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Stories From Highlights
Compilation copyright © 1996 by Boyds Mills Press, Inc.
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Prairie Valentine
By Ethel Bretches
Chris Adams pulled his younger sister along the wagon trail. He squinted at the threatening sky, then down at Nell who stumbled along behind him. He slowed a bit but pleaded, "Hurry up, Nell. The storm's closer, and we're still a mile from home."
Through stiff, cold lips, Nell mumbled, "I can't go any faster."
When this February blizzard swept across the Kansas prairie, Miss Bailey, who was the teacher at the one-room school, dismissed her twenty pupils. She knew they had to walk from two to four miles to reach home. She urged them, "Hurry home as fast as you can before the storm gets here."
Twelve-year-old Chris knew sudden blizzards sometimes caught settlers miles from home. He knew that people had been lost just a few yards from their own homes because they couldn't see through the thick, swirling snow. Fear and responsibility for Nell's life and his own squeezed at him.
Maybe Nell could hurry if he got her mind on something else. There was the question of their mother's valentine gift. He asked, "Did you think of something we could give Mama today?"
Nell usually let her older brother, Chris, make decisions. Now she looked expectantly at him and answered, "No. I guessed you would think of something. You always do."
Sometimes Chris resented the responsibilities thrust upon him as the young son of a settler family. He wished Nell would solve some of her own problems. Now the danger of the storm was most important, but maybe he could still think of a gift.
Hurrying along, Chris remembered other times when they had to "make do," as their mother put it. For her birthday last fall, Chris had found some colorful pheasant feathers to trim her winter hat. Just before Christmas their father had brought home two muskrats from traps along the creek bank. With his help, Chris and Nell had made their mother a warm muff out of the skins. But now he couldn't think of anything for her valentine.
Chris thought of the hard life on the prairie. Women had to work all of the time at one task or another. Too much was demanded of boys his age. He had to chop wood; feed their one cow, two horses, and the pigs; and help out with all of the other chores on the farm. Though he had grown taller, stronger, and more sure of himself, he knew he had changed from a carefree boy since his family moved to the Kansas Territory.
It had been different back in Connecticut. Boys and girls played games. Large houses were close to neighbors, and stores were only a few blocks away. Out here their log-and-sod cabin had one large room, a small bedroom, and a shedlike pantry attached to the kitchen. There was only one small square window covered with oiled paper set in the long log wall of the large room. Their nearest neighbors lived more than two miles across the prairie.
When the family's meager supplies ran low, Mr. Adams hitched the team of horses to the big wagon and drove sixteen miles to Benning, the nearest town. The trip took most of a day and wasn't done often.
The sudden sting of icy snow hitting his face brought Chris back to the present. He knew that in a few minutes a fierce blizzard would prevent them from seeing more than a few feet around them.
"Come on, Nell. We've got to run!" He yanked her forward.
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