by Anne Patton
“Is there water in the kettle?” she asked in a small voice.
“Enough for tea. Help me drag this drum closer to the stove.” Lydia grasped the steel sides, yelped and shook out her fingers. “It’s too cold to touch.”
“It’s no use, Lydia. Dad and Frank could barely move it. That’s why we left it near the door.”
“Remember that old-timer who rode by the homestead one day,” Lydia said. “When he warned about the coming deep freeze, Dad said he was having us on. That old colonial was right.”
“But Dad told us Lloydminster is the same latitude as Yorkshire. A barrel of water would never freeze solid in Yorkshire. How can it get so cold here?”
“I don’t know but it ruddy well is,” Lydia said bitterly, “and Dad isn’t here to help us.”
“Frank will come soon.” Dorothy scratched a peephole through the frosted window and peered out. Swirling snow filled the air.
“Are you kidding? It looks like another blizzard has started. Frank will be stuck in Battleford until it’s over.” Lydia moved the kettle to the hottest part of the stove. Then she found Dorothy’s coat and draped it over her sister’s shoulders. “We’re on our own, Dodie.”
In a few minutes the kettle was steaming. Lydia filled the tea-ball. “Wake Mam up.”
Dorothy pulled back the privacy curtain. A blast of frigid air hit her, even colder than the main room. She buttoned her coat. “Mam, it’s morning. Tea’s on.”
Tentatively, she walked to the head of the bed. At first she thought her mother wasn’t there, until she noticed a body-shaped bulge in the comforters. Slowly she pared back the covers. Mam’s head appeared, wrapped so tightly in her muffler that Dorothy couldn’t tell front from back.
Dorothy’s throat went dry. “Mam,” she croaked, “it’s time to get up. Lydia has tea ready.” The muffled shape didn’t move. Dorothy’s pulse quickened. “Please wake up!”
Through the woollen material a thin voice mumbled, “I’m so cold, Dodie. Get in bed and warm me up.”
Relief shivered through Dorothy’s body. She buried her unspeakable fear deep in her mind. Removing her moccasins, she climbed in beside her mother. How long she had waited for this invitation! She nestled her back tight against Mam’s body. Mam draped her arm over Dorothy. Under the covers they lay still for several minutes.
Finally Lydia called, “The tea’s steeped and I’m pouring it right now.”
Mam stirred. “Thank you, Dodie. I feel better now.” She loosened the scarf around her head. Reluctantly Dorothy wiggled out from the covers and fetched her mother’s coat and indoor shoes.
Soon they huddled in three chairs around the stove, drinking hot tea.
Dorothy’s stomach grumbled, reminding her how famished she was. She picked up the tin buckets. “I’m thinking to fill these with snow and melt it on the stove. Then you can make porridge.”
Mam was aghast. “The wind has picked up again. You can’t go outside in this weather!”
“Just long enough to scoop snow into the buckets.”
Lydia sighed. “I had best do it. I’m older.”
No,” Dorothy insisted, “I’m smaller. I can wear your coat over mine and be warm enough. Besides, I have Mr. Parenteau’s moccasins.”
“That’s true,” said Lydia, looking relieved. “You can’t get lost if you’re just outside.”
Dressed in both coats, Dorothy stood by the door. She could scarcely bend her arms. Her sister wrapped a muffler around her face and pulled thick mittens over her gloves. Lydia unlatched the plank door and Dorothy waddled outside.
“I’ll be right here,” said Lydia, shutting the door behind her.
Even on this dull day it was so much brighter outside that Dorothy was stunned by the glare. The wind swirled up inside her nightgown and ice needles stung her eyes. Her woollen long johns were no protection at all. She was thankful she had a very brief task in the snow.
A large drift had formed beside the door. Dorothy knocked through the crust and scooped snow into the buckets. In a couple of minutes she pounded on the door and stumbled inside.
Mam peeled off Dorothy’s snowy outerwear. “You’re a brave girl, Dodie.”
Dorothy felt a warm bubble swell inside her. “It wasn’t hard, Mam. I can do it again.”
While the snow melted on the stove, Lydia announced, “We have an urgent problem, Mam. There is a gap at the top of the wall beside Dodie’s bunk. That’s why it’s so flippin’ cold in here. We have to stuff it with something.”
“Watch your language, Lydia.”
Lydia exhaled sharply, “Sorry, Mam.” When she started again her voice was slow, each word carefully formed. “What can-we-use to-plug-the-hole in-the-wall?”
Alert to the problem now, Mam looked toward the roof. “How long is the hole?”
“I’ll take a look.” Dorothy unlaced her moccasins and scrambled up the ladder. She crawled the length of her bunk, peering at the seam where the wall connected with the sloping roof. “I can see a strip of daylight along the entire wall.”
“What?” Lydia dragged a chair to another section of wall and climbed up. “Bloody hell! Look what’s happened! And don’t mention my language, Mam.” She jumped to the floor, clenching her hands. Finally she exploded, “Dad should have listened to Frank!”
“Wh-what’s happened?” stammered Dorothy, looking down from her upper bunk.
“The frame of the roof is nailed to these poles.” Lydia touched one of the upright poplar poles that held up the roof. “But the sod has settled, so now there’s a space.” She ran to the back of the soddie where the wall was lower. “The crack is smaller here because there aren’t as many layers of sod, but the cold draught still comes through.”
Mam tugged on the blanket that formed the privacy divider to her bedroom. “We could stuff this into the gap. But one blanket won’t cover the whole perimeter.”
From the upper bunk Dorothy surveyed their space, as cold gusts shivered her back. Finally she said, “I have an idea.”
13
Everything is Frozen
Dorothy scurried down the ladder. “Remember how much warmer we were when we snuggled together. Let’s all sleep on Mam’s mattress right beside the stove.”
“On the dirt floor?” Mam sounded scandalized.
“You’re right,” said Lydia. “We can’t stop the cold wind from blowing in, but we can try to stay warmer.” She yanked the hanging blanket from its nails. “We’ll start with this blanket. We’ll put our pallets over it, then Mam’s wider mattress on top.”
After a flurry of activity, a double thick straw mattress lay on the floor, partly pushed under the table. Mam spread out the eiderdowns. Lydia rolled warm stones from beneath the stove and tucked them into the foot of the bed. Dorothy plumped up their pillows and placed them at the head.
“Let’s try it,” said Dorothy, diving under the covers. “Come in with me, Mam.”
Mam hesitated, then folded her coat on a chair and climbed in.
Lydia squirmed in too. “I’m finally warm! Let’s stay here till spring.”
“Oh my gosh! I can’t stay here that long.” Dorothy wiggled free of the covers.
“What are you doing? Don’t climb over me, you idiot!”
“So sorry. Emergency.” Dorothy pulled out the chamber pot beneath her mother’s bed. “I really have to wee.” Adjusting her clothes she crouched over the pot. “Yow! It’s too cold to sit on!”
“Serves you right for kneeing me,” laughed Lydia. “Get back in here. We need your heat.”
Dorothy carefully burrowed into her spot between Mam and Lydia. “I like sharing a bed,” she giggled. “I feel like a sausage in a fry pan, all hot and sizzling!”
“Catherine and I shared a bed when we were children…” Mam’s voice sounded nostalgic. “Lydia has her green eyes but you have her laugh, Dodie. For an instant I thought it was Catherine giggling at me.”
“I miss Aunt Catherine,” sighed Dorothy. “Aunt Catherine al
ways sees the bright side – just like Gram.”
“I hope she is enjoying the porcelain dining set we left her,” said Lydia.
“Minus the cups and saucers.” Mam patted Dorothy’s back. “Thanks for bringing them.”
Floating on their raft of mattresses, Dorothy felt buoyed with happiness – except for one problem. Her stomach was growling fearfully. “Lydia, has the snow melted? Can you make porridge?”
With a groan, Lydia unwrapped herself and stood up. One step brought her to the stove. “Lordy!” she cried, pouring the melted snow water into a pot. “Two full buckets of snow make barely half a pot of water. You’ll have to go outside again, Dodie.”
For the rest of the day Dorothy braved the blizzard every hour to fill the buckets and the washtub and the giant stew pot with snow. Finally they had several full pots of water simmering on the stove. They had water for porridge, water for tea and water for washing up.
On one of the outside forays, Lydia handed Dorothy the chamber pot to empty. “If we leave it any longer, the contents will be frozen solid.”
Dorothy lumbered to the outhouse and dumped the slushy yellow liquid down the hole. One advantage of severe cold was that the privy didn’t smell bad. She spotted the crumpled groundsheet they had used to drag the bucksaw and hauled the frozen lump into the house.
“When this thaws out we can hang it over the table like a tent above us.”
“Good thinking, Dodie,” said Lydia.
For supper they finished the venison stew Mam had prepared two days earlier. More cuts of venison were in the root cellar thawing slowly. “At least we have sufficient food supplies in our cellar,” Mam said.
Before bedtime Lydia draped the now-pliable groundsheet over the table. Dorothy nestled into her spot in the middle of the bed. She watched Mam and Lydia scoop wood from the bottom of the wood-box. They took care to lower their voices but Dorothy knew what they were whispering.
“No need to keep secrets from me. I’m the one who went outside all day to get snow.” Dorothy didn’t even try to suppress the annoyance in her voice.
“You’re right,” Lydia said sheepishly. “You’re not a child any more. You proved that today.” She dropped her wood on the floor beside her and crawled into bed.
“We’ll sort out the wood problem tomorrow,” said Mam, piling her logs nearby for easy reach in the night. Under the covers, she reached her arm over Dorothy. “Snug as bugs in a rug.”
“That’s what Gram always said when I slept at her house.”
“That’s what Gram always said when she tucked in Catherine and me.” Mam’s voice had a far-away, pensive tone.
Dorothy snuggled against her mother. The wind still raged and they were low on firewood but at the moment everything was fine in Dorothy’s world. The blizzard will surely be over soon and Frank will be back, she thought as she fell asleep. A niggling worry about Frank’s safety crept into her mind but she pushed it away.
•••
Dodie, wake up!”
Dorothy clawed at the white monster in her roiling snow dream. “Get away from me!”
“For pity’s sake!” Lydia loosened her ice-crusted muffler. “Get up! And don’t disturb Mam.”
Dorothy blinked in the gloom. Oh right, we made a bed on the floor last night.
Splattered with snow, Lydia knelt on the edge of the mattress. She held out Dorothy’s coat. “I need your help outside.”
“You went outside?” Dorothy struggled out of bed.
“I tried to get another log.”
“In the blizzard?” Dorothy fumbled with her coat.
“Yes! The poles in the stack are frozen in a snowdrift. We have to saw one off.” Lydia dropped Dorothy’s moccasins at her feet. “Hurry up!”
“Can’t you warm them at the fire a minute?”
“No!” shrieked Lydia. “No, I bloody well can’t. Put them on.”
On the far side of the bed their mother thrust her head out from the blankets. “What’s happening? Are you cursing again, Lydia?”
Lydia’s voice softened. “Sorry, Mam. We’re just getting wood. You stay there.”
Bending to help Dorothy lace her boots, Lydia hissed, “Can’t you understand the urgency here? We have to bring some wood INSIDE TO THAW before the fire goes out.”
“All right. I’m awake now.” Dorothy wrapped her muffler so only her eyes showed. She pulled thick mittens over her woollen gloves.
“It’s not as bad as yesterday. The wind has died down so the snow’s not blowing around as much.” Lydia re-wrapped her own scarf and lifted the bucksaw from its peg.
“Ready?” asked Dorothy, her hand on the door latch.
Lydia’s swaddled head nodded.
They scurried outside. Dorothy stumbled behind her sister along the pathway Lydia had trampled earlier through crazy-shaped, crusted waves of snow.
Lydia tugged on a pole to dislodge the top end from the tangled tipi. She positioned the bucksaw just above the four-foot snowdrift. “Grab the other end.”
Floundering through snow, Dorothy grasped the wooden handle.
She pushed and pulled. Back and forth.
Again and again.
“This is too hard, Lydia. We’re not getting anywhere.”
“I know. It’s like sawing steel.”
Dorothy pulled some more. “My arms hurt. Can’t we wait for Frank to come?”
“Do…you…see…Frank…coming?” Lydia puffed, through thrusts of the saw. “We…need…wood…NOW.”
Dorothy had never seen her sister so determined. With a fresh surge of strength she pushed until her muscles screamed. Sawdust dribbled onto the snow.
“Keep pushing, Dodie. We’re almost through.”
Dorothy clenched her teeth. Push. Pull. Her arms were numb but they kept moving. Her hands were throbbing but they still gripped.
“Enough.” Lydia yanked on the log. Jagged splinters ripped and Lydia sprawled backwards, clutching a ten-foot-long poplar trunk. The sawed-off base protruded from the snowbank.
“Can we go in now? My fingers are stinging frightfully.”
“We have to take the sawhorse too.” Lydia kicked snow off the triangular wooden frame.
Together they carried the log to the stoop. Then they lugged the heavy trestle to the door. Dorothy was astounded that Mam opened the door. She must have heard us coming. Mam cleared a space by stacking boxes tightly in the corner. Dorothy and Lydia positioned the sawhorse and dropped the log into the cradle.
Dorothy breathed frantically on her hands. A thousand needles stabbed her fingers.
“Don’t stop yet, Dodie. We have to saw the pole into rounds.” Lydia looked behind her. “The bucksaw! I must have left it in the snow.” Quick as the wind, she was gone outside.
Dorothy moved to follow but Mam said, “No.”
She sat Dorothy on the bed, unlaced her moccasins, and pulled the comforters up around her. She nudged a heating stone from under the stove and buried it inside the blankets. “You’ve done enough. I’ll help Lydia saw the wood.”
Dorothy burrowed under the covers where the stone radiated heat. Mam tucked me in! She glowed with the warmth of her mother’s touch. I can’t remember the last time she did that. Well, except for last night; Mam slept with her arm around me last night.
She watched Lydia and Mam work like the dickens, sawing the log into manageable chunks.
Mam has come back to life! Like last spring when she snapped out of her melancholy to nurse Rose back in Saskatoon. Mrs. Sutton said Mam came back to life then, because she was needed. Dorothy pressed her stockinged feet against the warm stone. Well, she’s sorely needed now.
With Mam back in action their predicament no longer seemed so critical. Tension peeled from Dorothy’s body and she relaxed into the covers.
While Mam swept the sawdust into a corner, Lydia stacked the rounds on top of the stove. Ice crystals dropped and sizzled on the hot iron surface. Lydia huffed out a long sigh. “I’ll have to chop some kind
ling as soon as this wood thaws.”
Dorothy gazed at her sister with admiration. “Remember the first time you used an axe? You didn’t think you could do it.”
Lydia crouched to warm her hands at the open firebox. “Right, I had blisters on my hands for days. Mr. Parenteau told me his wife chopped her own wood and I thought maybe I could do it, too.”
“And you did it! But you just about fell over.”
“I didn’t expect the axe to be so heavy.” Lydia stared into the fire with a wistful smile. “I wish Mr. Parenteau were here now. We could really use his help.”
Dorothy reached into the deep pocket of her jumper. “When I’m scared, I rub this little bird and it calms me.” She cradled the wooden carving in her hands, savouring the moment when Mr. Parenteau gave her the present last summer. His leathered face had crinkled into a smile and he had patted her hand before he left.
“You still have the meadowlark! Let me see it.”