Prairie School

  “You can go out whenever you want to,” said Oscar.

  “Yes, go out and shovel the paths open,” said Darrell, “then wait while the wind blows them shut again.”

  After a dinner of burned fried potatoes, the boys lounged on the davenport, while Oscar tinkered with the battery of the radio. In late afternoon, Darrell looked out the west window at the setting sun.

  “Look at the sundogs,” he said. “They look like fingers sticking up, and they’re colored like a rainbow.”

  “I think this battery’s got a little life in it yet,” said Oscar.

  “I put vinegar in it. Maybe that helped.” Darrell grinned, as Christy climbed on his lap and started to box with him.

  Oscar replaced the battery, the radio began to sputter and soon a voice could be dimly heard. The boys bent their heads close to listen. Darrell had to hold his hand over Christy’s mouth so they could hear. The announcement was very faint, then it faded out again.

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Phil. “U. S. Army bulldozers coming!”

  “Five big caterpillar bulldozers starting out in this territory!” cried Phil.

  “That’s once President Truman remembered us,” laughed Oscar.

  The three boys looked at each other in silence. Suddenly they were startled by a loud crash. It sounded like the smashing of a cupboard full of dishes. Broken glass flew in every direction, as the boys jumped wide-eyed to their feet. Christy began to shriek at the top of his voice.

  “Criminy sakes!” shouted Darrell “What was that?” He grabbed Christy in his arms and held him close.

  “Somebody got a gun?” gasped Phil.

  “Look there!” said Oscar. “Look what we got.”

  Their eyes went from the jagged hole in the east window to the floor. There, surrounded by pieces of broken window pane, lay a beautiful Chinese Ringneck cock pheasant, killed by the blow.

  “He must a been flyin’ into the setting sun,” said Oscar, and got blinded. Couldn’t see where he was goin’ and hit the window.” He picked the bird up. “Not so skinny either. He’s been feedin’ in somebody’s chicken coop.”

  The boys looked at each other and grinned.

  “A nice change from eggs,” said Darrell. “I’ll get the frying pan. Clean up the broken glass, Phil.”

  “I’ll get some boards and block up the broken window,” said Oscar.

  “To get a pheasant as easy as that,” laughed Phil. “I went hunting three times last fall and didn’t get a single one.”

  Oscar dressed and cooked the pheasant like chicken. When Johannes came in, they had a feast. All through the meal, they talked about the big bulldozers and caterpillar tractors, and wondered when they would come.

  “Those cats are not allowed to go over bridges,” said Philip, “they’re so heavy. They’ve got to go around. Sometimes they slide into a creek full of snow nose first. Then they have to bring another cat to pull it out.”

  “They’re slow,” said Oscar. “They can barely travel three miles an hour. They’ll get here by grasshopper time next summer.”

  “Guess we won’t wait for no U. S. Army bulldozer,” said Johannes. “When we’re sure it’s stopped snowing, we’ll plow out our own roads.”

  Not till several nights later did the unexpected happen. The thunderous roar of a motor woke Darrell and the men from a heavy sleep. Quickly they threw on their clothes and outer wraps and hurried out. There by the kitchen doorstep sat the most welcome sight they had ever seen—a huge caterpillar tractor with a bulldozer blade in front for pushing the snow.

  “Build up the fire, Darrell,” shouted Papa, “and put plenty coffee on.”

  Beside the huge machine stood Al Sticklemeyer, grinning from ear to ear. The men driving were strangers.

  “We’ve come to let you out!” shouted Al, above the roar of the motor. “I came along to show the U.S. Army the way. Been…workin’ day and night—all the roads blocked, but they won’t be for long.” The huge machine crawled slowly across the barnyard, pushing a mountain of snow before it.

  “Criminy!” cried Darrell, standing in the doorway. “Now at last we can get out!”

  But the machine had stalled, for the roar of the motor had died down. Darrell ran out to see what the trouble was. The men were all gathered round the highest drift on the far side of the cowshed. They were all shoveling. What was the trouble? Darrell came closer and looked. The bright lights on the caterpillar showed the forms of three cows in the snowbank, sealed up by snow and ice. He turned away. He could not bear to look at it. Right back of the barn too.

  After a while the men came in, talking and laughing. Darrell fried eggs for them and they all drank coffee. But they did not stay long. Other farmers were waiting to be dug out. The huge “cat” went lumbering off, and the roar of its motor faded away, leaving the Wagner farmhouse to its former silence.

  The next morning Darrell heard a familiar whistle. “The Galloping Goose!” he cried. “The Goose has come back. They’re opening up the branch line.” He took Christy to the window to look.

  Across the snow on the railroad tracks, they saw a long train puffing slowly along. Three steam locomotives were hooked up in a snow unit special, which included the snowplow and a cut widener and a crew of thirty shovelers. Behind the snow equipment was a doubleheader with eighteen cars of coal and oil, and three cars of merchandise, groceries and cattle feed.

  “See the big train,” said Christy. “See the engine throw the snow out.”

  “People up in North Dakota must be scraping the bottom of the barrel, just like us,” said Darrell.

  “Who wants to go to town?” shouted Uncle Rudolph, appearing in his jeep.

  No one needed a second invitation. With little Christy, the two boys and three men bent double and crowded in. Although the caterpillar had opened the prairie road and the Yellowstone trail, going was rough. The wind had blown snow over the road in many places and the deep ruts had frozen hard. The jeep rocked up and down and back and forth, but finally reached town.

  “Man alive!” exclaimed Darrell, stepping out in front of Jen’s Cafe. “Looks like they had a little snow here too.”

  A narrow pathway was opened up between mountainous piles of snow, which blocked the light from the store show windows. Only a few cars were out. Others were still buried under great piles of snow. The snow seemed to silence all sounds.

  “Jeepers creepers!” whispered Phil. “It’s like a cemetery. Where are all the people?”

  “In bed, hibernating like bears,” said Oscar. “They got sense.”

  Johannes Wagner, carrying Christy in his arms, tried the door of the cafe, but found it locked. “Looks like we go hungry,” he said. “No stores open. This ain’t Sunday, is it?”

  “Barber shop closed too,” said Oscar. “And boy, do I need a haircut!”

  Only postoffice and drugstore were open. Darrell ran in and bought several packages of salted sunflower seeds. “Where do we go now?”

  “To the hospital,” said Papa Johannes.

  The nurse looked at the row of five men and one three-year-old who wanted to visit her patient, severely. “Five minutes,” she said.

  Delores was alone, sitting up in bed for the first time. She looked thin and pale, but had a broad smile on her face.

  “Pretty little blizzard, that snowstorm of yours!” laughed Darrell.

  “Man alive!” cried Delores. “Did we ever have the snow!”

  “Snow! Ach, that was nothing!” laughed Papa.

  “Here’s some Rooshian peanuts,” said Darrell. “Next time you and Miss Martin run off like that, please leave a note to tell where you’ve gone.”

  Delores grinned. “I thought you liked mysteries. Jeepers! What a train ride we had. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. How’s Sugar? Did she ever get home?”

  “Yes,” said Darrell, “but she looks like an old crowbait, ready to kick the bucket. All her ribs are showing. Poor old girl—nothing to eat for a whole week but Rolle
d Oats and a Christmas tree!”

  “There’s Mama!” screamed Christy. “Mama! Mama!”

  Who should come in but Mama Wagner and Miss Martin. Christy ran to his mother, who took him up in her arms and smothered him with kisses. Then he sat on the boys’ laps and started boxing with them. There was so much to tell, everybody talked at once, until the nurse came in and demanded quiet.

  “I must get back to Oak Leaf School today,” said Miss Martin.

  “Wish I could take you,” said Papa Wagner, “but the jeep’s pretty crowded. Rudolph will have to make two trips as it is, to get Mama and Christy back home.”

  “Can’t they go with me,” asked Miss Martin, “in Paul Kruger’s airplane? He offered to fly me out, to save time.”

  “Me?” cried Mama. “In an airplane? Ach, what next?”

  It took a lot of coaxing, but in the end it seemed the best way. The men decided to stay till evening, so they and the boys could go to the afternoon show.

  “Come, Darrell,” said Papa. “We go over now to see Grandma.”

  Grandma met them at the back door. She kissed Darrell and fell into Johannes’ arms. “Ach, what a winter! Ach, What a snowstorm!” she cried. “Never even in the old country have I seen the like. That poor little girl…”

  “She’s O. K. now, Grandma,” said Darrell. “She’s as good as new.”

  “What a trip for her to make,” sobbed Grandma. “And poor Grandpa…”

  “Grandpa?” inquired Johannes. “Has something happened to him?”

  “Sh!” said Grandma. “Speak softly so he will not hear. Grandpa iss in bed. He iss wore out, and he wants nobody to know. I tell only you two…Every day he take a walk. It was nothing to walk down to the grocery store to get a bag of groceries. That day, when the storm was bad, I said, ‘No, you stay here,’ but he was stubborn. He said, ‘I will go. I must every day take a walk.’ The storm caught him when he was halfway home. He could not see. He stumbled around, bumping into telephone poles and stalled cars. All the houses and stores was gone…”

  “Gone?” exclaimed Darrell, open-mouthed.

  “He could not find them,” said Grandma. “Maybe he was in middle of street. He got so scared, he started lighting matches to see his way, to try to get warm. They kept going out. Finally, there was no more matches…Ach! Ach! It was terrible…” In her eyes was the sad expression seen in the faces of so many old-country women.

  “What then?” asked Johannes. “How did he get home?”

  “He fell on his hands and knees in the snow and called for help,” Grandma went on. “For a long time no one came. Then Eddie Schweitzer, the garage man, found him. He brought him home half-frozen. He lost all the groceries and never found them. Our electric lights was out for two days and I had nothing to cook and a cold stove…”

  “Is Grandpa O. K. now?” asked Johannes.

  “His face, his hands and feet got frostbitten,” said Grandma, “but it iss better now. The doctor says just rest he needs. To think, right here in town it happened! If Eddie had not come along…ach! ach!”

  Darrell thought of the cows frozen in the snowbank, then pushed the horrible thought away. Grandpa was all right again.

  “Such troubles! That little Delores and her teacher…”

  “She’s O. K. now,” said Johannes. “Next week we take her home.”

  “I make a bouquet of beautiful chenille flowers for her,” said Grandma, smiling. “I give it to her to take home.”

  It was a happy day for all when Delores came home from the hospital, all wrapped up in blankets, sitting beside Papa in the cab of the truck.

  “Don’t you fool yourself that the winter’s over,” teased Darrell. “Your blizzard was only the warming-up storm. There are dozens of others waiting to strike. All through March and April, and even into May, they can come.”

  “Green-up time can’t come too soon for me this year,” sighed Mama. “This is an awful winter, but we have to take the bad with the good.”

  “You liked your airplane ride, didn’t you, Mom?” teased Darrell.

  “It rode like a rocking chair,” laughed Mama. “It didn’t jolt like that old jeep. And it never broke down once!”

  “Like a butterfly with wings, did you feel, Mama?” asked Delores.

  “Ach no!” laughed Mama. “Don’t talk so foolish. How would I look then, with wings?”

  “What about all the groceries you brought, Mom?” asked Darrell. “I’m starved to death. Haven’t had a decent meal since you went away.”

  “Tonight I cook the best supper you ever ate,” said Mama.

  Mama was as good as her word. She spent the whole day cooking—roast chicken, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked sweet potatoes, scalloped corn, several kinds of salad and pickles, homemade bread with butter and jelly, and sweet rice.

  “Pull up your chairs,” called Mama, and everybody came running.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Last Day of School

  “BOY, IT SEEMS GOOD to be back at school again!” Delores put her arms around Miss Martin, who was standing on the front porch. The truck that brought her had turned around on the hill and was headed for home.

  “It’s good to have you strong and well again,” said Miss Martin. “You’ll have to take it easy for a while.”

  “I can’t ride horseback till fall,” said Delores. “I’ll have to study hard to make up what I missed.”

  “So will all the other children,” said Miss Martin. “So many snowstorms and so many absences…My reports look terrible.”

  Konrad Snider rode up on his horse and the Sticklemeyer children soon arrived in their cart. Then Pete Hummel drove up in his jeep, and out tumbled Peter and Hulda. Emil came riding up too, and Darrell appeared on Nellie.

  “Everybody’s here but Ruby,” said Miss Martin. “If she comes, we’ll have perfect attendance.”

  Winter was only a memory now, but the children still talked about the weather.

  “The weather’s supposed to break any day now,” said Darrell. “A few weeks of thawing and we can get into the fields and plant our wheat.”

  “Snow’s all gone except in ditches,” said Jacob. “Now it’s mud making all the trouble. Just look out there.”

  The snowbank made by the snowplow had melted and made a large mud-puddle in front of the porch, where the children had to walk.

  “What we need is a dam,” said Darrell. “If we banked up that water on the side of the hill, we could keep the schoolyard dry.”

  “And Buster could drink there!” cried Ruby Englehart. She came riding up on her new pony, with a bouquet of spring flowers in her hand. She waved good-by to her father on his white horse. He had come all the way with her.

  The boys ran for shovels and set to work. They dug a large hole and piled the dirt in a bank on the lower side. The ground was so wet, the dam began to fill with water, so Peter Hummel made a spillway at one side.

  “Get busy, you lazy girls!” cried Darrell.

  “What can we do?” giggled Fernetta Sticklemeyer.

  “I’m not going to do a single thing,” said Ruby. “Darrell Wagner can’t make me.” She rode her pony to the barn and tied him up. “We might plant trees,” said Delores. “They always plant trees around a dam.”

  “Where you gonna find trees?” asked Konrad Snider. “There’s not a tree on the whole big wide prairie.”

  “There is too!” shouted Delores. “There’s our Christmas tree.”

  The Christmas tree had lasted till spring. Peter and Hulda ran to get it from its place by the teacherage door. The big snowbank was gone now, and the tree had fallen underneath. It was somewhat the worse for wear, but little Peter held it high and marched through the prairie grass with it.

  “Give it to me,” said Delores. “Go get the hatchet.”

  She chopped the side branches off with a hatchet. The little children stuck them into the banked-up pile of dirt which formed the dam. Miss Martin, wearing her sweater and high overshoes, came out
to admire.

  “What’s this—a tree claim?” The children laughed. “In the East River country, the settlers planted trees for windbreaks.”

  “In the West River country too,” said Emil. “But all the trees died, except a few in town.”

  A squawk was heard not far off and suddenly a cock pheasant flew up, a gorgeous long-tailed bird with the sun shining on the red, black and bronzy-flame color of his breast. “Oh look!” cried the children.

  “So many pheasants died this winter,” said Fernetta. “Pa said they came out to the trail to get something to eat and people ran over them with their cars.”

  “Most of ’em starved to death,” said Darrell. “So much deep snow.”

  “Where’s our Galloping Goose?” asked Peter. “Did it die too?”

  “It’s at my Grandma’s on Oak Creek,” said Ruby. “I counted seven geese when I was there, and Grandma told me to count again, because she knew she had only six. Then she counted, and found she had one extra.”

  “And where’s Spike?” asked Peter. “We haven’t seen him since the blizzards.”

  “Delores and I couldn’t take him to town with us on our Galloping Goose ride,” said Miss Martin sadly. “I left food for him. I hoped he would find his way to one of the neighbors…”

  “We’ll sure miss old Spike,” said Darrell. All the children were silent, remembering.

  “I saw two partridges on our way to school today,” said Jacob. “One had a dark spot on his breast. They must be nesting.”

  “We saw some grouse,” said Peter. “They’ve got feathers on their legs and they make a funny noise.”

  Miss Martin stood still and listened to the children’s chatter. She was conscious of the wideness of the horizons, the blueness of the arched sky and the absolute peace which spread like a mantle over the wind-swept land. It was incredible that such a change had come in so short a time after the raging storms. Even the children’s voices, telling of their close understanding and feeling for Nature, had a soothing quality. The warmth of the spring sun was making them lazy.