The snow was scudding low over the drifts of the white world outside the little claim shanty. it was blowing thru the cracks in its walls and forming little piles and miniature drifts on the floor and even on the desks before which several children sat, trying to study, for this abandoned claim shanty that had served as t he summer home of a homesteader on the Dakota prairies was being used as a schoolhouse during the winter.
The walls were made of one thickness of wide boards with cracks between and the enormous stove that stood nearly in the center of the one room could scarcely keep out the frost tho its side were a glowing red. The children were dressed warmly and had been allowed to gather closely around the stove following the advice of the county superintendent of schools, who on a recent visit had said that the only thing he had to say to them was to keep their fee warm.
This was my first school, I’ll not say how many years ago, but I was only 16 years old and 12 miles from home during a frontier winter. I walked a mile over the unbroken snow from my boarding place to school every morning and back at night. There were only a few pupils and on this particular snowy afternoon they were restless for it was nearing 4 o’clock and tomorrow was Christmas. “Teacher” was restless too, tho she tried not to show it for she was wondering if she could get home for Christmas Day.
It was almost too cold to hope for father to come and a storm was hanging in the northwest which might mean a blizzard at any minute. Still, tomorrow was Christmas — and then there was a jingle of sleigh bells outside. A man in a huge fur coat in a sleigh full of robes passed the window. I was going home after all!
When one thinks of 12 miles now, it is in terms of motor cars and means only a few minutes. It was different then, and I’ll never forget that ride. The bells made a merry jingle, and the fur robes were warm but the weather was growing colder and the snow was drifting so that the horses must break their way thru the drifts.
We were facing the strong wind, and every little while he, who later became the “man of the place,” must stop the team, get out in the snow, and by putting his hands over each horse’s nose in turn, thaw the ice from them where the breath had frozen over their nostrils. Then he would get back into the sleigh and on we’d go until once more the horses could not breathe for the ice.
When we reached the journey’s end, it was 40 degrees below zero, the snow was blowing so thickly that we could not see across the street and I was so chilled that I had to be half carried into the house. But I was home for Christmas and cold and danger were forgotten.
Such magic there is in Christmas to draw the absent ones home and if unable to go in the body the thoughts will hover there! Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred and we are better thruout the year for having become a child again at Christmas-time.
“As a Farm Woman Thinks (33)” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in The Missouri Ruralist, December 15, 1924