The Ingall's House is "Cold and Dark"

I often ask myself, "How did Laura Ingalls Wilder get through hard times?"  The Ingalls family didn't lack challenges.  There were tiresome days, boring "games", and fiddleless evenings.  During this period of self-quarantine, I decided to reread The Long Winter to discover - What Would Laura Do?

Chapter 22 - "Cold and Dark"

The blizzards are giving Laura bad dreams.  She used to see darkness as restful, but now darkness is a horror since it is punctuated by the shrieks and howls of blizzards.  I wish Laura had access to weighted blankets, lavender oils, and the Head Space app.  

To do:  Fill hopper with seed wheat.  Turn crank.  Repeat all day long.

To do:  Follow complicated hay twisting system.  Warm hands after twisting enough hay for an hour.  Repeat all day long.

The DeSmet days are numbingly similar.  Mary and Carrie grind seed wheat all day.  Ma makes brown bread and cleans.  Laura and Pa twist hay.  Their hands are red, swollen, and cut by the hay.  Their coats are ripped under their arms - where they hold the hay to twist it.  Ma patches their coats but the hay quickly slices through the patches.  

The family's first meal is brown bread and their second meal is potatoes.  They each get two small potatoes that Ma has boiled in their jackets.  Pa gets an extra potato because Grace doesn't eat two potatoes.  Laura feels listless and tired.  She is living the same day over and over.  She misses being outside and going to school.

I, too, feel listless and tired.  I want to matter again.  Being a teacher front loads you with a daily purpose.  My days at school were tiring, but I ended the day knowing I had been helpful and kind.  Whether it was finding a student the perfect book or finishing a chapter, with students, right as the bell rang.  My daily purpose is gone.  Distance learning isn't effective for reluctant readers.  These days, I do what I can for my students and then I unload the dishwasher.

Yes!  This is the page turner I have been looking for!

Ma feels her girls' depression.  She remembers the successful "Bible Verse Recitation" game and comes up with a twist.  The girls will take turns reciting, from memory, extended passages from their Independent Readers.  The girls recited  engaging speeches and poems like - "The Speech of Regulus" and "Old Tubal Cain."  Laura is, of course, motivated to win and recite more than Mary.

One morning, Laura finds Pa laughing in the kitchen.  He has dug a tunnel from the house to the stable and can get to his chores in comfort.  Pa's smile widens as he discloses that their house is buried in a snow drift.  Laura investigates by peering out the attic window.  She is shocked when horse hooves trot by at eye level!  Pa tells her it is the Wilder brothers and explains, "There's no one in town but those two, and me, that dares go out of town.  Folks are afraid a blizzard will come up."  The enterprising Wilder brothers are selling hay for 3 dollars a load.     

Since the house is "warm" from the snow drift insulation, Laura teaches Mary to twist hay in the lean-to.  (Remember that George Masters and his wife didn't twist hay and that Mary is blind.)  The days continue on and on.  One day, even Ma can't muster enthusiasm for the reciting game.  Ma and the girls spend the whole day sitting while Pa hauls hay from the slough to the stable to the lean-to.  

I am spending a lot of time staring out the window.  I know what all the neighbors are up to and my son says I should become a private investigator.  He's probably right.  My neighbors, across the street, spend a lot of time fussing around their pick-up truck.  Their garage door is open by 6 AM and they are busy circling and peeking into the truck.  Is it so wrong to be curious about why they are doing this?  I also watch my bird feeders.  A cardinal couple has been visiting. I feel happy when they swoop in for some seeds.  Today I am going to put up a hummingbird feeder.      

As we know, bad news always follows good news for the Ingalls.  Sadly, Pa's tunnel has blown away and he loses his temper.  "I did hope my tunnel would last through one of these onslaughts, anyway.  Gosh dang this blizzard!  It only lets go long enough to spit on its hands."  Then Ma loses her temper and snaps at Pa!  "Don't swear, Charles!"  Finally, Ma and Pa are acting like normal people.

Pa decides to lighten the mood by reading a story from his book, Livingston's African Journal.  He needs the button lamp even though it is daytime.  For some reason, Laura is unsettled by the impromptu read aloud.  "Laura tried to listen but she felt stupid and numb.  Pa's voice slid away into the ceaseless noises of the storm.  She felt that the blizzard must stop before she could do anything before she could even listen or think, but it would never stop."  

Laura interrupts the story and asks Pa to play the fiddle.  He obliges her, takes his fiddle from its case, and begins to play "Bonnie Doon".  "But every note from note from the fiddle was a very little wrong.  Pa's fingers were clumsy."  Pa's fingers are damaged from the cold and hay.  He puts the fiddle away.  Laura drowns in the guilt of asking Pa to play in the first place.  She feels the worst thing that has happened so far is Pa not be able to play the fiddle.  

The chapter ends with the family crowding around the cook stove for warmth.

WWLD:

• Stoke your competitive spirit.
• Teach someone a new skill.
• Ignore your parent's bad behavior.

Come back tomorrow for Chapter 23 - "Wheat in the Wall."  (Watch out Almanzo!  Pa is onto you!)

Prairie Eydie