The Long Winter

The blizzard stops, and the mail arrives. Laura and Carrie get Youth’s Companion, which has stories. Ma and Pa both get newspapers, and there is a letter from their old pastor, Reverend Alden. He has sent them some items, which should arrive with the next train. Ma has the girls put away the magazines until they do the washing and chores. Pa returns and says that he will work on the railroad to try to help get the train through by Christmas. They discuss Christmas presents, particularly how to make sure that everyone has something. Reluctantly, Carrie and Laura agree to save the Youth’s Companion papers until Christmas, although Laura thinks that, “sometimes [she] did not even want to be good” (175). The girls and Ma pool together their change to buy Pa suspenders. On Christmas morning, Laura wraps presents that she has for Ma, Carrie, and Mary, and everyone has something to unwrap. Pa surprises Ma with oysters to make oyster soup and Christmas candy for everyone. That afternoon, Pa returns and brings the solemn news that there is a storm cloud in the northwest. The storm comes in, and Ma reads everyone a story from Laura and Carrie’s newspaper. They are out of coal, so Pa twists hay into tight sticks to help keep the fire going. That night, Laura listens to the screaming wind of the blizzard.

To keep warm, Pa must twist the hay into tight sticks, and Laura offers to help him, so he shows her how. They have enough food but are out of flour for bread. Mary offers her college money to help buy flour, because the price depends on when the train will arrive. Pa cannot buy flour, but he does buy wheat, which Ma has never used before. She finds a way to grind it using a coffee grinder. Pa brings Ma axle grease, and Ma makes a button lamp with it, which illuminates the house like a candle. The hand grinder makes so little at a time that it takes constant grinding to make enough for bread.

A herd of antelope is spotted in the distance, and all the men in town are excited. Pa—who is looked to as a leader in town—comes up with a plan to have a group of men slowly herd the antelope toward the men with guns. They hope to each have an antelope to take home to their families. Almanzo lets Mr. Foster ride one of his horses, Lady, and he regrets it because Mr. Foster is not a good rider. A shot suddenly sounds, startling everyone. “Mr. Foster “had jumped off Lady, let go her reins, and fired at the antelope that were too far away to hit” (202). Lady runs into the antelope herd, which streaks by the men who do not shoot at them because they could risk hitting Lady. The men come together and discuss the poor decision that allowed the antelope herd to get away, and Almanzo takes a long route to return to town in hopes of seeing Lady. He ends up going further than he expects. Finally, he spots Lady and gets her to follow him to town.

Pa surprises the family with four pounds of beef, which he bought after a neighbor butchered an ox. The household is excited for meat, but after Ma’s insistence, he also admits the devastating news that the train they have spent a month waiting for will not arrive until spring. The trains cannot run through the snow, which cannot be cleared in certain passes on the route. Ma is upset and frightened. To soothe the girls, Pa tells them a story about why the superintendent stopped the trains until spring. As he leaves to do chores, he gives Laura “a little hugging shake, before he set[s] Carrie and Grace down from his knees” (223), which she interprets to mean that she is old enough to help him and Ma keep spirits up in front of her sisters. After he leaves, Laura attempts to be optimistic. A blizzard hits that evening.

The blizzard goes on for days. Mary and Carrie keep grinding wheat. Pa and Laura keep twisting hay, but it cuts their hands and pulls away the fabric of their coats. Ma insists that Pa has the last potato, and the girls assure him that they do not want it. Laura still studies a little every day, but she feels worn down by the winter. Responding to their moroseness, Ma has the girls repeat by memory the speeches in their textbook. The practice encourages Laura, who is determined to commit as many of the speeches and poems to memory as Mary has.

One morning, Laura wakes up to a tunnel that Pa has made through the snow to get to the stable. The snow is so high that it goes up to the second story, but it actually insulates the house. After chores, Pa reads to them, but the storm is so loud that Laura asks him to play his fiddle. Pa tries to play his fiddle, but his fingers are too clumsy from working outside. He seems ashamed, and Ma asks him for help to distract him.

The storm has blown away the snow. Laura complains about eating the same thing again and again and asks Ma if they will starve. Ma says that they can still butcher the cow and her calf. When Pa comes back from Fuller’s store, he tells the family about a rumor that there is a claim within 20 miles with wheat stored. Ma becomes angry and forbids him from joining any groups looking for it. This is very unusual behavior for Ma, and Pa immediately agrees without complaint.

Pa realizes that they are out of wheat, and he takes the milk pail to the Wilders’ feed store. He asks Royal and Almanzo if they would sell more wheat, and when they say that they are out, he goes to the hidden wall and pulls the plug and pours out wheat into his bucket. Then he states that he is buying wheat from them because he is out at his house. Almanzo asks how he knew it was there, and Pa explains that he saw that the dimensions were wrong. Royal says that he didn’t know that Pa was out of wheat when he said they had none and that Almanzo would not have held onto the wheat if they were starving. Almanzo tries to give away the wheat, but Pa insists on paying for it, and the three men eat a meal together before Pa returns home just as another storm hits.

The continuous blizzard makes everyone in the Ingalls family tired. Their chores put them into a sort of stupor. Laura notes that “[t]he coffee mill’s handle ground round and round […]. It seemed to make her a part of the whirling winds driving the snow round and round over the earth and in the air” (254). Ma encourages them to stop listening to the storm and gets a surprise that she had been saving. She has a frozen fish, which is a treat for the family. She makes dinner with the fish and is grateful for the wheat that Pa got for them.