Laura woke up suddenly. She heard singing and a queer slapping sound.
“Oh, I am as happy as a big sunflower (Slap! Slap!)
That nods and bends in the breezes, Oh! (Slap! Slap!)
And my heart (Slap!) is as light (Slap!) as the wind that blows (Slap! Slap!)
The leaves from off the treeses, Oh! (Slap! SLAP!)Pa was singing his trouble song and slapping his arms on his chest.
Laura’s nose was cold. Only her nose was outside the quilts that she was huddled under. She put out her whole head and then she knew why Pa was slapping himself. He was trying to warm his hands.
He had kindled the fire. It was roaring in the stove, but the air was freezing cold. Ice crackled on the quilt where leaking rain had fallen. Winds howled around the shanty and from the roof and all the walls came a sound of scouring.
Carrie sleepily asked, “What is it?”
“It’s a blizzard,” Laura told her. “You and Mary stay under the covers.”
Careful not to let the cold get under the quilts, she crawled out of the warm bed. Her teeth chattered while she pulled on her clothes. Ma was dressing, too, beyond the curtain, but they were both too cold to say anything.
They met at the stove where the fire was blazing furiously without warming the air at all. The window was a white blur of madly swirling snow. Snow had blown under the door and across the floor and every nail in the walls was white with frost.
Pa had gone to the stable. Laura was glad that they had so many haystacks in a row between the stable and the shanty. Going from haystack to haystack, Pa would not get lost.
“A b-b-b-b-blizzard!” Ma chattered. “In Oc-October I n-n-never heard of…”
