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“Let me help,” his wife said. She took his feet into her lap and helped him rub them. She was so concerned and so kind that she seemed like another woman. “Oh, Lewis, this dreadful country!” she said. “Oh, am I h
urting you?”
“Go on,” Mr. Brewster grunted. “It shows the blood’s coming back into them.”
When they had saved his half-frozen feet, Mr. Brewster told Laura not to go to school that day. “You would freeze,” he said.
She protested, “But the children will come, and I must be there.”
“I don’t think they’ll come,” he said. “I built a fire, and if they do come, they can get warm and go home again. There will be no school today,” he said flatly.
That settled it, for a teacher must obey the head of the school board.
It was a long, wretched day. Mrs. Brewster sat huddled in a quilt, close to the stove, and sullenly brooding. Mr. Brewster’s feet were painful, and Johnny fretted with a feverish cold. Laura did the dishes, made her bed in the freezing cold, and studied her schoolbooks. When she tried to talk, there was something menacing in Mrs. Brewster’s silence.
At last it was bedtime. Laura hoped desperately that tomorrow she could go to school; meantime, she could escape by going to sleep. The cold in the bedroom took her breath away and stiffened her hands so she could hardly undress. For a long time she lay too cold to sleep, but slowly she began to be warmer.
A scream woke her. Mrs. Brewster screamed, “You kicked me!”
“I did not,” Mr. Brewster said. “But I will, if you don’t go put up that butcher knife.”
Laura sat straight up. Moonlight was streaming over her bed from the window. Mrs. Brewster screamed again, a wild sound without words that made Laura’s scalp crinkle.
“Take that knife back to the kitchen,” Mr. Brewster said.
Laura peeped through the crack between the curtains. The moonlight shone through the calico, and thinned the darkness so that Laura saw Mrs. Brewster standing there. Her long white flannel nightgown trailed on the floor and her black hair fell loose over her shoulders. In her upraised hand she held the butcher knife. Laura had never been so terribly frightened.
“If I can’t go home one way, I can another,” said Mrs. Brewster.
“Go put that knife back,” said Mr. Brewster. He lay still, but tensed to spring.
“Will you or won’t you?” she demanded.
“You’ll catch your death of cold,” he said. “I won’t go over that again, this time of night. I’ve got you and Johnny to support, and nothing in the world but this claim. Go put up that knife and come to bed before you freeze.”
The knife stopped shaking, as Mrs. Brewster’s fist clenched on the handle.
“Go put it back in the kitchen,” Mr. Brewster ordered.
After a moment, Mrs. Brewster turned and went to the kitchen. Not until she came back and got into bed did Laura let the curtains fall together again. Softly she drew the bedcovers over her and lay staring at the curtain. She was terribly frightened. She dared not sleep. Suppose she woke to see Mrs. Brewster standing over her with that knife? Mrs. Brewster did not like her.
What could she do? The nearest house was a mile away; she would freeze if she tried to reach it in this cold. Wide awake, she stared at the curtains and listened. There was no sound but the wind. The moon went down, and she stared at the dark until the gray winter daylight came. When she heard Mr. Brewster build the fire and Mrs. Brewster beginning to cook breakfast, she got up and dressed.
Nothing was different; breakfast was the usual silent meal. Laura went to school as soon as she could get away. She felt safe there, for the day. It was Friday.
The wind was blowing fiercely. Fortunately it was not a blizzard wind, but it scoured hard particles of snow from the frozen drifts and drove them through every crack in the shanty’s north and west walls. From all sides the cold came in. The big coal heater seemed to make no impression on that cold.
Laura called the school to order. Though she was near the stove, her feet were numb and her fingers could not grip a pencil. She knew that it was colder in the seats.
“Better put your coats on again,” she said, “and all of you come to the fire. You may take turns sitting in the front seat or standing by the stove to get warm. Study as best you can.”
All day the snow was blown low across the prairie, and through the schoolroom’s walls. Ice froze thick on the water pail, and at noon they set their dinner pails on the stove to thaw the frozen food before they ate it. The wind was steadily growing colder.
It cheered Laura to see how well every pupil behaved. Not one took advantage of the disorder to be idle or unruly. No one whispered. They all stood by the stove, studying, and quietly turning about to warm their backs, and all their recitations were good. Charles and Clarence took turns, going out into the wind to get coal from the bin and keep up the fire.
Laura dreaded the day’s end. She was afraid to go back to the house. She was sleepy; she knew that she must sleep, and she feared to sleep in Mrs. Brewster’s house. All day tomorrow and Sunday she must be in that house with Mrs. Brewster, and much of the time Mr. Brewster would be at the stable.
She knew that she must not be afraid. Pa had always said that she must never be afraid. Very likely, nothing would happen. She was not exactly afraid of Mrs. Brewster, for she knew that she was quick, and strong as a little French horse. That is, when she was awake. But she had never wanted so much to go home.
