Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10 John was just steps from the soddy when the sky broke open and snow started to pour from the sky. Ma and Pa were standing at the front door, waving him in. "I was about to come looking for you!" Pa said, pulling John inside and slamming the door. Ma grabbed a quilt and wrapped it around him.

"I saw the cloud coming," John said, breathing hard and pulling the blanket tight. "I ran the whole way back." "Who ever heard of a blizzard in September?" Ma fretted. John told them what Rex had said, that the birds had all flown south early. Pa frowned. "Those birds could have warned us," he said. "Daddy, birds don't talk," Franny said, barely looking up from her storybook. Franny was still too young to understand what a disaster it could be to have a snowstorm so early. When they'd lived in Chicago, there were stores where they could buy food, no matter what the weather. But here almost everything they ate came from the land. Ma grew their vegetables. They got their milk from Princess the cow and their eggs from their chickens. The creek was loaded with fish. If Ma wanted rabbit or squirrel or goose for her stew, she'd send John or Pa out to shoot one.

But nothing grew when the prairie was covered with ice and snow. The animals disappeared underground. The chickens wouldn't lay eggs, and Princess's milk would dry up. It wasn't until late April that the prairie started to sprout back to life. And so if they wanted to eat during the frozen months, they had to fill their cellar with food before the first big snows. Ma had been making pickles and jams all summer, and lining up the jars in their little cellar. She had dozens of eggs tucked away in their salty beds. But they still had to harvest the potatoes and turnips, which grew underground. If this blizzard kept up and the ground froze, those potatoes and turnips would rot. So would the pumpkins and squash still ripening on their vines. They wouldn't have enough to eat this winter. John stood nervously at the window with Ma and Pa, watching as the snow turned the prairie white. Suddenly Pa pointed into the distance.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "Those clouds are breaking up." John and Ma followed Pa's finger into the distance. Sure enough, the sky was brightening. The snow slowed, and then finally stopped. By supper the snow had melted, and the wet prairie grasses sparkled like glass in the setting sun. "I guess winter changed its mind," Ma said. "I think it was sending us a message," said Pa. "We'd better get to work." They started before dawn the next morning. John got out of bed and put on his patched overalls, not his school trousers. He knew he and Franny would be staying home for weeks, and wouldn't go back to school until the work was finished. Franny helped Ma dig up the potatoes and turnips. John and Pa plowed over the soil in the wheat field so it would ready for planting in the

spring. They patched up the soddy roof and filled in the cracks in the dirt walls. The hardest job was making haystacks. They had to be built just right — tall and tightly packed and rounded at the top — or the hay would rot. That hay would keep Shadow's and Princess's bellies full over the winter, when there was no grass to munch on. They worked for weeks. It wasn't until the end of October that the cellar was packed full. The soddy was finally snug. The fields were plowed. They were ready for winter — as ready as they could ever be.