Carrie shrieked with delight. Mary clasped her hands and said, “Oh my!” But Ma asked, “Did the groceries come for the stores, Charles?”

“Yes, sugar and flour and dried fruit and meat—oh, everything anybody needs,” Pa answered.

“Well then, Mr. Boast, you bring Mrs. Boast day after tomorrow,” Ma said. “Come as early as you can and we will celebrate the springtime with a Christmas dinner.”

“That's the ticket!” Pa shouted, while Mr. Boast threw back his head and the room filled with his ringing laugh. The y all joined in, for no one could help laughing when Mr. Boast did.

“We'll come! You bet we'll come!” Mr. Boast chor-tled. “Christmas dinner in May! That will be great, to feast after a winter of darn near fasting! I'll hurry home and tell Ellie.”

P a bought groceries that afternoon. It was wonderful to see him coming in with armfuls of packages, wonderful to see a whole sack of white flour, sugar, dried apples, soda crackers, and cheese. The kerosene can was full. How happy Laura was to fill the lamp, polish the chimney, and trim the wick. At suppertime the light shone through the clear glass onto the red-checked tablecloth and the white biscuits, the warmed up potatoes, and the platter of fried salt pork.

With yeast cakes, Ma set the sponge for light bread that night, and she put the dried apples to soak for pies.

Laura did not need to be called next morning. She was up at dawn, and all day she helped Ma bake and stew and boil the good things for next day's Christmas dinner.

Early that morning Ma added water and flour to the bread sponge and set it to rise again. Laura and Carrie picked over the cranberries and washed them. Ma stewed them with sugar until they were a mass of crimson jelly.

Laura and Carrie carefully picked dried raisins from their long stems and carefully took the seeds out of each one. Ma stewed the dried apples, mixed the raisins with them, and made pies.

“It seems strange to have everything one could want to work with,” said Ma. “Now I have cream of tartar and plenty of saleratus, I shall make a cake.”

All day long the kitchen smelled of good things, and when night came the cupboard held large brown-crusted loaves of white bread, a sugar-frosted loaf of cake, three crisp-crusted pies, and the jellied cranberries.

“I wish we could eat them now,” Mary said.

“Seems like I can't wait till tomorrow.”

“I'm waiting for the turkey first,” said Laura, “and you may have sage in the stuffing, Mary.”

She sounded generous but Mary laughed at her.

“That's only because there aren't any onions for you to use!”

“Now, girls, don't get impatient,” Ma begged them.

“We will have a loaf of light bread and some of the cranberry sauce for supper.”

So the Christmas feasting was begun the night before.

It seemed too bad to lose any of that happy time in sleep. Still, sleeping was the quickest way to tomorrow morning. It was no time at all, after Laura's eyes closed, till Ma was calling her and tomorrow was today.

What a hurrying there was! Breakfast was soon over, then while Laura and Carrie cleared the table and washed the dishes, Ma prepared the big turkey for roasting and mixed the bread-stuffing for it.

The May morning was warm and the wind from the prairie smelled of springtime. Doors were open and both rooms could be used once more. Going in and out of the large front room whenever she wanted to, gave Laura a spacious and rested feeling, as if she could never be cross again.

Ma had already put the rocking chairs by the front windows to get them out of her way in the kitchen.

Now the turkey was in the oven, and Mary helped Laura draw the table into the middle of the front room. Mary raised its drop-leaves and spread smoothly over it the white tablecloth that Laura brought her. Then Laura brought the dishes from the cupboard and Mary placed them around the table.

Carrie was peeling potatoes and Grace was running races with herself the length of both rooms.

Ma brought the glass bowl filled with glowing cranberry jelly. She set it in the middle of the white tablecloth and they all admired the effect.

“We do need some butter to go with the light bread, though,” Ma said.

“Never mind, Caroline,” said Pa. “There's tar-paper at the lumberyard now. I'll soon fix up the shanty and we'll move out to the homestead in a few days.”

The roasting turkey was filling the house with scents that made their mouths water. The potatoes were boiling and Ma was putting the coffee on when Mr. and Mrs. Boast came walking in.

“For the last mile, I've been following my nose to that turkey!” Mr. Boast declared.

“I was thinking more of seeing the folks, Robert, than of anything to eat,” Mrs. Boast chided him. She was thin and the lovely rosy color was gone from her cheeks, but she was the same darling Mrs. Boast, with the same laughing black-fringed blue eyes and the same dark hair curling under the same brown hood.

She shook hands warmly with Ma and Mary and Laura and stooped down to draw Carrie and Grace close in her arms while she spoke to them.

“Come into the front room and take off your things, Mrs. Boast,” Ma urged her. “It is good to see you again after so long. Now you rest in the rocking chair and visit with Mary while I finish up dinner.”

“L e t me help you,” Mrs. Boast asked, but Ma said she must be tired after her long walk and everything was nearly ready.

“Laura and I will soon have dinner on the table,”

said Ma, turning quickly back to the kitchen. She ran against Pa in her haste.

“We better make ourselves scarce, Boast,” said Pa.

“Come along, and I'll show you the Pioneer Press I got this morning.”

“It will be good to see a newspaper again,” Mr.

Boast agreed eagerly. So the kitchen was left to the cooks.

“Get the big platter to put the turkey on,” Ma said, as she lifted the heavy dripping-pan out of the oven.

Laura turned to the cupboard and saw on the shelf a package that had not been there before.

“What's that, Ma?” she asked.

“I don't know. Look and see,” Ma told her, and Laura undid the paper. There on a small plate was a ball of butter.

“Butter! It's butter!” she almost shouted.

The y heard Mrs. Boast laugh. “Just a little Christmas present!” she called.

Pa and Mary and Carrie exclaimed aloud in delight and Grace squealed long and shrill while Laura carried the butter to the table. Then she hurried back to slide the big platter carefully beneath the turkey as Ma raised it from the dripping-pan.

While Ma made the gravy Laura mashed the potatoes. There was no milk, but Ma said, "Leave a very little of the boiling water in, and after you mash them beat them extra hard with the big spoon."

The potatoes turned out white and fluffy, though not with the flavor that plenty of hot milk and butter would have given them.

When all the chairs were drawn up to the well-filled table, Ma looked at Pa and every head bowed.

“Lord, we thank The e for all Thy bounty.” That was all Pa said, but it seemed to say everything.

“The table looks some different from what it did a few days ago,” Pa said as he heaped Mrs. Boast's plate with turkey and stuffing and potatoes and a large spoonful of cranberries. And as he went on filling the plates he added, “It has been a long winter.”

“And a hard one,” said Mr. Boast.

“It is a wonder how we all kept well and came through it,” Mrs. Boast said.

While Mr. and Mrs. Boast told how they had worked and contrived through that long winter, all alone in the blizzard-bound shanty on their claim, Ma poured the coffee and Pa's tea. She passed the bread and the butter and the gravy and reminded Pa to refill the plates.

When every plate had been emptied a second time Ma refilled the cups and Laura brought on the pies and the cake.

The y sat a long time at the table, talking of the winter that was past and the summer to come. Ma said she could hardly wait to get back to the homestead. The wet, muddy roads were the difficulty now, but Pa and Mr. Boast agreed that they would dry out before long. The Boasts were glad that they had wintered on their claim and didn't have to move back to it now.

At last they all left the table. Laura brought the red-bordered table cover and Carrie helped her to spread it to cover neatly out of sight the food and the empty dishes. Then they joined the others by the sunny window.

Pa stretched his arms above his head. He opened and closed his hands and stretched his fingers wide, then ran them through his hair till it all stood on end.

“I believe this warm weather has taken the stiff-ness out of my fingers,” he said. “If you will bring me the fiddle, Laura, I'll see what I can do.”

Laura brought the fiddle-box and stood close by while Pa lifted the fiddle out of its nest. He thumbed the strings and tightened the keys as he listened.

Then he rosined the bow and drew it across the strings.

A few clear, true notes softly sounded. The lump in Laura's throat almost choked her.

Pa played a few bars and said, "This is a new song I learned last fall, the time we went to Volga to clear the tracks. You hum the tenor along with the fiddle, Boast, while I sing it through the first time. A few times over, and you'll all pick up the words."

The y all gathered around him to listen while he played again the opening bars. Then Mr. Boast's tenor joined the fiddle's voice and Pa's voice singing:

"This life is a difficult riddle,

For how many people we see

With faces as long as a fiddle

That ought to be shining with glee.

I am sure in this world there are plenty Of good things enough for us all

And yet there's not one out of twenty

But thinks that his share is too small.

"Then what is the use of repining,

For where there's a will there's a way,

And tomorrow the sun may be shining,

Although it is cloudy today.

"Do you think that by sitting and sighing You'll ever obtain all you want?

It's cowards alone that are crying

And foolishly saying,'I can't!'

It is only by plodding and striving

And laboring up the steep hill

Of life, that you'll ever be thriving

Which you'll do if you've only the will."

The y were all humming the melody now and when the chorus came again, Mrs. Boast's alto, Ma's con-tralto, and Mary's sweet soprano joined Mr. Boast's tenor and Pa's rich bass, singing the words, and Laura sang, too, soprano:

Then what is the use of repining,

For where there's a will, there's a way, And tomorrow the sun may be shining,

Although it is cloudy today."

And as they sang, the fear and the suffering of the long winter seemed to rise like a dark cloud and float away on the music. Spring had come. The sun was shining warm, the winds were soft, and the green grass growing.