It was a dark, long day. They huddled close to the stove and the cold pressed against their backs. Carrie was fretful, and Ma’s smile was tired. Laura and Mary studied hard, but they turns looking out at the snow blowing in waves over the ground. The sky looked like ice. Even the air looked cold above that fast-blowing flood of snow, and the sunshine that came through the peep-hole was no warmer than a shadow.
Sidewise from the peep-hole, Laura glimpsed something dark. A furry big animal was wading deep in the blowing snow. A bear, she thought. It shambled behind the corner of the house and darkened the front window.
“Ma!” she cried. The door opened, the snowy, furry animal came in. Pa’s eyes looked out of its face. Pa’s voice said, “Have you been good girls while I was gone?”
Ma ran to him. Laura and Mary and Carrie ran, crying and laughing. Ma helped him out of his coat. The fur was full of snow that showered on the floor. Pa let the coat drop, too.
“Charles! You’re frozen!” Ma said.
“Just about,” said Pa. “And I’m hungry as a wolf. Let me sit down by the fire, Caroline, and feed me.”
His face was thin and his eyes large. He sat shivering, close to the oven, and said he was only cold, not frost-bitten. Ma quickly warmed some of the bean broth and
gave it to him.
“That’s good,” he said. “That warms a fellow.”
Ma pulled off his boots and he put his feet up to the heat from the oven.
“Charles,” Ma asked, “did you—Were you—” She stood smiling with her mouth trembling.
“Now, Caroline, don’t you ever worry about me,” said Pa. “I’m bound to come home to take care of you and the girls.” He lifted Carrie to his knee, and put an arm around Laura, and the other around Mary. “What did you think, Mary?”
“I thought you would come,” Mary answered.
“That’s the girl! And you, Laura?”
“I didn’t think you were with Mr. Fitch telling stories,” said Laura. “I—I kept wishing hard.”
“There you are, Caroline! How could a fellow fail to get home?” Pa asked Ma. “Give me some more of that broth, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
They waited while he rested, and ate bean broth with bread, and drank hot tea. His hair and his beard were wet with snow melting in them. Ma dried them with a towel. He took her hand and drew her down beside him and asked:
“Caroline, do you know what this weather means? It means we’ll have a bumper crop of wheat next year!”
“Does it, Charles?” said Ma.
“We won’t have any grasshoppers next summer. They say in town that grasshoppers come only when the summers are hot and dry and the winters are mild. We are getting so much snow now that we’re bound to have fine crops next year.”
“That’s good, Charles,” Ma said, quietly.
“Well, they were talking about all this in the store, but I knew I ought to start home. Just as I was leaving, Fitch showed me the buffalo coat. He got it cheap from a man who went east on the last train running, and had to have money to buy his ticket. Fitch said I could have the coat for ten dollars. Ten dollars is a lot of money, but—”
“I’m glad you got the coat, Charles,” said Ma.
“As it turned out, it’s lucky I did, though I didn’t know it then. But going to town, the wind went right through me, It was cold enough to freeze the nose off a brass monkey. And seemed like my old coat didn’t even strain that wind. So when Fitch told me to pay him when I sell my trapped furs next spring, I put that buffalo coat on over my old one.
“As soon as I was out on the prairie I saw the cloud in the north-west, but it was so small and far away that I thought I could beat it home. Pretty soon I began to run, but I was no more than halfway when the storm struck me. I couldn’t see my hand before my face.
“It would be all right if these blizzard winds didn’t come from all directions at once. I don’t know how they do it. When a storm comes from the north-west, a man ought to be able to go straight north by keeping the wind on his left cheek. But a fellow can’t do anything like that in a blizzard.
“Still, it seemed I ought to be able to walk straight ahead, even if I couldn’t see or tell directions. So I kept on walking, straight ahead, I thought. Till I knew I was lost. I had come a good two miles without getting to the creek, and I had no idea which way to turn. The only thing to do was to keep on going. I had to walk till the storm quit. If I stopped I’d freeze.
“So I set myself to outwalk the storm. I walked and walked. I could not see any more than if I had been stone blind. I could hear nothing but the wind. I kept on walking in that white blur. I don’t know if you noticed, there seem to be voices howling and things screaming overhead, in a blizzard?”
“Yes, Pa, I heard them!” Laura said.
“So did I,” said Mary. And Ma nodded.