Chapter 2: Winter DAYS and Winter NIGHTS
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THE first snow came, and the bitter cold. Every m Pa took his gun and his traps and was gone all day in the Big Woods, setting the small traps for muskrats and mink along the creeks, the middle-sized traps for foxes and wolves in the Woods. He set out the big bear traps hoping to get a fat bear before they all went into their dens for the winter.One m he came back, took the horses and sled, and hurried away again. He had shot a bear. Laura and Mary jumped tip and down and clapped their hands, they were so glad. Mary shouted:
"I want the drumstick! I want the drumstick!
Mary did not know how big a bears drumstick is.
When Pa came back he had both a bear and a pig in the wagon. He had been going through the Woods, with a big bear trap in his hands and the gun on his shoulder, when he walked around a big piree covered with snow, and the bear was behind the tree.
The bear had just killed the pig and ig it up to eat it. Pa said the bear was standing up on its hind legs, holding the pig in its paws just as though they were hands.
Pa shot the bear, and there was no way of knowing where the pig came from nor whose pig it was.
"So I just brought home the ba," Pa said.
There lenty of fresh meat to last for a long time. The days and the nights were so cold that the pork in a box and the bear meat hanging itle shed outside the back door were solidly frozen and did not thaw.
When Ma wanted fresh meat for dinner Pa took the ax and cut off a k of frozen bear meat or pork. But the sausage balls, or the salt pork, or the smoked hams and the venison, Ma could get for herself from the shed or the attic.
The snow kept ing till<mark></mark> it was drifted and banked against the house. In the ms the window panes were covered with frost iiful pictures of trees and flowers and fairies. Ma said that Jack Frost came in the night and made the pictures, while everyone was asleep. Laura thought that Jack Frost was a little man all snowy white, wearing a glittering white pointed cap and soft white knee--boots made of deer-skin. His coat was white and his mittens were white, and he did not carry a gun on his back, but in his hands he had shining sharp tools with which he carved the pictures.
Laura and Mary were allowed to take Mas thimble and made pretty patterns of circles in the frost on the glass. But they never spoiled the pictures that Jack Frost had made in the night.
When they put their mouths close to the pane and blew their breath on it, the white frost melted and ran in drops down the glass. Then they could see the drifts of snow outdoors and the great trees standing bare and black, making thin blue shadows on the white snow.
Laura and Mary helped Ma with the work.
Every m there were the dishes to wipe; Mary wiped more of them than Laura because she was bigger, but Laura always wiped carefully her own little cup and plate.
By the time the dishes were all wiped a away, the trundle bed was aired. Then, standing one on each side, Laura and Mary straightehe covers, tucked them in well at the foot and the sides, plumped up the pillout them in place. Then Ma pushed the trundle bed into its plader the big bed.
After this was done, Ma began the work that beloo that day. Each day had its own proper work. Ma used to say:
"Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday.”
Laura liked the ing and the baking days best of all the week.
In wihe cream was not yellow as it was in Summer, and butter ed from it was white and not so pretty. Ma liked everything oable to be pretty, so in the wiime she colored the butter.
After she had put the cream iall crockery a he stove to warm, she washed and scraped a long e-colored carrot. Then she grated it otom of
the old, leaky tin pan that Pa had punched full of nail-holes for her. Ma rubbed the carrot across the roughness until she had rubbed it all through the holes, and when she lifted up the pan, there was a soft, juicy mound of grated carrot.
She put this in a little pan of milk oove and when the milk was hot she poured milk and carrot into a cloth bag. Then she squeezed the bright yellow milk into the , where it colored all the cream. Now the butter would be yellow.
Laura and Mary were allowed to eat the carrot 1 after the milk had been squeezed out. Mary thought she ought to have the larger share because she was older, and Laura said she should have it because she was littler. But Ma said they must divide it evenly. It was very good.
When the cream was ready, Ma scalded the long wooden -dash, put it in the , and dropped the wooden -cover over it. The -cover had a little round hole in the middle 9 and Ma moved the dash up and down, up and down, through the hole.
She ed for a long time. Mary could sometimes while Ma rested, but the dash was too heavy for Laura.
At first the splashes of cream showed thid smooth around the little hole. After a long time, they began to look grainy. Then Ma ed more slowly, and on the dash there began to appear tiny grains of yellow butter.
When Ma took off the -cover, there was the butter in a golden lump, drowning itermilk. Then Ma took out the lump with a wooden paddle, into a wooden bowl, and she washed it many times in cold water, turning it over and over and w it with the paddle until the water ran clear. After that she salted it.
Now came the best part of the ing. Ma molded the butter. On the loose bottom of the wooden butter-mold was carved the picture of a strawberry with two strawberry leaves.
With the paddle Ma packed butter tightly into the mold until it was full. Theur upside-down over a plate, and pushed on the handle of the loose bottom. The little, firm pat of golden butter came out, with the strawberry and its leaves molded oop.
Laura and Mary watched, breathless, one on each side of Ma, while the golden little butterpats, each with its strawberry oop, dropped on to the plate as Ma put all the butter through the mold. Then Ma gave them each a drink of good, fresh buttermilk on Saturdays, when Ma made the bread, they each had a little piece of dough to make into a little loaf. They might have a bit of cookie dough, too, to make little cookies, and once Laura even made a pie in her patty-pan.
After the days work was done, Ma sometimes cut paper dolls for them. She cut the dolls out of stiff white paper, and drew the faces with a pencil. Then from bits of colored paper she cut dresses and hats, ribbons and laces, so that Laura and Mary could dress their dolls beautifully.
But, the best time of all was at night, when Pa came home.
He would e in from his tramping through the snowy woods with tiny icicles hanging on the ends of his mustaches. He would hang his gun on the wall over the door, thr<bdo>..</bdo>ow off his fur cap and coat and mittens, and call: "Wheres my little half -pint of sweet cider half drunk up? “
That was Laura, because she was so small.
Laura and Mary would run to climb on his knees and sit there while he warmed himself by the fire. Then he would put on his coat and cap and mittens again and go out to do the chores and bring iy of wood for the fire.
Sometimes, when Pa had walked his trap-lines quickly because the traps were empty, or when he had got some game soohan usual, he would e home early. Then he would have time to play with Laura and Mary.
One game they loved was called mad dog. Pa would run his fihrough his thick, brown hair, standing it all up on end. Then he dropped on all fours and, growling, he chased Laura and Mary all around the room, trying to get them ered where they could away.
They were quick at dodging and running, but once he caught them against the woodbox, behind the stove. They could past Pa, and there was no other way out.
Then Pa growled so terribly, his hair was so wild and his eyes so fierce that it all seemed real. Mary was shtehat she could not move. But as Pa came nearer Laura screamed, and with a wild leap and a scramble she went over the woodbox, dragging Mary with her.
And at ohere was no mad dog at all. There was only Pa standing there with his blue eyes shining, looking at Laura.
"Well!" he said to her. "Youre only a little half-pint of cider half drunk up, but by Jinks! Youre as strong as a little French horse!
"You shouldnt frighten the children so Charles," Ma said. "Look how big their eyes are.
Pa looked, and theook down his fiddle. He began to play and sing.
"Yankee Doodle went to town, He wore his striped trousies, He swore he couldhe town, There was so many houses.”
Laura and Mary fot all about the mad dog.
"And there he saw some great big guns, Big as a log of maple, And every time they turned em round, It took two yoke of cattle.
"And every time they fired em off, It took a horn of powder, It made a noise like fathers gun, Only a nation louder.”
Pa was keeping time with his foot, and Laura clapped her hands to the music when he sang, “And Ill sing Yankee Doodle-de-do, And Ill sing Yankee Doodle, And Ill sing Yankee Doodle-de-do, And Ill sing Yankee Doodle!”
All alone in the wild Big Woods, and the snow, and the cold, the little was warm and snug and cosy. Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby <bdo></bdo>Carrie were fortable and happy there, especially at night.
Then the fire was shining on the hearth, the cold and the dark and the wild beasts were all shut out, and Jack the brindle bulldog and Black Susa lay blinking at the flames in the fireplace.
Ma sat in her rog chair, sewing by the light of the lamp oable. The lamp was bright and shiny. There was salt itom of its glass bowl with the keroseo keep the kerosene from exploding, and there were bits of red flannel among the salt to make it pretty. It retty.
Laura loved to look at the lamp, with its glass ey so and sparkling, its yellow flame burning so steadily, and its bowl of clear kerosene colored red by the bits of flannel. She loved to look at the fire in the fireplace, flickering and ging all the time, burning yellow and red and sometimes green above the logs, and h blue over the golden and ruby coals.
And then, Pa told stories. When Laura and Mary begged him for a story, he would take them on his knees and tickle their faces with his long whiskers until they laughed aloud. His eyes were blue and merry.
One night Pa looked at Black Susan, stretg herself before the fire and running her claws out and in, and he said:
"Do you know that a panther is a cat? a great, big, wild cat?”
"No," said Laura.
"Well, it is, said Pa. "Just imagine Black Susan bigger than Jack, and fiercer than Jack when he growls. Then she would b<s></s>e just like a panther.”
He settled Laura and Mary more fortably on his knees and he said, "Ill tell you about Grandpa and the panther.”
"Yrandpa?" Laura asked.
"No, Laura, yrandpa. My father.”
"Oh," Laura said, and she wriggled clainst Pas arm. She knew her Grandpa. He lived far away in the Big Woods, in a big log house. Pa began:
The Story of Grandpa and the Panther "Yrandpa went to town one day and was late starting home. It was dark when he came riding his horse through the Big Woods, so dark that he could hardly see the road, and when he heard a panther scream he was frightened, for he had no gun.”
"How does a panther scream?" Laura asked.
"Like a woman," said Pa. "Like this." Then he screamed so that Laura and Mary shivered with terror., Ma jumped in her chair, and said, "Mercy, Charles! “
But Laura and Mary loved to be scared like that.
"The horse, with Grandpa on him, ran fast, for it was frighteoo. But it could not get away from the pahe panther followed through the dark woods. It was a hungry panther, and it came as fast as the horse could run. It screamed now on this side of the road, now oher side, and it was always close behind.
"Grandpa leaned forward in the saddle and urged the horse to run faster. The horse was running as fast as it could possibly run, and still the Panther screamed close behind.
"Then Grandpa caught a glimpse of it, as it leaped from treetop to treetop, almost overhead, "It was a huge, black panther, leaping through the air like Black Susan leaping on a mouse. It was many, many times bigger than Black Susan.
It was so big that if it leaped on Grandpa it could kill him with its enormous, slashing claws and its long sharp teeth.
"Grandpa, on his horse, was running away, from it just as a mouse runs from a cat.
"The panther did not scream any mrandpa did not see it any more. But he khat it was ing, leaping after him in the dark woods behind him. The horse ran with all its might.
"At last the horse ran up to Grandpas house. Grandpa saw the panther springing. Grandpa burst jumped off the horse, against the door. He went through the door and slammed it behind him. The panther landed on the horses back, just where Grandpa had been.
"The horse screamed terribly, and ran. He was running away into the Big Woods, with the panther riding on his bad ripping his back with its claws. But Grandpa grabbed his gun from the wall and got to the window, just in time to shoot the panther dead.
Grandpa said he would never again go the Big Woods without his gun.”
When Pa told this story, Laura and Mary shivered and snuggled closer to him. They were safe and snug on his knees, with his strong arms around them.
They liked to be there, before the warm fire, with Black Susan purrring on the hearth and good dog Jack stretched out beside her. When they heard a wolf howl, Jacks head lifted and the hairs rose stiff along his back. But Laura and Mary listeo that lonely sound in the dark and the cold of the Big Woods, and they were not afraid.
They were cosy and f<big>..</big>ortable in their little house made of logs, with the snow drifted around it and the wind g because it could not get in by the fire.
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