The wind swept about with a murderous howl as only a western prairie wind can. A flock of wolves could not have equalled it in the shrieks. Then there would be a long bay like that of some great hound, or a mocking whistle as if the fiends were abroad. We really could not talk. Mr. Gaynor helped himself liberally to roasted corn.
Presently it died down and was solemnly still. The Yankee clock on the corner shelf in the best room—John Gaynor could not have lived without that—struck nine.
"Time to be coverin' up fires," he said. "Sis, you run to bed. Want to see the snow again?"
"Yes, I do," with laughing persistence.
He opened the door cautiously. The great white sheet was like a wall. You could not see it stir at first, but there was a muffled sound in the air, an indescribable sound almost like the echo of music miles and miles away.
"It is wonderful!" the Little Girl said, her eyes like a clear midnight sky. "It is a strange world, terrible sometimes, too."
"Better spread that wolf skin over your bed," her father advised as he returned her good-night.
I crawled over to the back part of John Gaynor's bed, though there was a great mound of feathers between us. People were hale and hearty in those days, if they did sleep half buried in feathers. But it seemed to me all night long that I heard the melody of the little girl's voice in the sweetest of cadences.
It was the first big snow of the season and now it was mid December. One had to begin at once to dig out window shutters and doors, but as the doors opened on the inside they were more manageable. It was still gray and cold and one had to be muffled up to the eyes. We shovelled a path out to the road, then threw it this way and that until it was a decent level and hammered it down with a shovel. Then we took the back to the pigpen. We heard the grunts, so they were not frozen. Indeed they had a tolerably warm home provided for them.
Ruth made pancakes. Mr. Gaynor had quite a large round ring of iron that one put on the coals. The pan stood on the top of this; a good big pan it was, and the batter was poured out of the pitcher. Ruth liked small, dainty cakes, her father enjoyed them about as big as a dinner plate. He had a curious knack of turning them without flopping. He liked them quite thick as well, so he baked several first.