Relief and Christmas in May

Sometime in the night Laura heard the wind. It was still blowing furiously but there were no voices, no howls or shrieks in it. And with it there was another sound, a tiny, uncertain, liquid sound that she could not understand...She sprang up in bed and called aloud, "Pa! Pa! The Chinook is blowing!"

I'm no meteorologist but Chinook = rain and you can't have rain and snow at the same time which means HALLELUJAH the MFing blizzards are done. Go ahead and thank god, but don't get too excited yet. No blizzards is definitely a start; there's green grass and being able to use the whole house instead of huddling around the stove and getting to hang out with non-Ingalls again, which all must be very refreshing. However...we're still facing some issues.

First of all, this is no soft spring rain, DeSmet is experiencing Chinook levels of rain. Like, new lake ecosystems are being formed in the middle of main street, rain. I hate rain. Not as much as 7 months of soul crushing blizzards, but perhaps a close second.

More important than my dislike of being damp, the trains still aren't running. The stupid blizzards picked up all the sod the pioneers so painstakingly broke up, mixed it up with snow and dumped it all over the train tracks. Not just a little either, in some places it's 20 feet deep. So see you later Pa and other townsmen, go dig us out some train and don't come back till you can bring us some potatoes and pork fat.

So, sigh, for the time being we still have no new food, or fuel, which means Ingalls are still spending all day grinding wheat and twisting hay to burn for heat. And there's no new seed wheat so Pa can't plant the new crop and no tar paper or lumber to repair the shanty. Really all we have is the imminent fear of death receding into the horizon. Yay?

But finally, finally on the last day of April (the first blizzard was on the very 1st day of October) the trains come to town! Just when the Ingalls were down to their very last handful of grain. Phew! On the train there's food (thank god because one more coarse grain biscuit and I'll scream) and more excitingly the Christmas barrel! Sent by the very same Preacher who set up the Christmas tree in Walnut Grove. You remember, the little fur cape.
(All Laura gets from this barrel is some embroidery floss but she seems happy so, good for her.)

Now, the Ingalls did have the world's most pathetic Christmas already this year. With their sad little can of oysters, and embroidered cardboard, and reading of religious stories by the button and axle grease lamp. But right in the middle of 'celebrating' one of the worst blizzards yet came through and they already knew they weren't going to have enough food or fuel to last till April which can make it hard to celebrate the birth of your lord. Frankly the whole day was a huge bummer.

Due to bummer Christmas, when the trains come Ma and Pa decide to call an audible and redo the whole thing. They invite the Boasts over, who spent Christmas with them when they were in the Surveyor's cabin, and cook up the big old frozen turkey that was at the bottom of the Christmas barrel. So there's turkey and cranberry jelly and mashed potatoes and coffee and white bread and pie and good lord Mrs. Boast brought butter so what else could you need?!

The real tear jerker comes at the end of the meal. All winter long Pa's hands have been to jacked from the cold and the straw twisting to play the fiddle. Since his fiddle playing is a symbol of well being, safety and family unity this is a big deal. Symbol wise. But at the end of the meal he whips out the old fiddle and plays a song about life being hard that he learned while digging out the rail roads.

A few clear notes softly sounded. The lump in Laura's throat almost choked her.

Don't worry, after the whole long winter she wasn't taken down by suppressed emotion once the sun shined again. So now it's back to the claim for planting and summer time and hopefully some Almanzo courtin' but I'll have to start Little Town on the Prairie to let you know more about that.