by Nancy M Bell
“She did, thank you. Have you talked to your other brothers?” Elsie caught her bottom lip between her teeth. It was a worry when the family wasn’t all under one roof, even though most of them lived nearby. Hank and Frieda, in Niverville, were the farthest away.
“Yes, Mome. Just after the snow started to fly. They were all ready and had the stock in,” Helen’s voice broke up and the line crackled and went dead.
Frowning, Elsie replaced the receiver. It was a comfort the line had stayed up long enough for her to reassure herself the family was safe and warm. She pulled the heavy iron frying pan from the drawer and set it on the stove top, putting a dollop of bacon grease into it to heat. The men would need something to eat after battling the cold and wind. She took the loaf pan of heavy porridge out of ice box and began to cut slices. It was more of a breakfast item, but it would surely stick their ribs when the men came in.
The drippings were sizzling in the pan now and she slid four slices into the fat. With one ear she listened for the mud room door. Ike and Walter had been out in the storm for over half an hour. Far too long in this weather. She could feel the temperature dropping by the minute, between the wind driving the snow and cold, it would scour the skin off your face in moments.
“Where are Pape and Walter?” Agnes came into the kitchen, a line of worry marring her fair forehead. She busied herself setting two places at the table and fetching cream and sugar for the coffee. “Do you think we should go look for them? What if something happened?” Agnes moved restlessly to the snow blocked window.
“They went out to clear a path to the wood shed and the barn. It must be taking longer than they anticipated.” Elsie flipped the porridge slices in the pan making sure both sides were golden and crispy. “Can you please put the maple syrup on the table as well?” She snuck a worried glance toward the stubbornly closed mudroom door.
“Mome, I’m scared.” Anna came into the kitchen and curled up on a chair, feet tucked up under her. “When is the snow going to stop?”
“It will stop when God wills it to,” Elsie said. She set the flipper down and moved to give the girl a hug. “There’s no need to be afraid. The Lord will watch over us.”
“What are the twins up to?” Agnes addressed her daughter while casting a worried glance at the ceiling. All was quiet, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.
“You didn’t leave a lamp lit up there did you? Not with the twins all on their own?” Agnes started for the door.
“No, Mome. I blew the lamp out and put it up where they can’t reach it. They’re asleep in your bed and I made sure the heater wasn’t near the bed or the curtains,” Anna spoke in an exact replica of her mother’s tones.
Elsie hid a smile and turned back to remove the frying pan from the direct heat. She pushed it over to where it would keep warm, but not burn.
“When is Pape coming in?” Anna wanted to know.
“Pape and your grosspape will come in when they’re done. Don’t you worry your head about it. Both Pape and Grosspape are big strong men. A little storm isn’t going to do them any harm,” Agnes soothed the girl while exchanging a worried look with Elsie over the child’s head.
“Oh, thank goodness. At last,” Elsie exclaimed as the outside mudroom door slammed in the wind and the hollow sound of boots echoed on the wooden floor.
Moments later Ike and Walter shoved through the inner door.
“Pape, you look like a snowman!” Anna clapped her hands and laughed. “You too, Opa. It looks like fun. Can I go out and play in the snow?” She turned hopeful eyes on her mother.
“The wind would carry you away, Anna. Feel how cold it is.” Walter drew off his thick knitted mitt and put his hand on her cheek. Snow dripped from the wool in his hand.
“Pape!” Anna shrieked and wriggled away from him.
“Anna, hush. You’ll wake the twins,” Agnes scolded her while hiding a smile.
Elsie went to help Ike out of his coat. The thing weighed three times what it should with the coating of snow. She hung it to dry near the stove and put the mitts of both men on the wire trees especially constructed for that purpose. Wrapping her sweater tighter around her Elsie scurried out to the mudroom to retrieve the frozen boots the men had stepped out of. Setting them on the drip pan near the stove she turned and gestured for Ike to remove his socks. The tops were frozen solid to his pant legs, small rivulets of melt water beginning to trickle down the material.
Agnes was busy doing the same for her husband. Anna watched in fascination as the storm’s detritus became small puddles. At a word from her mother, she ran and got the men’s slippers from the living room. By the time she came back Ike and Walter had coffee in front of them and were digging into the oatmeal pancakes swimming in syrup.
Elsie pulled the wet woolen stockings over the tall wire frames and placed them beside the drying mitts.
Anna stayed curled in her chair looking pleased to be included with the grown-ups. Before long her head began to nod and Agnes took her up to bed. Once she returned, the talk turned more serious.
“It’s going to be a long night I’m afraid,” Ike remarked with a pointed look at his son-in-law.
“What do you mean, Pape?” Agnes looked from one man to the other.
“With that wind and the amount of snow coming down, those paths aren’t going to stay clear for long. One, or both of us, is going to have to go out every hour or so and keep clearing them,” Walter replied.
“Pape?” Agnes looked to her father for confirmation.
“It’s as Walter says.” He got to his feet. “Let’s set things right for the night here and get some sleep while we can,” Ike said.
* * *
All through the night and into the next day the storm raged unabated. In the brief interludes when the radio would produce more than squawks and whistles they got news of the width and breadth of the blizzard.
“It doesn’t seem possible that it’s storming all the way from here to Alberta,” Agnes declared.
“Maybe we heard wrong?” Elsie wondered.
“I don’t know about that, Elsie. I’ve never seen anything like this blizzard.” Ike shook his head.
“Has anyone been able to get through on the phone?” Walter asked glancing at the silent instrument.
‘Not since I talked to Helen yesterday. The line went dead right in the middle of the conversation,” Elsie replied.
“Line is probably down.” Ike scratched his head.
The lines of fatigue and worry etched on his handsome face worried Elsie. He and Walt were going non-stop trying to keep the path to the woodshed and the barn open. Agnes and Elsie talked about how to help when the men went out again into the teeth of the blizzard. The path they were clearing followed the fence line so at least there was little chance of going astray. The sides of the narrow alley were up to the men’s shoulders now. How much deeper can it get? Elsie worried.
Ike and Walter stumbled in the door, crusted in snow, ice coating their eyelashes and Ike’s mustache. White patches of frostbite covered both their noses and spread across their cheeks.
“That’s enough, Ike. You can’t keep going out there.” Elsie planted her hands on her hips and stared down at her exhausted husband slumped in the kitchen chair. “You’re too done in to even take off your coat. It’s time you let Agnes and I get out there and help.” She raised a hand to forestall his attempt to argue. “We’ve talked about it, and there’s no reason we can’t take it in turns to clear the snow.”
“Elsie, I’m too bone-tired to argue with you right now.” He got to his feet and shed his outer clothes before staggering off upstairs to fall into bed. Walter followed him up the stairs leaning heavily on the railing as he went. Agnes went after them armed with bed warmers and hot water bottles. When she came back down, she sank into a chair across from Elsie.
“I’m really worried, Mome. How long can we go on like this?” She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “They’re both about wore out, and the snow ju
st keeps coming.” An especially hard gust of wind slammed the upper story of the building. It was a small mercy the drifted snow protected the lower floor. A small mercy, Elsie grimaced, protected yes, but so much snow piled against the house was frightening. She worried the pressure of the building snow would break the windows. The front door was firmly blocked now, the only way in and out of the house was by the mud room door which was in the lee of the building.
“Mome, I’ve been thinking. There must be something we can do to keep the darn snow from blowing down into the pathways.” Agnes frowned and tapped her fingers on the table top.
“I don’t know how.” Elsie finished clearing the table before filling two mugs with coffee and joining her eldest daughter.
“There has to be a better way than what we’re doing,” Agnes insisted. “At least with the trenches getting so deep we have some protection from the wind, but it won’t last long with the way the snow keeps drifting.”
Chapter Eight
And The Snow Keeps Coming
Elsie paused to lean on her shovel and shake the fine snow from her head scarf. Just a foot above her head the wind howled and the blizzard snaked long fingers of white over the top of the trench. Agnes stopped as well, her lashes icy white, breath coming in great heaving gasps as she laboured to breathe in the freezing air.
“This is pointless, Mome,” she shouted over the shriek of the storm. “By the time we get the one to the woodshed cleared, the one to the barn is already blown in.”
“I just wish it would let up a bit.” Elsie beat her hands on her arms to get the circulation flowing. Her mitts were frozen in a curve that fit around the shovel handle. Inside her fingers felt like wooden blocks, but at least she could still hold the shovel. “It’s been snowing for three days.” She glanced overhead at the invisible sky. “The last forecast we heard was for three days, but this doesn’t show any signs of stopping.”
“Three days. It feels more like three weeks.” Agnes sighed and straightened up. “We should go in and get warmed up, or we’ll end up like Pape and Walter with frostbite on our hands.”
“I hate to give up just yet, but you’re right.”
They traipsed back to the house, knocking as much snow off their clothing as they could before going in. The men had been up all night fighting to keep the woodbins full and the paths clear. Last night they’d managed to get the cows milked and the other livestock fed. Now they were tucked up in bed sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
Elsie held her hands as near the stove as she could bear, the returning feeling in her fingers and toes clenching her jaw and bringing tears to her eyes. “I don’t know how long we can keep this up, Agnes. Maybe we should just let the tunnel to the barn blow in. There’s feed out there and a few cases of mastitis isn’t as bad as losing fingers or worse to frostbite.”
“I know.” Agnes pulled a chair close and drew warm woollen socks on her feet before propping them on the stove fender. “I’m worried about those silly chickens too. Anna is fretting over them. I managed to scrape the frost off the upstairs window and saw some smoke still coming from the hen house chimney, but they’ve got to be freezing in there. And the hopper only holds about four days’ worth of grain.”
“Losing a few chickens is better than losing one of us,” Elsie said grimly. “Let’s see if we can get the radio to work and get some news about when the blizzard is expected to end.”
Hands curled around the warm pottery of the coffee mug, Elsie led the way into the living room. Agnes put more wood on the fire in there and the women drew their chairs closer to the flames. Elsie clicked the switch with cold fingers and was rewarded with a crackle and screech that resolved finally into intelligible words interspersed with crackles and sometimes drowned out by the howling wind.
It seemed the only programming was bulletins about the weather. When the reception degenerated into clicks and crackles Agnes leaned over and switched the machine off. Thank goodness the batteries were holding out so far. Elsie sat in stunned disbelief of what the announcer had relayed.
“It’s far worse than we imagined,” she whispered clutching the mug of coffee like a life line. “Winnipeg is shut down, the streets are plugged and people are running out of coal. At least we have lots of wood to keep us warm. The trains aren’t running, or buses. Everything between here and Regina is snowed in.”
“And they said they have no idea when it will end. The clouds just keep dumping snow, and the wind won’t let up. I’m really starting to get scared, Mome. How long do you think we can hold out?”
Elsie reached over and patted her hand. “As long as we have to, Agnes. The Lord will look after us. His hand is over us all. We have lots of flour, meat in the summer kitchen if we can get there, jars of preserves and canned vegetables in the cellar.”
“You’re right. Water isn’t a problem, we can just keep melting snow. There’s enough of it.” A laugh halfway between amusement and bitterness followed her statement.
“There, see. There’s a bright side to every problem.” Elsie smiled at her daughter and stretched her feet toward the fire, pulling a crocheted afghan over her shoulders.
Agnes reached for a striped Hudson Bay blanket lying over the back of the sofa. She stopped and then got to her feet. “I’ve got it, Mome!”
“What? Got what?” Elsie glanced wildly around her. “Is something on fire?” It was her worst fear. Fire was merciless and took no prisoners once released from its bonds of fireplace and stove.
“No, Mome. A way to keep the snow from blowing into the tunnels.”
Elsie sat up straighter and set her mug down. “How?” The single word held her hopes and her prayers for a solution.
“This.” Agnes shook the wool blanket with its traders’ marks.
“A blanket?” It made no sense to her. “The wind will just blow it away.”
“Not if we anchor it correctly,” Agnes insisted.
“With what?”
“That snow is packed hard as cement. If we dig out at each corner, and then pack snow back in, it should hold. I hope. It’s worth a try, I think.” Agnes raised her eyebrows at her mother.
Elsie considered the proposition before mentally taking stock of the number of available blankets. “Even if it did work, and I’m saying if, there aren’t enough blankets. We need them to keep warm and I don’t want to risk losing them in the wind.”
Agnes held the blanket to her chest and regarded her mother. Elsie knew that look; the determined thrust to the chin was pure Ike in one of his moods.
“Let’s try it anyway with just one blanket.”
“Try what?” Walter appeared in the doorway, wiping sleep from his eyes.
Agnes explained her idea to him.
“I don’t know, Aggie. That wind is pretty stiff.”
He studied her face for a moment and Elsie hid a smile at the look of resignation that flashed across his face.
“Let me have a cup of coffee and something to eat, then we can give it a try if you’re determined to do this,” Walter relented.
“Is Ike stirring?” Elsie glanced toward the ceiling, but couldn’t discern any sign of movement above in their room.
“I don’t believe so. I’m pretty sure I heard him snoring when I went by your door.” Walter smiled.
“Let’s let him sleep then. This storm is putting a strain on him. Are the twins still playing in Anna’s room?” Elsie got up and moved to make a fresh pot of coffee.
“I’ll go check on them,” Agnes offered setting the blanket on the sofa back.
In moment she was back downstairs. “They’re still playing. Anna is such a great help with them. I feel like I ask too much of her sometimes. The heater in her room is keeping it bearable in there.”
Walter finished his coffee and started to put his coat on. Agnes joined him and soon the two were swathed in coats and scarves. Blanket firmly in her arms, she followed her husband into the mud room. Elsie fidgeted with things in the kitchen, anxious to know how Ag
nes’ idea would work out. It wasn’t long before the pair staggered back into the kitchen, half frozen and disappointed.
“It didn’t work,” Agnes said emerging from her snowbound outer clothes. “The wind catches it before we can get it anchored.”
“What didn’t work?” Ike came into the kitchen. “What have you been up to? Agnes, you shouldn’t be going out in the cold so often.”
“Here, Ike. Sit and have your coffee and let them explain.” Elsie set a steaming mug on the table.
Ike listened to the details of the failed plan, tapping a forefinger on the table, his brow furrowed. Walter ended his tale and leaned back, wrapping his cold hands around his mug of coffee.
“It’s not a bad idea in theory,” Ike began. “There’s those two-by-fours in the corner of the shed, and some sheets of plywood I think we can still get to. We could build a frame inside the tunnel with the two-by-fours and nail the plywood to those to create a roof or at least a windbreak of sorts to hold the snow out.”
Walter didn’t reply at once, Elsie waited with bated breath. The idea seemed feasible to her, but then building and carpentry wasn’t her strong suit either.
“You know, it just might work. Like what they do to shore up a mine shaft.” Walter pushed back his chair and got up, reaching for his coat.
“Surely you don’t mean to go out again so soon?” Agnes protested. “Your coat is still frozen, and your fingertips are still white. Please, wait a little while and get warm.”
“The wind isn’t letting up at all. In fact I think it’s getting worse. If we don’t do something soon it won’t matter, because the tunnel will be all blown in.” Walter pulled on his stiff coat and took the fresh scarf and mitts Agnes wordlessly handed him.
Ike drained his coffee and prepared to join his son-in-law. Elsie bit her tongue to stop from asking him not to go back out into the blizzard. Even though he’d slept for a few hours, fatigue slowed his movements. Lines of exhaustion carved into his face.