A Prairie-Schooner Princess

by Mary K. Maule

The children, terrified at the blackness, almost like that of night, that had fallen over the prairies, and at the shrieking and howling of the wind, gathered close about her. She concealed her own fears to comfort them.

At the first approach of the storm the boys had put the cow and horses in the dugout and closed the doors. At five o'clock when they started out to feed them the door of the dugout was drifted half-way up to its top with snow, and the wind was so terrific and the whirl of the wall of snow so blinding and bewildering that they were unable to make their way from the house to the dugout.

Lige, who had started out ahead of Joe, became lost almost before he had left the shelter of the house, and were Joe not close behind him he might have wandered away and perished on the plains.

Battling their way back to the house, holding to one another, they sought the shelter of the kitchen, beaten, breathless, even in those few moments almost frozen. When they made another attempt to get to the dugout they were obliged to tie a rope to the handle of the door and clinging to it grope their way to the dugout, where they made the line fast, and when they had fed and attended to the stock were able to guide themselves by it back to the house.

As the hours passed on and the travelers did not return the anxiety of the family became almost unbearable. At last Joe drew his mother aside. "I can't stay still any longer, Mother," he said. "It is getting dark. Father and Sam ought to have been here long ago; they must have lost their way in this blizzard. Let Lige and me go out to meet them."

Hannah Peniman turned her white face upon him.

"What good would that do?" she asked. "You could not find them—perhaps you too would get lost—perhaps none of you would ever come home. Oh, God, have I not given enough, enough!"

Joe took her hands. "But, Mother," he said firmly, "we can't stay here and let Father and Sam perish in this storm without trying to save them! Lige and I are strong—we can take ropes—we'll tie ourselves to the house so we can always get back. We must go, Mother! They must have got nearly home before the blizzard struck them. They may be out there—not far away—lost and fighting their way through this storm——"

Hannah Peniman cried out and covered her face with her hands. A moment later she turned to the boy and said quickly, "Yes, you must go. It is thy duty—I would not keep thee from it. Go—go quickly! Thy father may be needing thee!"

It was bitterly hard for Hannah Peniman to send her two oldest boys—all that she and the little ones had to depend upon now—out into the howling blizzard. As she gazed out into the whirling, blinding, shrieking tempest it seemed to her almost like giving them up to inevitable destruction. But her husband, another child, were out there somewhere on those prairies in the blizzard. It was the duty of these boys to go to their rescue. All her life Duty had been her guide. So with prayers upon her lips and in her heart she wrapped them up and let them go, fighting their way into the storm inch by inch, unwinding as they went a great coil of rope that had been provided for a well-rope, but which, fortunately, had not been put in use.