The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder Page B

browned in the oven, and then took from the oven a small dish of butter.
    “I had to warm the butter,” she said. “It was frozen as hard as a rock. I could not cut it. I hope Mr. Boast brings us some more soon. This is what the cobbler threw at his wife.”
    Grace and Carrie were puzzled, while all the others laughed. It showed how happy Ma was that she would make jokes.
    “That was his awl,” Mary said. And Laura exclaimed, “Oh, no! It was the last. That was all he had.”
    “Girls, girls,” Ma said gently because they were laughing too much at the table. Then Laura said,
    “But I thought we were out of butter when we didn't have any yesterday.”
    “Pancakes were good with salt pork,” said Ma. “I saved the butter for toast.” There was just enough butter for a scraping on every slice.
    Breakfast was so merry in the warmth and stillness and light that the clock was striking half past eight before they finished, and Ma said, "Run along, girls.
    This one time I'll do your housework."
    The whole outdoors was dazzling, sparkling brightly in bright sunshine. All the length of Main Street was a high drift of snow, a ridge taller than Laura. She and Carrie had to climb to its top and get carefully down its other side. The snow was packed so hard that their shoes made no marks on it and their heels could dig no dents to keep them from slipping.
    In the schoolyard was another glittering drift almost as high as the schoolhouse. Cap Garland and Ben and Arthur and the little Wilmarth boys were skating down it on their shoes, as Laura used to slide on SilverLake, and Mary Power and Minnie were standing out in the cold sunshine by the door watching the fun the boys were having.
    “Hello, Laura!” Mary Power said gladly, and she tucked her mittened hand under Laura's arm and squeezed it. The y were pleased to see each other again. It seemed a long time since Friday, and even since the Saturday afternoon that they had meant to spend together. But there was no time to talk, for Teacher came to the door and girls and boys must go in to their lessons.
    At recess Mary Power and Laura and Minnie stood at the window and watched the boys sliding down the snowdrift. Laura wished she could go outdoors to play too.
    “I wish we weren't too big now,” she said. “I don't think it's any fun being a young lady.”
    “Well, we can't help growing up,” Mary Power said.
    “What would you do if you were caught in a blizzard, Mary?” Minnie Johnson was asking.
    "I guess I would just keep on walking. You wouldn't freeze if you kept on walking," Mary answered.
    “But you'd tire yourself out. You'd get so tired you'd die,” said Minnie.
    “Well, what would you do?” Mary Power asked her.
    "I'd dig into a snowbank and let the snow cover me up. I don't think you'd freeze to death in a snowbank.
    Would you, Laura?"
    “I don't know,” Laura said.
    “Well, what would you do, Laura, if you got caught in a blizzard?” Minnie insisted.
    “I wouldn't get caught,” Laura answered. She did not like to think about it. She would rather talk with Mary Power about other things. But Miss Garland rang the bell and the boys came trooping in, red with the cold and grinning.
    That whole day long everyone was as cheerful as the sunshine. At noon Laura and Mary Power and Carrie, with the Beardsley girls, raced in the shouting crowd over the big snowdrifts home to dinner. On top of the high drift that was Main Street, some went north and some went south and Laura and Carrie slid down its east side to their own front door.
    Pa was already in his place at the table, Mary was lifting Grace onto the pile of books in her chair, and Ma was setting a dish of steaming baked potatoes before Pa. “I do wish we had some butter for them,” she said.
    “Salt brings out the flavor,” Pa was saying, when a loud knocking sounded on the kitchen door. Carrie ran to open it and, big and furry as a bear in his buffalo coat, Mr. Boast came in.
    “Come in, Boast!