The end of the stable was partitioned off with poles and a rough door, and grains of wheat had trickled through a crack. Almanzo and Cap looked at it and grinned to each other.
They watered Prince and the buckskin from the well at the door, fed them oats, and left them tied to a mangerful of hay beside Anderson’s team of black horses. Then they followed Anderson to the house under the snowbank.
The one room’s low ceiling was made of poles covered with hay and sagging under the weight of snow. The walls were sods. Anderson left the door ajar to let in a little light.
“I haven’t got my window shoveled out since the last blow,” he said. “The snow piles over that little rise to the northwest and covers me up. Keeps the place so warm I don’t need much fuel. Sod houses are the warmest there are, anyway.”
The room was warm, and steamy from a kettle boiling on the stove. Anderson’s dinner was on a rough table built against the wall. He urged them to draw up and eat with him. He had not seen a soul since last October, when he had gone to town and brought home his winter’s supplies.
Almanzo and Cap sat down with him and ate heartily of the boiled beans, sourdough biscuit and dried-apple sauce. The hot food and coffee warmed them, and their thawing feet burned so painfully that they knew they were not frozen. Almanzo mentioned to Mr. Anderson that he and Cap might buy some wheat.
“I’m not selling any,” Mr. Anderson said flatly. “All I raised, I’m keeping for seed. What are you buying wheat for, this time of year?” he wanted to know.
They had to tell him that the trains had stopped running, and the people in town were hungry.
“There’s women and children that haven’t had a square meal since before Christmas,” Almanzo put it to him. “They’ve got to get something to eat or they’ll starve to death before spring.”
“That’s not my lookout,” said Mr. Anderson. “Nobody’s responsible for other folks that haven’t got enough forethought to take care of themselves.”
“Nobody thinks you are,” Almanzo retorted. “And nobody’s asking you to give them anything. We’ll pay you the full elevator price of eighty-two cents a barrel, and save you hauling it to town into the bargain.”
“I’ve got no wheat to sell,” Mr. Anderson answered, and Almanzo knew he meant what he said.
Cap came in then, his smile flashing in his raw-red face chapped by the icy wind. “We’re open and aboveboard with you, Mr. Anderson. We’ve put our cards on the table. The folks in town have got to have some of your wheat or starve. All right, they’ve got to pay for it. What’ll you take?”
“I’m not trying to take advantage of you boys,” Mr. Anderson said. “I don’t want to sell. That’s my seed wheat. It’s my next year’s crop. I could have sold it last fall if I was going to sell it.”
Almanzo quickly decided. “We’ll make it a dollar a bushel,” he said. “Eighteen cents a bushel above market price. And don’t forget we do the hauling to boot.”
“I’m not selling my seed,” said Mr. Anderson. “I got to make a crop next summer.”
Almanzo said meditatively, “A man can always buy seed. Most folks out here are going to. You’re throwing away a clear profit of eighteen cents a bushel above market price, Mr. Anderson.”
“How do I know they’ll ship in seed wheat in time for sowing?” Mr. Anderson demanded.
Cap asked him reasonably, “Well, for that matter, how do you know you’ll make a crop? Say you turn down this cash offer and sow your wheat. Hailstorm’s liable to hit it, or grasshoppers.”
“That’s true enough,” Mr. Anderson admitted.
“The one thing you’re sure of is cash in your pocket,” said Almanzo.
Mr. Anderson slowly shook his head. “No, I’m not selling. I like to killed myself breaking forty acres last summer. I got to keep the seed to sow it.”
Almanzo and Cap looked at each other. Almanzo took out his wallet. “We’ll give you a dollar and twenty-five cents a bushel. Cash.” He laid the stack of bills on the table.
Mr. Anderson hesitated. Then he took his gaze away from the money.
“‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,’” Cap said.
Mr. Anderson glanced again at the bills in spite of himself. Then he leaned back and considered. He scratched his head. “Well,” he said finally, “I might sow some oats.”
Neither Almanzo nor Cap said anything. They knew his mind was quivering in the balance and if he decided now against selling, he would not change. At last he decided, “I guess I could let you have around sixty bushels at that price.”
Almanzo and Cap rose quickly from the table.
“Come on, let’s get it loaded!” said Cap. “We’re a long way from home.”
Mr. Anderson urged them to stay all night but Almanzo agreed with Cap. “Thanks just the same,” he said hurriedly, “but one day is all we have between blizzards lately, and it’s past noon now. We’re already late getting started back.”
“The wheat’s not sacked,” Mr. Anderson pointed out, but Almanzo said, “We brought sacks.”
They hurried to the stable. Mr. Anderson helped them shovel the wheat from the bin into the two-bushel sacks, and they loaded the sleds. While they hitched up they asked Mr. Anderson how best to get across the slough, but he had not crossed it that winter, and for lack of landmarks he could not show them exactly where he had driven through the grass last summer.
“You boys better spend the night here,” he urged them again, but they told him good-by and started home.
They drove from the shelter of the big snowbanks into the piercing cold wind, and they had hardly begun to cross the flat valley when Prince broke down into an air-pocket. Swinging out to circle the dangerous place, Cap’s buckskin felt the snow give way under him so suddenly that he screamed as he went plunging down.
The horse’s scream was horrible. For a moment Almanzo had all he could do to keep Prince quiet. Then he saw Cap down in the snow, hanging on to the frantic buckskin by the bits. Plunging and rearing, the buckskin almost jerked Cap’s sled into the hole. It tipped on the very edge and the load of wheat slid partly off it.
“All right?” Almanzo asked when the buckskin seemed quiet.
“Yep!” Cap answered. Then for some time they worked, each unhitching his own horse down in the broken snow and wiry grass, and floundering about in it, trampling and stamping to make a solid footing for the horse. They came up chilled to the bone and covered with snow.
They tied both horses to Almanzo’s sled, then unloaded Cap’s sled, dragged it back from the hole, and piled the snowy, hundred-and-twenty-five-pound sacks onto it again. They hitched up again. It was hard to make their numb fingers buckle the stiff, cold straps. And gingerly once more Almanzo drove on across the treacherous slough.
Prince went down again but fortunately the buckskin did not. With Cap to help, it did not take so long to get Prince out once more. And with no further trouble they reached the upland.
Almanzo stopped there and called to Cap, “Think we better try to pick up our trail back?”
“Nope!” Cap answered. “Better hit out for town. We’ve got no time to lose.” The horses’ hoofs and the sleds had made no tracks on the hard snowcrust. The only marks were the scattered holes where they had floundered in the sloughs and these lay east of the way home.
Almanzo headed toward the northwest, across the wide prairie white in its covering of snow. His shadow was his only guide. One prairie swell was like another, one snow-covered slough differed from the next only in size. To cross the lowland meant taking the risk of breaking down and losing time. To follow the ridges of higher ground meant more miles to travel. The horses were growing tired. They were afraid of falling into hidden holes in the snow and this fear added to their tiredness.
Time after time they did fall through a thin snow crust. Cap and Almanzo had to unhitch them, get them out, hitch up again.
They plodded on, into the sharp cold of the wind. Too tired now to trot with their heavy
loads, the horses did not go fast enough so that Almanzo and Cap could run by the sleds. They could only stamp their feet hard as they walked to keep them from freezing, and beat their arms against their chests.
They grew colder. Almanzo’s feet no longer felt the shock when he stamped them. The hand that held the lines was so stiff that the fingers would not unclasp. He put the lines around his shoulders to leave both hands free, and with every step he whipped his hands across his chest to keep the blood moving in them.
“Hey, Wilder!” Cap called. “Aren’t we heading too straight north?”
“How do I know?” Almanzo called back.
They plodded on. Prince went down again and stood with drooping head while Almanzo unhitched him and trampled the snow, led him out, and hitched him again. They climbed to an upland, followed it around a slough, went down to cross another slough. Prince went down.
“You want me to take the lead awhile?” Cap asked, when Almanzo had hitched up again. “Save you and Prince the brunt of it.”
“Suits me,” said Almanzo. “We’ll take turns.”
After that, when a horse went down, the other took the lead until he went down. The sun was low and a haze was thickening in the northwest.
“We ought to see the Lone Cottonwood from that rise ahead,” Almanzo said to Cap.
After a moment Cap answered, “Yes, I think we will.”
But when they topped the rise there was nothing but the same endless, empty waves of snow beyond it and the thick haze low in the northwest. Almanzo and Cap looked at it, then spoke to their horses and went on. But they kept the sleds closer together.
The sun was setting red in the cold sky when they saw the bare top of the Lone Cottonwood away to the northeast. And in the northwest the blizzard cloud was plain to be seen, low along the horizon.
“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.”
They 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. They could not see the swells or the hollows now. They could see only a little way by the paleness of the snow and the faint starshine.
Chapter 28
Four Days’ Blizzard
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 menacing. 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.
They 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 ground-wheat 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.”
“Do 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. They 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.”
“They 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,
&nbs
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’
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