The men got to the poor dumb animals that day to feed them; to water them was impossible. Mr. Stewart went down through the roof of the shed, the door being completely sealed up with solid banks of snow and dirt. One of the guests had a wife and two children left alone in a small cottage six miles farther on, and physical force was necessary to keep him from setting out in face of the deadly tempest. To him the nights seemed weeks, and the days interminable, as they did to the rest, but it would have been death to venture out.
That night, so disturbed had all become, they lay awake listening, waiting, hoping for a change. About midnight Lincoln noticed that the roar was no longer so steady, so relentless, and so high-keyed as before. It began to lull at times, and though it came back to the attack with all its former ferocity, still there was a [perceptible weakening]. Its fury was [becoming spasmodic]. One of the men shouted down to Mr. Stewart, “The storm is over,” and when the host called back a ringing word of cheer, Lincoln sank into deep sleep in sheer relief.
Oh, the joy with which the children melted the ice on the window-panes, and peered out on the familiar landscape, dazzling, peaceful, under the brilliant sun and wide blue sky. Lincoln looked out over the wide plain, ridged with vast drifts; on the far blue line of timber, on the near-by cottages sending up cheerful columns of smoke (as if to tell him the neighbors were alive), and his heart seemed to fill his throat. But the wind was with him still, for so long and continuous had its voice sounded in his ears, that even in the perfect calm his imagination supplied its loss with fainter, fancied roarings.
Out in the barn the horses and cattle, hungry and cold, kicked and bellowed in pain, and when the men dug them out, they ran and raced like mad creatures, to start the blood circulating in their numbed and stiffened limbs. Mr. Stewart was forced to tunnel to the barn door, cutting through the hard snow as if it were clay. The drifts were solid, and the dirt mixed with the snow was disposed on the surface in beautiful wavelets, like the sands at the bottom of a lake. The drifts would bear a horse. The guests were able to go home by noon, climbing above the fences, and rattling across the plowed ground.
And then in the days which followed, came grim tales of suffering and heroism. Tales of the finding of stage-coaches with the driver frozen on his seat and all his passengers within; tales of travelers striving to reach home and families. Cattle had starved and frozen in their stalls, and sheep lay buried in heaps beside the fences where they had clustered together to keep warm. These days gave Lincoln a new conception of the prairies. It taught him that however bright and beautiful they might be in summer under skies of June, they could be terrible when the Norther was abroad in his wrath. They seemed now as pitiless and destructive as the polar ocean. It seemed as if nothing could live there unhoused. All was at the mercy of that power, the north wind, whom only the Lord Sun could tame.
This was the worst storm of the winter, though the wind seemed never to sleep. To and fro, from north to south, and south to north, the dry snow sifted till it was like fine sand that rolled under the heel with a ringing sound on cold days. After each storm the restless wind got to work to pile the new-fallen flakes into ridges behind every fence or bush, filling every ravine and forcing the teamsters into the fields and out on to the open prairie. It was a savage and gloomy time for Lincoln, with only the pleasure of his school to break the [monotony of cold].
NOTES AND QUESTIONS
Biography. Hamlin Garland (1860-⸺) was born in Wisconsin. His father was a farmer-pioneer, who, always eager to be upon the border line of agricultural development, moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Iowa, and from Iowa to Dakota. The hope of cheaper acres, better soil, and bigger crops lured him on.
When Hamlin Garland turned his attention to literature he was keen enough to see the literary value of his early experiences. He resolved to interpret truthfully the life of the western farmer and its great hardships and limitations, no less than its hopes, joys, and achievements. In doing this, through a succession of short stories and novels, he won fame and success. In A Son of the Middle Border, an autobiography, he has written an intensely interesting and valuable record of typical experiences in the development of the Middle West. This selection is taken from Boy Life on the Prairie.
Discussion. 1. What distinguishes a blizzard from other violent storms? 2. What are the dangers when it comes without ample warning? 3. What was the manner of attack of this blizzard? 4. What caused the early darkness? 5. What was it in the storm that “appalled” the boy’s heart and “benumbed his thinking”? 6. What effect had it upon other members of the household? 7. Has man any power to oppose the violence of such a storm? 8. What was the velocity of the wind? 9. How long did the blizzard last? How did it compare in this respect with the ordinary blizzard? 10. What name was given it because of its force, fury, and duration? 11. What results of the storm proved its violence? 12. What new idea of the prairie did the storm give the boy Lincoln? 13. Pronounce the following: recess; infinite; columns; calm; heroism; implacable.