Prairie School

by Lois Lenski

  “I have no skirt,” she said. “I always wear a skirt when I go to town.”

  “I’ll give you one of mine to wear over your jeans,” said Miss Martin. “Put this sweater on under your coat. I’ll buckle up your overshoes, and I’ll take my grandmother’s homespun blanket along. That will keep you warm.”

  Miss Martin made her preparations carefully. She put two buckets of ashes in the car, a large box of coal, a shovel, and several blankets. Just for good measure, she threw in the lasso rope. She made sandwiches and put them and a box of matches in her coat pockets. She was glad the horses were gone. What about Spike? She put food in the barn for him and propped one of the doors partly open. She returned to the kitchen and looked around.

  “No telling when I’ll be back,” she said to herself. “The fires will go out, the food will freeze, the canned goods will burst…I can’t help it, I see no other way—God give me strength. If I can get the car through the snow to the depot, the rest will be easy. Come along, Delores, let’s go.”

  “I look like a stuffed-up mummy,” said Delores, smiling.

  Miss Martin helped her down the back steps and into the car. The engine started, and after a short delay, the car began to move.

  “It’ll be rough going,” Miss Martin said. “Just close your eyes and relax, and then you can bear the pain better.”

  She drove in a zigzag path across the prairie, hunting for bare spots where the snow had blown thin. Coming to drifts, she had to get out and shovel, spread ashes in front of the wheels to get traction in the snow, then start again, crawling inch by inch. The elevator and little Oak Leaf depot seemed to move farther away with each turn of the car’s wheels. Once the ashes ran out, and Miss Martin had to walk back to the school with the two buckets, go down in the cellar and get more. The second half of the journey was easier, because the drifts were not so high. Finally the car stalled, but within walking distance of the depot. Miss Martin shoveled a path in the snow and helped Delores to her feet.

  Inside the waiting room, Delores sat down on a low bench and leaned against the wall. “Jeepers!” she said. “I never thought I’d make it!”

  Miss Martin gathered up kindling from the floor and soon had a fire started in the little stove. She carried coal in the buckets from the box in her car. Soon the little room was filled with welcome warmth.

  “I’m tired, Miss Martin.” The girl’s face looked so white, it frightened her teacher.

  “Lie down on these blankets on the floor,” said Miss Martin.

  “I’ll cover you up with Grandmother’s homespun and keep you warm. Maybe the Goose will come soon—I’ll flag it when it does. The engineer knows me, he’s taken me so often. Once when I was late, he backed the train up to take me on. It was Thanksgiving time, and he said he didn’t want to leave me all alone in that lonesome schoolhouse over the holiday. You rest now, while I try to telephone.”

  “Do you know how?” asked Delores.

  “Yes,” said Miss Martin, “if I can get a connection. But maybe the wires are down.” She pulled an electric switch on the side wall, then began turning the handle at the side. “One long and two short. John Markus, the dispatcher in town, told me to telephone the Selfridge dispatcher any time I wanted to be picked up.”

  Miss Martin rang and rang, but could get no responses Once a sputtering sound came over the wires, so she knew they were not entirely dead. When she saw that Delores had gone to sleep, she sat down quietly on the block of wood near the stove and rested. She was very tired. She knew she must gather all her strength together for the rest of the journey. She took the sandwiches from her pocket and ate them.

  What if the Goose never came? They could stay only till their supply of coal ran out. Then, somehow, they would have to get back to the schoolhouse again. Perhaps someone would come before that. They would come to the school, find the fires out, see her car gone, follow its tracks and come to the depot. She would have to have help getting back. Who would it be?

  But all this was borrowing trouble. The Goose just must come back. She had no idea what time it was. She had no watch and had left her two alarm clocks at the school. She could not remember winding them, so they had probably stopped. What did it matter? What was one hour more or less, when a child lay sick to death?

  She never knew how many hours they waited, but she put the last piece of coal on the fire with a sense of resignation. All the events of the past week were jumbled together in her mind now—she could not remember what had happened or when. She could not fight the elements any more. Whatever came would have to come…

  Meanwhile on Friday at home, Mama Wagner was beside herself with worry. Johannes came in Thursday night at midnight, bringing Darrell. He ate a hearty meal, slept for a few hours, and before daybreak started out again.

  “Oh, why didn’t he bring Delores home?” cried Mama.

  “He couldn’t,” explained Darrell. “We hunted for the cattle for three hours and couldn’t find them. We tried to open the road from Arlo Beckler’s place over here, but we ran the tractor and snowplow in the ditch and had to leave them there. Lucky we didn’t have to hunt Queen—she was out by the barn.”

  “Why didn’t he bring Delores home?” repeated Mama.

  “It was blizzarding every minute we were out,” said the boy. “It felt like hail hitting you in the face—like a hundred bees biting you. Delores had a cold, she was coughing bad. You want her to be out in that, riding all around on the tractor in the wind?”

  “No,” said Mama. “He could have brought her straight home and then gone out again. A child should come first—before horses and cattle.”

  “Oh, shoot!” cried Darrell. “She’s O. K. at school. Miss Martin’s got coal now and it’s warm. She’ll take good care of her.”

  “Miss Martin’s got plenty to do,” said Mama. “Shovel coal day and night, shovel snow paths, shovel up snow-water to drink and wash in, look after a furnace and two stoves, cook meals, teach school…and look after a sick girl. Why can’t Pop go after her?” .

  “He will when he finds the cattle,” said Darrell. “What I’m worried about is our horses. Pop and I turned Sugar and Nellie loose before we left school last night, but they haven’t come home yet. They’re not used to rustling for themselves. They’ve had no food all week…”

  “Horses!” cried Mama. “Horses and cattle! That’s all you guys think about.”

  Darrell gave his mother a sharp look. Then he said, “I better go and do the chores. Got to open the tank so the stock can drink when they come. Got to keep the paths open if I can.”

  “The water pails are empty,” said Mama. “Feed the chickens and bring in the eggs.” She looked out the window. “Is that Sugar and Nellie back? I see something jumping around.”

  Darrell rushed out, saw the horses in the distance, but could not get to them. The wind was blowing a gale, and it took a long time to shovel to the barn. He set the buckets by the windmill and went to the old haystack by the cow-shed. He had to shovel the snow off and there was only a little hay left. The wind blew and scattered it. He took what he could into the barn for the milk-cows and saddle-horses. The two-year-olds and Patty and Queen were there now.

  “I must get some oats,” Darrell said to himself.

  A mountainous drift had piled up between barn and granary. The wind blew fresh snow into his face as he climbed up to go over it. Before he knew he was at the top, he went tumbling down the other side and landed at the bottom, covered with snow. He shook the snow off, then went in and filled his buckets with oats.

  “Oh, this mean old snow!” he cried in disgust. “I could kick it ten miles.” Coming back over the drift, he held his arms outspread to keep from spilling the oats. Often he sank to his knees, but got quickly up again. He decided to dig a tunnel through it as soon as he could. He gave the oats to the cows and horses, but held some back for Sugar and Nellie.

  When he came to the windmill to get the water, he discovered that it was broken. Always in the w
orst weather, the mill broke. Some part needed repairing or replacing. Somebody would have to go to town before it would pump water again. Darrell shoveled clean snow into his two buckets, took them in and set them on the stove.

  “I froze my face,” he said. “Didn’t think it was that cold.” He took a handful of snow from the pail and began to rub his cheek.

  “Don’t do that!” called Mama sharply. “Don’t rub it, bathe it gently, and stay away from the stove. Remember what we read in the First Aid book? Is that snow you got there? Where’s the water?”

  “Windmill’s broke,” said Darrell gruffly. “Gotta melt snow water.”

  “Well, of all things!” cried Mama. “A blizzard wouldn’t be complete without the windmill breaking down.”

  Christy was over his cold now and feeling lively again. He pulled a chair over to the stove, climbed up and reached in the pail. “I’ll hit you,” he said. He made a snowball in his hands and threw it at Darrell. He was having fun.

  Darrell laughed. “You hit me and I’ll hit you back, boy.”

  “Did you bring in the eggs?” asked Mama.

  “No,” said Darrell. “I’m going out again to take this water to the horses.”

  It was a long time before he came back. When he did, his clothes were frozen stiff, but he had a bucket half full of eggs. “The wind blew the water all over me,” he said. “Here’s the eggs and not one broke. It’s a wonder they’re not all scrambled. Path’s blown shut already.”

  “Take those wet overalls off quick,” said Mama. “Put on dry ones.”

  “I’ll get more snow first.” In a few minutes he was back with two snow-filled buckets, which Mama set on the stove. He went into the side bedroom to change.

  “I’m as bad as Miss Martin,” said Mama, “melting snow to drink.”

  “Be thankful we got snow,” said Darrell, with a laugh.

  “No danger runnin’ out of that,” said Mama. “Watch Christy while I go upstairs to make the beds.”

  It was Christy’s idea to hit Darrell with another snowball. Carefully he climbed up on the chair again, and reached deep down in the bucket for a handful of snow. But the snow had melted to water, and the water had started to boil. Quickly he snatched his hand out of the boiling water, but knocked against the side of the bucket and overturned it. The scalding water poured over his right leg above the knee, ran down and filled up his shoe. Christy screamed at the top of his voice.

  Darrell rushed in from the bedroom and the next minute, was by He pulled Christy’s shoe and stocking off as quickly as possible, but around his ankle, the skin and some flesh came off.

  his side. “Mama, Mama, come quick!” cried Darrell in despair. Mama had heard the boy’s cries. She came running down the stairs and into the kitchen. “Ach! What’s happened now?”

  Darrell pointed to Christy’s leg and foot. “He got scalded. His hand’s burned bad, too.”

  “Get the sterilized cotton and roll of bandage quick,” said Mama. “Get the carbolic acid…”

  Darrell ran to the kitchen cupboard and brought the things. Mama put a teaspoonful of the acid in a pan of water, washed the burns and wrapped them up carefully. Then she took Christy in her arms and rocked him, but he would not stop crying. His cries told her that he was in deep pain.

  “We’ve got to take him to a doctor,” said Mama. “I don’t know if I did what was right.”

  “How can we get there?” Darrell’s face was white with anxiety.

  “If only your Papa would come,” moaned Mama. “All day he stays out there, all day the men stand around out there, trying to dig a machine out of the snow in a ditch. Why can’t they be here when we need them?”

  “What you want?” demanded Darrell. “Can I carry Christy to town then? Can we walk?”

  Mama gave the boy a look of scorn. Darrell couldn’t stand it to hear Mama’s complaining. He rushed out the door. He had to keep busy. He had to do something. He ran to the barn, floundering through the snow. He got down on his hands and knees and began to dig a tunnel through the big snowbank. The action warmed him and he felt better.

  “Why don’t I put out a distress signal?” he asked himself. “Maybe a plane will fly over and land. Maybe Paul Kruger will see it and come. He’ll pick up Mom and Christy and take them to the doctor in town.”

  He brought up one load of ashes from the cellar after another. Then out in the levelest place on the prairie, to the east of the barnyard, he tramped a large plus sign on the snow and filled it with ashes. All the time he was working, the wind kept blowing snow and ashes in his face. He knew the signal would be covered up before he got back to the house, but he kept on making it just the same. It was all he could do to help get Christy to the doctor.

  After a while, the signal was done and he went in.

  The sight of Mama’s tear-stained face bent over the sobbing Christy wrenched the boy’s heart. There she sat beside the kitchen stove, rocking and rocking, forever rocking.

  The boy stamped past them into the front room. He took off his wraps and threw his overshoes across the room. He turned on the radio, but the battery was dead. He picked up a Western magazine, but could not read. He stretched out on the davenport and tried to rest, but his nerves would not let him. He knew he was listening for the roar of an airplane which never came.

  “Oh, heck!” he cried in disgust. “If I’d only gone out with Pop, this would never have happened. I’ll go and find the men, wherever they are.”

  He put his things back on and rushed out through the kitchen. But Mama stopped him. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “Out,” he said.

  “Our cattle are dead and buried in the snow,” said Mama, “but our horses are still jumping around. Did you catch Sugar and Nellie yet?”

  “No,” said Darrell. “I’m going out to hunt for them.”

  “Oh no you’re not,” said Mama. “Let the men find their old horses and cattle. You stay here. Don’t you dare go out and leave me alone.”

  Darrell stood by the door, looking at his mother uncertainly. Then he heard the sound of a roaring motor, and before she could say another word, he was out and gone.

  CHAPTER XII

  After the Storm

  IT WAS NOT AN airplane, after all.

  It was Uncle Rudolph in his jeep, and that was almost as good. Darrell met him and brought him into the house.

  “Where’s Johannes?” asked Mama. “How many days does it take to dig a tractor out of a ditch?”

  “It’s out,” said Rudolph. “They left the snowplow there by the road. No use plowing roads when they drift shut right away. They’re hunting for the cattle—can’t find them anywhere.”

  “The cattle?” Darrell’s mouth dropped open.

  “How?” asked Mama. “With the tractor?”

  “No,” said Rudolph. “On foot.”

  “Does Pop think…?” began Darrell.

  “They may be buried under the snow,” said Rudolph. “They sent over for my jeep, so I could help them hunt.”

  “Take me to town first, Rudolph,” begged Mama, “to get Christy’s burns fixed. He hasn’t stopped crying a minute.” She told the whole story.

  “O. K.,” said Rudolph. “You coming too, Darrell?”

  “No,” said the boy. “I got to stay here and take care of the stock.”

  “Somebody’s got to stay,” said Rudolph. “No tellin’ when any of us will get back.”

  Darrell’s heart sank, as he watched the jeep leave the barnyard with Mama and Christy in it. The house was so quiet now, it was painful. Suddenly he felt hungry and got busy and fried himself some eggs. He ate them with bread and jelly and drank some left-over coffee. He looked at the kitchen clock and it was only ten in the morning. What would he do all day alone?

  He went in the front room, examined the radio and took the storage battery out. He made some holes in one end with a nail, poured some vinegar in and set it on the back of the stove to soak. Maybe the vinegar would make the
battery work again. After that, there was nothing to do. About two o’clock he felt hungry and fried some onions to eat with scrambled eggs. He found a box of cocoa and made cocoa to drink. After eating he fell asleep on the davenport in the front room.

  When he woke up it was late afternoon and he went out to do the chores. Sugar and Nellie had not come back and that worried him. He completed the tunnel to the granary and crawled through it. He brought back grain for the chickens and fed them, and oats for the cows and horses.

  Back in the house, he melted more snow, strained and cooled it for house use. He was hungry again.

  “Eggs!” he said. Large kettles full of eggs sat on the counter of the cupboard. Blizzard or no blizzard, the hens kept right on laying, and Mama had no way to get rid of any eggs. “I’m sick of eggs.”

  He looked over the canned stuff back of the stove, but found nothing to his liking. Whistling, he went down cellar to see what he could find. He came back with a jar of canned chicken. “Boy, am I glad!” he said. The chicken made a good supper, and there was enough left for breakfast.

  He decided to stay awake all night to hear if any one came in. The plight of the cattle worried him. If the men found them and brought them back, he wanted to know it right away, so he could stop worrying. He thought of Mama and Christy too, and that rough jeep ride to town. But he was comforted in the thought that they would soon reach a doctor and get Christy’s burns fixed up. The wind seemed to be dying down a little…To his surprise, he woke up from a deep sleep and saw that morning had come.

  “It’s not blizzarding any more,” he said thankfully. “Pop and the others will be back today sometime. What day is it? Oh yes—Saturday.”

  When he came in after doing the morning chores, he was surprised to find Papa and Phil sitting at the kitchen table eating fried eggs.

  “Where’s Mama?” asked Papa.

  Darrell told about Christy’s burns and the jeep ride to town.