"The cold lasted so long that it seemed it would never end." Out of bed in the cold. Daily meals of coarse brown bread. Grind the wheat to make the bread. Twist the hay as fast as they could. Day after day after day. Daily meals of coarse brown bread. Grind the wheat. Twist the hay. All to keep fed and warm. To survive an awful, and very long winter on the Dakota Plains. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder certainly takes a decided turn from the previous books of warmth and bounty. I am chastened. Remind me in January and February when I am sure to be complaining about the 'long winter' that long and winter are terms that are open for interpretation!
That 'new horizon' that I read about not so long ago is now home to the Ingalls family. They set off from the banks of Plum Creek to stake their claim on a piece of land to call their own. Their own homestead out west, acres of land to farm but close enough to a town, or a burgeoning town that will soon grow by leaps and bounds, so that the girls could finally go to school. Things were looking bright and cheery despite Mary's loss of sight. They had built a sturdy shanty and Pa had a storefront in the little town, and while everything was new they were setting down roots. A first year in a new place, and this town is as new as they come, is always a little spartan--hence the green pumpkin pie, but the Ingalls family has always done well. They are frugal when need be and cautious but always reap the bounty of their efforts.
Laura is nearly fourteen and must be useful in ways she has never had to be before. Aside from the fact she is not a little girl anymore, she must take over tasks once Mary would have taken care of as the oldest. Laura has always preferred to be outside. She loves the wide open country and nature and being part of it. She's not especially happy with the idea that since Mary is blind she will now need to be the one to become a teacher and does not look forward to going to school. For now, though, she convinces Ma and Pa that she can help work in the fields--even though Ma notes that only "foreigners" allow women to work the fields. But needs must and there is no one else to help Pa. While Pa pitches the hay into the wagon Laura tramples it down and later it will all be stacked to be saved and used later. And it is a wise move as events will show later.
Mary helps in the house as best she can, Laura helps Pa, Carrie takes over Laura's chores and Grace is still too little to do anything but watch and wish. And soon fall comes and school starts and even sooner than expected the days turn cold and the snow begins to fall. It's a sign that the prairie animals begin growing thick coats. But it's not what Pa notices about the animals so much as what he doesn't see. "Something's queer. Not a goose nor a duck on the lake", he tells Caroline. "I never saw a country so empty and still."
"The silence was as terrible as cold is. It was stronger than any sound. It could stop the water's lapping and the thin, faint ringing in Laura's ears. The silence was no sound, no movement, no thing; that was its terror. Laura's heart jumped and jumped, trying to get away from it."
First the animals and their nest building and preparing for winter. Then the lack of animals. It was the strangest fall and no one could quite say why it felt so strange since they were having what seemed to be perfect weather, a beautiful Indian summer. Then an October blizzard hits and Pa brings back news from the town of De Smet that a very old Indian brought warning of the coming hard winter. Every seven years he tells the town that a terrible winter hits and so Pa makes the wise decision to close up the shanty and move to town.
Even living in the little town of De Smet among so many people (too many for Laura!), some seventy-five or eighty, won't keep the Ingalls family safe from the weather. It would have been okay if the trains could get through, but blizzard after blizzard closes the school and then closes down the town. They are cut off from everyone. No matter how they try and dig out the tracks they are only covered again and again. Finally there is nowhere to put all the snow and no way for anyone to get into the town to bring food and supplies. No matter how prepared the Ingalls family is, their food stocks begin to thin out. So the wheat must be ground and the coarse bread baked. And for warmth the hay that was so carefully harvested now becomes their fuel to burn and to cook with and their only hope for survival. But even that begins to run out.
The Long Winter is quite a story, an adventure story and a story of survival. While it is very much a Little House book it has a slightly different tone than the others I have read so far. The Ingalls family has changed and their living situation somewhat new, though the pioneer spirit is there strong as ever. Laura is much the same yet older, too, and so growing up and becoming more of an independent spirit (even more so in the next book!) and more responsible. Almanzo and his brother Royal are 'baching' like so many other men setting out west. While 'Manzo only made a cameo appearance in the last book, he is a resident of De Smet with hopes and plans to make his own farm. He is young (and tells a fib to appear older and stake a claim) but smart and something of a hero in this story. If the bleakness of the winter made me weary for the families, Almanzo's pancakes made my mouth water. It's quite a lean winter for most families (unless you are bachelor brothers by the name of Wilder) but if you can hold out long enough winter fades into spring.
I am already reading Little Town on the Prairie and am happy to tell you that it is warm and sunny and July right now and not a snowflake is in sight. I have two more books left to read of the Little House books. I am hoping I can finish all three before the year is out (and hope I am not being overly ambitious). It has been fun watching Laura grow up and there are still more adventures to come I suspect.