It took a moment for Becky to remember where she was when she woke in the gray Christmas morning in the rosy room, a real room, with hangings and pictures, and a pink shaded light. Joan opened her eyes sleepily. “Is it six?” she asked. “Mrs. Cleaver said we might get up at six.”
“You mustn’t get up till we know that they’re awake.”
But the Cleaver family were astir first, and by the time the guests were dressed the tree was lighted, and a fire was burning in the fireplace downstairs. And in Becky’s stocking, which had not been hung the night before, there was a slender silver necklace that made her eyes fill.
It was a happy, homey day, with a wonderful Christmas dinner, and a quiet afternoon spent around the fire. Little by little most of the story of the lonely year came out, and the children felt cheered and warmed and heartened. The sympathy and interest did as much as the homelike surroundings to make the day perfect. When at four o’clock they kissed Mrs. Cleaver good-by and got into the car to drive back across the prairie, they felt that they were parting with an old friend.
“This is just the beginning,” said Mrs. Cleaver. “We’re going to have you often, after this.”
And Mr. Cleaver, as he left them at the door of their house, said almost the same thing. “People without kids, and kids without people ought to get together,” he added as he drove away.
CHRISTMAS was one of the two events of that year. The other happened in February when the children had begun to feel that the backbone of the long winter was broken. There had been a thaw, and a period of golden sunshine and mild weather that almost hinted of spring. Then came a day when the gray clouds hung low, and a biting wind sprang up. Before Dick rode off on horseback to high school Becky warned him that if it looked like snow he was to stay in Winner all night. She and the children packed their lunch, and went off to school together. Ole Oleson had just gone along that trail, but the wind had already swept away his tracks, and was making wave-marks on the snow that was left in the ravines. All day long Becky kept glancing uneasily out of the window, for the clouds looked threatening, but it was not until after two that the snow began to fall. It came at first with a few doubtful flakes that the wind quickly whirled away. After that followed a downfall so thick that in ten minutes she could not see to the coal shed. It was driven obliquely by a gale that came from the northeast.
“I think we’ll dismiss school,” she said. “It’s nearly time to go home, anyway, and it looks as though a storm were on the way.” They skipped the final school song, and put on their coats at once. Becky turned off the drafts of the stove, and they all started out of the building together.
As she closed the door the wind caught her, and slammed her back against the schoolhouse. The blizzard was not coming; it was here. She took the hands of the smallest children, but she was soon forced to leave them and herd them into single file. The older children started on first, and Becky followed in their trail, breaking the path for the little ones behind her. They wavered in the wind, and moved slowly along, their heads bent to avoid the biting sweep of the storm. Several times the teacher had to stop and wait for her followers. When she looked up after one of these waits the older group were not to be seen; the driving snow hid them from sight. With her were the three little Wubbers, the two Welp girls, Phil and Joan, Shirley Lambert, and the Trainer twins, the babies of her flock. She knew that with their slow progress she could not catch up with the others.
The sky was a gray cover, dropped low over the earth. The drifting flakes flew like wild things. The snow that had covered their feet now covered their ankles; soon reached nearly to their knees. The children stopped complaining and stumbled slowly along, while Becky encouraged them with all the breath she had left. The first houses on the trail were only a mile and a half from the schoolhouse; they must reach one of them before the storm grew worse. But the storm did not wait. It swept round them in a dizzying whirl that bit and stung wherever it touched. The new snow had fallen on a soft layer below that made walking very difficult. The Trainer twins complained that their feet were heavy, and that they were too tired to go on, but Becky insisted on it, cheering, encouraging, and even lifting them over the gullies where the snow was deepest. It was not until she saw how swiftly it was growing dark that she realized that the outlook was serious for the children. The older ones were probably safe by that time; they must have reached one of the two claim houses that were directly opposite each other on the trail. But at the rate they were going now the others could never reach there. Alone, she could make the shelter, but the children never could. She tried to estimate how far they had come, and finally decided that it was a shorter distance back to the school than it was on to the Emerson home. So she turned her little band. They would be safe in the schoolhouse until they were called for.
How Becky ever got them back to the building she never knew. It meant an hour of determined effort, of patient plodding; of constant urging and commanding, and even scolding. She finally herded them in a line that moved slowly forward, each holding on to the one ahead. The wind battered their faces; the snow blinded them; the smallest ones cried and begged for a rest. Many, many times the line was forced to stop while she went to the rear to cheer, to admonish, to pick up the fallen. The snow was so heavy that she did not see how the short legs could lift themselves out of the drifts. But somehow they succeeded. The prairie was a storm-tossed sea, and out of its depths the little band of castaways struggled and floundered to the schoolhouse door. Becky herded them, crying and wringing their half-frozen fingers, back into the school. Hobbling about on her stiff feet, she opened the draughts of the stove, and out of blue lips spoke cheerily:
“Here is the best place for you until your people come for you. The storm can’t get at us here.” But as she spoke she gave an uneasy glance through the window at the whirling snow. Unless they arrived in a few minutes there would be no coming, that night.
As the room grew warm the children began to thaw out. Becky left them to their games while she began to take stock. She would have to prepare for a siege, for if the snow went on they would have to stay in the schoolhouse all night. That meant fuel, and the soft coal was piled in the shed, back of the school. It meant trip after trip through that blizzard to get enough to last all night, for the week’s supply had grown low. It didn’t seem a possible thing to walk through that driving snow, and carry a basket of coal besides, but it must be done, and done soon, too, for it was already dark out-of-doors. It might even be that she could not find her way now through that storm.
In the box of shelves that served her for a school cupboard lay a ball of light rope that Becky had used for the curtain at the Christmas program. It was not long enough to reach to the coal shed, but it would help. To it she added Joan’s sled rope and a long doubled length of heavy twine. She put on her outer garments again, and opened the door. The wind almost tore it from her grasp, and she stepped out into a drift of snow at the steps. She rounded the schoolhouse, feeling her way in the dark along the siding, and tied the end of her rope on to the heavy shutter on the back window. With the other end in her hand she started out through the driving snow in the direction of the shed. It took her five minutes to reach the little building fifty feet away. She tied the rope to the hasp on the door, and filled her basket from the pile of soft coal. Going back was somewhat easier, for the wind was at her shoulders, and she had the rope for a guide. But even at best it took every effort that she could muster, and she arrived at the school door almost exhausted.
“You shan’t go out again,” said Joan. “I’d sooner freeze.”
“Leave me go, too,” begged Crystal. “I kin help.”
The other children joined in Joan’s plea, but Becky knew the demands that night would make on the fire, and with only a moment’s rest she went out into the storm again. After the second trip she dared not wait even that long, for she knew that a moment’s delay would cover her track.
Back and forth she struggled between shed and sch
ool. Blinded, weary, stiff with cold, she made her way through the drifts, realizing now why people froze from exposure. It was so much easier to lie down and die than to make the effort to go on. Nine trips she made with her heavy basket. On the tenth the rope came apart, her burden dropped, and it was with the greatest exertion that she made her way back to the school. She found her charges restless and worried. Even they had begun to see that rescue that night was impossible.
“Phil was just putting on his galoshes to go out after you,” said Venus. “We thought you were lost.”
It was half-past five, and pitch dark in the schoolhouse. Becky thawed out her half-frozen hands and feet, and lighted the gasoline lamp. There would be enough gasoline to last a couple of hours. Then she asked about lunch pails. Some had been dropped in the storm; others were empty. Among them all were two sandwiches, a doughnut, a piece of corn-bread and a large piece of cheese. Becky divided these among the children, heated water on the stove, and made each one drink a cup of it. Then she set them to playing games again; the more they exercised the longer she could make the fuel last. She doled out her coal sparingly, but it seemed to melt away in the draught made by that wind. It was the night that the young teacher dreaded, after they grew too tired to play. How could she keep them warm against that wind, that rattled the windows and made the flimsy little building tremble? White frost filled every crack. The children shivered if they left the circle around the fire.
Before eight the snow had mounted above the window-sills, and the lamp burned low. The youngest children began to get sleepy. Becky covered the floor around the stove with every bit of paper she could find in the schoolhouse. She spread out old newspapers, tablet sheets, open school books, the big map—everything she could find that she could use to keep the wind out. On them she grouped the children, each one in his outer garments, even to mittens. Over them she spread the big piece of ticking that Mr. Lambert had loaned them for a curtain at their Christmas entertainment. That was all she could do except to keep up the fire. All night she fed the stove while the wind raged and howled outside. Sometimes she drowsed for a moment in her chair; sometimes she walked to keep awake. But the children slept, and though she was sure that they were stiff and chilly, she knew that they would not freeze so long as she was there and the coal lasted.
It was hours later when Venus Wubber set up a cry of discomfort that woke the others. Becky held up a match to the school clock and saw it pointed to six. For a moment she thought it had stopped the night before; then she realized that the windows were covered with snow, and that while it was dark in the room, it must be day outside.
The pile of coal that she had dumped into the room the night before was nothing but a heap of dust with three small pieces atop. There would be no fire to depend on now.
The room was already growing cold. She had some trouble in persuading the children, who thought it was still night, that exercise was necessary. But she finally got the stiff feet in use, and the lame arms in motion. She knew that exercise must be kept up, perhaps all day, if the children were to be spared. They marched, they sang, they played games in that dark room for hours, and it seemed to Becky that each hour was a day.
“I’ll never want to play pom, pull away, again as long as I live,” said Joan, and the other children echoed it. They were hungry and tired and cold and irritable. They were frightened, too, when they caught a glimpse of the snow wall that blocked the doorway.
“Will we ever get out again?” quavered Essie.
“I’ll get you out if you’ll all do what I tell you,” said Becky. She only half believed it, herself, but she must not let them know that. She encouraged, and petted, and pleaded; she devised games; she took part in all the calisthenics; she made marching in a dark room a funny play. The children clumped around after her on half-frozen feet, they cried over their aching hands, and they pleaded to be allowed to rest. But the girl was firm. By nine the wind had begun to die down. At eleven a little crack of light shone through the upper part of the sash, and they could see the reflection of a brilliant sun. And at two in the afternoon, when Becky was leading her weary flock through a “hopping march,” there was the sound of shovels outside—of shovels and voices and safety.
It was Dick’s voice that she heard first, and Dick’s anxious face peered through the schoolroom door when the drifts of snow had been plowed away. What he said was “Gee!” but there was relief and joy enough in that one word for Becky to remember all her days. After him came Mr. Peters and a procession of the neighborhood men, who pounced in turn upon the children.
Mr. Peters looked around at the cold stove, the cold room and the blue-faced children. “How did you keep them from freezing?” he asked.
“She marched us,” said one of the Trainer twins. “She’s kep’ us going it all day. We’re all in!”
“How about you?” inquired Mr. Peters, with a keen look at the heavy-eyed teacher.
But Becky was not too tired to smile. “All in, but all out!” she said.
CHAPTER XI
THE CALL OF THE PRAIRIE
THE SNOW melted as rapidly as it fell. Five days later the roads were clear, and a delegation of homesteaders drove into Winner, and visited the commissioner of schools. Mr. Cleaver, dropping in for a call at the same place, met a delegation of them filing out.
“Who are your friends?” he asked, helping himself to a chair in Mr. Peters’ office.
“Committee from Crane Hollow. Come in to talk about your protégé who’s teaching out there. Seems there’s one homesteader out that way that’s making trouble about her. Man named Welp.”
“I know him,” said Mr. Cleaver grimly.
“Well, he’s got a son who wants that school. The Welp family are low down, good-for-nothing trash, but the boy’s different from the rest; was brought up by an uncle who gave him quite a bit of schooling. Young Welp applied for the school last summer, but I gave it to Miss Linville, on the ground that she’d had more education. Now the uncle is giving him a year of normal training which little Miss Linville never had, more’s the pity. And old Welp is talking big about this being her last term; that next year his boy will get the school.”
“Anything to the talk? You’re the one to decide that, I should say.”
“Well, it’s a mean sort of thing to decide. We’re doing our best to raise the standard of teachers out here, and I’ve talked education for them till I’m blue in the face. Technically, the young man’s had the better preparation.”
“Do the people out that way want him?”
“Want him! They want Miss Linville, and no one else. That’s what that delegation came in to tell me. They were solid for her before the blizzard—said she’d done wonders for the whole community, as well as the children—but now they’re determined to keep her. I don’t wonder they are; there wouldn’t be any children left to make a school if it hadn’t been for her. They would have been frozen stiff, just like that man they found two miles away from the school-house the day after the storm.”
“You haven’t any idea of letting her go, have you? You’d be an idiot if you did.”
“No, I shan’t let her go, even if I have to eat my words about raising teaching standards. She may not have had the preparation, but she’s a fine girl, and a born teacher. We’re lucky to have her. No, I wouldn’t think of giving the place to Welp.”
“Then I suppose the delegation went away satisfied.”
“Well, partly. If Welp wins the contest on that land the young Linvilles will have to leave Tripp County. The delegation came partly to see if I couldn’t induce him to give up the contest.”
“Just how did they think you were going to bring that about?”
“Oh, they weren’t particular about the method. Persuasion or poison—anything, just so they could keep her. They’re dead set on that.”
“I don’t blame them. She’s a fine little woman. But I don’t know how you, or anyone else, for that matter, are going to get a wedge under Welp. He’s an
ornery customer.”
“That’s what I told them. They were mighty disappointed; seemed to think I could put the man out of the country if I only wanted to. It was an amusing kind of interview, in spite of the earnestness of the committee. That fat, dark woman that headed the procession did most of the talking.”
“Name’s Wubber, isn’t it?”
“Yes, she’s a neighbor of Miss Linville’s, and strong for her. Says she has more ee-nergy than any one she ever saw. ‘That’s what I admire,’ she told me. ‘I got a lot of it in me, and I always like to see it in others. Mighty few girls of her age has got her git up and git.’”
“She’s right about that,” said Mr. Cleaver heartily.
“You’re sold to her, too, are you?”
“I am that. And I’m not the only one in my family that is. She spent Christmas day with us, and my wife fell for her, hard. I don’t know when I’ve seen her taken with anyone as she was by that slip of a girl. When she read the story of Becky’s siege during the blizzard she said it didn’t surprise her, she knew that the girl would stand up under anything. She’s a plucky kid; just see how she’s carried on during this hard year, keeping that family fed and mothered, besides running the school! She never was used to hard living before, either; it must have been tough work for her out here in the beginning.”
“Yes, she’s got a lot of grit. You can see that by her work in school. Country teaching is a good test of a young person, with the long walks, the building of fires and the carrying of water, besides the lessons. Miss Linville has done every bit of that herself, rather than hire one of the big boys to do it, as most of my teachers do. Oh, she’s done a lot for that community—parents as well as children. You may be sure I’ll not let her go as long as I can keep her.”
“I wish that Welp would let her alone. Don’t believe he’ll ever succeed in getting the claim away from them, but he can keep them stirred up, just as he’s done ever since they arrived.”
The Jumping-Off Place Page 15