The First Four Years (3 page)

And after all that, he did not bring over a bit of the fresh meat as good neighbors always
did.

A few days later Manly butchered his fat hog and Laura had her first experience making
sausage, head cheese, and lard all by herself. Hams and shoulders and spareribs were
frozen in the storm shed and fat meat was salted down in a small barrel.

Laura found doing work alone very different from helping Ma. But it was part of her job
and she must do it, though she did hate the smell of hot lard, and the sight of so much fresh meat ruined her appetite for any of it.

It was at this time that the directors of the school were able to pay Laura the salary for
the last month she had taught. T h e money made Laura feel quite rich and she began
planning how she should spend it. Manly told her if she bought a colt with it she could
double the money in a short time by selling it when it was grown. So that was what they
decided to do, and Manly bought a bay two-year-old that promised to grow out well.

Laura didn't bother to name the colt. It was just to be sold again, so what was the use?
But the animal was fed well, brushed, and cared for, to make it grow well. One blustery day Manly started early for town, leaving Laura very much alone. She was used to being the only person on the place
and thought nothing of it, but the wind was so cold and raw that she had not opened the
front door. It was still locked from the night. In the middle of the morning, busy with
her work, Laura looked out the front window and saw a little bunch of horsemen coming across the prairie from the southeast. She wondered why they were
not traveling on the road. As they came nearer she saw there were five of them, and they were Indians. Laura had seen Indians often, without fear,

but she felt a quick jump of her heart as they came up to the house and without knocking
tried to open the front door. She was glad the door was locked, and she slipped quickly
into the back room and locked the outside door there.

The Indians came around the house to the back door and tried to open that. T h e n seeing
Laura through the window they made signs for her to open the door, indicating that they
would not hurt her. But Laura shook her head and told them to go away. Likely they only
wanted something to eat, but still one never could tell. It was only three years ago that
the Indians nearly went on the warpath a little way west, and even now they often threatened
the railroad camps.

She wouldn't open the door but watched them

as they jabbered together. She couldn't catch a word that she could understand, and she
was afraid. They weren't acting right. Why didn't they go away!

Instead they were going to the barnand her new saddle was hanging in the barn and Trixy
was there . . . Trixy! Her pet and comrade!

Laura was afraid; in the house there was comparative safety, for they'd hardly break in.
But now Laura was angry too, and as always, she acted quickly. Flinging the door open, she
ran to the barn, and standing in the door, ordered the Indians out. One of them was
feeling the leather of her beautiful saddle and one was in the stall with Trixy. Trixy was
afraid too. She never liked strangers and she was pulling at her halter and trembling.

T h e other Indians were examining Manly's saddle and the buggy harness with its bright
nickel trimmings. But they all came and gathered around Laura just outside the door. She
stormed at them and stamped her foot. Her head was bare and her long brown braids of hair
blew out on the wind while her purple eyes flashed fire as always when she was angry or very much excited.

The Indians only stared for a moment; then one of them grunted an unintelligible word and
laid his hand on Laura's arm. Quick as a flash she slapped his face with all her might.

It made him angry and he started toward her, but the other Indians laughed, and one who
seemed to be the leader stopped him. Then with signs pointing to himself, his pony, and
then with a sweep of his arm toward the west, he said, “You gomebe my squaw?”

Laura shook her head, and stamping her foot again, motioned them all to their ponies and
away, telling them to go.

And they went, riding their running ponies without saddles or bridles.

But as they went their leader turned and looked back at Laura where she stood, with the
wind blowing her skirts around her and her braids flying, watching them go away across the
prairie into the west;

Wild geese were flying south. By day the sky

was full of them flying in their V-formations, the leaders calling and their followers
answering until the world seemed full of their calls. Even at night they could be heard as
their seemingly endless numbers sailed ahead of the cold coming down from the north. Laura loved to watch them high against the blue of the sky, large V's and smaller V's with the leader at the point, his followers
streaming behind, always in perfect V-formation. She loved to hear their loud, clear
honk, honk. There was something so wild and free about it, especially at night when the
lonely, wild cry sounded through the darkness, calling, calling. It was almost irre
sistible. It made Laura long for wings so that she might follow. Manly said, “The old saying is that 'everything is lovely when the geese honk high,' but I believe we will have a hard winter, the
geese are flying so high and in such a hurry. They are not stopping to rest on the lakes
nor to feed. They are hurrying ahead of a storm.” For several days, the wild geese hurried
southward; and then one still, sunny afternoon a dark cloud line lay low on the northwest horizon. It climbed swiftly, higher and higher, until the sun was
suddenly overcast, and with a howl the wind came and the world was blotted out in a blur
of whirling snow.

Laura was in the house alone when the wind struck the northwest corner with such force the
whole house jarred. Quickly she ran to the window but she could see only a wall of
whiteness beyond the glass. Manly was in the barn, and at the sudden shriek of the storm
he, too, looked out a window. Then, although it was only midafternoon, he fed the horses and cows for
the night, milked the heifer in the little pail in which he had taken out some salt, and
shutting the barn door carefully and tightly behind him, started for the house. As soon as
he was away from the shelter of the hay at the barn door, the full force of the storm
struck him. It seemed to come from every direction at once. Whichever way he turned his
head he faced the wind. He knew the direction in which the house lay but he could see
nothing of it. He could see nothing but a blur of white. It had grown intensely cold and
the snow was a powdered dust of ice that filled his eyes and ears, and since he must breathe he
felt smothered. After taking a few steps he could not see the barn. He was alone in a
whirling white world.

Keeping his face in the right direction, Manly went ahead; but soon he knew he had gone
far enough to be at the house, yet he could not see it. A few steps more and he stumbled
against an old wagon that had been left some little distance south of the house. In spite
of his guarding against it, the wind had blown him south of his way, but now he knew where
he was. So again setting his face in the right direction he went on. Again, he knew he
should have reached the house but he had not. If he should become hopelessly confused he
might not find it at all but wander out on the open prairie to perish, or he might even
freeze within a few feet of the house before the storm was over. No shout of his could be
heard above the wind. Well, he might as well go on a little farther, no use standing still.

Another step, and his shoulder just lightly brushed something. He put up his hand and touched the corner of a building. The house! He had almost missed it and headed out into
the storm.

Keeping his hand on the wall he followed it and came to the back door.

Blown in with the storm, as he opened the door, he stood and blinked the snow from his
eyes in the warmth and shelter of the house he had so nearly missed. He still clutched the
milk pail. In the struggle with the storm he had not spilled the milkbecause it was frozen.

For three days and nights the blizzard raged. Before Manly went to the barn again, he
followed the house wall to where the long rope clothesline was tied at the corner. With
his hand on the rope, he followed it to the back of the house. Unfastening it at the
corner, he followed the house around to the door and fastened the rope there, and to the
loose end he tied a shorter rope, the drying line he had put up in the storm shed. Now
unreeling the rope as he went he could go to the haystack at the barn door, make the rope
fast, and follow it back to the house safely. After that he went to the barn and cared for
the stock once a day.

While the blizzard shrieked and howled and raged outside, Laura and Manly both stayed in
doors. Laura kept the fire going from the store of coal in the storm shed. She cooked from
the stores in her pantry and cellar and she sang at her knitting in the afternoon. Old
Shep and the cat lay companionably on the rug before the cookstove and there was warmth
and comfort in the little house standing so sturdily in the midst of the raging elements.

Late in the afternoon of the fourth day the wind went down. It lost its whirling force and
blew the loose snow scudding close to the ground, packing it into hard drifts that lay
over the prairie with bare ground showing between. The sun shone again with a frosty light
and huge sundogs stood guard on each side of it. And it was
cold\
Laura and Manly went outdoors and looked over the desolate landscape. Their ears still
throbbed to the tumult of the storm, and the silence following it was somehow confusing.

“This has been very bad,” Manly said. “We will hear of plenty of damage from this.” Laura looked at the smoke rising from the stovepipe in their neighbor's house across the road.
She had not been able to see it for three days. “Larsens are all right anyway,” she said.

Next day Manly drove to town to get a few supplies and to learn the news.

The house was bright and cheerful when he came home. The last rays of the afternoon sun
were shining in at the south window, and Laura was ready to help him off with his coat as
he came in from the barn after putting up his team and doing the night feeding.

But Manly was very sober. After they ate supper he told Laura the news.

A man south of town, caught at his barn by the storm as Manly had been, had missed the
house going back. He had wandered out on the prairie and had been found frozen to death
when the wind went down.

Three children going home from school had become lost, but found a haystack and dug into
it. They had huddled together for warmth and had been drifted in. When the storm stopped,
the oldest, a boy, had dug out through the snow, and searchers had found them. They were weak from hunger but not frozen.

Range cattle had drifted before the storm for a hundred miles. Blinded and confused they
had gone over a high bank of the Cottonwood River, the later ones falling on top of the
first, breaking through the ice of the river and floundering in the water and loose snow
until they had smothered and frozen to death. Men were dragging them out of the river now, hundreds of them,
and skinning them to save the hides. Anyone who had lost cattle could go look at the
brands and claim his own.

The storm so early in the season was unexpected, and many people had been caught out in
the snow and had frozen their hands and feet. Another storm came soon, but people were
prepared now and no damage was done.

It was too cold for horseback riding, and snow covered the ground, so Manly hitched the
driving team to the cutter (the little one-seated sleigh) on Sunday afternoons. T h e n
he and Laura drove here and there, over to Pa's farm to see the home folks or to the
Boasts, old friends who lived several miles to the east. But the drives were always short ones; no twenty or
forty miles now. It was too dangerous, for a storm might come up suddenly and catch them
away from home.

Barnum and Skip were not working now. They were fat and frisky and enjoyed the sleigh
rides as much as Laura and Manly. They pranced and danced purposely to make their sleigh
bells ring more merrily while their ears twitched alertly and their eyes shone.

Trixy and Fly, the saddle ponies, and Kate and Bill, the working team, were growing fat in
the barn and took their exercise in the haystacksheltered barnyard at the back.

The holidays were near and something must be done about them. The Boast and the Ingalls
families had spent them together whenever they could. Thanksgiving dinner at Boasts',
Christmas dinner at the Ingallses' home. Now with Laura and Manly, there was a new family,
and it was agreed to add another gathering to those two holidays. New Year's should be
celebrated at the Wilders'.

Christmas presents were hardly to be thought of, the way the crops had turned out, but
Manly made handsleds for Laura's little sisters, and they would buy Christmas candy for
all.

For themselves, they decided to buy a present together, something they could both use
and enjoy. After much studying of Montgomery Ward's catalogue, they chose to get a set of
glassware. They needed it for the table and there was such a pretty set advertised, a
sugar bowl, spoonholder, butter dish, six sauce dishes, and a large oval-shaped bread
plate. On the bread plate raised in the glass were heads of wheat and some lettering which
read “Give us this day our daily bread.”

When the box came from Chicago a few days before Christmas and was unpacked, they were
both delighted with their present.

The holidays were soon over and in February Laura's nineteenth birthday came. Manly's
twenty-ninth birthday was just a week later so they made one celebration for both on the
Sunday between.

It wasn't much of a celebration, just a large birthday cake for the two of them, and a little extra pains were taken in the cooking and
arranging of the simple meal of bread, meat, and vegetables.