Prairie School

by Lois Lenski

  “Fun?” cried Reiny and Philip. “It was work and we’re hungry.”

  “Go take off those wet clothes,” said Mama, “then we’ll eat. We won’t wait for Papa. No tellin’ when he’ll get here.”

  “Why is it so quiet?” asked Darrell. “Where’s Christy? Where’s my little pal? I want to have a boxing match with him.”

  “He’s a pretty sick boy,” said Mama, pointing to the bedroom.

  “Jeepers!” Darrell shook his head. “What a Christmas vacation!”

  CHAPTER VI

  Coal for Christmas

  WHEN MORNING CAME, DELORES ran to the window the first thing. “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” she said, “If it ain’t still blizzarding.”

  “A peach of a snowstorm for you, Delores!” cried Darrell at breakfast.

  “This one’s yours, not mine,” retorted Delores.

  “If only the wind would die down,” said Cousin Reinhold, “we could go out and play Fox-and-Geese.”

  “Go find an Eskimo to play with,” said Delores. “Criminy sakes, but the house is cold.”

  “Where’s Pop and Chris Bieber?” asked Darrell.

  “Ach! They never got back at all,” said Mama. “All night I could not sleep one wink. What if they ran in a ditch and got buried deep in the snow?”

  “Big strong men can dig themselves out,” said Oscar Meyers.

  “Darrell, go build up the furnace fire,” said Mama. “That tie wood burns out overnight. That’s why it’s so cold.’’

  Reinhold stepped out on the back porch and came quickly in again. “Golly! It’s twenty-seven below,” he said.

  “Jeepers!” exclaimed Phil, shivering beside the stove. “Twenty-seven degrees too cold for me. Zero’s bad enough.’’

  “And tomorrow’s Christmas,” sighed Delores. “A fine Christmas it will be. No presents, and Mom without sugar and cake flour to make a cake.”

  “I wasn’t gonna fix much,” said Mama. “I thought we was goin’ in to Grandma Wagner’s. But even if Christy was well, we could never get there now.”

  Delores stood by the window. “If it would just stop snowing…we could go after all. Then if the stores were still open…” She remembered she hadn’t bought a thing for Mama for Christmas.

  “We’d better forget about it,” said Mama. “If we get coal for Christmas, we’ll be lucky. And Pop back safe. That’ll be Christmas for me.”

  After breakfast, Oscar and the boys went out to tackle the haystacks again. Delores went into the front room and turned on the battery radio. She listened a while, then came back to the kitchen. She sat down and began to work on her embroidery.

  “Mama, the man on the radio told how to signal for an airplane.”

  “Airplane!” said Mama with scorn. “With such contraptions I will have nothing to do. The tractors—they give us enough trouble. All they do is break down.”

  “Teacher is not afraid of airplanes,” said Delores. “She took a ride with Paul Kruger in his plane once. He flew her all the way from town out to Oak Leaf School after the fair. She said she felt like she had wings on, herself!”

  Mama shook her head. “Such foolishness!”

  “The man said a big circle or a plus-sign tramped in the snow would signal a plane to land here,” Delores went on. “He said to make an F for food, and a double XX for doctor or medicine.”

  “All foolishness,” said Mama. “What good to make a sign when the wind blows like sixty and covers it right up?”

  “He said to spread ashes,” replied Delores. “I can go in the cellar and shovel some…”

  “Delores Wagner!” exclaimed Mama. “Are you then so dumb? Who of us is starving? Are we then out of food? Look at all the eggs. Look there back of the stove at all my jars of canned stuff. Are we then starving?”

  “No, not yet,” said Delores hastily. “But we’re out of sugar, and you said you used the last of the coffee this morning. Other people are out of food. One family had only macaroni to eat for three days, because they couldn’t get to the store. They got sick and tired of it.”

  “Poor sort of people,” sniffed Mama, “if they had no home-canned stuff and no root vegetables in their cellar.”

  “He said all their meats and vegetables were in frozen food lockers in town,” said Delores. “And they couldn’t get to town.”

  “Frozen food lockers,” sniffed Mama. “Such new-fangled notions. What’s the matter with their own cellar?”

  “But you had to bring all our stuff up from the cellar, to keep it from freezing,” said Delores. “Over the radio, they told about a man who froze to death and the snow covered his body. Just his feet were sticking out. They had to bring a bulldozer to dig him out of the snow.”

  “Ach! Tell me-not such awful things, when Johannes has been gone so long,” wailed Mama.

  “The airplanes are dropping bales of hay to the cattle, and they are taking sick people to the hospital,” Delores went on. “I bet if Paul Kruger knew…”

  “Who of us is freezing or dying?” asked Mama. “Only Christy has a sore throat. You think I don’t know how to take care of him? Let the airplane go to those who are in need.”

  But by noon, Mama herself was worried. Christy was not getting better and she had used up all the medicine. She brought the little boy out and held him in her arms in the rocking chair. “If only I could get that prescription filled, and some more cough medicine…”

  “I wish we had a telephone,” said Delores. “We could call Paul Kruger up and ask him to bring it out.”

  “The farmhouses are too far apart for stretching telephone wires,” said Mama. “If Darrell was here, he could go on Nellie. All the coffee is gone and there are only a few matches left…”

  “The cattle wouldn’t get their hay, if the boys went,” said Delores. “Why can’t I go to town? I can ride better than Darrell.”

  “You? A little girl like you?” cried Mama, horrified. “Every year we read in the paper about little girls getting lost in the deep snow. You think I’m crazy enough to let you go?”

  “Now Mama, don’t be silly,” said Delores.” The radio says the worst of the storm is over. You know the first three days of a storm are always the worst, and this is the third day. Uncle Rudolph would be out to his farm today, Mama, doing his chores. He comes out every other day about one o’clock to feed his cattle. It was storming so bad yesterday, I don’t suppose he ever came. He’d be sure to come today.”

  Mama nodded, but did not say anything.

  “If I could get over to Uncle Rudolph’s barn,” said Delores, “I could go to town with him in his jeep.”

  “Are you crazy, girl?” cried Mama. “How you gonna get there, anyhow?”

  “Ride a horse,” said Delores. “Old Nellie’s got plenty sense. She won’t go where it’s not safe. It’s no worse than riding to school. If it was school you’d make me go.”

  It took a lot of coaxing. Only because Christy was getting worse did Mama finally consent. “I’ll let you go as far as Uncle Rudolph’s,” she said.

  “O. K., Mama,” said Delores. She ran to get ready.

  “You put on two pairs of jeans under your snowpants,” said Mama, “and a sweater under your coat. Get a wool scarf for your head.”

  “Oh, Mama, you’d like to dress me up like an Eskimo,” laughed Delores. “You’d think I was making an expedition to the North Pole. I’m not Admiral Byrd. It’s only four miles to Uncle Rudolph’s.”

  “Four miles in a storm is twice as far as in fair weather,” said Mama. “If you see smoke at the Hunstad’s place, stop there and rest.”

  “Yah, Mama. Sure.” Delores started out the door, with the doctor’s prescription and grocery list in an inside pocket.

  “You’ll be lucky to find Uncle Rudolph there,” said Mama. “If he’s not, you turn right around and come home. I’ll send Papa to town after he comes with the coal.”

  “I hate to leave you alone, Mama,” said Delores.

  “Pooh! You go along, you!”
Mama tried to laugh, but her eyes were wet.

  Delores was glad to get out, even if the snow was still blowing and the wind icy cold. It was better than being cooped up inside. She shoveled a drift away to get into the barn. Sugar nickered and wanted to go, but Delores knew the larger horse, Nellie, would be better. When she came out of the dark barn on Nellie’s back, she had to squint because the snow was so bright. Over in the east the sky looked lighter.

  It took a long time to get to Uncle Rudolph’s. After crossing the railroad track, Nellie chose her own path, walking where there was least snow, often up to her belly. When the drifts became deeper, Delores got off and led the horse, kicking a path with her feet. The wind swept across the prairie with terrific force, and she was glad she had worn so many clothes. But walking was not easy for her or for the horse.

  “Jeepers!” She said to herself. “At this rate, it will take me all day.”

  At last she came within sight of the Hunstad place, a small farmhouse with a windbreak of trees, on the banks of Oak Creek. Smoke was pouring from the chimney, which meant that the hired man must be staying there to look after the cattle. She knew that the Hunstads lived in town in the winter. It was too hard to lead Nellie all the way to Uncle Rudolph’s. Delores wondered if she could leave her in the Hunstad’s barn. She went to the back door and knocked.

  The hired-man, nicknamed Whiskers, opened the door a crack, and peeped out, unshaven, with a pipe in his mouth.

  “Yah, yah!” he nodded in answer to her question. “Sure mike! That’s O. K. Put your horse in the bam. It makes me no difference out.”

  He did not notice that the girl was cold. He did not ask her to come in, or offer to help. The kitchen door was quickly closed to keep the heat in and the cold out. Delores had no chance to say that she would like to come in and rest awhile.

  She managed to get the barn door open, and found an empty stall and some oats for Nellie. It was only a mile now to Uncle Rudolph’s. She could make better time without the horse. If she could only catch Uncle Rudolph there, doing his chores…She hated to think what she would do if he was not there. There was no house at his place, only a barn and straw shed.

  The mile was long and the snow in Oak Creek valley was deep. The girl trudged wearily on. Uncle Rudolph’s barn was a long way from the road which circled a hill. It stood in a low flat place near a bend in Oak Creek. She walked faster. After the sun came out, the snow blinded her, and she could not see which way she was going.

  Ach! There he was! She could see Uncle Rudolph’s jeep by the barn and his cattle under the straw shed. How happy she felt. A jeep could go anywhere, even on drifted roads. How lucky! Had he just come, or was he ready to leave? If he was leaving, could she ever catch him? Would he see her waving or hear her call? If she missed him, she would have to walk to town, five more miles. She tried to run and stumbling, fell headlong. She lay there for a minute, resting, then pulled herself to her feet.

  She saw a man come out of the barn and she knew it his Uncle Rudolph. He was just going away in his jeep. She called and waved frantically. The jeep started, then it stopped. It started up again, and this time, turned and came toward her. Just as she had hoped, Uncle Rudolph had seen her. He came as close as he could, then stopped and waited till she came up.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Where you goin’? Anything…wrong?”

  “Christy’s bad sick,” said Delores. “I got to get medicine at the drugstore in town. Pop’s haulin’ coal and the boys are gettin’ hay, so there’s no one to go but me. Will you take me in the jeep?”

  “Sure as shootin’,” said Uncle Rudolph. “Pile in.”

  It was better luck than Delores had hoped for. She gave a sigh of relief. The jeep rocked her from side to side, but being shaken up was better than walking. The jeep had side-curtains too, which kept off the wind. It had chains on all four wheels, so it crawled over snow banks four and five feet high. It moved slowly but surely and at last reached Yellowstone Trail, where other cars had left tracks. From there on, the going was easy. But because of the late start, it was nearly dark when they reached town.

  “You stay at Lavina’s tonight,” said Uncle Rudolph. “I’ll pick you up at the trailer-house first thing in the morning and take you home.”

  Delores hurried to the grocery. The streets were emptier than she had ever seen them. The snowplow had pushed high banks of snow into the gutters. The sidewalks had not been shoveled, but were tramped down in a narrow path. Delores bought coffee, matches and five pounds of sugar at the grocery first, then just got into the drugstore before it closed. She had Christy’s prescription filled and bought a bottle of cough syrup. By the time she came out, the other stores were closed. In Holzers’ window she saw a beautiful nut-cracker set, a wooden bowl with nut-picks and a cracker. She looked at it longingly, but could not get in to ask the price.

  “Oh, dear,” she thought. “Now I haven’t got a thing for Mama for Christmas.”

  The lights shone brightly from the little blue trailer-house, and were a sign of welcome as the girl came stumbling up the street, through the snow. She pounded on the door and Lavina opened it.

  “Criminy sakes!” cried Lavina. “First Pop, then you—on a day like this. Where did you drop from—out of an airplane?”

  “Uncle Rudolph brought me in his jeep.” Delores dropped her packages and sank on the couch, exhausted. For a while she could not talk. “I got a pain in my side,” she whispered.

  “Here, drink this cup of coffee,” said Lavina. “You look white as a sheet. This will warm you up inside and rest you.”

  Lavina had a good supper ready and after Delores had eaten, she felt better. Melvin came in and Delores told them her whole story. “Now tell me about Pop,” she said.

  “Pop stopped in after he got his coal loaded up,” said Lavina. “He and Chris Bieber had dinner at Grandma’s. I knew you folks would never be able to get into Grandma’s for Christmas tomorrow, so I bought some groceries for Mama and a little Christmas. Grandma sent over her Christmas treats for all you kids.”

  “You started out to our place?” asked Delores.

  “Yah, twice, but had to turn back,” said Lavina. “Mel was afraid of the roads. I tried to find Paul Kruger with his airplane, to take the stuff out, but they said he was bringin’ a sick woman in to the hospital.”

  “Mama won’t have anything to do with airplanes,” said Delores. “She says they break down as easy as tractors.”

  “Oh, Mama!” laughed Lavina. “She’s always the last one to catch onto a new style. Remember her bobbed hair? We’ll get her in an airplane yet. Boy! Was I ever glad to see Pop. What do you think? He bought a box of groceries for Mom too—the very same stuff I bought. I made him take everything out on his coal truck, but he went off without the Christmas tree.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Delores, “and then we’ll have a tree—at least.”

  Delores slept soundly with Lavina’s twins. On Christmas morning, she was stiff all over and felt very tired, but Uncle Rudolph came to the door early. She drank a cup of coffee and ate a piece of summer sausage for her breakfast. She put her bundles and the little evergreen tree in the back of the jeep, then climbed in.

  It was a beautiful Christmas day. The blizzard was over and the sun came out in all its brilliance, to make the snow shine and sparkle. Uncle Rudolph took Delores as far as the Hunstads, then hurried back to town to have Christmas with his family. At the Hunstads, the girl put her groceries in a feed sack and tied the Christmas tree to her saddle. She did not go into the house and Whiskers, the hired man, did not come out. She rode across the prairie, following her path of the previous day, where it was still visible.

  “Here comes our Christmas tree girl!” Mama met her at the door and gave her a tight hug.

  “Lavina sent the tree, Mama,” said Delores. “Ain’t it pretty?”

  “Ach! You are home safe again,” said Mama. “I was sick with worry when you did not come home last night. Poor Chr
isty, he could hardly breathe. I ran the steam kettle all night for his cough. I never once took my clothes off even.”

  “I got the prescription filled just before the drugstore closed.”

  “Good,” said Mama. “Soon he will be better.”

  “Jeepers! Is the house ever hot!” exclaimed Delores. “Must be, Papa brought the coal.”

  “Yah, at last,” said Mama. “They got stuck three times and had to walk back to town to get Schweitzer’s wrecker to come pull them out. They took half the load over to Biebers, so Vera Mae could have a warm house for Christmas too.”

  “And the boys?”

  “They finally got a load of hay to the barn, and the cattle came in,” said Mama. “Poor kids—that is work for men, not for boys. That Ozzie, he’s only nineteen—just a kid too.”

  “Mama!” exclaimed Delores, remembering. “Papa’s got to get coal for school too.”

  “Yah, I told him,” said Mama, “and he said there is plenty time for that.”

  “He better not wait too long,” said Delores.

  Soon Papa and the boys came tramping in.

  “Merry Christmas!” shouted Papa. “They tell me it’s Christmas!”

  While Mama was preparing and roasting the duck for Christmas dinner, Delores set the little evergreen tree on the sideboard in the front room. Darrell hung shiny balls and tinsel on it. Mama brought her packages out from their hiding place and laid them under it. After dinner, Mama got Christy out of bed and held him on her lap to see the tree. Delores heated the iron and pressed her wild rose dresser scarf. It was all she had to give to Mama.

  “Jeepers! Is the house ever hot!” cried the boys. Once the lignite coal in the furnace was well started, it made the house too warm. The family threw off sweaters and coats.

  “It’s like summer, hey?” Papa chucked Mama under her double chin.

  “Come on, let’s open the presents,” begged the boys.

  “What Santy Claus bring me?” asked Christy. “Candy bar?”

  The gurgling package was perfume, just as Delores expected.

  She got a new blue sweater and a pocketbook too. Mama gave her a kiss for the dresser scarf, and said wild roses were her favorite flower. Ozzie and the boys got plaid wool shirts and Christy a toy dump-truck. After admiring all the presents, they all ate Kaffeekuga and drank hot coffee.