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Biography of a Prairie Girl

<hr style="width: 65%;" />[224] <h2>XIV</h2> <h3>HARD TIMES</h3> <div class='cap'>THE first deep snow of the winter, dropping gently from a wide, dun sky, rested in white folds on the new straw roofs of the sod buildings, crested the low stacks that had been hauled from distant meadows not swept by the fire, covered the cinder-strewn gaps in the yard where the granaries had stood, and hid under a shining, jeweled pall the stripped fields and the somber prairie. The little girl's mother, stringing pop-corn in the kitchen for the Christmas tree at the school-house, looked out toward noon to see the farm restored, as if by enchantment, to the aspect of other and happier winters; and sorrowfully welcomed the winding-sheet that gave promise of the coming resurrection, when the grass and flowers should rise again from out the naked, charred ground, bright and glorious with the fresh-born spring.</div> It had seemed to her, ever since the terrible holocaust of a few months before, as if the Bad Lands had moved eastward upon them. Yet,[225] however sad was the sight of their loss and the sense of their privation, she counseled against selling out at a small figure and moving to some State where prairie fires were unknown, and bravely determined to stay and fight back to rough comfort and plenty. "The snow will help us to forget," she said to the biggest brother, as she took a hot, crammed popper from him and emptied it into a milk-pan. He nodded in reply, and sprinkled the popper with kernels again, and she went back to her bench, carrying the pan under one arm. They sat without speaking, the click of the needle and the snapping of the corn alone breaking the quiet. When another popper was ready to be turned out, the biggest brother went into the adjoining shed with a wooden bucket and shoveled it full of coal from the ever-lessening pile that had been purchased, like the seed for the coming planting, on the promise of the next year's crop. As he returned, bending under the weight of the bucket, the door into the entry was shoved slowly open and the little girl entered. She walked forward to lay her mittens on the table before she brushed the snow from her shoulders and leggings and untwisted and shook out her nubia. Her woolen cap was pulled far down over her ears, and her mother, as she watched her, did not see the grave eyes and[226] pensive face until the little girl halted beside the biggest brother's chair to warm her hands at a stove-hole. "How's the tree?" asked the biggest brother, putting down the bucket and depositing one small lump on the dying coals. "It's setting in a churn," replied the little girl, without looking up. "Is it trimmed?" said her mother. The little girl acquiesced. "It's all ready to light." "S'pose those Dutchman's young ones brought some things over to put on," ventured the biggest brother, shaking the popper violently to hide his concern. The little girl sighed heavily. "Everybody's sent presents but the Swedes and us," she said, and there was a telltale break in her voice. "The Swedes and us won't have much on," declared the biggest brother, dryly. "That fire scooped up our Christmas gifts. The only people around here that can make presents this year were smart enough to backfire." He gave the popper such a shake that the lid swung up and let a shower of kernels fall over the stove. "The Dutch girls said this morning," began the little girl, "that their new house is better 'n ours. And they said that every one of 'em is[227] going to have two presents off the tree to-night. And—and—I know it's true, too, because I saw the teacher write their names on the packages." She paused a moment. "They're all big packages," she added mournfully. "I am glad," said her mother, "that some one is to receive presents to-night, even if we do not." "And where you're goin' to shine," broke in the biggest brother, giving the little girl a squeeze, "is in the program. You'll play that new tune you learned on the fiddle, and you'll speak your piece; and they'll all be as jealous as kingdom come. As for presents, well, you've been gettin' 'em straight for ten years; so you c'n afford to skip the eleventh." He got up to empty the popper in the pan. The little girl did not reply at once. When she burst forth at last, her eyes were full and her breast was heaving. "It's our first school tree," she cried; "and here I'll be the only girl that won't have her name called, except for an old orange or a bag of candy." Then she hurriedly left the kitchen. "Poor baby!" said her mother when she was gone. She disposed of the stringing of the pop-corn to the biggest brother and began to pick over a quart of wheat that was to be their supper. Having finished and put it on to boil,[228] she turned to the roasting of some barley for the next morning's coffee. "I wish we'd a-got her a little trinket for to-night," said the biggest brother, "even if it'd a-been only worth ten cents." He took out his pipe and filled it from a handful of corn-silk in his jumper pocket. "I'd be tickled to death," he added, "if I could have a plug of tobacco." "And I a sack of flour," said his mother. "We'll have the last in biscuits for to-day's dinner. I suppose I shouldn't have used it up for a week more, because we had white biscuits only last Sunday. But it is Christmas day; I can't resist giving you boys something a little extra. I've kept enough flour out, though, to thicken gravies with. Now, if we only had plenty of potatoes." "When it gets nearer spring, we c'n eat the inside of the potatoes and save the peelin's for plantin'." "Oh, I thought of that long ago," laughed his mother; "I've got half a sack of peelings here behind the stove where they won't freeze." "The meat's gettin' low, ma. There's only a hunk or two left in the barrel, and I just noticed, when I was gettin' the coal, that that pig in there on the rafters is dwindlin' fast. I guess another cow'll have to go. Might as[229] well, anyway. Hay won't more 'n last the horses." They were interrupted by the eldest and the youngest brothers, who came in, stamping the snow from their boots and swinging their arms. "Gee! it's cold!" cried the youngest, keeping in a far corner, out of way of the warmth from the stove, and thumping his toes alternately as he moved in a circle. "Sloughs are frozen to the bottom. Didn't catch a thing, and had to use the ax to chop out the traps every place we'd set." Dinner was eaten in silence that Christmas day. The family could not help contrasting the meal with those served on former like occasions. Since nearly all the turkeys and chickens had perished in the fire, and what few remained were being kept over for the following year, no plump fowl lay, shins in air, before the eldest brother. A small piece of baked pork held the place of honor, surrounded by the never-absent dish of boiled wheat, the plate of precious white biscuits, and some sweetened corn-bread. When dinner was over, the big brothers tramped off to the chain of sloughs, taking with them the violin and the corn their mother had strung so that the latter could be put on the tree that afternoon. The little girl and her mother cleared the table and then sat down to unravel some old wristlets and from[230] them knit new heels and toes into the big brothers' stockings. The little girl was very quiet and thoughtful. Her mouth drooped mournfully, her eyes were wistful. She spoke to her mother only in answer, and then in monosyllables. Her mother, as she watched her, felt that the little girl's unhappiness was the last bitter touch to her own grief, and she was glad when the child put on her dried leggings, her cap and coat, preparatory to spending an hour in her own room, where there was no fire. The mother heard no sound from the other part of the house until the middle of the short afternoon. Then she caught the notes of a song. A moment later the little girl came running into the kitchen, her eyes dancing, and went running out again, carrying a sheet of brown wrapping-paper and a long piece of white string. No more sounds came from her room. When she came out at suppertime, dressed for the evening's entertainment, she was her usual cheerful self, much to the mystification of her compassionate mother and the big brothers. There was a false ring of gladness in the sleigh-bells that night as they came jingling from the stable. For what right have sleigh-bells to ring when every pocket is flat and when there is no lumpy flour-sack hidden from sight[231] under the hay in the pung bottom? So the eldest and the youngest brothers, their mother and the little girl, took their places in the low box and let the biggest brother cover them with a feather-tick, without any of the gay laughter and banter that marked the pleasure-rides of former years. Then the biggest brother, only his eyes showing from his head-wrappings, sprang to his seat behind the horses and sent the team briskly forward with the storm toward the huge bonfire of cottonwood logs that had been lighted close to the school-house on the farther edge of the farthest slough. When the reservation road, hidden under four feet of packed snow, was crossed, the pung slid down to the carpeted ice of the first slough in the train of the capering horses, and was whisked through the crisp night toward the distant beacon. So swiftly did it scud that, before the quartet behind realized it, the horses had pressed up the hill beside the burning cottonwoods and halted before the school-house. The little girl was the first to scramble from the snug box when the tick was lifted. Still wearing a big buffalo coat that enveloped her from head to foot, she squirmed through the door, about which was a crowd, and threaded her way past the high desk that daily secluded her while she ate her poor lunches, past the hot stove with its circle of new-comers, to where,[232] hidden by the chart, stood the teacher. There she held a moment's whispered conversation, produced a package from under her greatcoat, and then joined the other children, who were seated up in front on boards placed across the main aisle. The little building, that had been saved in the prairie fire by the well-trodden oval around it, was crowded with the people of the district, assembled to enjoy their first public entertainment and tree. Among the younger ones were the Dutchman's girls and their baby nephew, the neighbor woman's children. "Frenchy's" brother, and the Swede boy. On either hand and behind were the grown people,—the Dutchman and his wife, the young couple from the West Fork, the cattleman, "Frenchy," the Swede, and the big brothers and their mother. When the family entered, the room was so full that the eldest and the youngest brothers had to content themselves with a perch on the coal-bins. The little girl, turning to survey the room, could not catch a glimpse of the biggest brother, however, and finally concluded that he was still busy with blanketing the horses and putting them away in the long shed. The tree was ablaze from its top to the rim of the cloth-wound churn, and was hung with tinsel trimmings from the farm-house,—the[233] selfsame trimmings that for years had twinkled and winked at the little girl each Christmas eve. Among the tinsel was festooned the pop-corn, while from every bending branch and stem hung apples and oranges supplied by the teacher, colored bags of candy and bright cornucopias given by the cattleman, sorghum taffies-on-a-stick made by the neighbor woman, while eggs, colored in gaudy and grotesque patterns by boiling them in pieces of calico, were suspended in tiny cunning willow baskets that testified to the nimble fingers of the Dutchman's wife. Around the base of the churn and heaped high against it was the pile of gifts. The program opened immediately after the arrival of the family. The teacher, keeping one eye upon the fast burning and unstable candles above her, came forward to the edge of the platform to say a few words of greeting. The children then gave a rousing Yule chorus, the laden boughs over them waving gently in time with their voices. The little girl and her violin followed, and the tree was as still as those who sat before it while the strains of "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" floated tremblingly out from under her uncertain bow. A new settler's four-year-old lisped "Six Little Rabbits," with many promptings and encouraging nods from the teacher. The Dutchman's youngest got up to recite "The Burial of Sir[234] John Moore," and, though shaking from head to foot, attacked the doleful stanzas in a high key and with sprightly gesticulations. "Frenchy's" brother spoke in his own tongue a piece that was suitable to the occasion; much to his amazement, it elicited peals of laughter. When he sat down, the program wound on its tedious, recitative way until the tree was again supplied with candles by the neighbor woman's son, and the little girl arose to deliver a welcome to that same Santa Claus from whom she expected nothing. If her mother, the big brothers, and the doting Swede boy hoped to see her final effort a triumphant one, they were disappointed, for she spoke falteringly and, at one juncture, forgot her lines. Her eyes wavered from her mother to the tree, from the tree to the teacher, and her closing words were inarticulate. In the excitement of the moment, however, only the fond few noticed her confusion. The faint tinkle of bells and the swelling toots of a tin horn were announcing the approach of Santa Claus. Before the little girl had finished, and in spite of the teacher's admonition, the children were standing up and looking expectantly toward the rear; and no sooner had the little girl taken her seat, than they broke forth into excited chatter, calling to one another eagerly. Then the door was suddenly thrust[235] open to the sound of a shrill toot, and Santa Claus came bounding in. Amid the din of the horn and the shouts of the children, he clambered forward to the platform, bobbing to right and left, and tweaking the ears of those he passed. Long, yellow rope hair hung down from under a round, scarlet cap, and a rope beard reached to his portly waist. Cotton snow and another kind that melted promptly in the warm room covered his shoulders and sleeves. In a gruff though merry voice that sounded above all the others, he sang out the names pinned to an armful of candy-bags. One by one, big and little hurried up to receive their gifts of sweets. The little girl evinced none of the delight that shone on the faces of the other children. She watched the distribution silently, with no glad throbs of the heart, and took her share of the fruit and candy with downcast eyes. Her mother sorrowfully noted that, even when the bags and cornucopias had been given out and Santa turned his attention to the pile around the churn, her interest did not increase. She watched dully as the girls skipped boldly up, with proud, knowing looks, to seize their presents, or the boys sidled forward bashfully with changing color. All unwrapped and admired their gifts as soon as they were back in[236] their seats. The Dutchman's girls shrieked with joy as they undid their presents, the neighbor woman's daughter could scarcely hold her share in her best apron. "Frenchy's" brother had distended pockets. The young farmer's baby crowed in purple delight over the stack of parcels before him. The little girl's lap was empty, save for the candy and fruit dropped carelessly into it. When the pile around the churn had dwindled sorely and but a dozen gifts remained, the little girl had not yet gone forward to claim one. The other children had been too occupied to notice her ill fortune until they had spent their first joy over their gifts. Then one of the Dutchman's girls elbowed the neighbor woman's son, who sat next her, to call his attention to the little girl, and he passed the news on. Soon all the children were glancing questioningly at her and nudging one another. The neighbor woman's daughter, who had often shared the generous fruit of the annual tree at the farm-house, took secret satisfaction in the unlooked-for fall of the little girl's pride, and leaned to all sides to whisper. She even stretched in front of the little girl to tell it to a boy beyond. Not daring to speak plainly, she resorted to pig-Latin. "Seegry," she cried, pulling at his coat, "shegry ain'tgry gotgry agry thinggry." But when the little girl, who[237] knew pig-Latin in all its various dialects, turned angry, scornful eyes upon her, the neighbor woman's daughter sat up and her smile faded to a sickly blankness. Santa Claus was now almost at the end of his resources. The floor was bare about the churn, and there remained only three or four parcels in his arms. The teacher was despoiling the tree of its pop-corn festoons and tossing them gaily about. Already there was a sound of crunching in the room, as the candy, nuts, and fruit met their destined fate. But all at once, with the last package, a long, thick one, held up before his jovial face, Santa Claus started, looked a second time at the writing upon it, and then, with a jubilant laugh, called out the little girl's name! The children about her hushed on the instant, and all eyes were turned upon her. The pitying expression on her mother's face changed to one of joy, and the eldest and the youngest brothers slid off the coal-bins as if they were possessed. The Swede boy and the cattleman, who had each been busy blaming himself for something worse than forgetfulness or negligence, fairly beamed at the back of the little girl's curly head. Very deliberately she got up and stepped to the platform. A smile curved her mouth, and she carried her pink chin high. As she received[238] her gift, she paused for one moment to drop a dainty curtsy and to thank Santa Claus, a proceeding which filled all the other girls with envy, since they had omitted it. Then she proudly took her seat, the long, thick package in one hand. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. The little girl did not open the package; instead, she sat quietly with it across her knee, displaying, as if unconsciously, her name printed in full across it in large letters that strayed upward, and that were headed by a "Miss" entirely of capitals. Under her name, in glowing red ink, was written "Merry Christmas," and, farther down, the words: "There are seven beautiful things in this box for you.—S. C." When the teacher had made her closing speech, all rose to go. The little girl, as she put on her cap and the big buffalo coat, was the center of interest, for the children crowded about her and handled her package. The neighbor woman's daughter hung the closest, and even put one arm around the little girl. The latter did not seem to notice any one, but put the package under her coat and joined her mother. When the pung drove up to the door the little girl lost no time in getting into it. The eldest and the youngest brothers followed her.[239] The biggest and his mother tarried a little, however, the one to speak to the Swede boy, the other to accost the cattleman. There was a teasing look in the biggest brother's eyes as he gave the Swede boy a slap on the back. "Good for you!" he said in an undertone; "I'll never forget that, long 's I live." The Swede boy tried to answer, hung his head, and finally made off. The biggest brother took up the reins and, while he waited, continued to pick cotton from the lapels of his overcoat. Meanwhile the cattleman, coming out of the school-house ready for his drive home, suddenly found himself face to face with a tearful little woman who gratefully seized his big hands. "Oh, how good of you!" she cried; "how thoughtful and good and kind! Thank you! thank you!" "What fer?" demanded the cattleman. "I hain't done nothin', my dear lady." "Oh, that will do to say," laughed the little girl's mother through her tears, as she got into the pung and pulled one corner of the tick over her head. The little girl was silent during the homeward ride; and on their arrival, when the family entered the kitchen, she dropped her package beside the stove and began to take off her coat and cap. Her mother and the biggest[240] and the youngest brothers looked at her in amazement. "Why, pet lamb," her mother said at last, "aren't you going to look at your presents?" She picked up the package and carried it to the table. The little girl slowly shook her head. The biggest brother saw that all the bravado and indifference shown at the school-house were gone. In their place was a look of keen pain. He lifted her and held her on his lap, guessing, all at once, the secret of the seven gifts. "My baby sister!" he said, and trusted himself to speak no further. She understood, and put her head against his breast. The youngest brother, spurred by curiosity, was opening the package. His mother stood beside him. As the brown paper fell away at the severing of the white string, he sprang back with an exclamation of surprise. The biggest brother put the little girl to one side, got up, and stepped across to look down at the contents thus disclosed. He was reminded of the rear half of the attic, where for years had been gathering odds and ends. There was a bit of torn and faded mosquito-netting, an old mouth-organ, a broken domino, a pair of half-worn mittens, a ten-penny nail, a dog-eared copy of "Alice in Wonderland," and a slate-pencil.[241] "My daughter!" said the little girl's mother, light breaking in upon the situation; "my brave little daughter!" She turned to breathe a mother's comfort. But the little girl, her cap and coat resumed, was disappearing into the chill shadows of the sitting-room. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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