Heading for Oregon

   Of the six little girls of the family Libby was next to the eldest.  All were living except the youngest sister who had died since Libby came west.  Her other sisters were all grown and married now, and she had many nieces and nephews whom she had never seen.  How she longed to see them all!  She had even dared hope that if the corn crop turned out well this year they might make a trip back home to visit them.  One sister, Lena, had gone to Oregon when in her teens and was living there with her husband and three daughters.

   She stopped short as she rounded the corner of the house.  There was an ominous stillness that she had not noticed before.  She sensed impending danger.  The black cloud in the western sky, which had been no bigger than a man’s hat when she came out, was now a great, black thunderhead which hung like a ball of ebony in the murky sky.  A gust of wind lifted small clouds of dust and sent them skyward in slender, spiraling dust-devils.  The cloud grew perceptibly larger as she watched it, and the wind began carrying it down the valley at terrific speed.  Streaks of chain lightning flashed across the face of the cloud.  Sharp peals of thunder rent the air. 

   Libby turned quickly, clothes-basket in hand, and hurried back to the line.  The wind was blowing with steadily increasing velocity.  The wash-tub which she had left half-full of water outside the kitchen door was upset and the water was splashed about the dooryard.  Chicken-coops were overturned and the chickens were fluttering to the stable, their tails spread out like fans.  As Libby tugged frantically at the last sheet on the line, hailstones the size of teacups began to fall.  There were only a few at first, each one giving out a thud like apples falling on dry ground.

   She hurried into the house, set the basket of clothes on the kitchen floor and ran out to close the shutters.  The windows would be smashed to bits if the shutters were left open.  Running into the house she closed and bolted the door, then looked about to see if the children were all there.  One of those hailstones could kill a child if it struck him on the head.  The children were in the house.  They had seen western storms before and didn’t care to be out in one of them.  Eleven year old Lizzie had the two younger children-- Hattie, four, and Eddie, two, on the bed in the corner of the living room.  She had made a little tent of a quilt and the three were huddled together under it.

   Stella and Clara had been flattening their noses against the windowpane, watching the storm approach.  They covered their eyes with their hands whenever the lightning flashed.  The thunder reminded them of Rip Van Winkle and the Men-of-the-Mountains playing ten pin.  When their mother slammed the shutter they dodged back with a shriek, thinking the lightning had struck the house.  When Libby came in they were standing in the middle of the floor with their arms about each other laughing hysterically; then bursting into tears they ran to their mother and buried their faces in her gingham skirt.  She put her arms about them and led them to the bed where Lizzie and the two younger children had taken refuge.