The Children's Blizzard(66)

“EXCELLENT WORK, WOODSON,” ROSEWATER SAID with undisguised surprise that rankled. He peered at Gavin over the top of the latest edition. Gavin was seated in the great man’s office, while Forsythe cooled his heels outside. “We were desperate for something like this. We need to keep circulation up, but God Almighty it was getting dreary, day after day some new tragedy. Christ, they all begin to blur together don’t they? Amputations, frozen babies, trains stuck for days with no food, dead farmers, all those children, on and on and on. People get tired of constant bad news, they shut it out after a while, become immune to it. It takes something new to excite them and get them buying papers again. And, by God, man, you’ve done it! This is wonderful. We need to find some other young women—the prettier the better—like this Olsen girl.”

“We also need to find a way to spin this whole disaster so as not to scare people out of the state.” Jonas Munchin, one of the town’s boosters and thus Gavin’s actual boss, spoke gravely. “The eastern papers are still reporting high casualties—one of them said nearly a thousand have perished. We can’t have that kind of thing reported. There’ve been some angry citizens out here who keep writing to those papers back East with figures that won’t help us at all. Some quack in Dakota said about a hundred died in the southern part of that territory alone. Now, how he can know that, I can’t comprehend—did he go out and count them all himself? Maybe he included some of the Natives on the reservation, but really, who cares about them? Still, the papers are running with those figures. We have to counterattack.”

    “We can do some opinion pieces,” Rosewater mused, drumming his ink-stained fingers on his desk. “To contradict those kinds of figures, talk about the benefits of the storm—you know, how snow is welcome; it means we’re assured a good crop this summer, all that water. Something like that. Something about the freshness of the air after a blizzard, compared to the smoke-filled cities back East—keep that kind of thing up. You know what to do, Woodson—that’s what you’re paid for. Forget the facts of the matter, concentrate on the distracting stuff that people want to believe in, like the heroines. I think there’s something in it for you if you do, don’t you, Munchin?”

“Of course.” Munchin threw his arms open expansively, as if the state’s coffers were his very own to do whatever he wanted with, and that was probably the simple truth, Gavin thought wryly. “All that tragedy was good for a while, but we have to be careful. Whatever the actual death toll is, report only about a third of it, if you even have to do that. Maybe forget the facts entirely and just do those puff opinion pieces—people think those are the news, anyway, especially if they’re printed in a newspaper. And soon enough the eastern newspapers will move on to something else. They sit in judgment back there, they criticize us in the West at every turn, they make fun of us, but what do they really know? They only send someone out here when he’s in disgrace.” And the man looked pointedly at Gavin. “We’re the end of the road, the flophouse, for those eastern elites. They don’t care about us unless something like this happens, then they have a field day at our expense.”

    Gavin actually agreed with Munchin’s point; he just disliked the man himself, and the not-so-subtle disparagement of his own character, which he had to admit was accurate. Or least it had been, until her. His maiden.

Gavin rose, shook hands, and left the stale office with its cigar smoke, and its smugness that stank just as much. He ignored Forsythe’s questioning glance and stepped outside, inhaling fresh air—although the air in Omaha was not fresh, not like it was out there on the prairie, where it was so pure it stung the nostrils and ignited every sense. Here, even in winter, there was still the stench of the stockyards and the human and animal waste that came when men and horses and pigs and dogs all lived together in one contained area, no matter how large, how growing. How thriving.

Gavin took another walk, but this time it was to the train depot; the trains were back to running, between storms. He and that nag had had their last communion; he wasn’t going to rent a sleigh again. There were people on the prairie who would take him where he needed to be.

People, not numbers. Some of them more special to him than others.





ANOTHER HEROINE DISCOVERED


Young Minnie Freeman is another of these intrepid maids who managed to save her students against all odds in the Worst Nature Can Imagine. When the soddie that served as a schoolhouse had its roof blown off by the Fury of the Storm, Miss Freeman acted with courage and resolve. Faced with certain Death by Freezing, she—like her fellow Heroine Raina Olsen—tied her pupils together with a length of rope found in the schoolhouse. Then she bravely led her pupils through the storm to safety.

We at the Bee feel strongly that Raina Olsen and Minnie Freeman should each get a medal, at the least, for their heroism. If not for their acts of bravery, more would have perished. But because of them, the list of casualties is far smaller than is being reported by some newspapers back East. We should honor these young ladies and ensure their future. Donations can be sent c/o the Omaha Daily Bee.





(Letters to the Omaha Daily Bee)


Dear Sir,

I wish to donate to Miss Olsen the sum of three dollars so she can realize her goal of attaining an education. Her story has touched my heart. We need more women like her.