Winter Is Not Forever

by Janette Oke

  I thought of Willie, too. I had received a letter from him just a few days before Christmas. “I really miss the family and friends,” he wrote. “As exciting as my studies are, I’m lonesome, even weary. But I’ve been invited home with one of the guys from the college who lives nearby.” I was glad that Willie had somewhere to go.

  When I was younger, I had always thought that as soon as Christmas had come and gone, we should be working our way toward spring. I hoped that it would be true this year. I had loved winter as a boy, but then I hadn’t had the responsibilities of seeing that everything and everybody made it through without mishap or suffering. Winter had simply been a time of sport— sleigh rides, tobogganing, ice skating, snowfalls and snowmen. I had loved it. Now winter was a time of struggle against the intense cold, the biting wind, the deep snow, the shortened days. The weather made it harder to chore, and the supply of winter feed and cut wood seemed to evaporate before my eyes.

  Thinking of all this as I walked back to Aunt Lou’s, I began to feel rather dejected. Then, it began to snow again—huge, soft, gently falling flakes. I looked up toward the sky to see the snow drift toward my face and marveled anew at the beauty of it. It might not be easy to live with winter, but it certainly was beautiful when I just took the time to look closely at it.

  CHAPTER 10

  Making It Through

  I MAY HAVE BEEN READY for spring as soon as Christmas was over, but I guess no one thought to tell Mother Nature. She stormed and fretted and gave us a hard time all through the month of January. I looked forward to February—surely things would improve!

  But they didn’t. When we couldn’t get to church a couple of Sundays, I missed the church service, the good dinner, and the brief visit with little Sarah.

  And the bad weather didn’t help Uncle Charlie improve, either. His arthritis seemed to twist his fingers off to the side more and more each day. I inwardly ached for him when I watched him trying to accomplish some simple task. But he was independent and needed to feel that he was carrying a full share of the workload.

  About mid-February, Grandpa came down with a bad cold.

  He struggled along trying to treat himself for several days but got no better.

  “Grandpa!” I insisted. “You’re just getting worse. I’m gonna fetch Doc to take a look at you.”

  “Bah!” he sputtered. “Doctors can’t do nothin’ I’m not already doing.”

  When it got worse and he had a hard time breathing, I saddled Chester and headed for town—over Grandpa’s protests.

  “Sure enough,” Doc murmured. “Pneumonia. You get that girl of yours out here to take care of you ’til you get back on your feet.”

  So Aunt Lou and Sarah moved out to the farm to nurse Grandpa back to health. Doc had sent him to bed with orders that he was to follow; Aunt Lou and I both knew he wouldn’t obey if she wasn’t there to insist.

  I was sorry that Grandpa was sick, but it sure was a treat to have Aunt Lou and Sarah. Uncle Nat came out as often as he could. He missed his “two girls,” as he called them, but he was awfully good about it.

  It took Grandpa a couple of weeks before he was out of bed, and even then he had to lie down often because he was too weak to do much. In that time Sarah, crawling incessantly, had learned how to stand by herself. One morning I came into the kitchen, and she deserted her toy to crawl to me and pull herself up by my pantleg.

  “Hey! You’ll be running footraces soon!” She laughed, bouncing up and down on pudgy baby-legs.

  I was really sorry to see Aunt Lou and Sarah leave for town again. The house would seem strange and empty with them gone.

  By March, winter had still not given up, and we were short of feed for the livestock. I worried about it each time that I doled out the hay and oats.

  Grandpa must have sensed it, mentally measuring the feed each time I went out to chore. I didn’t say anything to him about it but one morning at breakfast he surprised me.

  “About enough for two more weeks, eh, Josh?”

  I nodded silently.

  “Can you cut back any?”

  “I think I’ve already cut back about as much as I dare.”

  “Any chance of buying some feed off a neighbor?” Uncle Charlie asked.

  “I’ve asked around some,” I admitted. “Nobody seems to have any extra.”

  “We’ll go out an’ take inventory and see—” Grandpa started to say, but Uncle Charlie cut him short.

  “You’ll do nothin’ of the sort!” he snorted. “Doc says yer to stay in out of the cold fer at least another two weeks.”

  “But Josh needs—” Grandpa began and Uncle Charlie waved his hand, sloshing coffee from his coffee cup.

  “I’ll help Josh,” he said. “Nothin’ in here that needs doin’ today anyway.”

  Grandpa didn’t argue any further, and after Uncle Charlie had washed up the dishes and I had dried them and set them back on the cupboard shelf, we bundled up and set off to take inventory.

  It didn’t take much figuring to know that we’d be short of feed. Uncle Charlie said what we were both thinking.

  “If spring comes tomorrow it won’t be in time.”

  By noon we had completed our calculations and headed back to the warmth of the kitchen. Grandpa had fried some eggs and sliced some bread. That, with cold slices of ham and hot tea, was our noon meal. I inwardly longed for Lou’s full dinner meals again.

  While we ate, Grandpa and Uncle Charlie juggled numbers and shuffled papers until I felt a bit sick inside. I wasn’t sure where this all was leading us. I had never remembered a time when Grandpa and Uncle Charlie had had a tough time making it through the winter—but maybe it had happened and I just hadn’t known.

  In the end I was dispatched on Chester to take a survey among the neighborhood farmers. If there was any feed for sale, our dilemma would be solved.

  But it wasn’t that easy. Everywhere I stopped I found that the other farmers were in the same fix as we were. There just wasn’t going to be enough feed to make it through this extrahard winter.

  With a sinking heart I headed for home. I decided to stop at the Turleys’ on my way, more to see how Mary and her mother were doing than to check for feed. Mr. Turley fed several head of cattle and he didn’t raise much more feed than we did.

  When Mary opened the door, she looked genuinely glad to see me. I was even a bit glad to see her.

  Mrs. Turley was busy darning some socks, and she sat there near the fire rocking back and forth as she mended. She seemed quite content and peaceful, even though she must have known that her husband, too, was facing a tough time.

  “God will see us through, I feel confident about that,” she assured me. “He always has—even when we didn’t have enough sense to turn to Him—and I’m sure that He won’t desert us now that we are His children.”

  My mouth must have gaped open at her words, for she looked at me and laughed softly.

  “Don’t look so surprised, young man.You young folks aren’t the only ones who need converting, you know.”

  “Mother has become a believer, too,” Mary whispered, a sense of awe filling her voice.

  “Yes, praise God, thanks to the changes I saw in my Mary here, after she took up with your friend Willie—and his friend, Jesus.”

  “That’s wonderful, Mrs. Turley,” I stammered, still amazed at her words. “And you’re right—we do need to trust Him.”

  Mary fixed some hot chocolate and cut some cake and we sat at the kitchen table and shared bits of news from the church and community. It seemed that she had chafed as much as I had over the snowed-in Sundays.

  “Did you hear the Foggelsons are moving?” she surprised me by asking.

  “They are? Where?”

  “Mr. Foggelson has found a teaching position in a small college somewhere near NewYork. He went there to see about it in November and then he went back again over Christmas.” “Did Mrs. Foggelson go with him?” I cut in.

  “No, he went alone.”
/>   “But she was gone—” I started to say, thinking back to the empty house and unshoveled walk.

  “She went to her sister’s. She didn’t want to be alone.”

  “I don’t blame her,” I muttered, annoyed again with Mr. Foggelson.

  “Camellia said her ma enjoyed her visit even if—” started Mary, but I cut in again.

  “Do you hear from Camellia?”

  “Oh, goodness no,” she answered, shaking her head as though the thought were preposterous. “I hardly know her. I’ve just seen her on the street, and she would never have anything in common with the likes of me.”

  Then Mary blushed as though she were afraid that her words had somehow put Camellia down.

  “I mean, well—we are—she’s educated and all, and I—”

  I rescued Mary from her embarrassment.

  “Where did you hear about her?”

  “From Willie. He wrote all about it. He keeps in touch with Camellia.”

  “Oh-h,” I said. But it was rather an empty sound. I heard from Willie—often—but he had never informed me of all of Camellia’s plans.

  “Does Camellia like school?” I asked, because I was sure that Mary was expecting me to say something.

  “Hadn’t you heard?” asked Mary, taken aback. “She quit.” “Quit?” Now I was really surprised.

  “She was only there for a couple of months when she quit.” “Then what is she doing? Why didn’t she come home?”

  “At first she was afraid to tell her pa. And then she left New York and managed to get some kind of job. A telephone operator, I think, out East. So she stayed.”

  What a disappointment that must have been for Mr. Foggelson. And then I thought of Mrs. Foggelson. She would have been disappointed too, but not that Camellia had dropped out of Interior Design. Her disappointment would have been that Camellia didn’t come back home.

  “Well, Willie says that she likes her job just fine.”

  “So she writes to Willie?” For some reason, the news was both encouraging and threatening at the same time. I wished with all of my heart that Camellia felt free to write to me, but at the same time I was glad that Willie was keeping in touch. He had led Mary to become a Christian. Now it seemed he was working on Camellia. Inwardly I prayed for Willie’s success.

  But Mary was speaking again, with a bit of a laugh. “Oh, she doesn’t need to write. Her job is right there in town.”

  “Right where in town?” I asked stupidly.

  “Where Willie goes to college. She is right there, working on the town switchboard. Willie found the job for her.”

  Well, that was news to me. Why hadn’t Willie mentioned it to me in one of his letters? And then I smiled to myself. Willie knew that I was already praying for Camellia. But he didn’t want me to get my hopes up too soon. Her father had influenced her so strongly that it might take many weeks, even months, before she would see the light after so many years of antagonism toward Christianity, and I wouldn’t ask any questions of Willie. He’d share with me when he felt that the time was right.

  I suddenly realized that I had been sitting at Mary’s table for longer than I had intended. It was already getting dark and there were chores to do. Besides, Grandpa and Uncle Charlie would be anxious for my report—even if I wasn’t returning with good news.

  “I’ve gotta get,” I said to Mary and rose from the chair, reaching for my coat and cap all in one motion.

  Then I thanked her for the refreshments, told her mother goodbye, and was on my way.

  Mary saw me to the door.

  “I’m sorry, Josh,” she said quietly.

  “About what?” I asked, startled.

  “About the winter being so hard and all,” she went on. “It’s been a tough year for your first year farmin’—it was such a long, hard fall, and then—and then this,” she finished lamely.

  I was relieved at her words. I had been afraid that she had been going to say something about the Foggelsons. I had counted the days until Camellia would be done with her schooling and come back to our little town, and now with her folks moving, it didn’t look like there was much chance of that happening. But I was relieved that Mary couldn’t read my mind.

  “Like your ma says,” I returned, trying to sound brave and full of faith, “it’ll turn out all right. God won’t forsake us.”

  Mary gave me a big smile. She really had a very pretty smile, with white, even teeth and a dimple in each cheek.

  I found myself smiling back. Maybe it was just that Mary’s smile was contagious, or maybe I hoped she’d smile again. But for whatever reason, I did feel better as I mounted Chester and headed through the chilling weather for home.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Visit

  WE HAD TO SELL several head of cattle and all but two good sows. It would be a long time until we would get the herd and the pigpens built back up again, and I wondered if Grandpa and Uncle Charlie’s decision was the right one. What if spring was just around the corner, and the new grass would soon be available? Maybe we would have been able, with careful rationing, to make it through.

  It turned out that they had done the right thing. Another and then another storm struck, making it difficult to feed the few head of stock that remained. Neighbors who were trying to ration feed and make it through without selling off livestock lost most of their herd, and they didn’t have cash from a sale to help them in rebuilding.

  Our own stock diminished, and we lost one of our best milk cows when she got weak after giving birth to a fine calf.

  Grandpa and I sat all night with her, trying to keep her warm and pouring warm mash down her throat, but we lost her. I was sure we would lose the beautiful little heifer too, but Grandpa told me to carry her up to the kitchen, and Uncle Charlie took over from there. I don’t know how he did it, but he pulled that little calf through. We all knew that she would be important in building up the herd again.

  It seemed that all our days and nights were taken up with fighting to save what Grandpa and Uncle Charlie had worked so many years to build. It just didn’t seem right.

  As soon as the weather began to warm some and I had a bit more time, I went off to town to see Uncle Nat.

  “You know that fella you told me about who changes his crops around and such?”

  He nodded. “Crop rotation.”

  “Yeah, rotation. Well, I was wondering if I might go and see him,” I went on. “I’ve been wondering how he made it through the winter.”

  “Haven’t heard,” said Uncle Nat. “They mostly shop in Gainerville. Don’t come here too often.”

  “Could you tell me how to get to his farm?”

  Uncle Nat gave me directions. They sounded simple enough, and I headed Chester out of town. The day was bright, and the warmth of the sun shone down on the snowbanks. Chester was tired of winter and being shut up; he wanted to run, but I held him in check. I didn’t want him to get all lathered up and then catch pneumonia. We had enough problems without losing Chester.

  I found the farm without any trouble, though it took longer to get there than I’d thought it would. No wonder the family shopped in Gainerville—they were quite a ways from our small town.

  Mrs. Thomas welcomed me cordially enough and informed me that her husband was down at the barn, so I declined her invitation into the kitchen and told her that I’d just go on down there to see him.

  The Thomases were a big family. I saw three girls of varying sizes through the open kitchen door, and when I got to the barn there were four boys working along with their pa.

  Randall Thomas was a big man, about forty, with a firm handshake and a kind twinkle to his eyes.

  “Pastor Crawford’s nephew, you say? Well, right glad to know ya, son,” he said. “Sure did appreciate the trip yer uncle made out here to see Ma.”

  We chatted for a few minutes, my eyes traveling over the barn and feed shed all the time I was talking or listening. It didn’t look to me like there had been a feed shortage at this farm.
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br />   At last we got around to talking about the winter that we hopefully had just passed through.

  “Sure a tough one,” the big man said. “Worst I remember seein’.”

  I agreed, though it was evident that I hadn’t seen quite as many winters as Mr. Thomas had.

  “Looks like your stock made it through just fine,” I said, nodding my head toward a corral holding some healthy looking cattle.

  “Sold some of ’em way last fall,” he surprised me by saying.

  “You did?”

  “Didn’t want to wait until they only made soup bones,” he went on. “A farmer has to think long-range. You figure about the worst that a winter can do to you and then plan accordingly. I figured out the feed I’d need to git each critter through to the end of May. By then the new grass should be helpin’ us out some, even in the worst of years.”

  “We didn’t have near enough feed to take us that far,” I commented. “We had to sell several head.”

  “Too bad,” he said sympathetically, shaking his head at our misfortune. “Heard some folks lost a lot of stock before they could even sell ’em.”

  “Grandpa sold early, before things got too bad,” I informed him.

  “That was smart thinkin’,” went on the man. “The way I see it, a few real good, healthy head of stock are better’n a whole herd of weak, half-starved ones.”

  I could see his point.

  “A herd can get themselves into pretty bad shape if you don’t keep upgradin’ ’em,” he went on. “Then they can’t take much cold an’ poor feed.”

  I looked at his sleek cattle. They didn’t look like they had just been through a tough winter.

  A bird overhead drew my attention to the sky. The sun had already moved far to the west, losing much of the warmth of the day. It was a long ride back home, and I knew I should soon be making it.

  “I really came to see you about your crops,” I told Mr. Thomas. “I’ve a feeling that we would have fared much better this winter if our land were producing like it should be. Seems to me the hay that we took off was only about half as high or heavy as it could have been.”