October Blizzard
Laura woke up suddenly. She heard singing and a queer slapping sound.
“Oh, I am as happy as a big sunflower (Slap! Slap)
That nods and bends in the breezes, Oh! (Slap! Slap!)
And my heart (Slap!)
is as light (Slap!)
as the wind that blows (Slap! Slap!)
The leaves from off the treeses, Oh! (Slap! SLAP!)”
Pa was singing his trouble song and slapping his arms on his chest.
Laura’s nose was cold. Only her nose was outside the quilts that she was huddled under. She put out her whole head and then she knew why Pa was slapping himself. He was trying to warm his hands.
He had kindled the fire. It was roaring in the stove,
but the air was freezing cold. Ice crackled on the quilt where leaking rain had fallen. Winds howled around the shanty and from the roof and all the walls came a sound of scouring.
Carrie sleepily asked, “What is it?”
“It’s a blizzard,” Laura told her. “You and Mary stay under the covers.”
Careful not to let the cold get under the quilts, she crawled out of the warm bed. Her teeth chattered while she pulled on her clothes. Ma was dressing, too, beyond the curtain, but they were both too cold to say anything.
They met at the stove where the fire was blazing furiously without warming the air at all. The window was a white blur of madly swirling snow. Snow had blown under the door and across the floor and every nail in the walls was white with frost.
Pa had gone to the stable. Laura was glad that they had so many haystacks in a row between the stable and the shanty. Going from haystack to haystack, Pa would not get lost.
“A b-b-b-b-blizzard!” Ma chattered. “In Oc-October. I n-n-never heard of…”
She put more wood in the stove and broke the ice in the water pail to fill the teakettle.
The water pail was less than half-full. They must be sparing of water for nobody could get to the well in that storm. But the snow on the floor was clean. Laura scooped it into the washbasin and set it on the stove to melt, for washing in.
The air by the stove was not so cold now, so she rolled Grace in quilts and brought her to the stove to dress her. Mary and Carrie shiveringly dressed themselves, close to the open oven. They all put on their stockings and shoes.
Breakfast was waiting when Pa came back. He blew in with a howl of wind and swirling snow.
“Well, those muskrats knew what was coming, didn’t they, Laura?” he said as soon as he was warm enough to speak. “And the geese too.”
“No wonder they wouldn’t stop at the lake,” said Ma.
“The lake’s frozen by now,” Pa said. “Temperature’s down near zero and going lower.”
He glanced at the wood box as he spoke. Laura had filled it last night, but already the wood was low. So as soon as he had eaten breakfast, Pa wrapped himself well and brought big armfuls from the woodpile.
The shanty was growing colder. The stove could not warm the air inside the thin walls. There was nothing to do but sit huddled in coats and shawls, close to the stove.
“I’m glad I put beans to soak last night,” said Ma. She lifted the lid of the bubbling kettle and quickly popped in a spoonful of soda. The boiling beans roared, foaming up, but did not quite run over.
“There’s a little bit of salt pork to put in them too,” Ma said.
Now and then she spooned up a few beans and blew on them. When their skins split and curled, she drained the soda-water from the kettle and filled it again with hot water. She put in the bit of fat pork.