The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin

Author:David Laskin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

Ole and Charley had gotten the wagon loaded up with hay and were about half a mile from home when the storm overtook them. The wind came up so fast that it knocked the wagon over and spooked the horses. Ole shouted to the boy that they must unhitch the horses and get them home. The hay could wait. They would come back for the load after the storm. The thing to do was calm the horses down and find shelter.

Ole Rollag was a big, burly, bearded man who was accustomed to imposing his will on the world around him by brute force—a true pioneer—so he figured on muscling his way through the storm. He’d grab one horse, the boy would take the other. Ten was plenty old enough to lend a hand.

The problem was that they’d been working southeast of the house. To get back they would have to walk straight into the wind. Even if Ole and Charley could have staggered that distance, the horses refused. Try as they might, they could not get the horses to walk with their faces into the wind. Buffalo will stand stock-still in a blizzard with their heads down and their thick hides going gray with snow and wait for the wind to blow itself out, but horses and cows tend to drift where the wind takes them, sometimes for miles, before they die of exhaustion or freeze to death or break their legs in gullies. Ole and Charley fought the horses for all they were worth, but the best they could do was to turn them northeast. Ole was well aware that this wouldn’t get them home—but it was better than doing nothing or losing the horses altogether.

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