“Daddy, birds don’t talk,” Franny said, barely looking up from her storybook.
Franny was still too young to understand what a disaster it could be to have a snowstorm so early.
When they’d lived in Chicago, there were stores where they could buy food, no matter what the weather. But here almost everything they ate came from the land. Ma grew their vegetables. They got their milk from Princess the cow and their eggs from their chickens. The creek was loaded with fish. If Ma wanted rabbit or squirrel or goose for her stew, she’d send John or Pa out to shoot one.
But nothing grew when the prairie was covered with ice and snow. The animals disappeared underground. The chickens wouldn’t lay eggs, and Princess’s milk would dry up. It wasn’t until late April that the prairie started to sprout back to life.
And so if they wanted to eat during the frozen months, they had to fill their cellar with food before the first big snows.
Ma had been making pickles and jams all summer, and lining up the jars in their little cellar. She had dozens of eggs tucked away in their salty beds. But they still had to harvest the potatoes and turnips, which grew underground.
If this blizzard kept up and the ground froze, those potatoes and turnips would rot. So would the pumpkins and squash still ripening on their vines. They wouldn’t have enough to eat this winter.
John stood nervously at the window with Ma and Pa, watching as the snow turned the prairie white. Suddenly Pa pointed into the distance.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “Those clouds are breaking up.”
John and Ma followed Pa’s finger into the distance. Sure enough, the sky was brightening. The snow slowed, and then finally stopped.
By supper the snow had melted, and the wet prairie grasses sparkled like glass in the setting sun.
“I guess winter changed its mind,” Ma said.
“I think it was sending us a message,” said Pa. “We’d better get to work.”
They started before dawn the next morning. John got out of bed and put on his patched overalls, not his school trousers. He knew he and Franny would be staying home for weeks, and wouldn’t go back to school until the work was finished.
Franny helped Ma dig up the potatoes and turnips. John and Pa plowed over the soil in the wheat field so it would ready for planting in the spring. They patched up the soddy roof and filled in the cracks in the dirt walls.
The hardest job was making haystacks. They had to be built just right — tall and tightly packed and rounded at the top — or the hay would rot. That hay would keep Shadow’s and Princess’s bellies full over the winter, when there was no grass to munch on.
They worked for weeks. It wasn’t until the end of October that the cellar was packed full. The soddy was finally snug. The fields were plowed.
They were ready for winter — as ready as they could ever be.
John clutched Franny’s hand tight as they walked along the old wagon trail. It was a cold and dreary October morning and they were finally heading back to school.
John’s mind swirled with nervous thoughts. What if the guys had forgotten all about him? What if they ignored him like before?
But just as the school came into view, John heard voices.
“There he is!”
“He’s back!”
Rex, Peter, and Sven came barreling over to him. They grabbed his arm and slapped his back so hard he almost fell to the dirt.
But of course John didn’t mind.
For the first time since he left Chicago, John actually looked forward to going to school.
At lunchtime he and the guys would squeeze together around one desk. They’d divvy up whatever food they’d brought from home. Sven’s mother baked the best bread, the dark Swedish kind that tasted smoky and sweet. Peter’s made the most delicious pies. John’s favorite was made from the sour chokecherries that grew wild on the prairie. Rex got the same lunch every day: two potatoes, roasted in their skins. He didn’t complain, though. He said that on cold days he carried one hot potato in each pocket, to keep his hands warm.
John learned more about the guys and how their families had come to Dakota.
Rex’s family came from Texas, and traveled to Dakota before their town, Prairie Creek, even had a name. Rex didn’t remember the monthlong journey in a covered wagon. But he knew the whole family almost drowned when they were bringing their wagon across the Colorado River.
Sven came from the farthest away — Sweden. The trip took almost six months by ship, train, and wagon. The worst part was the two-month voyage across the Atlantic in a leaky steamship crawling with mice. Sven spent most of the trip puking over the side.
But it was Peter’s story that hit John the hardest. His family came five years ago, from Minnesota. Crossing into Dakota, they ran into a thunderstorm. The mules pulling their wagon got spooked and took off. The wagon nearly flipped over. And Peter’s little brother, William, flew out. He landed on some rocks and died within the hour.
“My ma didn’t talk for six months after that,” Peter said softly.
John swallowed hard, and he noticed Rex and Sven did, too.
None of them said anything more, but they all inched a little closer to Peter.
John didn’t think he had any important stories to share. He’d never crossed a stormy ocean or a raging river.
But one bright day at recess, the guys started asking John about Chicago. It turned out none of them had ever been to a big city. And they were dying to hear all about skyscrapers and restaurants and the electric lights that lit up the streets at night.
“Lots of murderers live there, right?” Peter asked.
“Maybe,” John said. “I never met one, though.”
The guys seemed a little disappointed.
“I heard there are rats as big as cats,” Sven said.
“There are,” John said, and he told how once he woke up and found one sitting right on his bed.
“What did you do?” Rex asked.
John shrugged. “Just shooed it away.”
The guys fell over in laughing horror.
You’d have thought John had fought off a dragon.
“I hate rats,” Rex said with a shudder. John found it amazing — this was a kid who’d stared down a monster snake, and a plain old rat gave him the willies!
But John understood. To the guys, Chicago was a strange land, one filled with danger and mystery. Like Dakota was to John.
“What’s the weather like there?” Sven asked.
John shrugged. “It gets hot in the summer, and cold in the winter.” He said. “But nothing like here.”
The guys nodded.
Peter looked up at the sunny sky.
“I’m thinking that maybe winter’s not going to be so bad,” he said. “It’s been warm all week.”
“Remember, the birds left early,” Sven said.
“The birds could be wrong,” Peter said.
They all looked at Rex, who was polishing off his second potato.
Rex just shook his head.
“The birds are never wrong.”
The first big blizzard hit the very next week, a howling storm that came in the night and lasted for three days. The weather cleared up until early November, and then it snowed on and off for most of the next two months.
A Christmas Day ice storm left icicles hanging off the soddy roof, and all the way to the ground. Franny licked one and got her tongue stuck. Ma had to melt some of the icicle with warm water so poor Franny’s tongue wouldn’t tear in half.
But it turned out that winter was just getting started.
On January 5, John woke up shivering. The inside of the soddy walls shimmered with white frost. His teeth chattered so hard he was afraid they’d shatter.
Pa checked the thermometer outside their front door.
“Minus twenty,” he announced with a brrrrrrrr.
Ma fed more coal into the stove, but it didn’t do much good. When it got this cold outside, even the thick dirt walls of the
soddy couldn’t keep the warm air from seeping out.
Of course it was too cold for school. Nobody could go out in this weather. John wished he could stay in bed, wrapped tight in his quilt. But Shadow and Princess needed breakfast. He bundled up in his heavy woolen coat and scarf and mittens and stepped outside.
The cold seemed to reach into his lungs and freeze his breath. His eyes watered and the tears froze to his cheeks. He rushed into the barn and warmed himself up by huddling next to Shadow.
He tried to milk Princess, but only a few squirts came out. And the milk froze before it even hit the bucket.
As he came out of the barn, he saw Pa standing in front of one of their haystacks. It looked like someone — or something — had chewed right through its center.
“What happened?” John asked.
“Some animal must have slept there last night,” Pa said.
John noticed little paw prints leading to and from the stack.
“Looks like it was a fox,” Pa said.
“He hid in a haystack?” John asked.
“Sure,” Pa said. “The walls are good and thick, keeps the cold out.”
John helped Pa fix the haystack. By the time he came in for breakfast, his face was completely numb. Icicles hung from his eyelashes. It took two mugs of Ma’s tea to warm him up again.
For a solid week, they couldn’t leave the soddy except to feed the animals and to get water. They couldn’t even use the outhouse. Ma put up a curtain in the corner, and they used a bucket.
As the days dragged by, John started to feel like a pickle trapped in a jar — a cold and very smelly jar.
But on the morning of January 12, Franny shook John awake.
“It’s summer!” she announced.
“Not quite,” Pa laughed. “But it warmed up. It’s almost thirty degrees!”
And after the bone-cracking cold of the last week, it did feel practically like summer. John had only one thought: They would be able to go to school.
John rushed through his chores and gobbled up his porridge, and he and Franny flew out the door.
Ma called after them from the doorway.
“Wait! Your mittens and scarves!”
“Don’t need them, Ma!” John hollered back.
“It’s summer, Ma, remember?” Franny laughed.
As she and John walked, Franny looked up at the sky.
“Look,” she said. “It looks like a fairy tale.”
The sky did look different, pale blue and streaked with gold.
John had never seen anything like it.
After seven days of being cooped up because of the cold, the kids at school acted like bank robbers who’d escaped from jail. Nobody wanted to sit still. And to their surprise, Miss Ruell cut their grammar lesson short.
“I wouldn’t mind a little fresh air,” she said.
The schoolhouse erupted in cheers.
John and the guys leapt out of their seats. Kids poured outside, most without their coats and wraps. Franny ran off to play hide-and-seek with her friends.
John and the guys stayed in front. The hard-packed snow was slick, like an ice rink. They slid around, racing each other and spinning until they were too dizzy to stand. John was sliding across when someone came up right next to him.
Myra!
“Race you,” she said, smiling as she whooshed by. Her flowered dress billowed behind her like a sail.
John’s heart somersaulted inside his chest. He tried to catch up with her, but she ran off giggling with Annie. John wondered if the guys had seen that. He looked around and realized they weren’t skating anymore. They were on the schoolhouse steps.
John went over. They all looked uneasy. Rex was peering into the sky to the north of them.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“See that?” Rex said.
John followed Rex’s gaze.
And that’s when John saw it in the distance, a gray shadow in the sky. At first he thought he was imagining it, that the blinding brightness of the day was making his eyes play tricks.
But no. Rex was right. There was something in the sky, something big and dark. And it was getting bigger by the second. It was coming this way, and moving very fast.
Rex’s mouth fell open. “What the …”
They all stood and watched as the shadow in the distance took shape. With each second, it got bigger and darker. It was a cloud of some kind, dirty gray and billowing, and stretching out across the land.
The temperature was dropping, fast. John was shivering, not just because of the cold. He didn’t know what he was looking at. He just knew it was bad.
The schoolyard went quiet. Kids stopped sliding in the snow. All eyes were on the churning cloud.
“That’s a huge storm,” Rex said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
A low rumbling rose up. The ground shook.
And now Miss Ruell was clanging the bell.
“Children! Come inside now! Hurry!”
The day seemed to turn to night. And then came an earsplitting roar. It sounded like a train was speeding right by them. But of course there was no train anywhere near here.
It was the sound of a monster blizzard, closing in.
Kids rushed into the schoolhouse. John was swept up the stairs in the wave of panicked bodies. Suddenly he was inside. The schoolhouse door banged shut.
And then,
ROOOOOOAAAAR!
The entire building shook. A window shattered, and snow and ice exploded into the schoolhouse. But John hardly noticed. He barely heard the screeching wind or the cries of the little kids. He was looking all around.
Where was Franny?
It was very dark inside the schoolhouse. Miss Ruell struggled to light a lantern. But John could see well enough to know that Franny wasn’t there.
A crack of fear almost knocked him off his feet.
She’d been playing hide-and-seek. She’d probably found some perfect hiding spot off in a corner of the schoolyard. And when everyone ran inside, she’d been left behind.
How had John let that happen? How could he have forgotten his sister?
John rushed to the door and flung it open. A vicious blast of wind and snow nearly knocked him down. He clung to the doorframe to keep his balance.
“Franny!” he cried.
Miss Ruell called to him.
“John! No!”
But John couldn’t wait. Franny was out there!
The storm’s icy hooks seemed to snatch him from the doorway. The wind roared in his ears and yanked him down the stairs. It threw him onto the ground. Ice and snow lashed his face. He gasped for breath as the freezing air shocked his lungs.
John grabbed the stair railing and struggled to his feet. He pushed himself forward, staggering into the frozen darkness that had swallowed the schoolyard.
“Franny!” he cried.
ROOOOARRR! the storm screamed back.
He looked around, but it was impossible to see. The snow gushed down from the sky and churned in the wind. Ground-up ice flew into John’s eyes, coating his lashes and lids. With each blink, the ice scraped painfully against his eyeballs.
But even worse was the furious wind, which slashed at him from every direction. John felt as if he was locked in a cage with a pack of wild beasts, all trying to tear him to bits.
He thought of that farmer who’d died in last year’s blizzard. It hadn’t really made sense to John, how a strong man could get lost and freeze to death, just a few yards from his house. But now, as John staggered blindly along, spinning in the wind, he understood all too well.
Crushed bits of snow sifted down his collar and blew up his sleeves and trouser legs. Soon, every inch of his skin was crusted with ice. The cold seeped through his flesh and muscles, and stabbed into his bones.
John was shivering so hard his bones felt as if they would crack apart.
A gust of wind smashed against him. He fell back, into the snow. And now he couldn’t stand up. The wind pressed d
own on him, like a giant boot crushing him into the ground. Ice was filling his nose, making it harder and harder to breathe.
A feeling of terror came over John. He had never felt so tiny, and so helpless.
He’d made a terrible mistake, he realized.
There was no way he would be able to find Franny in this blizzard.
He was going to freeze to death.
John mustered the last of his strength and screamed out at the top of his lungs.
“Franny!”
The blizzard screamed back.
But then another voice punched through the blizzard’s howl.
“John!”
It wasn’t Franny.
It was Miss Ruell. Her voice was muffled by the wind. But he thought she was somewhere very close.
And then a hand clamped onto his arm.
Miss Ruell had found him!
She gripped his arm tighter and managed to pull him up.
John was so freezing cold that his body wasn’t working right. He couldn’t feel his feet. He kept stumbling and falling to his knees.
Luckily, Miss Ruell was stronger than she looked. She wrapped her arm around John’s waist. And she practically dragged him through the rising snowdrifts and up the steps to the schoolhouse door. The next thing John knew, he was inside.
He collapsed onto the floor.
He couldn’t see through his frozen eyes. But he felt people surrounding him. Hands swept snow from his head. Gentle fingers brushed ice from his face. A blanket came around his shoulders. John would have died of embarrassment if he wasn’t practically frozen to death.
And then someone hugged him. John smelled apples and soap.
Could it be? Was he dreaming?
“Franny?”
Hot tears welled up in John’s eyes, melting the ice that crusted his lashes and lids. He stared at his sister’s face.
He had never in his life felt so relieved.
“Why did you go outside!” she cried.
“I thought you were lost!” John stuttered through his chattering teeth. “I was looking for you!”
“I snuck inside and was here hiding under Miss Ruell’s desk, for the game.”
I Survived the Children's Blizzard, 1888 Page 3