Our winter vacation from school lasted until early February. We had grown accustomed to the relentless cold, north winds and snow drifts — to being so isolated that the lives of characters in Silversheen, King of the Sled Dogs and White Fang seemed more real than Daddy’s news from Minneapolis. Our lifestyle felt as natural to us as the pioneers and explorers we read about. With regular chores and trips to the little-house, we were outside every day, but the sub-zero weather and deep snow kept us indoors with reading and quiet pastimes. Although keeping the various pathways shoveled was a massive endeavor, it made our other outdoor tasks easier — hauling wood from the woodpile, buckets of water from the pump, garbage to our dump, and emptying pails of used wash-water. John and I always looked for ways to make our work fun, and my unbiased childhood memory of doing these jobs willingly is confirmed by Mother’s letter, “The children are very good to help and don’t complain about anything.” John proudly wrote to Daddy, “My ax has sure been busy splitting kindling.”
Any inconvenience caused by the weather did not seem to bother Mother either, “There is lots of snow but it is light and dry. Everything looks beautiful.” But our isolation was a different matter…. “It is a very lonesome place, believe me.” She stubbornly refused to spend money for a radio and batteries, so mailed copies of the Minneapolis Tribune remained our only source of news, besides Daddy’s letters. “We must try to pay up our bills and get fixed financially so that you can come up and stay as soon as possible.”
And she worried about his health. “Get all the sleep you can and eat oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. They help ward off colds.” And later, “We got your letter saying you had hurt your leg. Mind the Doctor and take care of yourself.”
Mother had compassion for the birds trying to survive in the cold and snow, so we always tried to keep our birdfeeder filled with some combination of suet, breadcrumbs and sunflower seeds. We noticed, however, that the Cat had a keen interest in the birds also…. One day Mother gave her a piece of bone with a little meat on it. Instead of eating it, she took it outside and left it near a tree where chickadees roosted, then hid behind a stump — within striking distance… We foiled her scheme and kept a more watchful eye on her after that.
The cold weather encouraged John and me to devise creative amusements indoors. I loved to sew, and made myself a little rag doll about 8 inches tall, stuffed with some of the wool from our ill-fated pelt-curing-experiment. I painted her face, hair and shoes, and then Mother gave me her sewing scraps — all neatly rolled up and tied with a strip of selvedge, for making the doll’s clothes. That bundle, along with a bag of trim, ribbon, and buttons, seemed like having my own dry-goods store….
Meanwhile, John used his pocket knife to make himself a bow and supply of arrows. Then, intrigued by my new creation, he decided to make himself a boy doll, and set about that project with his usual focused vigor. Once his doll was finished — and I helped fashion suitable wardrobes for both of them — their fairy tale adventure began. They ended up getting married and moving — with the help of John’s green mail truck — into a house we made for them from a fruit crate. We manufactured a complete houseful of furniture and accessories for them out of little cardboard boxes, scrap wood, and spools, using my fabric and trimming for accents.
Of course, Mother was busy playing house also. She washed and carded the rest of the wool from our sheep-pelt fiasco, and layered it between two pieces of soft muslin, making a down-like liner for her new cot-size quilt. Then she began piecing the patchwork quilt squares together, made of outing flannel left over from pajamas.
We read quite a bit, often to each other while we worked on our respective projects. Daddy kept us well supplied with books borrowed from the station library, and we especially enjoyed the winter adventure stories. We read Silversheen, King of Sled Dogs, White Fang, and Last of the Mohicans, plus John and I each had our new Christmas books.
Daddy helped us get caught up in the jigsaw puzzle craze sweeping the country. The first one he sent up was “Wild Elephants,” which almost drove us wild with its large expanses of dun colored background and look-alike foreground of dried grasses — all on tiny intricate shaped pieces. It was a time consuming challenge in the best of circumstances, but our cabin presented an additional hazard — cracks between the floorboards. If we dropped a piece, it sometimes fell through, requiring one of us to light the lantern, go through the trapdoor, down the ladder to the cellar, and hunt for it in the shifting shadows on the sandy floor.
Daddy worked the puzzles too, either before sending them to us, or after we mailed them back. It became another family bonding activity — having faced the same difficulties, we could agonize with each other in our letters over frustrating parts, and share the triumph when we finally completed them. He bought a few of the puzzles new, but most were from an exchange the streetcar men set up, giving the men and their families access to a wider variety at little expense. The only drawback was that Mother grew attached to many of the striking pictures and mentioned in her letters that she would have enjoyed keeping some of them — intact and out where they could be seen.
Working in our favorite spot, on the braided rug in front of the wood stove, John and I pursued another diversion. Using wide tablet paper, we drew elaborate house plans, complete with furnishings and accessories for each of the rooms. The most dominant features in all of them were vast storerooms lined with shelves. We filled these with our favorite foods — in huge quantities — and stacks of warm clothes. A few niches were reserved for items like toys, tools, gardening supplies, and weapons for survival. Our goal was to be able to live for months without running out of any necessities. We compared work frequently, sharing ideas. Our planning sessions lasted for hours, modifying and designing new innovations, as we lay on our stomachs by the warm fire.
In one of his parcels, Daddy surprised us with a package of colored paper which kept us busy for days. Defending our cup of paste again from the ever-circling cat, we each constructed our own three-dimensional farm — complete with house, barn, chicken coop, sheds, silo, fences and animals, and the little-house out back. John wrote, “It has sorrel horses and guernsey cows and shropshire sheep and a round roofed barn and a chicken coop. and I have a house with shutters and a brown door and a truck and a team and a wagon and a granary. and a hedge.” We found the design and construction process far more intriguing than playing with them later….
It was our mailman who brought the first sign of spring. Seed catalogs began to arrive, promising that, despite all indications to the contrary, winter would not last forever. This became our new addiction — John and I pored over them, endlessly, making lists, repeatedly changing our minds about how best to use our savings. We had been accumulating gardening investment money since Christmas, by saving our ten cent weekly earnings for doing chores like drying dishes, carrying water, shoveling snow, hauling wood and splitting kindling.
The growing pile of seed catalogs kept us enraptured for so many hours that we actually dreaded the finality of placing our orders. And invariably — just as we decided — another one came with tempting new options. Mother wrote, “All of the seed catalogues have come. We’ll send you our list of seeds for your official O.K., except the children’s stuff. They can send for what they want. Their desires have changed with each new catalogue….”