Reading in Snatches

I don't know why I keep trying. Maybe I secretly hope that one of these evenings, dinner will be a silent, uneventful affair, and I will read aloud chapter after chapter from our book.

But it was not to be on this particular night. Daddy is away, directing a teen camp all this week, but we have still been sitting down to meals while he is gone; it helps us to keep a sense of normalcy and routine. On Monday, we had read three chapters from The Long Winter at different points during the day. By suppertime, my boys had cajoled me into cooking "authentic" Ingalls fare; baked beans, whole wheat flax and apple muffins and tall, cold glasses of milk. That's all. We pulled the curtains closed in the house. The overcast sky made the natural light dimmer than usual, so the lit lanterns cast a cozy glow that bespoke an hour later than it really was.

We gathered around the simple table and served hearty helpings of beans and muffins. The boys munched quietly, and Eliana crumbled her muffins into a thousand pieces and then used the tip of her finger to eat them, one by one.

I began to read. In snatches, while I fed her bites of baked beans. We stopped and started, paused for milk clean-up and retrieving Eliana's cup from the floor, but the beauty of the lesson we gleaned that night shone through the happy chaos.

(The Ingalls are experiencing seven months of hard winter - three days blizzard at a time, and few days respite in between. A bundle of papers have made it through the mail, sent by Reverend Alden's church, and the family has been looking forward to reading them as diversion.)

Pa put on his cap again and asked Ma to make dinner a little late. He had time to haul another load of hay if he hustled. He went out and Ma said, "Come, girls, put the bundle of Youth's Companions away. We must get out the washing while the weather's clear so we can."

All that day Laura and Carrie and Mary looked forward to the Youth's Companions and often they spoke of them. But the bright day was short. They stirred and punched the clothes boiling on the stove; they lifted them on the broom handle into the tub where Ma soaped and rubbed them. Laura rinsed them, Carrie stirred the blueing bag in the second rinsewater until it was blue enough. Laura made the boiled starch. And when for the last time Ma went out into the cold to hang the freezing wash on the line, Pa had come for dinner.

They they washed the dishes, they scrubbed the floor and blacked the stove, and washed the inside of the windowpanes. Ma brought in the frozen-dry clothes and they sorted them and sprinkled them and rolled them tightly, ready for ironing. Twilight had come. It was too late to read that day and after supper there was no lamplight because they must save the last of the kerosene.

"Work comes before pleasure," Ma always said. She smiled her gentle smile for Laura and Carrie and said now, "My girls have helped me do a good day's work," and they were rewarded.

"Tomorrow we'll read a story," Carrie said happily.

"Tomorrow we have to do the ironing," Laura reminded her.

"Yes, and we should air the bedding and give the upstairs a thorough cleaning, in this good weather," said Ma.

*My boys mouths froze in mid-chew at this point*

Pa came in and heard them. "Tomorrow I'm going to work on the railroad," he said.

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When he had gone to the stable, Ma dropped into a chair near Mary. "I'm afraid, girls, this will be a poor Christmas," she said. "What with these awful storms and trying to keep warm, we've had no time to plan for it."

"Maybe the Christmas barrel..." Carrie began.

"We mustn't count on it," said Mary.

"We could wait for Christmas till it comes," Laura suggested. "All but..." and she picked up Grace who was listening wide-eyed.

"Can't Santa Claus come?" Grace asked, and her lower lip began to tremble.

Laura hugged her and looked over her golden head at Ma.

Ma said firmly, "Santa Claus always comes to good little girls, Grace. But girls," she went on, "I have an idea. What do you think of saving my church papers and your bundle of Youth's Companions to open on Christmas day?"

After a moment Mary said, "I think it is a good idea. It will help us to learn self-denial."

"I don't want to," Laura said.

"Nobody does," said Mary. "But it's good for us."

Sometimes Laura did not even want to be good. But after another silent moment she said, "Well, if you and Mary want to, Ma, I will. It will give us something to look forward to for Christmas."

"What do you say about it, Carrie?" Ma asked, and in a small voice Carrie said, "I will, too, Ma."

"That's my good girls," Ma approved them.

Solemnly, I closed the book and rose to fetch the dishcloth to clean Eliana's hands. Somehow, there didn't seem to be any more words of my own to add to this passage. I am sure that we were all thinking of how little diversion the Ingalls had in their lives, and how the simple pleasure of the promise of a story was enough to put wings to their feet for their work. It had to be done.

How often I reward myself before I've finished well.

My boys were thinking quietly for a few moments, and when the wind picked up outside, and I sent them to put away their bikes and cover the toy box, they went quickly and without complaint. They called each other "Royal", and "Almanzo"; Eliana, "Grace". And I was Ma.

This Ma rose to her task of washing dishes, bathing the children and putting them to bed by herself with a more joyful spirit than when she had begun. It had to be done.

The pleasure of the promise of another chapter before she tucked them into bed gave wings to her feet.