Chapter XXIII Christmas on the Prairies
The blizzard which so nearly cost Joshua Peniman and Sam their lives raged unabated for three days. When it was over the prairies lay a vast wilderness of unbroken white from horizon to horizon, the snow lying five feet deep on the level.
For several days Mr. Peniman was compelled to remain in bed, completely prostrated by the experience he had been through. But Sam, though somewhat frost-bitten in places, awoke the next morning as well as ever, and greatly exalted by the sense of being a hero.
The blizzard was followed by a spell of bitterly cold weather, the thermometer going down to thirty-six below. While the family all felt great anxiety about the abandoned wagon and its precious contents it was impossible to go after it until the weather moderated. In the meantime they employed the hours of the long cold days by making runners, one pair of which they affixed to Joe’s wagon, carrying the other pair with them when a day at last came when the weather had so far moderated that they dared face it without danger of freezing.
They set out with all six horses, Jim and Charley drawing the wagon on runners, in which Mr. Peniman, Joe, Sam, and Lige rode, Joe leading his own team and Lige the Carroll horses, which had been rechristened Major and Nellie.
There was a hard, solid crust over the deep drifts, that carried them safely, and the sun sparkled like diamonds over the vast unbroken expanse of spotless white. On their way they saw three grey wolves and ten elk, which came within two hundred yards of them, driven to forget fear by hunger.
As the improvised sledge glided smoothly over the snow the thoughts of the whole party were busy with the dangers and terrors of the blizzard.
“It was just about here that we found that poor old Indian, Lige,” said Joe, scanning the snow-covered prairies about them.
“Yes; I don’t see any sign of him now though,” replied Lige.
“What Indian?” asked Mr. Peniman.
“When we were coming out to meet you we came upon the body of an Indian, dead and half-covered by snow,” answered Joe. “I thought after we’d got you safe home we’d come back and bury him; but I guess the snow has done that better than we could, poor fellow!”
“Did you know him?”
“No, I never saw him before.”
“Did you see any signs of any other Indians about?”
“No, he seemed to be all alone. And the funny thing to me was that we didn’t see any signs of his pony. It seemed queer that an Indian should be way off here alone, on foot.”
“If you’d looked far enough you would probably have found his pony in some draw or ravine. The poor fellow probably got lost in the blizzard, and feeling himself freezing to death deserted his horse in a drift somewhere, perhaps, and was making for some place of shelter when cold and exhaustion overcame him.”
“Golly, it sure gave us a shock when we found him,” broke in Lige; “I didn’t see him, but Joe thought at first it was you or Sam.”
“Thank God it was not,” said Joshua Peniman fervently. “I know what the poor fellow must have suffered. I thought at one time his fate would surely be ours.”
They found the wagon exactly where they had left it, completely covered over by a drift, its contents undisturbed, and practically uninjured by the storm.
When it was unloaded they removed the wheels and affixed to the bottom the extra pair of runners. They then replaced the contents, harnessed Kit, Billy, and black Major to it, while Jim, Charley, and Nellie were put to the other wagon. It was well for them that they had six powerful horses to pull the load, for weighted as the wagons now were they continually broke through the crust, and the journey back to the homestead required constant use of picks and shovels, and all the strength, initiative, and energy of both drivers and horses.
They reached home at last, and as soon as they had warmed, eaten, and rested a little immediately set to work to install the new heating-stove.
That night the family did not shiver about the stove in the kitchen, but clustered about in the warm glow of the new heater, cozy and comfortable, and thankful from the bottoms of their hearts, they enjoyed with the relish of appetites long denied the candy and popcorn and peanuts that Sam had brought to them.
That winter—the winter of 1856-7—will long be remembered on the prairies. From December until March storm followed storm, blizzard followed blizzard, the time between filled in with the coldest weather ever known in the west.
The young Penimans, who had run as free as wild antelopes over the plains ever since their arrival, were now compelled to stay in the house, which, small and circumscribed as it was, was sometimes almost too small to hold them.
One morning when the snow drove against the windows and a bitter wind howled across the prairies Mrs. Peniman looked across the breakfast table at her husband with a smile.
“Father,” she said, “does thee not think that the time has come for us to begin our school?”
“I certainly do, my dear,” replied Joshua Peniman. “I was thinking of suggesting it this morning. The children have been out of school too long now, but with all the work we had to do to make living conditions possible for the winter we have not had time to get our school started before. But now is the time to do it. They cannot be outdoors, there is little work about the place that can be done in this weather, and it will occupy their time and attention.”
“But we haven’t any school to go to, Father,” cried Ruth, “nor any books or teachers!”
Mrs. Peniman laughed. “Just wait and see,” she said. “Your school is going to be right here, and Father and I will be the teachers. Didn’t you know that Father used to be a teacher in the Friends’ School at home? And the books are right in the trunk over there.”
“I don’t want to go to school,” grumbled Sam, “I want to play outdoors.”
“I do,” cried Joe. “I want to study. Can you teach us history and language and algebra, Father?”
Mr. Peniman smiled. “I have taught older and wiser boys than you, Joe, and I think I can teach you any branches that you will need to take up now.”
“All right then, I’m all for it,” declared Lige; “let’s get our school started this morning.”
It was quite a game after all, and they all entered gaily into the spirit of it, everybody helping to push the furniture about and arrange boxes and tables and chairs for the “school.”
Mrs. Peniman took Sara, Paul, Mary, and David into the rear part of the sod house and drew the curtains between, and Mr. Peniman got out the school-books they had brought with them from Ohio and set Joe, Lige, Sam, Nina, and Ruth at work.
The program was so arranged that while some of the more advanced pupils, as Joe and Lige, were studying, the less advanced, as Sam and Ruth, were reciting. As Sam and Ruth had always kept pretty well together in their classes they were a great help to one another, but Nina was a problem. While far in advance of Sam and Ruth in English, geography, reading, and spelling, she was hopelessly behind them in grammar and mathematics. Indeed her whole curriculum of studies had been so superficially and sketchily acquired that Mr. Peniman scarcely knew what to do with her.
“I think I’ll have to put you up a grade, Nina,” he told her jokingly. “You are far and away beyond Ruth and Sam, yet I hardly think that on account of your arithmetic you could keep up with Lige and Joe.”
“Oh, please do put me up with Lige and Joe, Father Peniman,” begged Nina; “I have never really studied in my life, but I believe that I could keep up if I studied with Joe.”
At first she made sad work of her lessons. Her work was brilliant but superficial, and Mr. Peniman, who insisted on thoroughness, was completely discouraged with her. On one occasion when she had signally failed in a recitation and had retired to her seat in tears Joe came to her side to comfort her.
“You don’t know how to study, that’s what’s the matter with you, Princess,” he told her. “Let me help you. We’ll get our lessons together this evening.”
Nina smiled up at him through her tears. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Joesy,” she whispered. “I know I don’t know how to study. I never really went to school, I always had governesses and tutors and never had to. But I can learn—I know I can—if you will teach me.” And after that Joe and Nina always studied together, Joe’s thorough, methodical mind acting as a balance as well as an incentive to the more brilliant but less logical mind of Nina.
Mrs. Peniman meanwhile with her little flock gathered about her knees had various and sundry milestones on the road of knowledge to start from. While Paul read and spelled well, wrote a fine large hand and had been initiated into the mysteries of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, Sara was only staggering through simple addition, stumbled sadly in reading, and was still scrawling huge hieroglyphics that only by the greatest courtesy could be called writing, Mary knew her letters and was in the c-a-t, cat, and r-a-t, rat, stage of development, and little David was still at sea in an ocean of letters, from which he could pick out a round O or a crooked S on occasion.
It was not easy teaching, but the parents had given up their home and friends and all the comforts of life to obtain for these young people greater and better opportunities, and were not to be balked by small difficulties. Day after day while the snow fell and the wind howled across the prairies the little school went on, and soon began to grow accustomed to the conditions, and the pupils to make rapid strides.
They rose early, and while Mr. Peniman and the older boys went outside to do the necessary work, Mrs. Peniman with Ruth, Nina, and Mary got the breakfast, washed up the dishes, made the beds, put the house in order, and arranged the two rooms for the “school” by nine o’clock, when the father and boys came in to begin the morning session.
At noon Mrs. Peniman dismissed her little pupils, with orders to play quietly and not disturb the students in the front part of the house, while she prepared dinner. At twelve-thirty Mr. Peniman closed the morning session, and they all ran out for a tussle with the wind or a frolic in the snow before dinner. When the meal had been eaten and cleared away the afternoon session was begun, and until four o’clock the little sod house was a very hive of activity, after which time they were all free, and while Mr. Peniman and the boys went out to do the evening chores and other outside work the younger children romped about until supper time, soon after which they all went to bed.
On the morning of December 24th Mr. Peniman announced at the breakfast table that they were to have a half holiday.
“As this is the day before Christmas,” he continued, “I think we will have to go out and see if we can’t find some mistletoe and greens of some kind, and a tree that might serve for a Christmas tree.”
“A Christmas tree?” the children all shouted in a breath. “Are we going to have a Christmas tree?”
“Why, of course,” smiled Mrs. Peniman. “Santa Claus has never failed to visit us yet, has he, Ruthie? And I don’t believe he’ll forget us this year, even if we are away off out here on the prairies.”
Nina looked up with beaming eyes. “Oh, I’m so glad! I thought maybe we weren’t going to have any Christmas. I’ve been thinking and thinking about it, but I didn’t like to say anything, ’fraid it would make you feel badly.”
“We’ll have some kind of a Christmas, my dear,” said Mr. Peniman. “It may not be the kind of a Christmas that you have always been accustomed to, but we will celebrate the dear day in some way.”
Directly after dinner they all set off down the river bank, the boys in high boots, ear-caps, big coats, and mittens, the girls muffled to the eyes in coats, furs, scarfs, big Alaska overshoes, and leggings, and Mrs. Peniman looking very fat and pudgy in a pair of Mr. Peniman’s trousers, over which she wore a huge woolly coat and hood, with scarf and mittens, and was bundled up so she looked like the Little Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe.
They all set out in high spirits, and slid, slipped, coasted, snowballed and indulged in wild frolics over the snow, while Mr. and Mrs. Peniman took turns riding on the sled, which their wild young chargers took delight in upsetting as often as possible.
After long search they at last found a young pine tree which came to a fine apex at the height of about five feet, and in the woods they found bright red berries, mistletoe in the tops of some trees, which Lige and Sam were only too pleased to climb, and deep under the snow some kinnikinick, which with its dainty green leaves and red berries made wonderful decorations.
They returned home with the sled laden and in high glee.
The tree was set up in a corner of the soddy that evening after supper, and when pop-corn was strung from limb to limb, apples and oranges hung from the branches, small sacks of candy tied on, and the candles, which Mr. Peniman had thoughtfully provided on his almost fatal trip to Omaha, carefully disposed among the branches and lighted, it was a gorgeous sight. Beneath it on the floor were a great heap of queer-looking bumpy bundles, to which each one brought his or her contribution with great secrecy, and which were not one of them opened until the next morning.
It was scarcely light on Christmas morning when a great jingling outside (which of course no one recognized as the notes of the dinner-bell) announced the arrival of Santa Claus.
There was a great hemming and hawing, a great stamping of feet in the snow, and then the door opened, and Santa Claus, in a marvelous wig and whiskers (made out of the wool of a pair of old grey woolen stockings) and a wonderful costume (which of course no one recognized as a suit of red flannel underwear elegantly trimmed in strips of white cotton flannel), came prancing in with a sack on his back and began dispensing presents with a generous hand.
There were dolls for Mary and Sara, writing paper and ribbons and pretty handkerchiefs for Nina and Ruth, books and neckties for Joe, ties, handkerchiefs and a handsome muffler for Lige, balls and bats and tops and gloves for Sam and Paul, and a great lot of toys, including the remarkable hobby-horse that Sam had bought him, for little David.
But if the children had been remembered well neither Mr. nor Mrs. Peniman had been forgotten. Mrs. Peniman’s heart was deeply touched by the gift of a beautiful white apron, made from one of her own pretty white dresses with infinite pains and secrecy by Nina, who gave Ruth a beautiful sash-ribbon with hair ribbons to match out of her own little store, Sara ribbons, a sash ribbon and a pretty white dress, and Lige and Sam her own gold pencil and a box of drawing crayons. But to Joe she gave her dearest treasure, a pretty red morocco book of verses, which her father had given to her on her last birthday, with an inscription written on the inside which deeply touched Joe’s heart. For Mr. Peniman she had made a penwiper out of one of her own little felt shoes.
Joe and Lige had nothing to give their father and mother but their kisses and love, but for each of the children they had made or contrived in secret some little toy that added to the merriment of the day, and fully as welcome and as much appreciated as if they had come from a city store. Mrs. Peniman delighted her husband by bringing forth from one of the knobby bundles under the tree three fine new shirts, made at night and in secret with the labor of her own tired hands, and Mr. Peniman handed to her a bundle from beneath the tree, that had come all the way from Omaha the day of the blizzard, and had lain out in the wagon under the snow for more than a week. It contained a handsome new dress, which everybody praised and admired tremendously, and was as delighted over as if it had been given to themselves.
Altogether it was a most wonderful Christmas.
The dinner, at which a wild turkey took the place of the usual tame one, and at which the wild grape jelly and the plum preserves and a real plum pudding (made weeks before and hidden away for the occasion), was pronounced a grand success.
The afternoon was spent in games, winding up with a great snow-frolic, and snow-cream for supper. But when the evening came and the younger children had gone to bed the others gathered close about the fire and quiet gradually settled down upon them.
It had been a happy day, but now as the evening shadows gathered memories of other Christmases came out of the dusk and lingered about them.
To Mr. and Mrs. Peniman the memory of the little one they had lost, the tiny grave left behind there on the desolate loneliness of the prairies, was seldom out of their thoughts. And now as their thoughts traveled back over the past, bringing up to them the memories of Christmas at the old home, and the dear ones they were perhaps never to see again, there came a deep sadness that neither of them would permit themselves to express.
To Joe and Lige and Sam and Ruth this Christmas evening was also bringing memories. They could never forget the old home they had loved so well in the Muskingum Valley, nor the dear grandmother, the aunts and cousins and friends whom they had left behind.
But to Nina, sitting with her chin cupped in her hand and her lovely violet eyes gazing into the fire, came the saddest memories. She thought of her last Christmas, and of that dear father and mother whom she had so loved and who had always done so much to make her life a happy one, and the tears brimmed her eyes. She thought of her father’s illness, the strange cloud that always seemed to be hanging over them, of their journey westward, and of the tragic death of both her parents on the plains. She remembered as if she had seen it yesterday the two long graves, side by side, with the wooden cross at the head and the morning sunlight shining down upon the fresh earth and newly-turned sod. Then her thoughts went forward over the months since, with all the mystery and terror that had surrounded her, and a great wonder and terror grew in her mind. Wonder of that mystery that hung about her; terror of that menace that seemed to so darkly pursue her; fear of what the years might have in store for her, who knew so little of who she was or where she belonged.
As the recollection of her lonely state came over her she heaved a deep, quivering sigh. The room was in darkness except for the firelight that threw its flickering light upon their faces, and as tears welled into her eyes she felt a hand slipped into her own and turned to see Joe sitting on a box at her feet and looking up at her with an expression of such deep tenderness and sympathy in his eyes that she knew he understood what was passing in her mind.
“It’s all right, Joesy,” she whispered, blinking the tear-drops from her lashes; “I was only thinking—and you know——”
“I know, Princess,” he said, pressing her hand tenderly, “I know.”
That was all. But it was enough for Nina. The pressure of that warm, strong young hand in hers, the sympathy in those honest grey eyes, banished the shadows that had been creeping round her as if by magic. Somehow the knowledge that Joe was near, that Joe understood, chased away the feeling of loneliness and mystery, and made her feel safe and happy again.