Little Town on the Prairie
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Date: 1941-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Classics; Historical Fiction; Childrens; Fiction; Young Adult; Historical; Middle Grade; Juvenile; Family
Description: The settlement that weathered the long, hard winter of 1880-81 is now a growing town. With spring comes a new job for Laura, town parties, and more time to spend with Almanzo Wilder. Laura also tries to help Pa and Ma save money so that Mary is able to go to a college for the blind.

Little Town
on the Prairie

BY LAURA INGALLS WILDER

ILLUSTRATED BY GARTH WILLIAMS

HarperTrophy®

A Division ofHarperCollinsPublishers

L i t t l e Town on the Prairie

Text copyright 1 9 4 1 , 1969 L i t t l e H o u s e H e r i t a g e Trust

Illustrations copyright 1 9 5 3 by Garth Williams

Illustrations copyright r e n e w e d 1981 by Garth Williams

First published in 1 9 4 1 .

R e v i s e d edition, illustrated by Garth Williams, p u b l i s h e d in 1 9 5 3 .

First Harper Trophy edition, 1 9 7 1 .

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C O N T E N T S

SURPRISE 1

SPRINGTIME ON THE CLAIM 3

T H E NECESSARY CAT

19

T H E HAPPY DAYS

27

WORKING IN TOWN 35

T H E MONTH O F ROSES 4 7

NINE DOLLARS 5 6

FOURTH OF JULY

63

BLACKBIRDS 86

MARY GOES TO COLLEGE 1 0 8

Miss WILDER TEACHES SCHOOL 1 2 4

SNUG FOR WINTER

1 3 7

SCHOOLDAYS 1 4 5

SENT HOME FROM SCHOOL 1 5 1

T H E SCHOOL BOARD'S VISIT

1 6 6

NAME CARDS

1 8 5

T H E SOCIABLE

2 0 1

LITERARIES 2 1 0

T H E WHIRL OF GAIETY 2 2 1

T H E BIRTHDAY PARTY

2 4 0

T H E MADCAP DAYS

2 5 2

UNEXPECTED IN APRIL 2 6 3

SCHOOLTIME BEGINS AGAIN 2 6 7

T H E SCHOOL EXHIBITION 2 8 3

UNEXPECTED IN D E C E M B E R 2 9 8

Little Town
on the Prairie

SURPRISE

One evening at supper, Pa asked, "How would
you like to work in town, Laura?" Laura
could not say a word. Neither could any of the
others. T h e y all sat as if they were frozen. Grace's blue
eyes stared over the rim of her tin cup, Carrie's teeth
stayed bitten into a slice of bread, and Mary's hand
held her fork stopped in the air. Ma let tea go pouring
from the teapot's spout into Pa's brimming cup. Just in
time, she quickly set down the teapot.

"What did you say, Charles?" she asked.

"I asked Laura how she'd like to take a job in
town," Pa replied.

"A job? For a girl? In town?" Ma said. "Why, what
kind of a j o b — " T h e n quickly she said, " N o , Charles,

1

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

I won't have Laura working out in a hotel among all
kinds of strangers."

"Who said such a thing?" Pa demanded. "No girl of
ours'll do that, not while I'm alive and kicking."

"Of course not," Ma apologized. "You took me so
by surprise. What other kind of work can there be?

and Laura not old enough to teach school yet."

All in the minute before Pa began to explain, Laura
thought of the town, and of the homestead claim
where they were all so busy and happy now in the
springtime, and she did not want anything changed.

She did not want to work in town.

2

SPRINGTIME

ON THE CLAIM

After the October Blizzard last fall, they had all
moved to town and for a little while Laura had
gone to school there. T h e n the storms had
stopped school, and all through that long winter the
blizzards had howled between the houses, shutting
them off from each other so that day after day and
night after night not a voice could be heard and not a
light could be seen through the whirling snow.

All winter long, they had been crowded in the little
kitchen, cold and hungry and working hard in the dark
and the cold to twist enough hay to keep the fire going
and to grind wheat in the coffee mill for the day's
bread.

3

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

All that long, long winter, the only hope had been
that sometime winter must end, sometime blizzards
must stop, the sun would shine warm again and they
could all get away from the town and go back to the
homestead claim.

Now it was springtime. T h e Dakota prairie lay so
warm and bright under the shining sun that it did not
seem possible that it had ever been swept by the
winds and snows of that hard winter. How wonderful
it was, to be on the claim again! Laura wanted noth-
ing more than just being outdoors. She felt she never
could get enough sunshine soaked into her bones.

In the dawns when she went to the well at the edge
of the slough to fetch the morning pail of fresh water,
the sun was rising in a glory of colors. Meadow larks
were flying, singing, up from the dew-wet grass. Jack
rabbits hopped beside the path, their bright eyes
watching and their long ears twitching as they daintily
nibbled their breakfast of tender grass tips.

Laura was in the shanty only long enough to set
down the water and snatch the milk pail. She ran out
to the slope where Ellen, the cow, was cropping the
sweet young grass. Quietly Ellen stood chewing her
cud while Laura milked.

Warm and sweet, the scent of new milk came up
from the streams hissing into the rising foam, and it
mixed with the scents of springtime. Laura's bare feet
were wet and cool in the dewy grass, the sunshine was

4

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
warm on her neck, and Ellen's flank was warmer
against her cheek. On its own little picket rope,

Ellen's baby calf bawled anxiously, and Ellen an-
swered with a soothing moo.

When Laura had stripped the last creamy drops of
milk, she lugged the pail to the shanty. Ma poured
some of the warm new milk into the calf's pail. T h e
rest she strained through a clean white cloth into tin
milk pans, and Laura carefully carried them down cel-
lar while Ma skimmed thick cream from last night's
milk. Then she poured the skimmed milk into the
calf's pail, and Laura carried it to the hungry calf.

Teaching the calf to drink was not easy, but always
interesting. T h e wobbly-legged baby calf had been
born believing that it must butt hard with its little red
poll, to get milk. So when it smelled the milk in the
pail, it tried to butt the pail.

Laura must keep it from spilling the milk, if she
could, and she had to teach it how to drink, because it
didn't know. She dipped her fingers into the milk and
let the calf's rough tongue suck them, and gently she
led its nose down to the milk in the pail. T h e calf sud-
denly snorted milk into its nose, sneezed it out with a
whoosh that splashed milk out of the pail, and then
with all its might it butted into the milk. It butted so
hard that Laura almost lost hold of the pail. A wave of
milk went over the calf's head and a splash wet the
front of Laura's dress.

5

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

So, patiently she began again, dipping her fingers
for the calf to suck, trying to keep the milk in the pail
and to teach the calf to drink it. In the end, some of
the milk was inside the calf.

T h e n Laura pulled up the picket pins. One by one,
she led Ellen, the baby calf and the yearling calf to
fresh places in the soft, cool grass. She drove the iron

6

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
pins deep into the ground. T h e sun was fully up now,
the whole sky was blue, and the whole earth was
waves of grass flowing in the wind. And Ma was call-
ing.

"Hurry, Laura! Breakfast's waiting!"

In the shanty, Laura quickly washed her face and
hands at the washbasin. She threw out the water in a
sparkling curve falling on grass where the sun would
swiftly dry it. She ran the comb through her hair, over
her head to the dangling braid. There was never time
before breakfast to undo the long braid, brush her hair
properly, and plait it again. She would do that after the
morning's work was done.

Sitting in her place beside Mary, she looked across
the clean, red-checked tablecloth and the glinting
dishes at little sister Carrie and baby sister Grace, with
their soap-shining morning faces and bright eyes. She
looked at Pa and Ma so cheerful and smiling. She felt
the sweet morning wind from the wide-open door and
window, and she gave a little sigh.

Pa looked at her. He knew how she felt. "I think,
myself, it's pretty nice," he said.

"It's a beautiful morning," Ma agreed.

Then after breakfast Pa hitched up the horses, Sam
and David, and drove them out on the prairie east of
the shanty, where he was breaking ground for sod
corn. Ma took charge of the day's work for the rest of
them, and best of all Laura liked the days when she

7

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
said, "I must work in the garden."

Mary eagerly offered to do all the housework, so
that Laura could help Ma. Mary was blind. Even in
the days before scarlet fever had taken the sight from
her clear blue eyes, she had never liked to work out-
doors in the sun and wind. Now she was happy to be
useful indoors. Cheerfully she said, "I must work
where I can see with my fingers. I couldn't tell the
difference between a pea vine and a weed at the end
of a hoe, but I can wash dishes and make beds and
take care of Grace."

Carrie was proud, too, because although she was
small she was ten years old and could help Mary do all
the housework. So Ma and Laura went out to work in
the garden.

People were coming from the East now, to settle all
over the prairie. T h e y were building new claim
shanties to the east and to the south, and west beyond

Big Slough. Every few days a wagon went by, driven
by strangers going across the neck of the slough and
northward to town, and coming back. Ma said there
would be time to get acquainted when the spring
work was done. There is no time for visiting in the
spring.

Pa had a new plow, a breaking plow. It was wonder-
ful for breaking the prairie sod. It had a sharp-edged
wheel, called a rolling coulter, that ran rolling and cut-
ting through the sod ahead of the plowshare. The

8

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
sharp steel plowshare followed it, slicing underneath
the matted grass roots, and the moldboard lifted the
long, straight-edged strip of sod and turned it upside
down. T h e strip of sod was exactly twelve inches
wide, and as straight as if it had been cut by hand.

They were all so happy about that new plow. Now,
after a whole day's work, Sam and David gaily lay
down and rolled, and pricked their ears and looked
about the prairie before they fell to cropping grass.

They were not being worn down, sad and gaunt, by
breaking sod that spring. And at supper, Pa was not
too tired to joke.

"By jingo, that plow can handle the work by itself,"

he said. "With all these new inventions nowadays,
there's no use for a man's muscle. One of these nights
that plow'll take a notion to keep on going, and we'll
look out in the morning and see that it's turned over
an acre or two after the team and I quit for the night."

The strips of sod lay bottom-side-up over the fur-
rows, with all the cut-off grass roots showing speckled
in the earth. T h e fresh furrow was delightfully cool
and soft to bare feet, and often Carrie and Grace fol-
lowed behind the plow, playing. Laura would have
liked to, but she was going on fifteen years old now,
too old to play in the fresh, clean-smelling dirt. Be-
sides, in the afternoons Mary must go for a walk to get
some sunshine.

So when the morning's work was done, Laura took

9

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

Mary walking over the prairie. Spring flowers were
blossoming and cloud-shadows were trailing over the
grassy slopes.

It was odd that when they were little, Mary had
been the older and often bossy, but now that they
were older they seemed to be the same age. They
liked the long walks together in the wind and sun-
shine, picking violets and buttercups and eating sheep
sorrel. T h e sheep sorrel's lovely curled lavender blos-
soms, the clover-shaped leaves and thin stems had a
tangy taste.

"Sheep sorrel tastes like springtime," Laura said.

"It really tastes a little like lemon flavoring, Laura,"

Mary gently corrected her. Before she ate sheep sorrel
she always asked, "Did you look carefully? You're
sure there isn't a bug on it?"

"There never are any bugs," Laura protested.

" T h e s e prairies are so clean! There never was such a
clean place."

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"You look, just the same," said Mary. "I don't want
to eat the only bug in the whole of Dakota Territory."

They laughed together. Mary was so light-hearted
now that she often made such little jokes. Her face
was so serene in her sunbonnet, her blue eyes were so
clear and her voice so gay that she did not seem to be
walking in darkness.

Mary had always been good. Sometimes she had
been so good that Laura could hardly bear it. But now
she seemed different. Once Laura asked her about it.

"You used to try all the time to be good," Laura
said. "And you always were good. It made me so mad
sometimes, I wanted to slap you. But now you are
good without even trying."

Mary stopped still. "Oh, Laura, how awful! Do you
ever want to slap me now?"

"No, never," Laura answered honestly.

"You honestly don't? You aren't just being gentle to
me because I'm blind?"

"No! Really and honestly, no, Mary. I hardly think
about your being blind. I—I'm just glad you're my sis-
ter. I wish I could be like you. But I guess I never can
be," Laura sighed. "I don't know how you can be so
good."

"I'm not really," Mary told her. "I do try, but if you
could see how rebellious and mean I feel sometimes,
if you could see what I really am, inside, you wouldn't
want to be like me."

11

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"I can see what you're like inside," Laura contra-
dicted. "It shows all the time. You're always perfectly
patient and never the least bit mean."

"I know why you wanted to slap me," Mary said. "It
was because I was showing off. I wasn't really wanting
to be good. I was showing off to myself, what a good
little girl I was, and being vain and proud, and I de-
served to be slapped for it."

Laura was shocked. T h e n suddenly she felt that she
had known that, all the time. But, nevertheless, it was
not true of Mary. She said, "Oh no, you're not like
that, not really. You are good."

"We are all desperately wicked and inclined to evil
as the sparks fly upwards," said Mary, using the Bible
words. "But that doesn't matter."

"What!" cried Laura.

"I mean I don't believe we ought to think so much
about ourselves, about whether we are bad or good,"

Mary explained.

"But, my goodness! How can anybody be good
without thinking about it?" Laura demanded.

"I don't know, I guess we couldn't," Mary admitted.

"I don't know how to say what I mean very well.

But—it isn't so much thinking, as—as just know-
ing. Just being sure of the goodness of God."

Laura stood still, and so did Mary, because she
dared not step without Laura's arm in hers guiding
her. There Mary stood in the midst of the green and

12

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
flowery miles of grass rippling in the wind, under the
great blue sky and white clouds sailing, and she could
not see. Everyone knows that God is good. But it
seemed to Laura then that Mary must be sure of it in
some special way.

"You are sure, aren't you?" Laura said.

"Yes, I am sure of it now all the time," Mary an-
swered. " T h e Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He lead-
eth me beside the still waters. I think that's the loveli-
est Psalm of all. Why are we stopping here? I don't
smell the violets."

"We came by the buffalo wallow, talking," said

Laura. "We'll go back that way."

When they turned back, Laura could see the low
swell of land sloping up from the coarse grasses of Big

Slough to the little claim shanty. It looked hardly
larger than a hen coop, with its half-roof slanting up
and stopping. T h e sod stable hardly showed in the
wild grasses. Beyond them Ellen and the two calves
were grazing, and to the east Pa was planting corn in
the newly broken sod.

He had broken all the sod he had time to, before the
ground grew too dry. He had harrowed the ground he
had broken last year, and sowed it to oats. Now with a
sack of seed corn fastened to a shoulder harness, and
the hoe in his hand, he was going slowly across the sod
field.

1 3

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"Pa is planting the corn," Laura told Mary. "Let's
go by that way. Here's the buffalo wallow now."

"I know," said Mary. T h e y stood a moment, breath-
ing in deeply the perfume of warm violets that came
up as thick as honey. T h e buffalo wallow, perfectly
round and set down into the prairie like a dish three or
four feet deep, was solidly paved with violets. Thou-
sands, millions, crowded so thickly that they hid their
own leaves.

Mary sank down among them. " M m m m m m ! " she
breathed. Her fingers delicately felt over the masses
of petals, and down the thin stems to pick them.

When they passed by the sod field Pa breathed in a
deep smell of the violets, too. "Had a nice walk, girls?"

he smiled at them, but he did not stop working. He
mellowed a spot of earth with the hoe, dug a tiny hol-
low in it, dropped four kernels of corn in the hollow,
covered them with the hoe, pressed the spot firm with
his boot, then stepped on to plant the next hill.

Carrie came hurrying to bury her nose in the violets.

She was minding Grace, and Grace would play
nowhere but in the field where Pa was. Angleworms
fascinated Grace. Every time Pa struck the hoe into
the ground she watched for one, and chuckled to see
the thin, long worm make itself fat and short, pushing
itself quickly into the earth again.

" E v e n when it's cut in two, both halves do that,"

she said. "Why, P a ? "

14

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"They want to get into the ground, I guess," said

Pa.

"Why, P a ? " Grace asked him.

"Oh, they just want to," said Pa.

"Why do they want to, P a ? "

"Why do you like to play in the dirt?" Pa asked her.

"Why, P a ? " Grace said. "How many corns do you
drop, Pa?"

"Kernels," said Pa. "Four kernels. One, two, three,
four."

"One, two, four," Grace said. "Why, P a ? "

"That's an easy one," said Pa.

"One for the blackbird,

One for the crow,

And that will leave

Just two to grow."

The garden was growing now. In tiny rows of differ-
ent greens, the radishes, lettuce, onions, were up. T h e
first crumpled leaves of peas were pushing upward.

The young tomatoes stood on thin stems, spreading
out their first lacy foliage.

"I've been looking at the garden, it needs hoeing,"

Ma said, while Laura set the violets in water to per-
fume the supper table. "And I do believe the beans
will be up any day now, it's turned so warm."

All one hot morning, the beans were popping out of
the ground. Grace discovered them and came shrieking

15

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
with excitement to tell Ma. All that morning she could
not be coaxed away from watching them. Up from the
bare earth, bean after bean was popping, its stem un-
coiling like a steel spring, and up in the sunshine the
halves of the split bean still clutched two pale twin-
leaves. Every time a bean popped up, Grace squealed
again.

Now that the corn was planted, Pa built the missing
half of the claim shanty. One morning he laid the floor
joists. T h e n he made the frame, and Laura helped
him raise it and hold it straight to the plumb line while
he nailed it. He put in the studding, and the frames for
two windows. T h e n he laid the rafters, to make the
other slant of the roof that had not been there before.

Laura helped him all the time, Carrie and Grace
watched, and picked up every nail that Pa dropped by
mistake. Even Ma often spent minutes in idleness,
looking on. It was exciting to see the shanty being
made into a house.

When it was done, they had three rooms. T h e new
part was two tiny bedrooms, each with a window.

Now the beds would not be in the front room any
more.

"Here's where we kill two birds with one stone,"

said Ma. "We'll combine spring housecleaning and
moving."

T h e y washed the window curtains and all the quilts
and hung them out to dry. T h e n they washed the new

16

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
windows till they shone, and hung on them new cur-
tains made of old sheets and beautifully hemmed with

Mary's tiny stitches. Ma and Laura set up the bed-
steads in the new rooms all made of fresh, clean-
smelling boards. Laura and Carrie filled the straw
ticks with the brightest hay from the middle of a
haystack, and they made up the beds with sheets still
warm from Ma's ironing and with the clean quilts
smelling of the prairie air.

Then Ma and Laura scrubbed and scoured every
inch of the old shanty, that was now the front room. It
was spacious now, with no beds in it, only the cook-
stove and cupboards and table and chairs and the
whatnot. When it was perfectly clean, and everything
in place, they all stood and admired it.

"You needn't see it for me, Laura," Mary said. "I
can feel how large and fresh and pretty it is."

The fresh, starched white curtains moved softly in
the wind at the open window. T h e scrubbed board
walls and the floor were a soft yellow-gray. A bouquet
of grass flowers and windflowers that Carrie had
picked and put in the blue bowl on the table, seemed
to bring springtime in. In the corner the varnished
brown whatnot stood stylish and handsome.

The afternoon light made plain the gilded titles of
the books on the whatnot's lower shelf, and glittered
in the three glass boxes on the shelf above, each with
tiny flowers painted on it. Above them, on the next

17

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
shelf, the gilt flowers shone on the glass face of the
clock and its brass pendulum glinted, swinging to and
fro. Higher still, on the very top shelf, was Laura's
white china jewel box with the wee gold cup and
saucer on its lid, and beside it, watching over it, sat

Carrie's brown and white china dog.

On the wall between the doors of the new bed-
rooms, Ma hung the wooden bracket that Pa had
carved for her Christmas present, long ago in the Big

Woods of Wisconsin. Every little flower and leaf, the
small vine on the edge of the little shelf, and the larger
vines climbing to the large star at the top, were still as
perfect as when he had carved them with his jack-
knife. Older still, older than Laura could remember,

Ma's china shepherdess stood pink and white and
smiling on the shelf.

It was a beautiful room.

1 8

THE NECESSARY CAT

Now the first yellow-green spears of corn were
dotted like fluttering ribbon-ends along the
furrows of broken sod. One evening Pa
walked across the field to look at them. He came back
tired and exasperated.

"I've got to replant more than half the cornfield," he
said.

"Oh, Pa. Why?" Laura asked.

"Gophers," said Pa. "Well, this is what a man gets
for putting in the first corn in a new country."

Grace was hugging his legs. He picked her up and
tickled her cheek with his beard to make her laugh.

She remembered the planting rhyme, and sitting on
his knee she chanted it proudly

19

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"One for the blackbird,

One for the crow,

And that will leave

Just two to grow."

" T h e man that made that up was an Easterner," Pa
told her. "Out here in the Territory we'll have to make
our own rhyme, Grace. How's this for a try?

"One for a gopher,

Two for a gopher,

Three for a gopher,

Four don't go fur."

"Oh, Charles," Ma protested, laughing. She did not
think puns were funny, but she could not help laugh-
ing at the naughty look Pa gave her when he made
one.

He had no sooner planted the seed corn than the
striped gophers found it. All over the field they had
been scampering, and stopping to dig into the little
spots of fine soil with their tiny paws. It was a wonder
that they knew exactly where the kernels were buried.

It was amazing that those little gophers, scampering,
digging, sitting up straight and nibbling, each one, at
one kernel of corn held in its paws, had eaten more
than half of that whole field of corn.

" T h e y are pests!" said Pa. "I wish we had a cat like
old Black Susan used to be. She'd have thinned 'em
out."

20

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"I need a cat in the house, too," Ma agreed. "I de-
clare the mice are getting so thick I can't leave food
uncovered in the cupboard. Is there a cat to be had,

Charles?"

"There's not a cat in this whole country, that I know
of," Pa answered. " T h e storekeepers in town are
complaining, too. Wilmarth's talking of getting a cat
shipped out from the E a s t . "

That very night, Laura was startled out of a sound
sleep. Through the partition between the bedrooms
she heard a gasp, a grunt and a sudden thud of some-
thing small and squashing. She heard Ma say,

"Charles! What is it?"

"I dreamed it," Pa said, low. "I dreamed a barber
was cutting my hair."

Ma spoke low, too, because this was the middle of
the night and the house was asleep. "It was only a
dream. L i e down again and let me have some of the
covers back."

"I heard the barber's shears go snip, snip," said Pa.

"Well, lie down and go to sleep," Ma yawned.

"My hair was being cut," said Pa.

"I never knew you to be upset by a dream before."

Ma yawned again. " L i e down and turn over and you
won't go on dreaming it."

"Caroline, my hair was being cut," Pa repeated.

"What do you mean?" Ma asked, more awake now.

"I am telling you," Pa said. "In my sleep I put up

21

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
my hand and— Here. Feel my head."

"Charles! Your hair's been cut!" Ma exclaimed.

Laura heard her sit up in bed. "I can feel it, there's a
place on your head—"

"Yes, that's the spot," said Pa. "I put up my hand—"

Ma interrupted. "A place as big as my hand, shorn
clean off."

"I put up my hand," said Pa, "and I took hold of—
something—"

"What? What was it?" Ma asked.

"I think," said Pa, "I think it was a mouse."

"Where is it?" Ma cried out.

"I don't know. I threw it away, as hard as I could,"

said Pa.

" M y goodness!" Ma said weakly. "It must have
been a mouse. Cutting off your hair to make itself a
nest."

After a minute Pa said, "Caroline, I swear—-"

" N o , Charles," Ma murmured.

"Well, I would swear, if I did, that I can't lie awake
nights to keep mice out of my hair."

"I do wish we had a cat," Ma wished hopelessly.

Sure enough, in the morning a mouse lay dead by
the bedroom wall where Pa had thrown it. And Pa ap-
peared at breakfast with an almost bare spot on the
back of his head, where the mouse had shorn his hair
away.

He would not have minded so much, but there was

22

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E
not time for the hair to grow before he must go to a
meeting of county commissioners. T h e country was
settling so rapidly that already a county was being or-
ganized, and Pa must help. As the oldest settler, he
could not shirk his duty.

The meeting was to be held at Whiting's homestead
claim, four miles northeast of town. No doubt Mrs.

Whiting would be there, and Pa could hot keep his
hat on.

"Never mind," Ma consoled him. "Just tell them
how it happened. Likely they have mice."

"There'll be more important things to talk about,"

said Pa. "No, better just let them think this is the way
my wife cuts my hair."

"Charles, you wouldn't!" Ma exclaimed, before she
saw that he was teasing her.

When he drove away in the wagon that morning, he
told Ma not to expect him for dinner. He had a ten-
mile drive to make, on top of the time spent at the
meeting.

It was supper time when he came driving to the
stable. He unhitched and came hurrying to the house
so quickly that he met Carrie and Grace running out.

"Girls! Caroline!" he called. "Guess what I've
brought you!" His hand was in his pocket and his
eyes were twinkling.

"Candy!" Carrie and Grace answered together.

"Better than that!" said Pa.

23

L I T T L E T O W N O N T H E P R A I R I E

"A letter?" Ma asked.

"A paper," Mary guessed. "Maybe The Advance."

Laura was watching Pa's pocket. She was certain
that something, not Pa's hand, was moving inside it.

" L e t Mary see it first," Pa warned the others. He
took his hand from his pocket. There on his palm lay
a tiny blue and white kitten.

24

L I T T L E TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE

He laid it carefully in Mary's hand. She stroked its
soft fur with a finger tip. Gently she touched its tiny
ears and its nose and its wee paws.

"A kitten," she said wonderingly. "Such a very little
kitten."

"Its eyes aren't open yet," Laura told her. "Its baby
fur is as blue as tobacco smoke, and its face and its
breast and its paws and the very tip of its tail are
white. Its claws are the tiniest wee white things."

"It's too small to take from its mother," Pa said.

"But I had to take it while I had the chance, before
somebody else did. Whiting had the cat sent out to
them from the East. She had five kittens, and they
sold four of them today for fifty cents apiece."

"You didn't pay fifty cents for this kitten, P a ? "

Laura asked him, wide-eyed.

"Yes, I did," said Pa.

Quickly Ma said, "I don't blame you, Charles. A cat
in this house will be well worth it."

"Can we raise such a little kitten?" Mary asked anx-
iously.

"Oh, yes," Ma assured them. "We will have to feed
it often, wash its eyes carefully, and keep it warm.

Laura, find a small box and pick out the softest,
warmest scraps from the scrap bag."

Laura made a snug, soft nest for the kitten in a
pasteboard box, while Ma warmed some milk. T h e y
all watched while Ma took the kitten in her hand and

25

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
fed it, a drop of milk at a time, from a teaspoon. The
kitten's wee paws clutched at the spoon and its pink
mouth tried to suck, and drop by drop it sucked in the
warm milk, though some ran down its chin. Then
they put it in its nest, and under Mary's warm hand it
snuggled down to sleep.

"It has nine lives like any cat, and it will live al
right," said Ma. "You'll s e e . "

26

THE HAPPY DAYS

Pa said that the new town was growing fast. New
settlers were crowding in, hurrying to put up
buildings to shelter them. One evening Pa and

Ma walked to town to help organize a church, and
soon a foundation was laid for a church building.

There were not carpenters enough to do all the build-
ing that was wanted, so Pa got carpenter work to do.

Every morning he did the chores and walked to
town, taking a lunch in a tin pail. He began working
promptly at seven o'clock, and by taking only a short
nooning he was through work at half past six, and
home again for a late supper. And every week he was
earning fifteen dollars.

That was a happy time, for the garden was growing

27

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
well, the corn and oats were thriving, the calf was
weaned so that now there was skim-milk for cottage
cheese and there was cream to make butter and butter-
milk, and best of all, Pa was earning so much money.

Often while Laura worked in the garden, she
thought of Mary's going to college. It was nearly two
years since they had heard there was a college for the
blind in Iowa. Every day they had thought of that, and
every night they prayed that Mary might go. T h e sor-
est grief in Mary's blindness was that it hindered her
studying. She liked so much to read and learn, and she
had always wanted to be a schoolteacher. Now she
could never teach school. Laura did not want to, but
now she must; she had to be able to teach school as
soon as she grew old enough, to earn money for

Mary's college education.

"Never mind," she thought, while she hoed, "I can
see."

She saw the hoe, and the colors of the earth, and all
the leafy little lights and shadows of the pea vines.

She had only to glance up, and she saw miles of blow-
ing grasses, the far blue skyline, the birds flying,

Ellen and the calves on the green slope, and the dif-
ferent blues of the sky, the snowy piles of huge sum-
mer clouds. She had so much, and Mary saw only
darkness.

She hoped, though she hardly dared to, that perhaps

Mary might go to college that fall. Pa was making so

28

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
much money. If Mary could only go now, Laura would
study with all her might, she would work so hard that
surely she could teach school as soon as she was six-
teen years old, and then her earnings would keep

Mary in college.

They all needed dresses and they all needed shoes,
and Pa always had to buy flour and sugar and tea and
salt meat. There was the lumber bill for the new half
of the house, and coal must be bought for winter, and
there were taxes. But this year there was the garden,
and the corn and oats. By year after next, almost all
they ate could be raised from the land.

If they had hens and a pig, they would even have
meat. This was settled country now, hardly any game
was left, and they must buy meat or raise it. Perhaps
next year Pa could buy hens and a pig. Some settlers
were bringing them in.

One evening Pa came home beaming.

"Guess what, Caroline and girls!" he sang out. "I
saw Boast in town today, and he sent word from Mrs.

Boast. She's setting a hen for us!"

"Oh, Charles!" Ma said.

"As soon as the chicks are big enough to scratch for
themselves, he's going to bring us the whole batch,"

said Pa.

"Oh, Charles, this is good news. It's just like Mrs.

Boast to do it, too," Ma said thankfully. "How is she,
did he say?"

29

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Said they're getting along fine. She's so busy, she
hasn't been able to get to town this spring, but she's
certainly keeping you in mind."

"A whole setting of chicks," said Ma. "There's not
many that would do it."

" T h e y don't forget how you took them in when
they came out here, just married, and got lost in a
snowstorm, and we were the only settlers in forty
miles," Pa reminded her. "Boast often speaks of it."

"Pshaw," said Ma. " T h a t was nothing. But a whole
setting of e g g s — It saves us a year in starting a flock."

If they could raise the chicks, if hawks or weasels or
foxes did not get them, some would be pullets that
summer. Next year the pullets would begin laying,
then there would be eggs to set. Year after next, there
would be cockerels to fry, and more pullets to increase
the flock. T h e n there would be eggs to eat, and when
the hens grew too old to lay e g g s , Ma could make
them into chicken pie.

"And if next spring Pa can buy a young pig," said

Mary, "then in a couple of years we'll have fried ham
and e g g s . And lard and sausages and spareribs and
head-cheese!"

"And Grace can roast the pig's tail!" Carrie chimed
in.

"Why?" Grace wanted to know. "What is a pig's tail?"

Carrie could remember butchering time, but Grace
had never held a pig's skinned tail in front of the

30

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
cookstove grate and watched it sizzling brown. She
had never seen Ma take from the oven the dripping
pan full of brown, crackling, juicy spareribs. She had
never seen the blue platter heaped with fragrant
sausage-cakes, nor spooned their red-brown gravy
onto pancakes. She remembered only Dakota Terri-
tory, and the meat she knew was the salt, white, fat
pork that Pa bought sometimes.

But someday they would have all the good things to
eat again, for better times were coming. With so much
work to do now, and everything to look forward to, the
days were flying by. T h e y were all so busy that they
hardly missed Pa during the day. T h e n every night
there was his coming home, when he brought news of
the town, and they always had so much to tell him.

All day they had been saving a most exciting thing
to tell him. T h e y could hardly expect him to believe
it, for this was what had happened:

While Ma was making the beds and Laura and Carrie
were washing the breakfast dishes, they all heard the
kitten cry out piteously. Kitty's eyes were open now
and she could scamper across the floor, chasing a scrap
of paper that Grace drew on a string.

"Grace, be careful!" Mary exclaimed. "Don't hurt
the kitty."

"I'm not hurting the kitty," Grace answered
earnestly.

Before Mary could speak, the kitten squalled again.

31

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Don't, Grace!" Ma said from the bedroom. "Did
you step on it?"

" N o , M a , " Grace answered. T h e kitten cried des-
perately, and Laura turned around from the dishpan.

"Stop it, Grace! What are you doing to the kitty?"

" I ' m not doing anything to the kitty!" Grace wailed.

"I can't find it!"

T h e kitten was nowhere to be seen. Carrie looked
under the stove and behind the woodbox. Grace
crawled under the tablecloth to see beneath the table.

Ma looked under the whatnot's bottom shelf and

Laura hunted through both bedrooms.

T h e n the kitten squalled again, and Ma found it be-
hind the opened door. There, between the door and
the wall, the tiny kitten was holding fast to a mouse.

T h e mouse was full grown and strong, nearly as big as
the wobbling little kitten, and it was fighting. It
squirmed and bit. T h e kitten cried when the mouse
bit her, but she would not let go. She braced her little
legs and kept her teeth set in a mouthful of the
mouse's loose skin. Her baby legs were so weak that
she almost fell over. T h e mouse bit her again and
again.

Ma quickly got the broom. "Pick up the kitten,

Laura, I'll deal with the mouse."

Laura was obeying, of course, but she couldn't help
saying, "Oh, I hate to, Ma! She's hanging on. It's her
fight."

32

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Right under Laura's grasping hand the tiny kitten
made one great effort. She leaped onto the mouse.

She held it down under both her front legs and
screamed again as its teeth bit into her. T h e n her own
little teeth snapped hard, into the mouse's neck. T h e
mouse squeaked shrilly and went limp. All by herself,
the kitten had killed it; her first mouse.

"I declare," Ma said. "Whoever heard of a cat-and-
mouse fight!"

The baby kitten should have had its mother to lick
its wounds and purr proudly over it. Ma carefully
washed the bites and fed her warmed milk, Carrie and

Grace stroked her wee nose and fuzzy soft head, and
under Mary's warm hand she cuddled to sleep. Grace
carried the dead mouse out by the tail and threw it far
away. And all the rest of that day they often said,

What a tale they had to tell Pa when he came home!

They waited until he had washed, and combed his
hair, and sat down to supper. Laura answered his
question about the chores; she had watered the
horses and Ellen and the calves, and moved their
picket pins. T h e nights were so pleasant now that she
need not put them in the stable. T h e y slept under
the stars, and woke and grazed whenever they liked.

Then came the time to tell Pa what the kitten had
done.

He said he had never heard anything like it. He
looked at the little blue and white kitty, walking

33

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
carefully across the floor with her thin tail standing
straight up, and he said, " T h a t kitten will be the
best hunter in the county."

T h e day was ending in perfect satisfaction. They
were all there together. All the work, except the sup-
per dishes, was done until tomorrow. T h e y were all
enjoying good bread and butter, fried potatoes, cot-
tage cheese, and lettuce leaves sprinkled with vinegar
and sugar.

Beyond the open door and window the prairie was
dusky but the sky was still pale, with the first stars
beginning to quiver in it. T h e wind went by, and in
the house the air stirred, pleasantly warmed by the
cookstove and scented with prairie freshness and food
and tea and a cleanness of soap and a faint lingering
smell of the new boards that made the new bedrooms.

In all that satisfaction, perhaps the best part was
knowing that tomorrow would be like today, the same
and yet a little different from all other days, as this one
had been. But Laura did not know this, until Pa asked
her, "How would you like to work in town?"

34

WORKING IN TOWN

No one could imagine what work there could
be for a girl in town, if it wasn't working as a
hired girl in the hotel.

"It's a new idea of Clancy's," Pa said. Mr. Clancy
was one of the new merchants. Pa was working on his
store building. "We've got the store pretty near fin-
ished, and he's moving in his dry goods. His wife's
mother's come West with them, and she's going to
make shirts."

"Make shirts?" said Ma.

"Yes. So many men are baching on their claims
around here that Clancy figures he'll get most of the
trade in yard goods, with somebody there in the store
making them up into shirts, for men that haven't got

35

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
any womenfolks to do their sewing."

" T h a t is a good idea," Ma had to admit.

"You bet! There's no flies on Clancy," said Pa,

"He's got a machine to sew the shirts."

Ma was interested. "A sewing machine. Is it like
that picture we saw in the Inter-Ocean? How does it
work?"

"About like I figured out it would," Pa answered.

"You work the pedal with your feet, and that turns the
wheel and works the needle up and down. There's a
little contraption underneath the needle that's wound
full of thread, too. Clancy was showing some of us. It
goes like greased lightning, and makes as neat a seam
as you'd want to see.

"I wonder how much it costs," said Ma.

"'Way too much for ordinary folks," said Pa. "But

Clancy looks on it as an investment; he'll get his
money back in profits."

"Yes, of course," Ma said. Laura knew she was
thinking how much work such a machine would save,
but even if they could afford it, it would be foolish to
buy one only for family sewing. " D o e s he expect

Laura to learn how to run it?"

Laura was alarmed. She could not be responsible for
some accident to such a costly machine.

"Oh, no, Mrs. White's going to run it," Pa replied.

"She wants a good handy girl to help with the hand
sewing."

36

LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE

He said to Laura: "She was asking me if I knew
such a girl. I told her you're a good sewer, and she
wants you to come in and help her. Clancy's got more
orders for shirts than she can handle by herself. She
says she'll pay a good willing worker twenty-five cents
a day and dinner."

Quickly Laura multiplied in her head. T h a t was a
dollar and a half a week, a little more than six dollars a
month. If she worked hard and pleased Mrs. White,
maybe she could work all summer. She might earn fif-
teen dollars, maybe even twenty, to help send Mary to
college.

She did not want to work in town, among strangers.

But she couldn't refuse a chance to earn maybe fif-
teen dollars, or ten, or five. She swallowed, and asked,

"May I go, M a ? "

Ma sighed. "I don't like it much, but it isn't as if you
had to go alone. Your Pa will be there in town. Yes, if
you want to, you may."

"I—don't want to leave you all the work to do,"

Laura faltered.

Carrie eagerly offered to help. She could make
beds, and sweep, and do the dishes by herself, and
weed in the garden. Ma said that Mary was a great
help in the house, too, and now that the stock was
picketed out, the evening's chores were not so much
to do. She said, "We'll miss you, Laura, but we can
manage."

37

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

There was no time to waste next morning. Laura
brought the water and milked Ellen, she hurried to
wash and to brush and braid her hair and pin it up.

She put on her newest calico dress, and stockings and
shoes. She rolled up her thimble in a freshly ironed
apron.

T h e little breakfast that she had time to swallow
had no taste. She tied on her sunbonnet and hurried
away with Pa. T h e y must be at work in town by seven
o'clock.

Morning freshness was in the air. Meadow larks were
singing, and up from Big Slough rose the thunder-
pumps with long legs dangling and long necks out-
stretched, giving their short, booming cry. It was a
beautiful, lively morning, but Pa and Laura were too
hurried. T h e y were running a race with the sun.

Up rose the sun with no effort at all, while they kept
walking as fast as they could, north on the prairie road
toward the south end of Main Street.

T h e town was so changed that it seemed like a new
place. Two whole blocks on the west side of Main

Street were solidly filled with new, yellow-pine build-
ings. A new board sidewalk was in front of them. Pa
and Laura did not have time to cross the street to it.

T h e y hurried, Indian file, along the narrow dusty path
on the other side of the street.

On this side, the prairie still covered all the vacant
lots, right up to Pa's stable and his office-building at

38

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
the corner of Main and Second Streets. But beyond
them, on the other side of Second Street, the stud-
ding of a new building stood on the corner lot. Beyond
it, the path hurried past vacant lots again till it came
to Clancy's new store.

The inside of the store was all new, and still smelled

39

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
of pine shavings. It had, too, the faint starchy smell of
bolts of new cloth. Behind two long counters, all
along both walls ran long shelves, stacked to the ceil-
ing with bolts of muslin and calicoes and lawns, chal-
lis and cashmeres and flannels and even silks.

There were no groceries, and no hardware, no shoes
or tools. In the whole store there was nothing but dry
goods. Laura had never before seen a store where
nothing was sold but dry goods.

At her right hand was a short counter-top of glass,
and inside it were cards of all kinds of buttons, and pa-
pers of needles and pins. On the counter beside it, a
rack was full of spools of thread of every color. Those
colored threads were beautiful in the light from the
windows.

T h e sewing machine stood just behind the front end
of the other counter, near that window. Its nickel parts
and its long needle glittered and its varnished wood
shone. A spool of white thread stood up on its thin
black ridge. Laura would not have touched it for any-
thing.

Mr. Clancy was unrolling bolts of calico before two
customers, men in very dirty shirts. A large, fat
woman with tight-combed black hair was pinning pat-
tern pieces of newspaper to a length of checked calico
spread on the counter near the sewing machine. Pa
took off his hat and said good morning to her.

He said, "Mrs. White, here's my girl, Laura."

40

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Mrs. White took the pins out of her mouth and said,

,"I hope you're a fast, neat sewer. Can you baste bias
facings and make good firm buttonholes?"

"Yes, ma'am," Laura said.

"Well, you can hang your bonnet on that nail there,
and I'll get you started," said Mrs. White.

Pa gave Laura a helping smile, and then he was
gone.

Laura hoped that her trembly feeling would wear
off, in time. She hung up her bonnet, tied on her
apron, and put her finger into the thimble. Mrs. White
handed her pieces of a shirt to baste together, and told
her to take the chair in the window by the sewing ma-
chine.

Quickly Laura drew the straight-backed chair back
a little way, so that the sewing machine partly hid her
from the street. She bent her head over her work and
basted rapidly.

Mrs. White did not say a word. Anxiously and ner-
vously she kept fitting the pattern-pieces to the goods
and cutting out shirt after shirt with long shears. As
soon as Laura finished basting a shirt, Mrs. White
took it from her and gave her another to baste.

After a time, she sat down at the machine. She
whirled its wheel with her hand, and then her feet
working fast on the pedal underneath kept the wheel
whirring. The racketing hum of the machine filled

Laura's head like the buzzing of a gigantic bumblebee.

41

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

T h e wheel was a blur and the needle was a streak of
light. Mrs. White's plump hands scrambled on the
cloth, feeding it rapidly under the needle.

Laura basted as fast as she could. She put the basted
shirt on the shrinking pile at Mrs. White's left hand,
seized pieces of the next one from the counter and
basted it. Mrs. White took basted shirts from the pile,
sewed them on the machine and piled them at her
right hand.

There was a pattern in the way the shirts went, from
the counter to Laura to a pile, from the pile to Mrs.

White and through the machine to another pile. It was
something like the circles that men and teams had
made on the prairie, building the railroad. But only

Laura's hands moved, driving the needle as fast as
they could along the seams.

Her shoulders began to ache, and the back of her
neck. Her chest was cramped and her legs felt tired
and heavy. T h e loud machine buzzed in her head.

Suddenly the machine stopped, still. " T h e r e ! " Mrs.

White said. She had sewed the last basted shirt.

Laura had to gather a sleeve and to baste the arm-
hole and the underarm seam. And the pieces of one
more shirt lay waiting on the counter.

"I'll baste that one," Mrs. White said, snatching it
up. "We're behindhand."

"Yes, ma'am," Laura said. She felt she should have
worked faster, but she had done the best she could.

42

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

A big man looked in at the door. His dusty face was
covered with an unshaved stubble of red beard. He
called, " M y shirts ready, Clancy?"

"Be ready right after noon," Mr. Clancy answered.

When the big man had gone on, Mr. Clancy asked

Mrs. White when his shirts would be done. Mrs.

43

L I T T L E TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE

White said she did not know which shirts they were.

Then Mr. Clancy swore.

Laura scrooged small in her chair, basting as fast as
she could. Mr. Clancy snatched shirts from the pile
and almost threw them at Mrs. White. Still shouting
and swearing, he said she'd get them done before din-
ner or he'd know the reason why.

"I'll not be driven and hounded!" Mrs. White
blazed. "Not by you nor any other shanty Irishman!"

Laura hardly heard what Mr. Clancy said then. She
wanted desperately to be somewhere else. But Mrs.

White told her to come along to dinner. T h e y went
into the kitchen behind the store, and Mr. Clancy
came raging after them.

T h e kitchen was hot and crowded and cluttered.

Mrs. Clancy was putting dinner on the table, and
three little girls and a boy were pushing each other off
their chairs. Mr. and Mrs. Clancy and Mrs. White, all
quarreling at the top of their voices, sat down and ate
heartily. Laura could not even understand what they
were quarreling about. She could not tell whether Mr.

Clancy was quarreling with his wife or her mother, nor
whether they were quarreling with him or with each
other.

T h e y seemed so angry that she was afraid they
would strike each other. T h e n Mr. Clancy would say,

"Pass the bread," or, "Fill up this cup, will you?" Mrs.

Clancy would do it, while they went on calling each

44

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
other names, yelling them. T h e children paid no at-
tention. Laura was so upset that she could not eat, she
wanted only to get away. She went back to her work as
soon as she could.

Mr. Clancy came from the kitchen whistling a tune,
as if he had just had a nice, quiet dinner with his fam-
ily. He asked Mrs. White cheerfully, "How long'll it
take to finish those shirts?"

"Not more than a couple of hours," Mrs. White
promised. "We'll both work on them."

Laura thought of Ma's saying, "It takes all kinds of
people to make a world."

In two hours they finished the four shirts. Laura
basted the collars carefully; collars are hard to set
properly onto a shirt. Mrs. White sewed them on the
machine. T h e n there were the cuffs to set on the
sleeves, and the narrow hems all around the shirt bot-
toms to be done. T h e n the fronts, and the cuff open-
ings, were to be faced. There were all the small
buttons to sew firmly on, and the buttonholes to be
made.

It is not easy to space buttonholes exactly the same
distance apart, and it is very difficult to cut them pre-
cisely the right size. T h e tiniest slip of the scissors
will make the hole too large, and even one thread un-
cut will leave it too small.

When she had cut the buttonholes, Laura whipped
the cut edges swiftly, and swiftly covered them with

45

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
the small, knotted stitches, all precisely the same
length and closely set together. She so hated making
buttonholes that she had learned to do them quickly,
and get it over with. Mrs. White noticed her work, and
said, "You can beat me making buttonholes."

After those four shirts were done, there were only
three more hours of work that day. Laura went on fin-
ishing shirts, while Mrs. White cut out more.

Laura had never sat still so long. Her shoulders
ached, her neck ached, her fingers were roughened by
needle pricks and her eyes were hot and blurry. Twice
she had to take out bastings and do them over. She
was glad to stand up and fold her work when Pa came
in.

T h e y walked briskly home together. T h e whole day
had gone and now the sun was setting.

"How did you like your first day of working for pay,

Half-Pint?" Pa asked her. "You make out all right?"

"I think so, " she answered. "Mrs. White spoke well
of my buttonholes."

46

THE MONTH OF ROSES

A ll through that lovely month of June, Laura
sewed shirts. Wild roses were blooming in
great sweeps of pink through the prairie
grasses, but Laura saw them only in the early morn-
ings when she and Pa were hurrying to work.

The soft morning sky was changing to a clearer
blue, and already a few wisps of summer cloud were
trailing across it. T h e roses scented the wind, and
along the road the fresh blossoms, with their new
petals and golden centers, looked up like little faces.

At noon, she knew, great white cloud-puffs would
be sailing in sparkling blue. Their shadows would
drift across blowing grasses and fluttering roses. But at
noon she would be in the noisy kitchen.

47

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

At night when she came home, the morning's roses
were faded and their petals were scattering on the
wind.

Still, she was too old now to play any more. And it
was wonderful to think that already she was earn-
ing good wages. Every Saturday night Mrs. White
counted out a dollar and a half, and Laura took it
home to Ma.

"I don't like to take all your money, Laura," Ma said
once. "It does seem that you should keep some for
yourself."

"Why, Ma, what for?" Laura asked. "I don't need
anything."

Her shoes were still good; she had stockings and un-
derwear and her calico dress was almost new. All the
week, she looked forward to the pleasure of bringing
home her wages to Ma. Often she thought, too, that
this was only the beginning.

In two more years she would be sixteen, old enough
to teach school. If she studied hard and faithfully, and
got a teacher's certificate, and then got a school to
teach, she would be a real help to Pa and Ma. Then
she could begin to repay them for all that it had cost
to provide for her since she was a baby. T h e n , surely,
they could send Mary to college.

Sometimes she almost asked Ma if they could not
somehow manage to send Mary to college now, count-
ing on her earnings later to help keep Mary there. She

48

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
never quite spoke of it, for fear that Ma would say it
was too great a chance to take.

Still, the faint hope kept her going more cheerfully
to town to work. Her wages were a help. She knew
that Ma saved every penny that could be saved, and

Mary would go to college as soon as Pa and Ma could
possibly send her.

The town was like a sore on the beautiful, wild
prairie. Old haystacks and manure piles were rotting
around the stables, the backs of the stores' false fronts
were rough and u g l y . T h e grass was worn now even
from Second Street, and gritty dust blew between the
buildings. T h e town smelled of staleness and dust and
smoke and a fatty odor of cooking. A dank smell came
from the saloons and a musty sourness from the
ground by the back doors where the dishwater was
thrown out. But after you had been in town a little
while you did not smell its smells, and there was some
interest in seeing strangers go by.

The boys and girls that Laura had met in town last
winter were not there now. T h e y had gone out to stay
on homestead claims. T h e storekeepers stayed in
town to run their stores and bach in the rooms behind
them, while wives and children lived all summer out
on the prairie in claim shanties. For the law was that a
man could not keep a homestead claim unless his
family lived on it, six months of every year for five
years. Also he must keep ten acres of the sod broken

49

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
up and planted to crops for five years, before the Gov-
ernment would give him a title to the land. But no-
body could make a living from that wild land. So the
women and girls stayed all summer in claim shanties
to satisfy the law, and the boys broke the sod and
planted crops, while the fathers built the town and
tried to make money enough to buy food and tools
from the East.

T h e more Laura saw of the town, the more she real-
ized how well off her own family was. That was be-
cause Pa had got a whole year's start ahead of the
others. He had broken sod last year. Now they had the
garden, and the oatfield, and the second planting of
corn was growing quite well in the sod. Hay would
feed the stock through the winter, and Pa could sell
the corn and oats, to buy coal. All the new settlers
were beginning now where Pa had begun a year ago.

When Laura looked up from her work she could see
almost the whole town, because nearly all the build-
ings were in the two blocks across the street. All their
false fronts stood up, square-cornered at different
heights, trying to make believe that the buildings
were two stories high.

Mead's Hotel at the end of the street, and Beards-
ley's Hotel almost opposite Laura, and Tinkham's

Furniture Store near the middle of the next block,
really did have two stories. Curtains fluttered at their
upstairs windows and showed how honest those build-

50

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
ings were, in that row of false fronts.

That was the only difference between them and
the other buildings. T h e y were all of pine lumber be-
ginning to weather gray. Each building had two tall
glass windows in its front, and a door between them.

Every door was open to the warm weather, and every
doorway was filled with a strip of faded pink mos-
quito netting tacked onto a framework to make a
screen door.

In front of them all ran the level board sidewalk, and
all along its edge were hitching posts. There were al-
ways a few horses in sight, tied here and there to the
posts, and sometimes a wagon with a team of horses
or oxen.

Once in a while, when she bit off a thread, Laura
saw a man cross the sidewalk, untie his horse, swing
onto it and ride away. Sometimes she heard a team
and wagon, and when the sounds were loudest she
glanced up and saw it passing by.

One day an outburst of confused shouting startled
her. She saw a tall man come bursting out of Brown's
saloon. T h e screen door loudly slammed shut behind
him.

With great dignity the man turned about. He looked
haughtily at the screen door, and lifting one long leg
he thrust his foot contemptuously through the pink
mosquito netting. It tore jaggedly from top to bottom.

A yell of protest came out of the saloon.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

T h e tall man paid no attention whatever to the yell.

He turned haughtily away, and saw in front of him a
round little short man. T h e short man wanted to go
into the saloon. T h e tall man wanted to walk away.

But each was in front of the other.

T h e tall man stood very tall and dignified. The
short man stood puffed out with dignity.

In the doorway the saloonkeeper complained about
the torn screen door. Neither of them paid any atten-
tion to him. T h e y looked at each other and grew more
and more dignified.

Suddenly the tall man knew what to do. He linked
his long arm in the little man's fat arm, and they came
down the sidewalk together, singing.

"Pull for the shore, sailor!

Pull for the shore!

Heed not the stormy winds-—"

T h e tall man solemnly lifted his long leg and thrust
his foot through Harthorn's screen door. A yell came
out. "Hey, there! What the—"

T h e two men came on, singing.

"Though loudly they roar!

Pull for the shore, sailor-—-"

T h e y were as dignified as could be. T h e tall man's
long legs made the longest possible steps. T h e puffed-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
out little man tried with dignity to stretch his short
legs to steps as long.

"Heed not the stormy winds—"

The tall man gravely thrust his foot through the
mosquito-netting door of Beardsley's Hotel. Mr.

Beardsley came boiling out. T h e man marched
solemnly on.

"Though loudly they roar!"

Laura was laughing so that tears ran out of her eyes.

She saw the long, solemn leg rip the mosquito netting
in the door of Barker's grocery. Mr. Barker popped
out, protesting. T h e long legs stalking and the fat
short legs gravely stretching went away from him
haughtily.

"Pull for the shore!"

The tall man's foot pushed through the screen door
of Wilder's Feed Store. Royal Wilder yanked it open
and said what he thought.

The two men stood listening gravely until he
stopped for breath. T h e n the fat little man said with
great dignity, " M y name is Tay Pay Pryor and I'm
drunk."

They went on, arm in arm, chanting those words.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

First the pudgy little man,

"My name is Tay Pay Pryor—"

T h e n both of them together, like bullfrogs,

"—and I'm drunk!"

T h e tall man would not say that his name was T. P.

Pryor but he always came in solemnly, "—and I'm

DRUNK!"

T h e y wheeled square about and marched into the
other saloon. Its screen door slammed loudly behind
them. Laura held her breath, but that one door's mos-
quito netting stayed smooth and whole.

Laura laughed till her sides ached. She could not
stop when Mrs. White snapped out that it was a dis-
grace to snakes, what men would do with liquor in
them.

" T h i n k of the cost of all those screen doors," Mrs.

White said. " I ' m surprised at you. Young folks nowa-
days seem to have no realizing sense."

That evening when Laura tried to describe those
two men so that Mary could see them, no one
laughed.

"Goodness gracious, Laura. How could you laugh at
drunken men?" Ma wanted to know.

"I think it is dreadful," Mary added.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Pa said, " T h e tall one was Bill O'Dowd. I know for
a fact that his brother brought him to a claim out here,
to keep him from drinking. Two saloons in this town
are just two saloons too many."

"It's a pity more men don't say the same," said Ma.

"I begin to believe that if there isn't a stop put to the
liquor traffic, women must bestir themselves and have
something to say about it."

Pa twinkled at her. " S e e m s to me you have plenty to
say, Caroline. Ma never left me in doubt as to the evil
of drink, nor you either."

"Be that as it may b e , " said Ma. "It's a crying shame
that such things can happen before Laura's very
eyes."

Pa looked at Laura, and his eyes were still twinkling.

Laura knew that he didn't blame her for laughing.

55

NINE DOLLARS

Mr. Clancy was not getting so many orders for
shirts. It seemed that most of the men who
could buy shirts that year had bought them.

One Saturday evening Mrs. White said, " T h e spring
rush seems to be over."

"Yes, ma'am," said Laura.

Mrs. White counted out a dollar and fifty cents and
gave it to her. "I won't be needing you any more, so
you needn't come in Monday morning," she said.

"Good-by."

"Good-by," Laura said.

She had worked six weeks and earned nine dollars.

One dollar had seemed a great deal of money only six
weeks ago, but now nine dollars was not enough. If

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
she could have earned only one more week's wages,
that would have made ten dollars and a half, or two
weeks would have made a whole twelve dollars.

She knew how good it would be to stay at home
again, to help with the housework and do the chores
and work in the garden, to go walking with Mary and
gather wild flowers, and to look forward to Pa's home-
coming at night. But somehow she felt cast out, and
hollow inside.

Slowly she went along the path beside Main Street.

Pa was working now on the building at the corner of

Second. He stood by a stack of shingles, waiting for

Laura, and when he saw her he sang out, " L o o k what
we've got, to take home to your M a ! "

In the shade of the shingles stood a bushel bas-
ket covered with a grain sack. Inside it there was a
small rasping of claws, and a cheeping chorus. T h e
chickens!

"Boast brought 'em in today," said Pa. "Fourteen of

'em, all healthy and thriving." His whole face was
beaming with anticipation of Ma's delight.

He told Laura, " T h e basket's not heavy. You take
one handle and I'll take the other, and we'll carry
them level, between us."

T h e y went down Main Street and out on the road
toward home, carrying the basket carefully between
them. Sunset was flaming in crimson and burning
gold over the whole sky. T h e air was filled with golden

57

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
light and Silver L a k e to the east was blazing like fire.

Up from the basket came the chickens' wondering
and anxious cheeping.

"Pa, Mrs. White doesn't want me any more," Laura
said.

"Yes, I guess the spring rush is about over," said Pa.

Laura had not thought that Pa's job might end.

"Oh, Pa, won't there be any more carpentering, ei-
ther?" she asked.

"We couldn't expect it to last all summer," said Pa.

"Anyway, I'll have to be making hay pretty soon."

After a while Laura said, "I only earned nine dollars,

P a . "

"Nine dollars is nothing to sneeze at," said Pa.

"You've done good work, too, and fully satisfied Mrs.

White, haven't you?"

"Yes," Laura answered honestly.

" T h e n it's a good job well done," said Pa.

It was true that that was some satisfaction. Laura
felt a little better. Besides, they were taking the
chickens to Ma.

Ma was delighted when she saw them. Carrie and

Grace crowded to peep at them in the basket, and

Laura told Mary about them. T h e y were healthy,
lively chicks, with bright black eyes and bright yellow
claws. Already the down was coming off them, leaving
naked patches on their necks, and the sprouting
feathers were showing on their wings and tails. They

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
were every color that chickens are, and some were
spotted.

Ma lifted each one carefully into her apron. "Mrs.

Boast can't have got these all from one hatching," she
said. "I do believe there's not more than two cockerels
among them."

"The Boasts have got such a head-start with chick-
ens, likely they're planning to eat friers this summer,"

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
said Pa. "It may be she took a few cockerels out of
this flock, looking on them as meat."

"Yes, and replaced them with pullets that will be
layers," Ma guessed. "It would be Mrs. Boast all over.

A more generous woman never lived."

She carried the chicks in her apron, to set them one
by one into the coop that Pa had already made. It had
a front of laths, to let in air and sun, and a little door
with a wooden button to fasten it. It had no floor, but
was set on clean grass that the chicks could eat, and
when the grass grew trampled and dirty, the coop
could be moved to fresh grass.

In an old pie pan Ma mixed a crumbly bran mash,
well peppered. She set it in the coop, and the chicks
crowded onto it, gobbling the bran mash so greedily
that sometimes they tried to swallow their own toes
by mistake. When they could eat no more, they
perched on the edge of the water pan, and scooping
up water in their beaks they stretched up their necks
and tilted back their heads, to swallow it.

Ma said it would be Carrie's task to feed them often
and to keep their water pan filled with cool, fresh wa-
ter. Tomorrow she would let the chicks out to run, and
it would be Grace's part to keep a sharp lookout for
hawks.

After supper that evening she sent Laura to make
sure that the chicks were sleeping safely. All the stars
were shining over the dark prairie and a sickle moon

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
was low in the west. T h e grasses were breathing
softly, asleep in the quiet night.

Laura's hand felt gently over the sleeping chicks,
huddled warm together in a corner of the coop. T h e n
she stood looking at the summer night. S h e did not
know how long she had stood there, until she saw Ma
coming from the house.

"Oh, there you are, Laura," Ma softly said. As

Laura had done, she knelt and put her hand through
the coop's door to feel the huddled chicks. T h e n she,
too, stood looking.

" T h e place begins to look like a farm," she said.

The oatfield and the cornfield were shadowy pale in
the darkness, and the garden was bumpy with lumps
of dark leaves. L i k e pools of faint star-shine among
them spread the cucumber vines and the pumpkins.

The low sod stable could hardly be seen, but from the
house window a warm yellow light shone out.

Suddenly, without thinking at all, Laura said, "Oh,

Ma, I do wish Mary could go to college this fall."

Unexpectedly Ma replied, "It may be that she can.

Your Pa and I have been talking of it."

Laura could not speak for a minute. T h e n she
asked, "Have you—have you said anything to her?"

"Not yet," said Ma. "We must not raise hopes only
to be disappointed. But with Pa's wages, and the oats
and the corn, if nothing goes wrong, we think she can
go this fall. We must trust ourselves to contrive to

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
keep her there till she finishes the full seven years'

course, both college and manual training."

T h e n for the first time Laura realized that when

Mary went to college, she would go away. Mary would
be gone. All day long, Mary would not be there. Laura
could not think what living would be, without Mary.

"Oh, I wish—" she began, and stopped. She had
been so eagerly hoping that Mary could go to college.

"Yes, we will miss her," Ma said steadily. "But we
must think what a great opportunity it will be for
her."

"I know, M a , " Laura said miserably.

T h e night was large and empty now. T h e light shin-
ing from the house was warm and steady, but even
home would not be the same when Mary was not
there.

T h e n Ma said, "Your nine dollars are a great help,

Laura. I have been planning, and I do believe that
with nine dollars I can buy the goods for Mary's best
dress, and perhaps the velvet to make her a hat."

62

FOURTH OF JULY

BOOM! Laura was jerked out of sleep. The bedroom
was dark. Carrie asked in a thin, scared whis-
per, "What was that?"

"Don't be scared," Laura answered. T h e y listened.

The window was hardly gray in the dark, but Laura
could feel that the middle of the night was past.

BOOM! T h e air seemed to shake.

"Great g u n s ! " Pa exclaimed sleepily.

"Why? Why?" Grace demanded. "Pa, Ma, why?"

Carrie asked, "Who is it? What are they shooting?"

"What time is it?" Ma wanted to know.

Through the partition Pa answered, "It's Fourth of

July, Carrie." T h e air shook again. B O O M !

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

It was not great guns. It was gunpowder exploded
under the blacksmith's anvil, in town. T h e noise was
like the noise of battles that Americans fought for in-
dependence. Fourth of July was the day when the first

Americans declared that all men are born free and
equal. B O O M !

"Come, girls, we might as well get up," Ma called.

Pa sang, " ' O h , say, can you see, by the dawn's early
light?'"

"Charles!" Ma protested, but she was laughing, be-
cause it really was too dark to see.

"It's nothing to be solemn about!" Pa jumped out of
bed. "Hurray! We're Americans!" He sang:

"Hurray! Hurray! We'll sing the jubilee!

Hurray! Hurray! The flag that sets men free!"

Even the sun, as it rose shining into the clearest of
skies, seemed to know this day was the glorious

Fourth. At breakfast Ma said, "This would be a per-
fect day for a Fourth of July picnic."

"Maybe the town'll be far enough along to have one,
come next July," said Pa.

"We couldn't hardly have a picnic this year, any-
way," Ma admitted. "It wouldn't seem like a picnic,
without fried chicken."

After such a rousing beginning, the day did seem
empty. Such a special day seemed to expect some

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
special happening, but nothing special could happen.

"I feel like dressing up," Carrie said while they did
the dishes.

"So do I, but there's nothing to dress up for," Laura
replied.

When she carried out the dishwater to throw it far
from the house, she saw Pa looking at the oats. T h e y
were growing thick and tall, gray-green and smoothly
rippling in the wind. T h e corn was growing lustily,
too. Its long, yellow-green, fluttering leaves almost hid
the broken sod. In the garden the cucumber vines
were reaching out, their crawling tips uncurling be-
yond patches of spreading big leaves. T h e rows of
peas and beans were rounding up, the carrot rows
were feathery green and the beets were thrusting up
long, dark leaves on red stems. T h e ground-cherries
were already small bushes. Through the wild grasses
the chickens were scattered, chasing insects to eat.

All this was satisfaction enough for an ordinary day,
but for Fourth of July there should be something
more.

Pa felt the same way. He had nothing to do, for on

Fourth of July no work could be done except the
chores and housework. In a little while he came into
the house and said to Ma, "There's a kind of celebra-
tion in town today, would you like to go?"

"What kind of celebration?" Ma asked.

"Well, mostly horse racing, but they took up a

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
collection for lemonade," Pa replied.

"Women are not likely to be at a horse race," Ma
said. "And I couldn't go calling, uninvited, on Fourth
of July."

Laura and Carrie stood almost bursting with eager-
ness while Ma considered, and shook her head. "You
go along, Charles. It would be too much for Grace,
anyway."

"It is much nicer at home," said Mary.

T h e n Laura spoke. "Oh Pa, if you go, can't Carrie
and I ? "

Pa's doubtful eyes brightened, and twinkled at her
and Carrie. Ma smiled on them.

"Yes, Charles, it will be a nice outing for you all,"

she said. " R u n down cellar and bring up the butter,

Carrie, and while you're dressing I'll put up some
bread-and-butter for you to take along."

Suddenly the day seemed really Fourth of July. Ma
made sandwiches, Pa blacked his boots, Laura and

Carrie hurriedly dressed up. Luckily Laura's sprigged
calico was freshly washed and ironed. She and Carrie
took turns scrubbing their faces and necks and ears
pink. Over their unbleached muslin union suits they
put on crackling stiff petticoats of bleached muslin.

T h e y brushed and braided their hair. Laura wound
her heavy braids around her head and pinned them.

She tied the Sunday hair ribbon on the ends of

Carrie's braids. T h e n she put on her fresh sprigged

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
calico and buttoned it up the back. T h e full ruffle on
the bottom of the full skirt came down to the tops of
her shoes.

"Please button me up," Carrie asked. In the middle
of her back there were two buttons that she couldn't
reach. She had buttoned all the others outside-in.

"You can't wear your buttons turned inside, at a

Fourth of July celebration," said Laura, unbuttoning
them all and buttoning them again properly.

"If they're outside, they keep pulling my hair," Car-
rie protested. " M y braids catch on them."

"I know. Mine always did," said Laura. "But you
just have to stand it till you're big enough to put your
hair up."

They put on their sunbonnets. Pa was waiting, hold-
ing the brown-paper packet of sandwiches. Ma looked
at them carefully and said, "You look very nice."

"It's a treat to me, to be stepping out with my two
good-looking girls," said Pa.

"You look nice, too, P a , " Laura told him. His boots
were glossily polished, his beard was trimmed, and he
was wearing his Sunday suit and broad-brimmed felt
hat.

"I want to g o ! " Grace demanded. Even when Ma
said "No, Grace," she repeated two or three times, "I
want to!" Because she was the baby, they had almost
spoiled her. Now her unruliness must be nipped in
the bud. Pa had to set her sternly in a chair and tell

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
her, "You heard your Ma speak."

T h e y set out soberly, unhappy about Grace. But she
must be taught to mind. Perhaps next year she could
go, if there were a big celebration and they all rode in
the wagon. Now they were walking, to let the horses
stay on their picket ropes and eat grass. Horses grow
tired, standing all day at hitching posts in dust and
heat. Grace was too little to walk the mile and back,
and she was too big to be carried.

Even before they reached town, they could hear a
sound like corn popping. Carrie asked what it was,
and Pa said it was firecrackers.

Horses were tied along the whole length of Main

Street. Men and boys were so thick on the sidewalk
that in places they almost touched each other. Boys
were throwing lighted firecrackers into the dusty
street, where they sizzled and exploded. T h e noise
was startling.

"I didn't know it would be like this," Carrie mur-
mured. Laura did not like it, either. T h e y had never
been in such a crowd before. There was nothing to do
but keep on walking up and down in it, and to be
among so many strangers made them uncomfortable.

Twice they walked the two blocks with Pa, and then

Laura asked him if she and Carrie could not stay in his
store building. Pa said that was a fine idea. They
could watch the crowd while he circulated a little;
then they would eat their lunch and see the races. He

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
let them into the empty building and Laura shut the
door.

It was pleasant to be alone in the echoing bare
place. T h e y looked at the empty kitchen behind it,
where they had all lived huddled during the long hard
winter. T h e y tiptoed upstairs to the hollow, hot bed-
rooms under the eaves of the shingle roof, and stood
looking down from the front window at the crowd, and
at firecrackers squirming and popping in the dust.

"I wish we had some firecrackers," Carrie said.

" T h e y ' r e g u n s , " Laura pretended. "We're in Fort

Ticonderoga, and those are British and Indians. We're

Americans, fighting for independence."

"It was the British in Fort Ticonderoga, and the

Green Mountain boys took it," Carrie objected.

" T h e n I guess we're with Daniel Boone in Ken-
tucky, and this is a log stockade," said Laura. "Only
the British and Indians captured him," she had to ad-
mit.

"How much do firecrackers cost?" Carrie asked.

"Even if Pa could afford them, it's foolish to spend
money just to make a little noise," Laura said. "Look
at that little bay pony. Let's pick out the horses we
like best; you can have first choice."

There was so much to see that they could hardly
believe it was noon when Pa's boots sounded down-
stairs and he called, "Girls! Where are you?"

T h e y rushed down. He was having a good time, his

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
eyes were twinkling bright. He sang out, "I've
brought us a treat! Smoked herring, to go with our
bread and butter! And look what else!" He showed
them a bunch of firecrackers.

"Oh, P a ! " Carrie cried. "How much did they cost?"

"Didn't cost me a cent," said Pa. "Lawyer Barnes
handed them to me, said to give them to you girls."

"Why on earth did he do that?" Laura asked. She
had never heard of Lawyer Barnes before.

"Oh, he's going in for politics, I g u e s s , " said Pa. "He
acts that way, affable and agreeable to everybody. You
want me to set these off for you now, or after we eat?"

Laura and Carrie were thinking the same thing.

They knew it when they looked at each other, and

Carrie said it. " L e t ' s save them, Pa, to take home to

Grace."

"All right," said Pa. He put them in his pocket and
undid the smoked herring while Laura opened the
packet of sandwiches. T h e herring was delicious.

They saved some to take home to Ma. When they had
eaten the last bit of bread and butter they went out to
the well and drank, long and deep, from the edge of
the pail that Pa drew dripping up. T h e n they washed
their hands and their hot faces and dried them on Pa's
handkerchief.

It was time to go to the races. T h e whole crowd was
moving across the railroad tracks and out on the prairie.

On a pole set up there, the American flag fluttered

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
against the sky. T h e sun was shining warm and a cool
breeze was blowing.

Beside the flagpole a man rose up tall above the
crowd. He was standing on something. T h e sound of
talking died down, and he could be heard speaking.

"Well, boys," he said, " I ' m not much good at pub-
lic speaking, but today's the glorious Fourth. This is
the day and date when our forefathers cut loose from
the despots of Europe. T h e r e wasn't many Ameri-
cans at that time, but they wouldn't stand for any
monarch tyrannizing over them. T h e y had to fight
the British regulars and their hired Hessians and the
murdering scalping red-skinned savages that those
fine gold-laced aristocrats turned loose on our settle-
ments and paid for murdering and burning and scalp-
ing women and children. A few barefoot Americans
had to fight the whole of them and lick 'em, and
they did fight them and they did lick them. Yes sir!

We licked the British in 1776 and we licked 'em
again in 1 8 1 2 , and we backed all the monarchies of

Europe out of Mexico and off this continent less than
twenty years ago, and by glory! Yessir, by Old Glory
right here, waving over my head, any time the
despots of Europe try to step on America's toes,
we'll lick 'em again!"

"Hurray! Hurray!" everybody shouted. Laura and

Carrie and Pa yelled, too, "Hurray! Hurray!"

"Well, so here we are today," the man went on.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Every man Jack of us a free and independent citizen
of God's country, the only country on earth where a
man is free and independent. Today's the Fourth of

July, when this whole thing was started, and it ought
to have a bigger, better celebration than this. We can't
do much this year. Most of us are out here trying to
pull ourselves up by our own boot straps. By next
year, likely some of us will be better off, and be able
to chip in for a real big rousing celebration of Inde-
pendence Day. Meantime, here we are. It's Fourth of

July, and on this day somebody's got to read the Dec-
laration of Independence. It looks like I'm elected, so
hold your hats, boys; I'm going to read it."

Laura and Carrie knew the Declaration by heart, of
course, but it gave them a solemn, glorious feeling to
hear the words. T h e y took hold of hands and stood lis-
tening in the solemnly listening crowd. T h e Stars and

Stripes were fluttering bright against the thin, clear
blue overhead, and their minds were saying the words
before their ears heard them.

"When in the course of human events it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bonds which have connected them with another, and
to assume among the powers of the earth the separate
and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of

Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare
the causes which impel them to the separation.

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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their

Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happi-
ness. . . . "

T h e n came the long and terrible list of the crimes of
the King.

"He has endeavored to prevent the population of
these States.

"He has obstructed the administration of Justice.

"He has made Judges dependent on his will alone.

"He has erected a multitude of new offices, and
sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and
to eat out their substance.

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts,
burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our peo-
ple . . .

"He is at this time transporting large Armies of
foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death,
destruction and tyranny, already begun with circum-
stances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in
the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the
head of a civilized nation. . . .

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the United

States of America, in General Congress assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the
rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the
authority of the good People of these Colonies,

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solemnly publish and declare,

"That these United Colonies are, and of right ought
to be, Free and Independent States, that they are ab-
solved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connection between them and the

State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dis-
solved; and that as Free and Independent States, they
have full right to levy War . . .

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our For-
tunes, and our sacred Honor."

No one cheered. It was more like a moment to say,

"Amen." But no one quite knew what to do.

Then Pa began to sing. All at once everyone was
singing:

"My country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing. . . .

"Long may our land be bright

With Freedom's holy light,

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King!"

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura
stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new
thought. T h e Declaration and the song came together
in her mind, and she thought: God is America's king.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

She thought: Americans won't obey any king on
earth. Americans are free. That means they have to
obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he
has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a
little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do,
and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me
orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that
thought. This is what it means to be free. It means,
you have to be good. "Our father's God, author of lib-
erty—" T h e laws of Nature and of Nature's God en-
dow you with a right to life and liberty. T h e n you
have to keep the laws of God, for God's law is the only
thing that gives you a right to be free.

Laura had no time then to think any further. Carrie
was wondering why she stood so still, and Pa was say-
ing, " T h i s way, girls! There's the free lemonade!"

T h e barrels stood in the grass by the flagpole. A few
men were waiting for their turns to drink from the tin
dipper. As each finished drinking, he handed the dip-
per on, and then strolled away toward the horses and
buggies on the race track.

Laura and Carrie hung back a little, but the man
who had the dipper saw them and handed the dipper
to Pa. He filled it from the barrel and gave it to Carrie.

T h e barrel was almost full, and slices of lemon floated
thick on the lemonade.

"I see they put in plenty of lemons, so it ought to be

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
good," Pa said, while Carrie slowly drank. Her eyes
grew round with delight; she had never tasted lemon-
ade before.

"They've just mixed it," one of the waiting men
told Pa. " T h e water is fresh from the hotel well, so it's
cold."

Another man who was waiting said, "It depends,
some, on how much sugar they put in."

Pa filled the dipper again and gave it to Laura. She
had once tasted lemonade, at Nellie Oleson's party,
when she was a little girl in Minnesota. This lemon-
ade was even more delicious. She drank the last drop
from the dipper and thanked Pa. It would not be po-
lite to ask for more. When Pa had drunk, they went
across the trampled grass to the crowd by the race
track. A great ring of sod had been broken, and the
sod carried off. T h e breaking plow with its coulter
had left the black earth smooth and level. In the mid-
dle of the ring and all around it the prairie grasses
were waving, except where men and buggies had
made trampled tracks.

"Why, hello, Boast!" Pa called, and Mr. Boast came
through the crowd. He had just got to town in time for
the races. Mrs. Boast, like Ma, had preferred to stay at
home.

Four ponies came out on the track. There were two
bay ponies, one gray, and one black. T h e boys who
were riding them lined them up in a straight row.

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"Which'd you bet on, if you were betting?" Mr.

Boast asked.

"Oh, the black one!" Laura cried. T h e black pony's
coat shone in the sunlight and its long mane and tail
blew silky on the breeze. It tossed its slender head and
picked up its feet daintily.

At the word, " G o ! " all the ponies leaped into a
run. T h e crowd yelled. Stretched out low and fast,
the black pony went by, the others behind it. All
their pounding feet raised a cloud of dust that hid
them. T h e n around the far side of the track they
went, running with all their might. T h e gray pony
crept up beside the black. N e c k and neck they were
running, then the gray pulled a little ahead and the
crowd yelled again. Laura still hoped for the black. It
was doing its best. Little by little it gained on the
gray. Its head passed the gray's neck, its outstretched
nose was almost even with the gray's nose. Suddenly
all four ponies were coming head-on down the track,
quickly growing larger and larger in front of the on-
coming dust. T h e bay pony with the white nose
came skimming past the black and the gray, across
the line ahead of them both while the crowd
cheered.

"If you'd bet on the black, Laura, you'd've lost,"

said Pa.

"It's the prettiest, though," Laura answered. She
had never been so excited. Carrie's eyes shone, her

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
cheeks were pink with excitement; her braid was
snared on a button and recklessly she yanked it loose.

"Are there any more, Pa? more races?" Carrie cried.

"Sure, here they come for the buggy race," Pa an-
swered. Mr. Boast joked, "Pick the winning team,

L a u r a ! "

Through the crowd and out onto the track came first
a bay team hitched to a light buggy. T h e bays were
perfectly matched and they stepped as though the
buggy weighed nothing at all. T h e n came other
teams, other buggies, but Laura hardly saw them, for
there was a team of brown horses that she knew. She
knew their proud, gay heads and arching necks, the
shine of light on their satiny shoulders, the black
manes blowing and the forelocks tossing above their
quick, bright, gentle eyes.

"Oh, look, Carrie, look! It's the brown Morgans!"

she cried.

"That's Almanzo Wilder's team, Boast," said Pa.

"What in creation has he got 'em hitched to?"

High up above the horses, Almanzo Wilder was sit-
ting. His hat was pushed back on his head and he
looked cheerful and confident.

He turned the team toward its place in line, and
they saw that he was sitting on a high seat, on top of a
long, high, heavy wagon, with a door in its side.

"It's his brother Royal's peddler's wagon," said a
man standing near by.

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"He don't have a chance, with that weight, against
all those light buggies," said another. Everyone was
looking at the Morgans and the wagon and talking
about them.

" T h e off horse, Prince, is the one he drove last win-
ter, that forty-mile trip that he and Cap Garland made,
and brought in the wheat that kept us all from starv-
ing to death," Pa told Mr. Boast. " T h e other one's

Lady, that ran off with the antelope herd that time.

They've both got good action, and speed."

"I see that," Mr. Boast agreed. "But no team can
haul that heavy cart and beat Sam Owen's bays on his
light buggy. Seems like the young fellow might have
rousted out a buggy somewheres in this country."

"He's an independent kind of a young cuss," some-
one said. "He'd rather lose with what he's got than
win with a borrowed buggy."

"Too bad he don't own a buggy," Mr. Boast said.

T h e brown horses were by far the most beautiful on
the track, and so proud. T h e y did not seem to mind
the heavy wagon at all, but tossed their heads,
pricked their ears, and lifted their feet as if the
ground were not quite good enough for them to step
on.

"Oh, what a shame, what a shame they haven't a fair
chance," Laura was thinking. Her hands were
clenched. She wished so much that those proud, fine
horses might only have a fair chance. Hitched to that

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heavy wagon, they could not win. She cried out, "Oh,
it isn't fair!"

T h e race started. Fast came the bays, leading all the
others. T h e shining legs trotting and the wheels
whirling hardly seemed to touch the ground. Every
buggy rushing by was a light, one-seated buggy. Not a
team drew even the weight of a two-seated buggy, ex-
cept the beautiful brown horses who came last,
pulling the high, heavy peddler's cart.

"Best team in the country," Laura heard a man say,

"but not a chance."

"Nope," said another. "That wagon's too heavy for
them to pull. Sure as shooting, they'll break their
trot."

But they were pulling it, and they were trotting.

Evenly, without a break, the eight brown legs kept
moving in a perfect trot. T h e dust-cloud rose up and
hid them. T h e n bursting out of it, up the other side of
the track the teams and buggies were speeding. One
buggy— No, two buggies! were behind the peddler's
cart. T h r e e buggies were behind it. Only the bays
were ahead of it.

"Oh, come on! Come on! Win Win!" Laura was
begging the brown horses. She so wanted them to
trot faster that it seemed her wishing was pulling
them.

T h e y were almost around the track. T h e y were
coming now around the turn and on toward the line.

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The bays were ahead. T h e Morgans could not do it,
they could not win, the weight was too much for
them, but still Laura kept on wishing with all of her.

"Faster, faster, only a little faster. Oh, come on, come
on!"

Almanzo leaned forward from the high seat and
seemed to speak to them. Still smoothly trotting, they
came faster. Their heads reached Mr. Owen's buggy
and slowly, smoothly crept by it. All the legs were
moving fast, fast, while so slowly the brown heads
came up, even with the bays'. All four horses were
coming now in a line, faster, faster.

"A tie. By gosh, it's a tie," a man said.

Then Mr. Owen's buggy whip flashed out. It
swished down, once, twice, as he shouted. T h e bays
leaped ahead. Almanzo had no whip. He was leaning
forward, lightly holding the reins firm. Once more he
seemed to speak. Fast and smooth as swallows flying,
the brown Morgans passed the bays and crossed the
line. T h e y ' d won!

The whole crowd shouted. It surged to surround the
brown horses and Almanzo high on the cart. Laura
found that she had been holding her breath. Her
knees were wobbly. She wanted to yell and to laugh
and to cry and to sit down and rest.

"Oh, they won! they won! they won!" Carrie kept
saying, clapping her hands. Laura did not say any-
thing.

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"He earned that five dollars," said Mr. Boast.

"What five dollars?" Carrie asked.

"Some men in town put up five dollars for the best
trotting team," Pa explained. "Almanzo Wilder's won
it."

Laura was glad she had not known. She could not
have borne it if she had known that the brown horses
were running for a five-dollar prize.

"He has it coming to him," said Pa. "That young
man knows how to handle horses."

T h e r e were no more races. There was nothing
more to do but stand around and listen to the talking.

T h e lemonade was low in the barrel. Mr. Boast
brought Laura and Carrie a dipperful and they di-
vided it. It was sweeter than before, but not so cold.

T h e teams and buggies were going away. Then Pa
came from the dwindling crowd and said it was time
to go home.

Mr. Boast walked with them along Main Street. Pa
said to him that the Wilders had a sister who was a
schoolteacher back east in Minnesota. "She's taken a
claim half a mile west of town here," said Pa, "and
she wants Almanzo to find out if she can get this
school to teach next winter. I told him to tell her to
send in her application to the school board. Other
things being equal, I don't know why she can't as
well have it."

Laura and Carrie looked at each other. Pa was on

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the school board, and no doubt the others would feel
as he did. Laura thought, "Maybe if I am a very good
scholar and if she likes me, maybe she might take me
driving behind those beautiful horses."

85

BLACKBIRDS

In August, the days were so hot that Laura and

Mary took their walks in the early mornings be-
fore the sun had risen far. T h e air still had some
freshness then and it was not too hot to be pleasant.

But every walk seemed like a little bit of the last walk
they would have together, for soon Mary was going
away.

She was really going to college, that fall. They had
looked forward so long to her going, that now when
she really was going, it did not seem possible. It was
hard to imagine, too, because none of them knew
what college would be like; they had never seen one.

But Pa had earned nearly a hundred dollars that
spring; the garden and the oats and the corn were

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growing marvelously; and Mary really could go to col-
lege.

Coming back from their walk one morning, Laura
noticed several grasses sticking to Mary's skirt. She
tried to pull them off, but they would not come loose.

"Ma!" she called. "Come look at this funny grass."

Ma had never seen a grass like it. T h e grass heads
were like barley beards, except that they were
twisted, and they ended in a seed pod an inch long,
with a point as fine and hard as a needle, and a shaft
covered with stiff hairs pointing backward. L i k e real
needles, the points had sewed themselves into Mary's
dress. T h e stiff hair followed the needle-point easily,
but kept it from being pulled back, and the four-inch-
long, screw-like beard followed, twisting and pushing
the needle-point farther in.

"Ouch! something bit m e ! " Mary exclaimed. Just
above her shoetop, one of the strange grasses had
pierced her stocking and was screwing itself into her
flesh.

"I declare this beats all," said Ma. "What next will
we encounter on this homestead?"

When Pa came in at noon, they showed him the
strange grass. He said it was Spanish needle grass.

When it got in the mouths of horses or cattle, it must
be cut out of their lips and tongues. It worked through
sheep's wool and into the sheep's bodies, often killing
them.

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"Where did you girls find it?" he asked, and he was
glad that Laura could not tell him. "If you didn't no-
tice it, there can't be much of it. It grows in patches,
and spreads. Exactly where did you go walking?"

Laura could tell him that. He said he would attend
to that grass. "Some say it can be killed by burning it
over, green," he told them. "I'll burn it now, to kill as
many seeds as I can, and next spring I'll be on the
lookout and burn it, green."

There were little new potatoes for dinner, creamed
with green peas, and there were string beans and
green onions. And by every plate was a saucer full of
sliced tomatoes, to be eaten with sugar and cream.

"Well, we've got good things to eat, and plenty of
them," said Pa, taking a second helping of potatoes
and peas.

"Yes," Ma said happily; "nowadays we can all eat
enough to make up for what we couldn't have last
winter."

She was proud of the garden; it was growing so well.

"I shall begin salting down cucumbers tomorrow, little
ones are thick under all those vines. And the potato
tops are thriving so, I can hardly find the hills under-
neath them, to scrabble."

"If nothing happens to them, we'll have plenty of
potatoes this winter!" Pa rejoiced.

"We'll have roasting ears soon, too," Ma announced.

"I noticed, this morning, some of the corn silks are

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beginning to darken."

"I never saw a better corn crop," said Pa. "We've
got that to depend on."

"And the oats," said Ma. T h e n she asked, "What's
wrong with the oats, Charles?"

"Well, blackbirds are getting most of them," Pa told
her. "I no sooner set up a shock than it's covered thick
with the pests. They're eating all the grain they can
get at, and not leaving much but the straw."

Ma's cheerful face dimmed, but Pa went on. "Never
mind, there's a good crop of straw, and soon as I get
the oats cut and shocked I'll clear out the blackbirds
with a shotgun."

That afternoon, looking up from her sewing to
thread her needle, Laura saw a wisp of smoke waver-
ing in the heat waves from the prairie. Pa had taken
time from his work in the oatfield to cut a swath
around the patch of Spanish needles and set fire to
those vicious grasses.

"The prairie looks so beautiful and gentle," she
said. "But I wonder what it will do next. Seems like
we have to fight it all the time."

"This earthly life is a battle," said Ma. "If it isn't
one thing to contend with, it's another. It always has
been so, and it always will be. T h e sooner you make
up your mind to that, the better off you are, and the
more thankful for your pleasures. Now Mary, I'm
ready to fit the bodice."

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T h e y were making Mary's best winter dress, for col-
lege. In the hot room, with the sun blazing on the thin
board walls and roof, the lapfuls of wool cashmere al-
most smothered them. Ma was nervous about this best
dress. She had made the summer dresses first, for
practice with the patterns.

She had cut the patterns from newspaper, using her
dressmaker's chart of thin cardboard as a guide. Lines
and figures for all different sizes were printed on it.

T h e trouble was that nobody was exactly any of the
sizes on the chart. After Ma had measured Mary, and
figured and marked the size of every sleeve and skirt
and bodice piece on the chart, and cut the patterns,
and cut and basted the dress lining, then when she
tried the lining on Mary she had to make changes all
along the seams.

Laura had never before known that Ma hated
sewing. Her gentle face did not show it now, and her
voice was never exasperated. But her patience was so
tight around her mouth that Laura knew she hated
sewing as much as Laura did.

T h e y were worried, too, because while they were
buying the dress goods Mrs. White had told them that
she had heard from her sister in Iowa that hoop skirts
were coming back, in New York. There were no
hoops yet to be bought in town, but Mr. Clancy was
thinking of ordering some.

"I declare, I don't know," Ma said, worrying about

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hoop skirts. Mrs. Boast had had a Godey's Lady's Book
last year. If she had one now, it would decide the
question. But Pa must cut the oats and the hay; they
were all too tired on Sundays to make the long, hot
trip to the Boasts' claim. When at last Pa saw Mr.

Boast in town one Saturday, he said that Mrs. Boast
did not have a new Godey's Lady's Book,

"We'll just make the skirts wide enough, so if hoops
do come back, Mary can buy some in Iowa and wear
them," Ma decided. "Meanwhile, her petticoats can
hold the skirts out full."

They had made four new petticoats for Mary, two of
unbleached muslin, one of bleached muslin, and one
of fine white cambric. Around the bottom of the fine
cambric one, Laura had sewed with careful, tiny
stitches the six yards of knitted lace that she had
given Mary for Christmas.

They had made for her two gray flannel petticoats
and three red flannel union suits. Around the top of
the petticoats' hems, Laura made a row of catch-
stitching in bright, red yarn. It was pretty on the gray
flannel. She back-stitched all the seams of the petti-
coats and the long red flannel union suits, and around
the necks and the wrists of the long red sleeves she
catch-stitched a trimming of blue yarn.

She was using all the pretty yarns that had come in
last winter's Christmas barrel, but she was glad to do
it. Not one of the girls in college would have prettier

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underwear than Mary's.

When Ma had back-stitched the seams of Mary's
dresses and carefully ironed them flat, Laura sewed
the whalebone stays onto the underarm seams and
dart-seams of the basques. She took great pains to
sew them evenly on both edges without making the
tiniest wrinkle in the seams, so that the basque would
fit trimly and smoothly on the outside. This was such
anxious work that it made the back of her neck ache.

Now the basque of Mary's best dress was ready to
try on for the last time. It was brown cashmere, lined
with brown cambric. Small brown buttons buttoned it
down the front, and on either side of the buttons and
around the bottom Ma had trimmed it with a narrow,
shirred strip of brown-and-blue plaid, with red
threads and golden threads running through it. A high
collar of the plaid was sewed on, and Ma held in her
hand a gathered length of white machine-made lace.

T h e lace was to be fitted inside the collar, so that it
would fall a little over the top.

"Oh, Mary, it's beautiful. T h e back fits without a
wrinkle, and so do the shoulders," Laura told her.

"And the sleeves look absolutely skin tight to the el-
bows."

" T h e y are," Mary said. "I don't know if I can but-
ton—"

Laura went around in front. "Hold your breath,

Mary. Breathe out, and hold it," she advised anxiously.

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"It's too tight," Ma said in despair. Some of the but-
tons strained in the buttonholes, some could not be
buttoned at all.

"Don't breathe, Mary! Don't breathe!" Laura said
frantically, and quickly she unbuttoned the straining
buttons. "Now you can." Mary breathed, outbursting
from the open bodice.

"Oh, how ever did I make such a mistake," Ma said.

"That bodice fitted well enough last week."

Laura had a sudden thought. "It's Mary's corsets! It
must be. T h e corset strings must have stretched."

It was so. When Mary held her breath again and

Laura pulled tight the corset strings, the bodice but-
toned, and it fitted beautifully.

"I'm glad I don't have to wear corsets yet," said

Carrie.

"Be glad while you can be," said Laura. "You'll have
to wear them pretty soon." Her corsets were a sad af-
fliction to her, from the time she put them on in the
morning until she took them off at night. But when
girls pinned up their hair and wore skirts down to
their shoetops, they must wear corsets.

"You should wear them all night," Ma said. Mary
did, but Laura could not bear at night the torment of
the steels that would not let her draw a deep breath.

Always before she could get to sleep, she had to take
off her corsets.

"What your figure will be, goodness knows," Ma

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warned her. "When I was married, your Pa could span
my waist with his two hands."

"He can't now," Laura answered, a little saucily.

"And he seems to like you."

"You must not be saucy, Laura," Ma reproved her,
but Ma's cheeks flushed pink and she could not help
smiling.

Now she fitted the white lace into Mary's collar and
pinned it so that it fell gracefully over the collar's edge
and made a full cascade between the collar's ends in
front.

T h e y all stood back to admire. T h e gored skirt of
brown cashmere was smooth and rather tight in front,
but gathered full around the sides and back, so that it
would be ample for hoops. In front it touched the
floor evenly, in back it swept into a graceful short
train that swished when Mary turned. All around the
bottom was a pleated flounce.

T h e overskirt was of the brown-and-blue plaid. It
was shirred in front, it was draped up at the sides to
show more of the skirt beneath, and at the back it
fell in rich, full puffs, caught up above the flounced
train.

Above all this, Mary's waist rose slim in the tight,
smooth bodice. T h e neat little buttons ran up to the
soft white lace cascading under Mary's chin. The
brown cashmere was smooth as paint over her slop-
ing shoulders and down to her elbows; then the

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sleeves widened. A shirring of the plaid curved
around them, and the wide wrists fell open, showing
the lining of white lace ruffles that set off Mary's
slender hands.

Mary was beautiful in that beautiful dress. Her hair
was silkier and more golden than the golden silk
threads in the plaid. Her blind eyes were bluer than

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the blue in it. Her cheeks were pink, and her figure
was so stylish.

"Oh, Mary," Laura said. "You look exactly as if
you'd stepped out of a fashion plate. There won't be,
there just can't be, one single girl in college who can
hold a candle to you."

" D o I really look so well, M a ? " Mary asked timidly,
and she flushed pinker.

For once Ma did not guard against vanity. "Yes,

Mary, you do," she said. "You are not only as stylish as
can be, you are beautiful. No matter where you go,
you will be a pleasure to every eye that sees you. And,

I am thankful to say, you may be sure your clothes are
equal to any occasion."

T h e y could not look at her longer. She was almost
fainting from the heat, in that woolen dress. T h e y laid
it carefully away, done at last, and a great success.

There were only a few more things to be done now.

Ma must make Mary a winter hat of velvet, and knit
some stockings for her, and Laura was knitting her a
pair of mitts, of brown silk thread.

"I can finish them in spare time," Laura said.

"We're through with the sewing, in time for me to
help Pa make hay."

She liked working with Pa, and she liked working
outdoors in the sun and wind. Besides, secretly she
was hoping to leave off her corsets while she worked
in the haying.

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"I suppose you may help to load the hay," Ma
agreed reluctantly, "but it will be stacked in town."

"Oh, Ma, no! Do we have to move to town again?"

Laura cried.

"Modulate your voice, Laura," Ma said gently. " R e -
member, 'Her voice was ever gentle, low, and soft, an
excellent thing in woman.'"

"Do we have to go to town?" Laura murmured.

"Your Pa and I think best not to risk a winter in this
house until he can make it more weatherproof," said

Ma. "You know that we could not have lived through
last winter here."

"Maybe this winter won't be so bad," Laura
pleaded.

"We must not tempt Providence," Ma said firmly.

Laura knew it was decided; they had to live in town
again next winter, and she must make the best of it.

That evening when the flock of happy blackbirds
was swirling at play in the sunset air above the oat-
field, Pa took out his shotgun and shot them. He did
not like to do it, and in the house no one liked to hear
the shots, but they knew it must be done. Pa must
protect the crops. T h e horses and Ellen and her calves
would live on hay that winter, but the oats and the
corn were cash crops. T h e y would sell for money to
pay taxes and buy coal.

As soon as the dew was off the grass next morning,

Pa went out to cut it with the mowing machine. In the

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house Ma began to make Mary's velvet hat, and Laura
busily knitted a brown silk mitt. At eleven o'clock Ma
said, "Mercy, it's time to start dinner already. Run out,

Laura, and see if you can find a mess of roasting ears
to boil."

T h e corn was taller than Laura now, a lavish sight to
see, with its long leaves rustling thickly and its nod-
ding tasseled tops. As Laura went in between the
rows, a great black swirl of birds rose up and whirled
above her. T h e noise of their wings was louder than
the rustling of all the long leaves. T h e birds were so
many that they made a shadow like a cloud. It passed
swiftly over the corn tops and the crowd of birds set-
tled again.

T h e ears of corn were plentiful. Nearly every stalk
had two ears on it, some had three. T h e tassels were
dry, only a little pollen was still flying and the corn-
silks hung like thick, green hair from the tips of the
green cornhusks. Here and there a tuft of cornsilk was
turning brown, and the ear felt full in the husk when

Laura gently pinched it. To make sure, before she
tore it from the stalk, she parted the husks to see the
rows of milky kernels.

Blackbirds kept flying up around her. Suddenly she
stood stock-still. T h e blackbirds were eating the corn!

Here and there she saw bare tips of ears. T h e husks
were stripped back, and kernels were gone from the
cobs. While she stood there, blackbirds settled around

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her. Their claws clung to the ears, their sharp beaks
ripped away the husks, and quickly pecking they
swallowed the kernels.

Silently, desperately, Laura ran at them. She felt as
if she were screaming. She beat at the birds with her
sunbonnet. T h e y rose up swirling on noisy wings and
settled again to the corn, before her, behind her, all
around her. T h e y swung clinging to the ears, ripping
away the husks, swallowing the corn crop. She could
do nothing against so many.

She took a few ears in her apron and went to the
house. Her heart was beating fast and her wrists and
knees trembled. When Ma asked what was the mat-
ter, she did not like to answer. " T h e blackbirds are in
the corn," she said. "Oughtn't I to tell P a ? "

"Blackbirds always eat a little corn, I wouldn't
worry about it," said Ma. "You might take him a cold
drink."

In the hayfield, Pa was not much troubled about the
blackbirds. He said he had about cleaned them out of
the oats, he had shot a hundred or more. " L i k e l y
they'll do some harm to the corn, but that can't be
helped," he said.

"There are so many of them," Laura said. "Pa, if
you don't get a corn crop, can—can Mary go to col-
lege?"

Pa looked bleak. "You think it's as bad as that?"

"There's so many of them," said Laura.

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Pa glanced at the sun. "Well, another hour can't
make much difference. I'll see about it when I come
to dinner."

At noon he took his shotgun to the cornfield. He
walked between the corn rows and shot into the cloud
of blackbirds as it rose. Every shot brought down a
hail of dead birds, but the black cloud settled into the
corn again. When he had shot away all his cartridges,
the swirl of wings seemed no thinner.

There was not a blackbird in the oatfield. T h e y had
left it. But they had eaten every kernel of oats that
could be dug out of the shocks. Only straw was left.

Ma thought that she and the girls could keep them
away from the corn. T h e y tried to do it. Even Grace
ran up and down the rows, screeching and waving her
little sunbonnet. T h e blackbirds only swirled around
them and settled again to the ears of corn, tearing the
husks and pecking away the kernels.

"You'll wear yourselves out for nothing, Caroline,"

said Pa. "I'll go to town and buy more cartridges."

When he had gone, Ma said, "Let's see if we can't
keep them off till he gets back."

T h e y ran up and down, in the sun and heat, stum-
bling over the rough sods, screeching and shouting and
waving their arms. Sweat ran down their faces and their
backs, the sharp cornleaves cut their hands and cheeks.

Their throats ached from yelling. And always the
swirling wings rose and settled again. Always scores of

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blackbirds were clinging to the ears, and sharp beaks
were tearing and pecking.

At last Ma stopped. "It's no use, girls," she said.

Pa came with more cartridges. All that afternoon he
shot blackbirds. T h e y were so thick that every pellet
of shot brought down a bird. It seemed that the more
he shot, the more there were. It seemed that all the
blackbirds in the Territory were hurrying to that feast
of corn.

At first there were only common blackbirds. T h e n
came larger, yellow-headed blackbirds, and blackbirds
with red heads and a spot of red on each wing. Hun-
dreds of them came.

In the morning a dark spray of blackbirds rose and
fell above the cornfield. After breakfast Pa came to
the house, bringing both hands full of birds he had
shot.

"I never heard of anyone's eating blackbirds," he
said, "but these must be good meat, and they're as fat
as butter."

"Dress them, Laura, and we'll have them fried for
dinner," said Ma. "There's no great loss without some
small gain."

Laura dressed the birds, and at noon Ma heated the
frying-pan and laid them in it. T h e y fried in their own
fat, and at dinner everyone agreed that they were the
tenderest, most delicious meat that had ever been on
that table.

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After dinner, Pa brought another armful of black-
birds and an armful of corn.

"We might as well figure that the crop's gone," he
said. " T h i s corn's a little too green, but we'd better
eat what we can of it before the blackbirds get it all."

"I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner!" Ma
exclaimed. "Laura and Carrie, hurry and pick every
ear that's possibly old enough to make dried corn.

Surely we can save a little, to eat next winter."

Laura knew why Ma had not thought of that sooner;
she was too distracted. T h e corn corp was gone. Pa
would have to take from his savings to pay taxes and
buy coal. T h e n how could they manage to send Mary
to college this fall?

T h e blackbirds were so thick now that between the
corn rows their wings beat rough against Laura's arms
and battered her sunbonnet. She felt sharp little blows
on her head, and Carrie cried out that the birds were
pecking her. T h e y seemed to feel that the corn was
theirs, and to be fighting for it. T h e y rose up harsh at

Laura's face and Carrie's, and flew scolding and peck-
ing at their sunbonnets.

Not much corn was left. Even the youngest ears, on
which the kernels were hardly more than blisters, had
been stripped and pecked at. But Laura and Carrie
several times filled their aprons with ears only partly
eaten.

When Laura looked for the blackbirds, to dress

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them for dinner, she could not find them and Ma
would not say where they were.

"Wait and s e e , " Ma answered mysteriously. "Mean-
time, we'll boil this corn, and cut it off the cobs, to
dry."

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There is a knack to cutting corn from a cob. The
knife must slice evenly, the whole length of the rows,
cutting deep enough to get almost the whole kernel,
but not so deep as to cut even an edge from the sharp
pocket in which each kernel grows. T h e kernels fall
away in milky slabs, moist and sticky.

Ma spread these on a clean, old tablecloth laid out-
doors in the sunshine, and she covered them with an-
other cloth, to keep away the blackbirds and the
chickens and the flies. T h e hot sun would dry the corn,
and next winter, soaked and boiled, it would be good
eating.

"That's an Indian idea," Pa remarked, when he
came to dinner. "You'll admit yet, Caroline, there's
something to be said for Indians."

"If there is," Ma replied, "you've already said it,
many's the time, so I needn't." Ma hated Indians, but
now she was brimming with some secret. Laura
guessed that it must be the missing blackbirds.

"Comb your hair and sit up to the table, Charles," Ma
said.

She opened the oven door, and took out the tin milk
pan. It was full of something covered thickly over
with delicately browned biscuit crust. She set it before

Pa and he looked at it amazed. "Chicken pie!"

" ' S i n g a song of sixpence—"' said Ma.

Laura went on from there, and so did Carrie and

Mary and even Grace.

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"A pocket full of rye,

Four and twenty blackbirds,

Baked in a pie!

When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing.

Was not that a dainty dish

To set before the king?"

"Well, I'll be switched!" said Pa. He cut into the
pie's crust with a big spoon, and turned over a big
chunk of it onto a plate. T h e underside was steamed
and fluffy. Over it he poured spoonfuls of thin brown
gravy, and beside it he laid half a blackbird, browned,
and so tender that the meat was slipping from the
bones. He handed that first plate across the table to

Ma.

The scent of that opened pie was making all their
mouths water so that they had to swallow again and
again while they waited for their portions, and under
the table the kitty curved against their legs, her hun-
gry purring running into anxious miows.

"The pan held twelve birds," said Ma. "Just two
apiece, but one is all that Grace can possibly eat, so
that leaves three for you, Charles."

"It takes you to think up a chicken pie, a year be-
fore there's chickens to make it with," Pa said. He ate
a mouthful and said, " T h i s beats a chicken pie all hol-
low."

They all agreed that blackbird pie was even better

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than chicken pie. There were, besides, new potatoes
and peas, and sliced cucumbers, and young boiled car-
rots that Ma had thinned from the rows, and creamy
cottage cheese. And the day was not even Sunday. As
long as the blackbirds lasted, and the garden was
green, they could eat like this every day.

Laura thought, "Ma is right, there is always some-
thing to be thankful for." Still, her heart was heavy.

T h e oats and the corn crop were gone. She did not
know how Mary could go to college now. T h e beauti-
ful new dress, the two other new dresses, and the
pretty underwear, must be laid away until next year. It
was a cruel disappointment to Mary.

Pa ate the last spoonful of pink, sugary cream from
his saucer of tomatoes, and drank his tea. Dinner was
over. He got up and took his hat from its nail and he
said to Ma, "Tomorrow's Saturday. If you'll plan to go
to town with me, we can pick out Mary's trunk."

Mary gasped. Laura cried out, "Is Mary going to
college?"

Pa was astonished. He asked, "What's the matter
with you, L a u r a ? "

"How can she?" Laura asked him. "There isn't any
corn, or any oats."

"I didn't realize you're old enough to be worrying,"

said Pa. " I ' m going to sell the heifer calf."

Mary cried out, "Oh no! Not the heifer!"

In another year the heifer would be a cow. Then

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they would have had two cows. T h e n they would have
had milk and butter all the year around. Now, if Pa
sold the heifer, they would have to wait two more
years for the little calf to grow up.

"Selling her will help out," said Pa. "I ought to get
all of fifteen dollars for her."

"Don't worry about it, girls," said Ma. "We must cut
our coat to fit the cloth."

"Oh, Pa, it sets you back a whole year," Mary
mourned.

"Never mind, Mary," said Pa. "It's time you were
going to college, and now we've made up our minds
you're going. A flock of pesky blackbirds can't stop
us."

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MARY GOES TO COLLEGE

The last day came. Tomorrow Mary was going
away.

Pa and Ma had brought home her new
trunk. It was covered outside with bright tin, pressed
into little bumps that made a pattern. Strips of shiny
varnished wood were riveted around its middle and
up its corners, and three strips ran lengthwise of its
curved lid. Short pieces of iron were screwed onto the
corners, to protect the wooden strips. When the lid
was shut down, two iron tongues fitted into two small
iron pockets, and two pairs of iron rings came to-
gether so that the trunk could be locked with pad-
locks.

"It's a good, solid trunk," Pa said. "And I got fifty

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feet of stout new rope to rope it with."

Mary's face shone while she felt it over carefully
with her sensitive fingers and Laura told her about the
bright tin and shiny yellow wood. Ma said, "It is the
very newest style in trunks, Mary, and it should last
you a lifetime."

Inside, the trunk was smooth-polished wood. Ma
lined it carefully with newspapers, and packed tightly
into it all Mary's belongings. Every corner she
crammed with wadded newspapers, so firmly that
nothing could move during the rough journey on the
train. She put in many layers of newspapers, too, for
she feared that Mary did not have enough clothes
to fill the trunk. But when everything was in and
cram-jammed down as tightly as possible, the paper-
covered mound rose up high enough to fill the curved
lid, and Ma sat on it to hold it down while Pa snapped
the padlocks.

Then, rolling the trunk end over end, and over and
over, Pa tugged and strained loops of the new rope
around it, and Laura helped hold the rope tight while
he drew the knots fast.

"There," he said finally. "That's one job well done."

As long as they were busy, they could keep pushed
deep down inside them the knowledge that M a r y
was going away. Now everything was done. It was
not yet supper time, and the time was empty, for
thinking.

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Pa cleared his throat and went out of the house. Ma
brought her darning basket, but she set it on the table
and stood looking out of the window. Grace begged,

"Don't go away, Mary, why? Don't go away, tell me a
story."

T h i s was the last time that Mary would hold Grace
in her lap and tell the story of Grandpa and the pan-
ther in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Grace would be a
big girl before Mary came back.

" N o , Grace, you must not tease," Ma said, when the
story was finished. "What would you like for supper,

M a r y ? " It would be Mary's last supper at home.

"Anything you put on the table is good, M a , " Mary
answered.

"It is so hot," Ma said. "I believe I will have cottage
cheese balls with onions in them, and the cold
creamed peas. Suppose you bring in some lettuce and
tomatoes from the garden, Laura."

Suddenly Mary asked, "Could I come with you? I
would like a little walk."

"You needn't hurry," Ma told them. "There is
plenty of time before supper."

T h e y went walking past the stable and up the low
hill beyond. T h e sun was sinking to rest, like a king,

Laura thought, drawing the gorgeous curtains of his
great bed around him. But Mary was not pleased by
such fancies. So Laura said, " T h e sun is sinking,

Mary, into white downy clouds that spread to the

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edge of the world. All the tops of them are crimson,
and streaming down from the top of the sky are great
gorgeous curtains of rose and gold with pearly edges.

They are a great canopy over the whole prairie. T h e
little streaks of sky between them are clear, pure
green."

Mary stood still. "I'll miss our walks," she said, her
voice trembling a little.

"So will I." Laura swallowed, and said, "but only
think, you are going to college."

"I couldn't have, without you," Mary said. "You
have always helped me to study, and you gave Ma
your nine dollars for me."

"It wasn't much," said Laura. "It wasn't anything
like I wish I—"

"It was, too!" Mary contradicted. "It was a lot."

Laura's throat choked up. She winked her eyelids
hard and took a deep breath but her voice quivered.

"I hope you like college, Mary."

"Oh, I will. I will!" Mary breathed. " T h i n k of be-
ing able to study and learn—Oh, everything! Even to
play the organ. I do owe it partly to you, Laura. Even
if you aren't teaching school yet, you have helped me
to go."

"I am going to teach school as soon as I am old
enough," said Laura. " T h e n I can help more."

"I wish you didn't have to," Mary said.

"Well, I do have to," Laura replied. "But I can't, till

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I'm sixteen. That's the law, a teacher has to be six-
teen years old."

"I won't be here then," said Mary. T h e n suddenly
they felt as if she were going away forever. T h e years
ahead of them were empty and frightening.

"Oh, Laura, I never have been away from home be-
fore. I don't know what I'll do," Mary confessed. She
was trembling all over.

"It will be all right," Laura told her stoutly. "Ma and

Pa are going with you, and I know you can pass the
examinations. Don't be scared."

" I ' m not scared. I won't be scared," Mary insisted.

"I'll be lonesome. But that can't be helped."

" N o , " Laura said. After a minute she cleared her
throat and told Mary, " T h e sun has gone through the
white clouds. It is a huge, pulsing ball of liquid fire.

T h e clouds above it are scarlet and crimson and gold
and purple, and the great sweeps of cloud over the
whole sky are burning flames."

"It seems to me I can feel their light on my face,"

Mary said. "I wonder if the sky and the sunsets are
different in Iowa?"

Laura did not know. T h e y came slowly down the
low hill. This was the end of their last walk together,
or at least, their last walk for such a long time that it
seemed forever.

"I am sure I can pass the examinations, because you
helped me so much," Mary said. "You went over

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
every word of your lessons with me, until I do know
everything in the school books. But Laura, what will
you do? Pa is spending so much for me—the trunk,
and a new coat, a new pair of shoes, the railroad fares,
and all—it worries me. How can he ever manage
school books and clothes for you and Carrie?"

"Never mind, Pa and Ma will manage," said Laura.

"You know they always do."

Early next morning, even before Laura was dressed,

Ma was scalding and plucking the blackbirds that Pa
had killed. She fried them after breakfast, and as soon
as they were cool she packed in a shoe box the lunch
to take on the train.

Pa and Ma and Mary had bathed the night before.

Now Mary put on her best old calico dress and her
second-best shoes. Ma dressed in her summer challis,
and Pa put on his Sunday suit. A neighbor boy had
agreed to drive them to the depot. Pa and Ma would
be gone a week, and when they came home without

Mary they could walk from town.

The wagon came. T h e freckled boy, with red hair
sticking through a rent in his straw hat, helped Pa load

Mary's trunk into the wagon. T h e sun was shining hot
and the wind was blowing.

"Now, Carrie and Grace, be good girls and mind

Laura," Ma said. "Remember to keep the chickens'

water pan filled, Laura, and look out for hawks, and
scald and sun the milk pans every day."

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"Yes, M a , " they all answered.

"Good-by," Mary said. "Good-by Laura. And Carrie.

And Grace."

"Good-by," Laura and Carrie managed to say. Grace
only stared round-eyed. Pa helped Mary to climb up
the wagonwheel to sit with Ma and the boy on the
wagon seat. He took his seat on the trunk.

"All right, let's g o , " he said to the boy. "Good-by,
girls."

T h e wagon started. Grace's mouth opened wide and
she bawled.

"For shame, Grace! For shame! a big girl like you,
crying!" Laura choked out. Her throat was swelling so
that it hurt. Carrie looked as though she might cry in a
moment. "Shame on you!" Laura said again, and

Grace gulped down a last sob.

Pa and Ma and Mary did not look back. T h e y had to
go. T h e wagon taking them away left silence behind
it. Laura had never felt such a stillness. It was not the
happy stillness of the prairie. She felt it in the very pit
of her stomach.

"Come," she said. "We'll go into the house."

T h a t silence had settled into the house. It was so
still that Laura felt she must whisper. Grace smoth-
ered a whimpering. T h e y stood there in their own
house and felt nothing around them but silence and
emptiness. Mary was gone.

Grace began to cry again and two large tears stood

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
in Carrie's eyes. This would never do. Right now, and
for a whole week, everything was in Laura's charge,
and Ma must be able to depend on her.

"Listen to me, Carrie and Grace," she said briskly.

"We are going to clean this house from top to bottom,
and we'll begin right now! So when Ma comes home,
she'll find the fall housecleaning done."

There had never been such a busy time in all

Laura's life. T h e work was hard, too. She had not
realized how heavy a quilt is, to lift soaked and drip-
ping from a tub, and to wring out, and to hang on a
line. She had not known how hard it would be, some-
times, never to be cross with Grace who was always
trying to help and only making more work. It was
amazing, too, how dirty they all got, while cleaning a
house that had seemed quite clean. T h e harder they
worked, the dirtier everything became.

T h e worst day of all was very hot. T h e y had tugged
and lugged the straw ticks outdoors, and emptied
them and washed them, and when they were dry they
had filled them with sweet fresh hay. T h e y had got
the bed springs off the bedsteads and leaned them
against the walls, and Laura had jammed her finger.

Now they were pulling the bedsteads apart. Laura
jerked at one corner and Carrie jerked at the other.

T h e corners came apart, and suddenly the head-
board came down on Laura's head so that she saw
stars.

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"Oh, Laura! did it hurt you?" Carrie cried.

"Well, not very much," Laura said. She pushed the
headboard against the wall, and it slid down softly and
hit her anklebone. "Ouch!" she couldn't help yelling.

Then she added, " L e t it lie there if it wants to!"

"We have to scrub the floor," Carrie pointed out.

"I know we have to," Laura said grimly. She sat on
the floor, gripping her ankle. Her straggling hair stuck
to her sweating neck. Her dress was damp and hot and
dirty, and her fingernails were positively black. Car-
rie's face was smudged with dust and sweat and there
were bits of hay in her hair.

"We ought to have a bath," Laura murmured. Sud-
denly she cried out, "Where's Grace?"

They had not thought of Grace for some time.

Grace had once been lost on the prairie. Two children
at Brookins, lost on the prairie, had died before they
could be found.

"Here I yam," Grace answered sweetly, coming in.

"It's raining."

"No!" Laura exclaimed. Indeed, a shadow was over
the house. A few large drops were falling. At that mo-
ment, thunder crashed. Laura screamed, "Carrie! T h e
straw ticks ! T h e bedding !"

They ran. The straw ticks were not very heavy, but
they were stuffed fat with hay. T h e y were hard to hold
on to. The edge kept slipping out of Laura's grasp or

Carrie's. When they got one to the house, they had to

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
hold it up edgewise to get it through the doorway.

"We can hold it up or we can move it, we can't do
both," Carried panted. Already the swift thunder-
storm was rolling overhead and rain was falling fast.

"Get out of the way!" Laura shouted. Somehow she
pushed and carried the whole straw tick into the
house. It was too late to bring in the other one, or the
bedding from the line. Rain was pouring down.

T h e bedding would dry on the line, but the other
straw tick must be emptied again, washed again, and
filled again. Straw ticks must be perfectly dry, or the
hay in them would smell musty.

"We can move everything out of the other bedroom
into the front room, and go on scrubbing," said Laura.

So they did that. For some time there was no sound
but thunder and beating rain, and the swish of scrub-
bing cloths and the wringing out. Laura and Carrie
had worked backward on hands and knees almost
across the bedroom floor, when Grace called happily,

" I ' m helping!"

She was standing on a chair and blacking the stove.

She was splashed from head to foot with blacking. On
the floor all around the stove were dribbles and
splotches of blacking. Grace had filled the blacking
box full of water. As she looked up beaming for

Laura's approval, she gave the smeared stove top an-
other swipe of the blacking cloth, and pushed the box
of soft blacking off it.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Her blue eyes were filled with tears.

Laura gave one wild look at that house that Ma had
left so neat and pretty. She just managed to say,

"Never mind, Grace; don't cry. I'll clean it u p . " T h e n
she sank down on the stacked pieces of the bedsteads
and let her forehead sink to her pulled-up knees.

"Oh, Carrie, I just don't seem to know how to man-
age the way Ma does!" she almost wailed.

That was the worst day. On Friday the house was al-
most in order, and they worried lest Ma come home
too soon. T h e y worked far into the night that night,
and on Saturday it was almost midnight before Laura
and Carrie took their baths and collapsed to sleep. But
for Sunday the house was immaculate.

The floor around the stove was scrubbed bone-
white. Only faintest traces of the blacking remained.

The beds were made up with clean, bright quilts and
they smelled sweetly of fresh hay. T h e windowpanes
glittered. Every shelf in the cupboards was scrubbed
and every dish washed. "And we'll eat bread and
drink milk from now on, and keep the dishes clean!"

said Laura.

There remained only the curtains to be washed and
ironed and hung, and of course the usual washing to
do, on Monday. T h e y were glad that Sunday is a day
of rest.

Early Monday morning, Laura washed the curtains.

They were dry when she and Carrie hung the rest of

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
the washing on the line. T h e y sprinkled the curtains
and ironed them, and hung them at the window. The
house was perfect.

"We'll keep Grace out of it till Pa and Ma come
home," Laura said privately to Carrie. Neither of
them felt like even taking a walk. So they sat on the
grass in the shade of the house and watched Grace run
about, and watched for the smoke of the train.

T h e y saw it rolling up from the prairie and fading
slowly along the skyline like a line of writing that they
could not read. T h e y heard the train whistle. After a
pause it whistled again, and the curling smoke began
again to write low above the skyline. T h e y had almost
decided that Pa and Ma had not come yet, when they
saw them small and far away, walking out on the road
from town.

T h e n all the lonesomeness for Mary came back, as
sharply as if she had just gone away.

T h e y met Pa and Ma at the edge of Big Slough, and
for a little while they all talked at once.

Pa and Ma were greatly pleased with the college.

T h e y said it was a fine place, a large brick building.

Mary would be warm and comfortable in it when win-
ter came. She would have good food, and she was with
a crowd of pleasant girls. Ma liked her roommate very
much. T h e teachers were kind. Mary had passed the
examinations with flying colors. Ma had seen no
clothes there nicer than hers. She was going to study

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
political economy, and literature, and higher mathe-
matics, and sewing, knitting, beadwork, and music.

The college had a parlor organ.

Laura was so glad for Mary that she could almost
forget the lonesome ache of missing her. Mary had al-
ways so loved to study. Now she could revel in study-
ing so much that she had never before had a chance to
learn.

"Oh, she must stay there, she must" Laura thought,
and she renewed her vow to study hard, though she
didn't like to, and get a teacher's certificate as soon as
she was sixteen, so that she could earn the money to
keep Mary in college.

She had forgotten that week of housecleaning, but
as they came to the house Ma asked, "Carrie, what
are you and Grace smiling about? You're keeping
something up your sleeves!"

Then Grace jumped up and down and shouted, "I
blacked the stove!"

"So you did," said Ma, going into the house. "It
looks very nice, but Grace, I am sure that Laura
helped you black it. You must not say—" T h e n she
saw the curtains. "Why, Laura," she said, "did you
wash the—and the windows—and— Why, I declare!"

"We did the fall housecleaning for you, M a , " said

Laura, and Carrie chimed in, "We washed the bed-
ding, and filled the straw ticks, and scrubbed the
floors, and everything."

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Ma lifted her hands in surprise, then she sat weakly
down and let her hands fall. " M y goodness!"

Next day, when she unpacked her valise, she sur-
prised them. She came from the bedroom with three
small flat packages, and gave one to Laura, one to

Carrie, and one to Grace.

In Grace's package was a picture book. T h e colorful
pictures, on shiny paper, were pasted to cloth leaves
of many pretty colors, and every leaf was pinked
around its edges.

In Laura's package was a beautiful small book, too.

It was thin, and wider than it was tall. On its red
cover, embossed in gold, were the words,

T h e pages, of different soft colors, were blank. Car-
rie had another exactly like it, except that the cover of
hers was blue and gold.

"I found that autograph albums are all the fashion
nowadays," said Ma. "All the most fashionable girls in

Vinton have them."

"What are they, exactly?" Laura asked.

"You ask a friend to write a verse on one of the blank
pages and sign her name to it," Ma explained. "If she
has an autograph album, you do the same for her, and
you keep the albums to remember each other by."

"I won't mind going to school so much now," said

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Carrie. "I will show my autograph album to all the
strange girls, and if they are nice to me I will let them
write in it."

Ma was glad that the autograph albums pleased
them both. She said, "Your Pa and I wanted our other
girls to have something from Vinton, Iowa, where

Mary is going to college."

123

Miss WILDER

TEACHES SCHOOL

Early on the First Day of School Laura and

Carrie set out. T h e y wore their best sprigged
calico dresses, for Ma said they would out-
grow them before next summer, anyway. T h e y car-
ried their school books under their arms, and Laura
carried their tin dinner pail.

T h e coolness of night still lingered in the early sun-
light. Under the high blue sky the green of the prairie
was fading to soft brown and mauve. A little wind
wandered over it carrying the fragrance of ripening

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
grasses and the pungent smell of wild sunflowers. All
along the road the yellow blossoms were nodding, and
in its grassy middle they struck with soft thumps
against the swinging dinner pail. Laura walked in one
wheel track, and Carrie in the other.

"Oh, I do hope Miss Wilder will be a good teacher,"

said Carrie. " D o you think so?"

"Pa must think so, he's on the school board," Laura
pointed out. "Though maybe they hired her because
she's the Wilder boy's sister. Oh, Carrie, remember
those beautiful brown horses?"

"Just because he has those horses don't make his
sister nice," Carrie argued. "But maybe she is."

"Anyway, she knows how to teach. She has a certifi-
cate," said Laura. She sighed, thinking how hard she
must study to get her own certificate.

Main Street was growing longer. Now a new livery
stable was on Pa's side of it, across from the bank. A
new grain elevator stood tall beyond the far end of the
street, across from the railroad tracks.

"Why are all those lots vacant, between the livery
stable and Pa's?" Carrie wondered.

Laura did not know. Anyway, she liked the wild
prairie grasses there. Pa's new haystacks stood thick
around his barn. He would not have to haul hay from
the claim to burn this winter.

She and Carrie turned west on Second Street. Be-
yond the schoolhouse, new little claim shanties were

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
scattered now. A new flour mill was racketing by the
railroad tracks, and across the vacant lots between

Second Street and Third Street could be seen the
skeleton of the new church building on Third Street.

Men were working on it. A great many strangers were
in the crowd of pupils gathered near the schoolhouse
door.

Carrie timidly shrank back, and Laura's knees
weakened, but she must be brave for Carrie, so she
went on boldly. T h e palms of her hands grew moist
with sweat when so many eyes looked at her. There
must have been twenty boys and girls.

Taking firm grip on her courage, Laura walked up
to them and Carrie went with her. T h e boys stood
back a little on one side and the girls on the other. It
seemed to Laura that she simply could not walk to the
schoolhouse steps.

T h e n suddenly she saw on the steps Mary Power
and Minnie Johnson. She knew them; they had been
in school last fall, before the blizzards came. Mary

Power said, "Hello, Laura Ingalls!"

Her dark eyes were glad to see Laura, and so was

Minnie Johnson's freckled face. Laura felt all right
then. She felt she would always be very fond of Mary

Power.

"We've picked out our seats, we're going to sit to-
gether," said Minnie. "But why don't you sit across
the aisle from us?"

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

They went into the schoolhouse together. Mary's
books and Minnie's were on the back desk next to the
wall, on the girls' side. Laura laid hers on the desk
across the aisle. Those two back seats were the very
best seats. Carrie, of course, must sit nearer the
teacher, with the smaller girls.

Miss Wilder was coming down the aisle, with the
school bell in her hand. Her hair was dark and her
eyes were gray. She seemed a very pleasant person.

Her dark gray dress was stylishly made, like Mary's
best one, tight and straight in the front, with a pleated
ruffle just touching the floor, and an overskirt draped
and puffed above a little train.

"You girls have chosen your seats, haven't you?" she
said pleasantly.

"Yes, ma'am," Minnie Johnson said bashfully, but

Mary Power smiled and said, "I am Mary Power, and
this is Minnie Johnson, and Laura Ingalls. We would
like to keep these seats if we may, please. We are the
biggest girls in school."

"Yes, you may keep these seats," said Miss Wilder,
very pleasantly.

She went to the door and rang the bell. Pupils came
crowding in, till nearly all the seats were filled. On the
girls' side, only one seat was left vacant. On the boys'

side, all the back seats were empty because the big
boys would not come to school until the winter term.

They were still working on the claims now.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Laura saw that Carrie was sitting happily with

Mamie Beardsley, near the front where younger girls
should sit. T h e n suddenly she saw a strange girl hesi-
tating in the aisle. She seemed about as old as Laura,
and as shy. She was small and slim. Her soft brown
eyes were large in a small round face. Her hair was
black and softly wavy, and around her forehead the
short hairs curled. She was flushing pink from ner-
vousness. Timidly she glanced at Laura.

Unless Laura would take her as a seatmate, she
must sit alone in the empty seat.

Quickly Laura smiled, and patted the seat beside
her. T h e new girl's great brown eyes laughed joyously.

She laid her books on the desk and sat down beside

Laura.

When Miss Wilder had called the school to order,
she took the record book and went from desk to desk,
writing down the pupils' names. Laura's seatmate an-
swered that her name was Ida Wright, but she was
called Ida Brown. She was the adopted daughter of

Reverend Brown and Mrs. Brown.

Rev. Brown was the new Congregational minister
who had just come to town. Laura knew that Pa and

Ma did not like him very much, but she was sure she
liked Ida.

Miss Wilder had put the record book in her desk and
was ready to begin school, when the door opened
again. Everyone looked to see who had come tardily

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
to school on this First Day.

Laura could not believe her eyes. T h e girl who
came in was Nellie Oleson, from Plum Creek in Min-
nesota.

She had grown taller than Laura, and she was
much slimmer. She was willowy, while Laura was
still as round and dumpy as a little French horse. But

Laura knew her at once, though it was two years
since she had seen her. Nellie's nose was still held
high and sniffing, her small eyes were still set close
to it, and her mouth was prim and prissy.

Nellie was the girl who had made fun of Laura and

Mary because they were only country girls, while her
father was a storekeeper. She had spoken impudently
to Ma. She had been mean to Jack, the good and
faithful bulldog, who was dead now.

She had come late to school, yet she stood looking
as if the school were not good enough for her. She
wore a fawn-colored dress made with a polonaise.

Deep pleated ruffles were around the bottom of the
skirt, around her neck, and falling from the edges of
the wide sleeves. At her throat was a full jabot of lace.

Her fair, straight hair was drawn smoothly back from
her sharp face, and twisted into a tall French knot.

She held her head high and looked scornfully down
her nose.

"I would like a back seat, if you please," she said to

Miss Wilder. And she gave Laura a nudging look that

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
said, "Get out and give me that seat."

Laura sat more solidly and firmly where she was,
and looked back at Nellie through narrowed eyes.

Everyone else looked at Miss Wilder to see what she
would do. Miss Wilder cleared her throat nervously.

Laura kept on looking at Nellie, till Nellie looked
away. She looked at Minnie Johnson, and said, nod-
ding toward Minnie's seat, " T h a t place will do."

"Will you change, Minnie?" Miss Wilder asked. But
she had promised that Minnie might sit there.

Slowly Minnie answered, "Yes, ma'am." Slowly she
picked up her books and went forward to the vacant
seat. Mary Power did not move, and Nellie stood wait-
ing in the aisle; she would not go around the seat to
the place that Minnie had left.

"Now, Mary," Miss Wilder said, "if you will move
over and make room for our new girl, we will all be
settled."

Mary stood up. "I'll go with Minnie," she said
shortly. "I'd rather."

Nellie sat down smiling. She had the best seat in the
room, and the whole desk for her own use.

Laura was meanly glad to hear her tell Miss Wilder,
for the record book, that her father was living on a
claim north of town. So Nellie herself was a country
girl now! T h e n suddenly Laura realized that Pa was
moving to town for the winter; she and Carrie would
be town girls.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Miss Wilder rapped the desk with her ruler, and
said, "Attention, boys and girls!" T h e n she made a lit-
tle speech, smiling all the time.

She said, "Now we are all ready to begin the school
term, and we're all going to do our best to make it a

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
success, aren't we? You know you are all here to learn
as much as you possibly can, and I am here to help
you. You must not look upon me as a taskmistress, but
as a friend. We are all going to be the very best of
friends, I'm sure."

T h e small boys were squirming, and Laura wanted
to. She could not look at Miss Wilder's smiling any
more.

She only wished that Miss Wilder would stop talk-
ing. But Miss Wilder went on in her smiling voice:

"None of us will ever be unkind or selfish, will we? I
am sure that not one of you will ever be unruly, so
there need be no thought of punishments here in our
happy school. We shall all be friends together and love
and help each other."

T h e n at last she said, "You may take your books."

There were no recitations that morning, for Miss

Wilder was sorting the pupils into their classes. Laura
and Ida, Mary Power and Minnie, and Nellie Oleson,
were the only big girls. T h e y were the most advanced
class, and the whole class until the big boys would
come to school.

At recess they stayed in a group, getting acquainted.

Ida was as warm and friendly as she looked. "I'm only
an adopted child," she said. "Mother Brown took me
out of a Home, but she must have liked me to do that,
don't you think so?"

"Of course she liked you, she couldn't have helped

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
it," Laura said. She could imagine what a pretty baby

Ida must have been, with her black curls and big,
laughing brown eyes.

But Nellie wanted all attention for herself.

"I really don't know whether we'll like it out here,"

Nellie said. "We are from the East. We are not used to
such a rough country and rough people."

"You come from western Minnesota, from the same
place we did," said Laura.

"Oh, that?" Nellie brushed away Minnesota with
her hand. "We were there only a little while. We come
from the East, from New York State."

"We all come from the East," Mary Power told her
shortly. "Come on, let's all go outdoors in the sun-
shine."

"My goodness, n o ! " said Nellie. "Why, this wind
will tan your skin!"

They were all tanned but Nellie, and she went on
airily, "I may have to live out in this rough country for
a little while, but I shan't let it spoil my complexion.

In the East, a lady always keeps her skin white and
her hands smooth." Nellie's hands were white and
slender.

There was no time to go outdoors, anyway. Recess
was over. Miss Wilder went to the door and rang the
bell.

At home that night, Carrie chattered about the day
at school until Pa said she was as talkative as a bluejay.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

" L e t Laura get a word in edgewise. Why are you so
quiet, Laura? Anything go wrong?"

T h e n Laura told about Nellie Oleson and all she
had said and done. She finished, "Miss Wilder
shouldn't have let her take the seat away from Mary

Power and Minnie."

"Nor should you ever criticize a teacher, Laura," Ma
gently reminded her.

Laura felt her cheeks grow hot. She knew what a
great opportunity it was, to go to school. Miss Wilder
was there to help her learn, she should be grateful, she
should never impertinently criticize. She should only
try to be perfect in her lessons and in deportment. Yet
she could not help thinking, "Just the same, she
shouldn't have! It was not fair."

" S o the Olesons came from New York State, did
they?" Pa was amused. "That's not so much to brag
about."

Laura remembered then that Pa had lived in New

York State when he was a boy.

He went on, "I don't know how it happened, but

Oleson lost everything he had in Minnesota. He
hasn't a thing in the world now but his homestead
claim, and they tell me his folks back East are help-
ing him out, or he couldn't hang on to that till he
makes a crop. Maybe Nellie feels she's got to brag a
little, to hold her own. I wouldn't let it worry me,

L a u r a . "

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"But she had such pretty clothes," Laura protested.

"And she can't do a bit of work, she keeps her face
and her hands so white."

"You could wear your sunbonnet, you know," said

Ma. "As for her pretty dresses, likely they come out of
a barrel, and maybe she's like the girl in the song, who
was so fine 'with a double ruffle around her neck and
nary a shoe to wear.'"

Laura supposed she should be sorry for Nellie, but
she wasn't. She wished that Nellie Oleson had stayed
in Plum Creek.

Pa got up from the supper table and drew his chair
near the open door. He said, "Bring me the fiddle,

Laura. I want to try a song I heard a fellow singing the
other day. He whistled the chorus. I believe the fiddle
will beat his whistling."

Softly Laura and Carrie washed the dishes, not to
miss a note of the music. Pa sang, low and longingly,
with the sweet clear voice of the fiddle.

"Then meet me—Oh, meet me,

When you hear

The first whip-poor-will call—"

"Whip-poor-will," the fiddle called, and fluting,
throbbing like the throat of the bird, "Whip-poor-
will," the fiddle answered. Near and pleading,

"Whip-poor-will," then far and soft but coming

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
nearer, "Whip-poor-will," till all the gathering twi-
light was filled with the wooing of the birds.

Laura's thoughts untangled from their ugly snarls
and became smooth and peaceful. She thought, "I
will be good. It doesn't matter how hateful Nellie

Oleson is, I will be good."

136

SNUG FOR WINTER

All through the pleasant fall weather Laura and

Carrie were busy girls. In the mornings they
helped do the chores and get breakfast. T h e n
they filled their dinner pail, dressed for school and
hurried away on the mile walk to town. After school
they hurried home, for there was work to do until
darkness came.

Saturday was a whole day of busy working, in a
hurry to be ready to move to town.

Laura and Carrie picked up potatoes while Pa dug
them. They cut the tops from turnips and helped Pa
pile them in the wagon. T h e y pulled and topped the
carrots, too, and the beets and onions. T h e y gathered
the tomatoes and the ground-cherries.

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T h e ground-cherries grew on low leafy bushes.

T h i c k on the stems under the large leaves hung the
six-cornered bells, pale grey and thinner than paper,
and inside each bell was a plump, golden, juicy round
fruit.

T h e husk-tomatoes were covered with a smooth,
dull-brown husk. When this was opened there lay the
round, bright-purple tomato, larger than a ground-
cherry but much smaller than the red tomatoes that
openly flaunted their bright colors.

All day long while the girls were in school, Ma made
preserves of the red tomatoes, of the purple husk-
tomatoes, and of the golden ground-cherries. She
made pickles of the green tomatoes that would not
have time to ripen before it froze. T h e house was full
of the sirupy scent of preserves and the spicy odor of
pickles.

"We will take our provisions with us when we move
to town this time," said Pa with satisfaction. "And we
must go soon. I don't want another October blizzard to
catch us in this thin-walled little house."

" T h i s winter isn't going to be as hard as last win-
ter," Laura said. " T h e weather doesn't feel the
same."

" N o , " Pa agreed. "It isn't likely this winter will be
as hard, nor come as soon, but this time I intend to be
ready for it when it does come."

He hauled the oat straw and the corn fodder and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
stacked them near his haystacks in town. He hauled
the potatoes and turnips, beets and carrots, and stored
them in the cellar of his store building. T h e n busily
all one Monday evening and far into the night, Laura
and Carrie helped Ma pack clothes and dishes and
books.

It was then that Laura discovered a secret. She was
on her knees, lifting winter underwear out of Ma's

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
bottom bureau drawer, and under the red flannels she
felt something hard. She put in her hand and drew out
a book.

It was a perfectly new book, beautifully bound in
green cloth with a gilded pattern pressed into it. The
smooth, straight, gilt edges of the pages looked like
solid gold. On the cover two curving scrolls of lovely,
fancy letters made the words,

Laura was so startled and so amazed by this rich and
beautiful book, hidden there among the flannels, that
she almost dropped it. It fell open on her hands. In the
lamplight the fresh, untouched pages lay spread, each
exciting with unread words printed upon it in clear,
fine type. Straight, thin red lines enclosed each ob-
long of printing, like the treasure it was, and outside
the red lines were the page's pure margins.

Near the bottom of the left-hand page was a short
line in larger type: T H E L O T O S - E A T E R S .

"Courage!" was the first word under that, and
breathlessly Laura read,

"Courage!" he said, and pointed to the land,

"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;

And,, like a—

Laura stopped, aghast. Suddenly she had realized
what she was doing. Ma must have hidden this book.

Laura had no right to read it. Quickly she shut her
eyes, and then she shut the book. It was almost more
than she could do, not to read just one word more, just
to the end of that one line. But she knew that she
must not yield one tiny bit of temptation.

She put the book where it had been, between the
red flannels. She put the flannels back into the
drawer, shut the drawer, and opened the drawer above
it. Then she did not know what to do.

She should confess to Ma what she had done. But
instantly she knew that Ma must be keeping the book
hidden, for a surprise. She thought swiftly, and her
heart was pounding hard, that Pa and Ma must have
bought that book in Vinton, Iowa; they must be saving
it for a Christmas present. A book so rich and fine, a
book of poems, could only be a Christmas present.

And Laura was the oldest girl at home now; it must be
a Christmas present for her!

If she confessed to Ma, she would spoil their Christ-
mas pleasure, that they were looking forward to. Pa
and Ma would be so disappointed.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

It seemed a long time since she had found that
book, but really it had only been a moment. Ma came
in hurriedly and said, "I'll finish in here, Laura, you
go to bed now, it's past your bedtime."

"Yes, M a , " Laura said. She knew that Ma had
feared she would open that lower drawer and find the
book. Never before had she kept a guilty secret from

Ma, but now she did not say a word.

After school next day, she and Carrie did not take
the long walk to the claim. Instead they stopped at

Pa's store building at the corner of Second Street and

Main. Pa and Ma had moved into town for the winter.

T h e stove and the cupboard were set up in the
kitchen. Upstairs the bedsteads stood under the slant-
ing shingle roof, the straw ticks lay plumply on them
under heaped quilts and pillows. Making the beds was
all that Ma had left for Laura and Carrie to do. And

Laura was sure that the Christmas book, Tennyson's

Poems, was hidden in Ma's bureau drawer. She would
never look to see, of course.

Yet every time she saw the bureau she could not
help thinking,

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;

And, like a—

L i k e what? She would have to wait until Christmas
to learn the rest of that lovely poem. "Courage!" he

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
said, and pointed to the land. "This mounting wave
will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they
came unto a land in which it seemed always after-
noon. But it did not seem to Laura that Christmas was
soon.

Downstairs Ma had already made the big storeroom
neat and pleasant. T h e heater was polished, the cur-
tains hung fresh at the window, the clean little rag
rugs lay on the swept floor. T h e two rocking chairs
were in the sunny corner. Mary's was empty.

Often Laura missed Mary so much that she ached.

But it would do no good to speak of it. Mary was in
college, where she had so wanted to be. A teacher had
written Pa that she was well and making rapid
progress; soon she would be able to write a letter.

So no one spoke of the emptiness they all felt now.

Quietly and cheerfully they went about getting sup-
per and setting the table, and Ma did not know that
she sighed when she said, "Well, we are all settled
snug for the winter."

"Yes," Pa said. "This time we are well fixed for it."

They were not the only ones who were ready.

Everyone in the town had been preparing. T h e lum-
beryard was stocked with coal, the merchants had
stuffed their stores full of goods. There was flour at
the mill, and wheat in its bins.

"We will have coal to burn and something to eat all
winter, if the trains can't get through," Pa gloated. It

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
was good to feel safe and prospering, with food
enough and fuel enough so that they need not dread
hunger or cold.

Laura missed the pleasant long walks to school and
back. She had delighted in them. But now there was
no hurry in the mornings, since she had no chores to
do. Pa did them all, now that he had no farm work.

And the shorter walk was better for Carrie.

Pa and Ma and Laura were worried about Carrie.

She had never been strong, and she was not recovering
from the hard winter as she should. T h e y spared her
all but the lightest housework, and Ma coaxed her ap-
petite with the best there was to eat. Still she was thin
and pale, small for her age and spindly. Her eyes were
too large in her peaked little face. Often in the morn-
ings, though the walk was only a mile and Laura car-
ried her books, Carrie grew tired before they reached
the schoolhouse. Sometimes her head ached so badly
that she failed in her recitations. Living in town was
easier. It would be much better for Carrie.

144

SCHOOL DAYS

Laura was enjoying school. She knew all the
pupils now, and she and Ida, Mary Power and

Minnie, were becoming fast friends. At recess
and noon they were always together.

In the crisp, sunny weather the boys played ante-
over and catch, and sometimes they just threw the ball
against the schoolhouse and ran jostling and bumping
together to catch it in the wild prairie grasses. Often
they coaxed Laura, "Come, play with us, Laura. Aw,
come on!"

It was tomboyish to run and play, at her age. But she
did so love to run and jump and catch the ball and
throw it, that sometimes she did join in the games.

The boys were only little boys. She liked them, and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
she never complained when the games grew rough
now and then. One day she overheard Charley saying,

"She isn't a sissy, even if she is a girl."

Hearing that made her feel glad and cozy. When
even little boys like a big girl, she knows that every-
one likes her.

T h e other girls knew that Laura was not really a
tomboy, even when her face was hot from running and
jumping, and the hairpins were coming loose in her
hair. Ida sometimes played, too, and Mary Power
and Minnie would look on, applauding. Only Nellie

Oleson turned up her nose.

Nellie would not even go walking, though they
asked her politely. It was all "too rough, really," she
said.

"She's afraid of spoiling her New York State com-
plexion," Ida laughed.

"I think she stays in the school house to make
friends with Miss Wilder," said Mary Power. "She
talks to her all the time."

"Well, let her. We have a much better time without
her," Minnie said.

"Miss Wilder used to live in New York State, too.

Likely that is what they talk about," Laura re-
marked.

Mary Power gave her a laughing, sidelong glance and
squeezed her arm. No one called Nellie "teacher's
pet," but that was what they were thinking. Laura did

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
not care. She was at the head of the class in all their
studies, and she need not be a teacher's pet to stay
there.

Every evening after supper she studied till bedtime.

It was then that she missed Mary most painfully.

They had always gone over their lessons together. But
she knew that far away in Iowa, Mary was studying,
too, and if she were to stay in college and enjoy all its
wonderful opportunities of learning, Laura must get a
teacher's certificate.

All this went through her head in a flash, while she
went walking, arm in arm with Mary Power and Ida.

"You know what I think?" Minnie asked.

"No, what?" they all asked her.

"I bet that's what Nellie's scheming about," Minnie
said, and she nodded at a team that was coming to-
ward them along the wagon tracks ahead. It was the
brown Morgan horses.

All their slender legs were moving swiftly, their
hoofs raising little explosions of dust. Their glossy
shoulders glistened, their black manes and tails blew
shining in the wind. Their ears pricked forward, and
their glancing bright eyes saw everything gaily. Danc-
ing little red tassels trimmed their bridles.

Sunlight ran glistening on the curve of their arched
necks, straight along their smooth sides and curving
again on their round haunches. And behind them ran a
shining new buggy. Its dashboard glittered, its spotless

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
black top curved over the seat on gleaming black
spokes, its wheels were red. Laura had never seen
such a buggy.

"Why didn't you bow, Laura?" Ida asked when it
had sped by.

"Didn't you see him raise his hat to us?" said Mary

Power. Laura had seen only the beautiful horses, till
the buggy flashed before her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be impolite," she
said. " T h e y are just like poetry, aren't they?"

"You don't mean she's setting her cap for him,

Minnie," Mary Power said. "Why, he's a grown-up
man, he's a homesteader."

"I've seen her looking at those horses," said Minnie.

"I bet she's made up her mind to get a ride behind
them. You know that kind of scheming look she has
sometimes. And now that he's got such a buggy—"

"He didn't have any buggy last Fourth of July," said

Laura.

"It's just come from the east," Minnie told them.

"He ordered it after he sold his wheat crop. He had a
wonderful wheat crop." Minnie always knew such
news, because her brother Arthur told her.

Slowly Mary Power said, "I do believe you are right,

I wouldn't put it past her."

Laura felt a little guilty. She wouldn't make up to

Miss Wilder just to get a ride behind Almanzo

Wilder's horses. Yet she had often thought that if Miss

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Wilder liked her, she might someday take her riding
behind them.

Miss Wilder had taken a claim on this road, only a
quarter of a mile beyond the schoolhouse. She lived
there in a little claim shanty. Almanzo often brought
her to the schoolhouse in the morning, or stopped af-
ter school to take her home. And always, when she
saw those horses, Laura hoped that Miss Wilder
might, perhaps, sometime, ask her for a ride. Could it
be that she was as horrid as Nellie Oleson?

Now that she had seen that buggy, more than ever

Laura wanted such a ride. How could she prevent
such thoughts, when those horses were so beautiful
and the buggy so swift?

"It's almost time for the bell," Ida said, and they all
turned back to the schoolhouse. T h e y must not be
late. In the entry they drank from the dipper that
floated in the water pail there. T h e n they went in,
tanned and windblown, and hot and dusty. Nellie was
neat and ladylike, her skin was white, and every hair
of her head was in its place.

She looked down her nose at them, and smiled a
lofty smile. Laura looked straight back at her, and

Nellie gave a little flounce of her shoulder and chin.

"You needn't think you're so much, Laura Ingalls!"

Nellie said. "Miss Wilder says your father has nothing
much to say about this school, even if he is on the
school board."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Why!" Laura gasped.

"I guess he's got as much to say about this school as
anybody, and maybe more!" Ida said stoutly. "Hasn't
he, L a u r a ? "

"He certainly h a s ! " Laura cried.

"Yes," said Mary Power. "He has more, because

Laura and Carrie are in this school and the others on
the board haven't any children."

Laura was furious with rage, that Nellie dared to say
anything against Pa. On the steps Miss Wilder was
ringing the bell and its noise clanged in Laura's head.

She said, "It's just too bad your folks are nothing but
country folks, Nellie. If you lived in town, then maybe
your father could be on the school board and have
something to say about this school."

Nellie was going to slap her. Laura saw her hand ris-
ing, and she barely had time to think that she must
not, must not slap Nellie, and to hope she wouldn't.

T h e n Nellie's hand dropped quickly and she slid into
her seat. Miss Wilder had come in.

All the pupils came clattering, and Laura sat down
in her own seat. She was still so angry that she could
hardly see. Under the desk-top Ida's hand gave her
clenched fist a quick little squeeze that meant, "Good
for you! You served her right!"

150

SENT HOME

FROM SCHOOL

Miss Wilder was puzzling everyone in school.

From the first day, of course, the boys had
been trying to find out how far they could
go in naughtiness before she made them behave
themselves, and no one could understand why she did
not show them.

At first they fidgeted and then they began making
little noises with their books and slates. Miss Wilder
paid no attention until the noise was disturbing. T h e n
she did not speak sharply to the noisiest boy, but
smiled at them all and politely asked them to be
quieter.

"I know you do not realize that you are disturbing
others," she said.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

T h e y did not know what to make of this. When she
turned to the blackboard, the noise would grow loud
again. T h e boys even began to whisper.

Every day Miss Wilder asked everyone, several
times, to be just a little quieter, please. This was not
fair to those who were making no noise at all. Soon
all the boys were whispering, nudging each other,
and sometimes slyly scuffing in their seats. Some of
the little girls wrote notes to each other on their
slates.

Still Miss Wilder did not punish anyone. One after-
noon she rapped on her desk to call the whole school
to attention, and talked to them about how good she
was sure they all meant to be. She said she did not be-
lieve in punishing children. She meant to rule them
by love, not fear. She liked them all and she was sure
that they liked her. Even the big girls were embar-
rassed by her way of talking.

"Birds in their little nests agree," she said, smiling,
and Laura and Ida almost squirmed from embarrass-
ment. Besides, that showed that she knew nothing at
all about birds.

Miss Wilder kept on always smiling even when her
eyes were worried. Only her smiles at Nellie Oleson
seemed real. She seemed to feel that she could de-
pend on Nellie Oleson.

"She's a—well, almost a hypocrite," Minnie said,
low, one day at recess. T h e y were standing at the win-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
dow, watching the boys play ball. Miss Wilder and

Nellie were chatting together by the stove. It was
cooler at the window, but the other girls would rather
be there.

"I don't think she really is, quite," Mary Power an-
swered. "Do you, L a u r a ? "

"No-o," Laura said. "Not exactly. I think she just
hasn't got very good judgment. But she does know
everything in the books. She is a good scholar."

"Yes, she is," Mary Power agreed. "But can't a per-
son know what is in books and still have more com-
mon sense? I wonder what is going to happen when
the big boys come to school, if she can't control these
little ones."

Minnie's eyes lighted up with excitement, and Ida
laughed. Ida would be good and gay and laughing, no
matter what happened, but Mary Power was sober
and Laura was worried. She said, "Oh, we must not
have trouble in school!" She must be able to study and
get a teacher's certificate.

Now that Laura and Carrie were living in town,
they went home at noon for a good, hot dinner.

Surely the hot food was better for Carrie, though it
seemed to make no difference. She was still pale and
spindly, and always tired. Often her head ached so
badly that she could not learn her spelling. Laura
helped her with it. Carrie would know every word in
the morning; then when she was called upon to recite,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
she would make a mistake.

Ida and Nellie still brought their dinners to school,
and so did Miss Wilder. T h e y ate together, cozily by
the stove. When the other girls came back to school,

Ida would join them, but Nellie often chatted with

Miss Wilder through the whole noon hour.

Several times she said to the other girls, with a sly
smile, "One of these days I'm going riding behind
those Morgan horses, in that new buggy. You just wait
and s e e ! " T h e y did not doubt it.

Coming in one day at noon, Laura took Carrie to the
stove, to take off her wraps in the warmth. Miss

Wilder and Nellie were there, talking earnestly
together. Laura heard Miss Wilder say indignantly,

"—school board!" T h e n they both saw her.

"I must ring the bell," Miss Wilder said hurriedly,
and she did not look at Laura as she passed by her.

Perhaps Miss Wilder had some complaint against the
school board, Laura thought, and she had remem-
bered when she saw Laura, that Pa was on the board.

T h a t afternoon, again, Carrie missed three words in
her spelling lesson. Laura's heart ached. Carrie looked
so white and pitiful, she tried so hard, but it was plain
to see that her head was aching terribly. It would be a
little comfort to her, Laura thought, that Mamie

Beardsley made some mistakes, too.

T h e n Miss Wilder closed her speller, and said sadly
that she was disappointed and grieved. "Go to your

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
seat, Mamie, and study this same lesson again," she
said. "Carrie, you may go to the blackboard. I want to
see you write, 'cataract,' 'separate,' and 'exasperate,'

on the board, correctly, fifty times each."

She said it with a kind of triumph in her voice.

Laura tried to control her temper, but she could not.

She was furious. It was meant as a punishment for
poor little Carrie, to make her stand ashamed before
the whole school. It was not fair! Mamie had missed
words, too. Miss Wilder let Mamie off, and punished

Carrie. She must see that Carrie did her best, and was
not strong. She was mean, mean and cruel, and she
was not fair!

Laura had to sit helpless. Carrie went miserably
but bravely to the blackboard. She was trembling
and she had to wink back tears but she would not
cry. Laura sat watching her thin hand slowly writing,
one long line of words and then another. Carrie grew
pale and paler, but she kept on writing. Suddenly
her face went gray, and she hung on to the eraser
trough.

Quickly Laura raised her hand, then she jumped up,
and when Miss Wilder looked at her she spoke with-
out waiting for permission. "Please! Carrie is going to
faint."

Miss Wilder turned swiftly and saw Carrie.

"Carrie! You may sit down!" she said. Sweat came
out on Carrie's face and it was not so deathly gray.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Laura knew the worst was over. "Sit down on the
front seat," Miss Wilder said, and Carrie was able to
get to it.

T h e n Miss Wilder turned to Laura. "Since you do
not want Carrie to write her misspelled words, Laura,
you may go to the board and write them."

T h e whole school was frozen silent, looking at

Laura. It was a disgrace for her, one of the big girls, to
stand at the blackboard writing words as a punish-
ment. Miss Wilder looked at Laura, too, and Laura
looked straight back.

T h e n she went to the blackboard and took the
chalk. She began to write. She felt her face grow
flaming hot, but after a moment she knew that no one
was jeering at her. She went on rapidly writing the
words, all alike, one below another.

Several times she heard behind her a low, repeated,

"Sssst! Sssst!" T h e whole room was noisy, as usual.

T h e n she heard a whispered, "Laura! Sssst!"

Charley was signaling to her. He whispered, "Sssst!

Don't do it! Tell her you won't do it! We'll all stand by
you!"

Laura was warmed all through. But the one thing
that must not happen was trouble in school. She
smiled and frowned and shook her head at Charley.

He sank back, disappointed but quiet. T h e n suddenly

Laura's eye caught a furious glance from Miss Wilder.

Miss Wilder had seen the whole thing.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Laura turned to the blackboard and went on writing.

Miss Wilder said nothing to her or to Charley. Laura
thought resentfully, "She has no right to be mad at
me. She might have the grace to appreciate my trying
to help keep order in school."

After school that evening Charley and his chums,

Clarence and Alfred, walked close behind Laura and

Mary Power and Minnie.

"I'll fix that old meanie tomorrow!" Clarence
bragged, loudly, so that Laura would hear him. " I ' m
going to put a bent pin in her chair."

"I'll break her ruler beforehand," Charley promised
him. "So she can't punish you if she catches you."

Laura turned around and walked backward. "Please
don't do that, boys. Please," she asked them.

"Aw, why not? It'll be fun, and she won't do any-
thing to us," Charley argued.

"But where is the fun?" Laura said. " T h a t is no way
for you boys to treat a woman, even if you don't like
her. I do wish you wouldn't."

"We-e-ll," Clarence gave in. "Oh, all right. I won't,
then."

"Then we won't, either," Alfred and Charley
agreed. Laura knew they would keep their word,
though they didn't want to.

Studying her lessons by the lamp that night, Laura
looked up to say, "Miss Wilder doesn't like Carrie nor
me, and I don't know why."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Ma paused in her knitting. "You must imagine it,

Laura," she said.

Pa looked over the edge of his paper. " S e e that you
don't give her any reason, and you'll soon feel differ-
ently."

"I don't give her any reason not to like me, Pa,"

Laura said earnestly. "Maybe Nellie Oleson influ-
ences her," she added, bending her head again over
her book, and to herself she thought, "She listens too
much to Nellie Oleson."

Laura and Carrie were early at school next morning.

Miss Wilder and Nellie were sitting together by the
stove. No one else was there. Laura said good morn-
ing, and as she went into the warmth of the stove her
skirt brushed against the coal hod and caught on its
broken rim.

"Oh, bother!" Laura exclaimed as she stood to
loosen it.

"Did you tear your dress, Laura?" Miss Wilder
asked acidly. "Why don't you get us a new coal hod,
since your father is on the school board and you can
have everything as you want it?"

Laura looked at her in amazement. "Why, no, I
can't!" she exclaimed. "But likely you could have a
new coal hod if you want one."

"Oh, thank you," said Miss Wilder.

Laura could not understand why Miss Wilder spoke
to her in that way. Nellie pretended to be intent on a

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
book, but a sly smile was at the corner of her mouth.

Laura could not think what to say, so she said nothing.

All that morning the room was restless and noisy,
but the boys kept their promise. T h e y were no naugh-
tier than usual. T h e y did not know their lessons, for
they would not study, and Miss Wilder was so ha-
rassed that Laura pitied her.

The afternoon began more quietly. Laura was intent
on her geography lesson. Glancing up, while she
memorized and thought about the exports of Brazil,
she saw Carrie and Mamie Beardsley buried in study.

Their heads were together over their spelling book,
their eyes were fixed upon it, and their lips silently
moved as they spelled the words to themselves. T h e y
did not know that they were swaying back and forth,
and that their seat was swaying a little with them.

The bolts that should fasten the seat to the floor
must be loose, Laura thought. T h e movement of the
seat made no sound, so it did not matter. Laura looked
at her book again and thought about seaports.

Suddenly she heard Miss Wilder speak sharply.

"Carrie and Mamie! You may put away your books,
and just rock that seat!"

Laura looked up. Carrie's eyes and mouth were
open in surprise. Her peaked little face was white
from shock, then red with shame. She and Mamie put
away their speller and rocked the seat, meekly and
still quietly.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"We must have quiet in order to study," Miss Wilder
explained sweetly. "Hereafter anyone who disturbs us
may continue that disturbance until he or she is thor-
oughly tired of making it."

Mamie did not mind so much, but Carrie was so
ashamed that she wanted to cry.

"Go on rocking that seat, girls, till I give you leave
to stop," said Miss Wilder, with that queer triumphant
tone in her voice again. She turned to the blackboard,
where she was explaining an arithmetic problem to
the boys, who paid no attention.

Laura tried again to think about Brazil, but she
could not. After a moment, Mamie gave a little toss of
her head and boldly moved across the aisle into an-
other seat.

Carrie went on rocking, but the double seat was too
heavy for one little girl to rock from one end. Slowly
its motion stopped.

"Keep on rocking, Carrie," Miss Wilder said
sweetly. She said nothing to Mamie.

Laura's face flushed hot with fury. She did not even
try to control her temper. She hated Miss Wilder, for
her unfairness and her meanness. There sat Mamie,
refusing to take her share of the punishment, and

Miss Wilder did not say a word to her. Carrie was not
strong enough to rock the heavy seat alone. Laura
could hardly control herself. She bit her lip hard, and
sat still.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Surely, she thought, Carrie will be excused soon.

Carrie was white. She was doing her best to keep the
seat rocking, but it was too heavy. Its movement grew
less, and less. At last with all her strength Carrie could
hardly move it at all.

"Faster, Carrie! Faster!" Miss Wilder said. "You
wanted to rock the seat. Now do it."

Laura was on her feet. Her fury took possession of
her, she did not try to resist it, she gave way com-
pletely. "Miss Wilder," she cried, "if you want that
seat rocked faster, I'll rock it for you!"

Miss Wilder pounced on that gladly. "You may do
just that! You needn't take your book, just rock that
seat."

Laura hurried down the aisle. She whispered to

Carrie, "Sit still and rest." She braced her feet solidly
on the floor; and she rocked.

Not for nothing had Pa always said that she was as
strong as a little French horse.

" T H U M P ! " went the back legs on the floor.

" T H U M P ! " the front legs came down.

All the bolts came quite loose, and

" T H U M P , T H U M P ! T H U M P , T H U M P ! "

the seat went in rhythm, while gladly Laura rocked
and Carrie sat resting.

Not even the swinging weight eased Laura's fury.

She grew angrier and angrier, while louder and faster
she rocked.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

" T H U M P , T H U M P ! T H U M P , THUMP!"

No one could study now.

" T H U M P , T H U M P ! T H U M P , THUMP!"

Miss Wilder could hardly hear her own voice. Loudly
she called the Third Reader class.

" T H U M P , T H U M P ! T H U M P , THUMP!"

No one could recite, no one could even be heard.

" T H U M P , T H U M P ! T H U M P , T H U M P ! T H U M P - "

Loudly Miss Wilder said, "Laura, you and Carrie are

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
excused from school. You may go home for the rest of
the day."

" T H U M P ! " Laura made the seat say. T h e n
there was dead silence.

Everyone had heard of being sent home from school.

No one there had seen it done before. It was a punish-
ment worse than whipping with a whip. Only one
punishment was more dreadful; that was to be ex-
pelled from school.

Laura held her head up, but she could hardly see.

She gathered Carrie's books together. Carrie followed
shrinking behind her and waited trembling by the
door while Laura took her own books. There was not
a sound in the room. From sympathy, Mary Power and

Minnie did not look at Laura. Nellie Oleson, too, was
intent on a book, but the sly smile quivered at the cor-
ner of her mouth. Ida gave Laura one stricken glance
of sympathy.

Carrie had opened the door, Laura walked out, and
shut it behind them.

In the entry, they put on their wraps. Outside the
schoolhouse everything seemed strange and empty
because no one else was there, no one was on the road
to town. T h e time was about two o'clock, when they
were not expected at home.

"Oh, Laura, what will we do?" Carrie asked for-
lornly.

"We'll go home, of course," Laura replied. T h e y

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
were going home; already the schoolhouse was some
distance behind them.

"What will Pa and Ma say?" Carrie quavered.

"We'll know when they say it," said Laura. "They
won't blame you, this isn't your fault. It's my fault be-
cause I rocked that seat so hard. I'm glad of it!" she
added. " I ' d do it again!"

Carrie did not care whose fault it was. There is no
comfort anywhere for anyone who dreads to go home.

"Oh, Laura!" Carrie said. Her mittened hand slid
into Laura's, and hand in hand they went on, not say-
ing anything more. T h e y crossed Main Street and
walked up to the door. Laura opened it. T h e y went in.

Pa turned from his desk where he was writing. Ma
rose up from her chair and her ball of yarn rolled
across the floor. Kitty pounced on it gaily.

"What in the world?" Ma exclaimed. "Girls, what is
the matter? Is Carrie sick?"

"We were sent home from school," Laura said.

Ma sat down. She looked helplessly at Pa. After a
dreadful stillness, Pa asked, "Why?" and his voice was
stern.

"It was my fault, P a , " Carrie quickly answered. "I
didn't mean to, but it was. Mamie and I began it."

" N o , it's all my fault," Laura contradicted. She told
what had happened. When she had finished, the still-
ness was dreadful again.

T h e n Pa spoke sternly. "You girls will go back to

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
school tomorrow morning, and go on as though none of
this had happened. Miss Wilder may have been
wrong, but she is the teacher. I cannot have my girls
making trouble in school."

"No, Pa. We won't," they promised.

"Now take off your school dresses and settle down
to your books," said Ma. "You can study here, the rest
of the afternoon. Tomorrow you'll do as Pa says, and
likely it will all blow over."

165

T H E

SCHOOL BOARD'S VISIT

Laura thought that Nellie Oleson looked sur-
prised and disappointed when she and Carrie
came into the schoolhouse next morning.

Nellie might have expected that they would not
come back to school.

"Oh, I'm glad you've come back!" Mary Power said,
and Ida gave Laura's arm a warm little squeeze.

"You wouldn't let her meanness keep you away
from school, would you, L a u r a ? " Ida said.

"I wouldn't let anything keep me from getting an
education," Laura replied.

"I guess you wouldn't get an education if you were
expelled from school," Nellie put in.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Laura looked at her. "I've done nothing to be ex-
pelled for, and I won't do anything."

"You couldn't be, anyway, could you, with your fa-
ther on the school board," said Nellie.

"I wish you'd stop talking about Pa's being on the
school board!" Laura burst out. "I don't know what
business it is of yours i f — " T h e bell began to ring
then, and they all went to their seats.

Carrie was carefully good, and in obedience to Pa,

Laura was well-behaved, too. She did not think then
of the Bible verse that speaks of the cup and the plat-
ter that were clean only on the outside, but the truth is
that she was like that cup and platter. She hated Miss

Wilder. She still felt a burning resentment against

Miss Wilder's cruel unfairness to Carrie. She wanted
to get even with her. Outside, she was shining clean
with good behavior, but she made not the least effort
to be truly good inside.

The school had never been so noisy. All over the
room there was a clatter of books and feet and a rustle
of whispering. Only the big girls and Carrie sat still
and studied. Whichever way Miss Wilder turned, un-
ruliness and noise swelled up behind her. Suddenly
there was a piercing yell.

Charley had leaped to his feet. His hands were
clapped to the seat of his trousers. "A pin!" he yelled.

"A pin in my seat!"

He held up a bent pin for Miss Wilder to see.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Her lips pressed tight together. This time she did
not smile. Sharply she said, "You may come here,

Charley."

Charley winked at the room, and went trudging up
to Miss Wilder's desk.

"Hold out your hand," she said, as she reached inside
her desk for her ruler. For a moment she felt about for
it, then she looked into the desk. Her ruler was not
there. She asked, "Has anyone seen my ruler?"

Not a hand was raised. Miss Wilder's face went red
with anger. She said to Charley, "Go stand in that cor-
ner. Face to the wall!"

Charley went to the corner, rubbing his behind as if
he still felt the pin-prick. Clarence and Alfred laughed
aloud. Miss Wilder turned toward them quickly, and
even more quickly Charley looked over his shoulder
and made such a face at her that all the boys burst out
laughing. Charley was so quick that she saw only the
back of his head when very quickly she turned to see
what caused the laughter.

T h r e e or four times she turned quickly this way and
that, and Charley turned more quickly, making faces
at her. T h e whole school was roaring. Only Laura and

Carrie were able to keep their faces perfectly straight.

Even the other big girls were strangling and choking
in their handkerchiefs.

Miss Wilder rapped for order. She had to rap with
her knuckles, she had no ruler. And she could not
keep order. She could not watch Charley every

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
minute, and whenever her head was turned, he made a
face at her and laughter broke out.

The boys were not breaking their promise to Laura,
but they were contriving to be even naughtier than
they had promised not to be. And Laura did not care.

Truth to tell, she was pleased with them.

When Clarence slid out of his seat and came up the
aisle on all fours, she smiled at him.

At recess, she stayed in the schoolhouse. She was
sure the boys were planning more mischief, and she
meant to be where she could not hear them.

After recess, the disorder was worse. T h e boys kept
paper wads and spitballs flying on their side of the
room. All the smaller girls were whispering and pass-
ing notes. While Miss Wilder was at the blackboard,

Clarence went down the aisle on hands and knees,

Alfred followed him, and Charley, lightfooted as a
cat, ran down the aisle and leap-frogged over their
backs.

They looked for Laura's approval, and she smiled at
them.

"What are you laughing at, L a u r a ? " Miss Wilder
asked sharply, turning from the blackboard.

"Why, was I laughing?" Laura looked up from her
book and sounded surprised. T h e room was quiet, the
boys were in their seats, everyone seemed to be busily
studying.

"Well, see that you don't!" Miss Wilder snapped. She
looked sharply at Laura, then turned to the blackboard,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
and almost everyone but Laura and Carrie burst out
laughing.

All the rest of the morning, Laura was quiet and
kept her eyes on her lessons, only stealing a glance at

Carrie now and then. Once Carrie looked back at

Laura. Laura put a finger to her lips, and Carrie bent
again over her book.

With so much noise and confusion behind her
whichever way she turned, Miss Wilder grew con-
fused herself. At noon she dismissed school half an
hour early, and again Laura and Carrie were asked to
explain their early arrival at home.

T h e y told of the disorder in school, and Pa looked
serious. But all he said was, "You girls be very sure that
you behave yourselves. Now remember what I say."

T h e y did. Next day the disorder was worse. The
whole school was almost openly jeering at Miss

Wilder. Laura was appalled at what she had started,
by only two smiles at naughtiness. Still she would
not try to stop it. She would never forgive Miss

Wilder's unfairness to Carrie. She did not want to
forgive her.

Now that everyone was teasing, baiting, or at least
giggling at Miss Wilder, Nellie joined in. She was still
teacher's pet, but she repeated to the other girls
everything that Miss Wilder said, and laughed at her.

One day she told them that Miss Wilder's name was

Eliza Jane.

"It's a secret," Nellie said. "She's told me a long

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
time ago, but she doesn't want anyone else out here to
know it."

"I don't see why," Ida wondered. "Eliza Jane is a
nice name."

"I can tell you why," said Nellie. "When she was a
little girl, in New York State, a dirty little girl came to
school and Miss Wilder had to sit with her, a n d " —

Nellie drew the others close and whispered—"she got
lice in her hair."

They all backed away, and Mary Power exclaimed,

"You shouldn't tell such horrid things, Nellie!"

"I wouldn't, only Ida asked me," said Nellie.

"Why, Nellie Oleson, I did no such thing!" Ida de-
clared.

"You did so! Listen," Nellie giggled. " T h a t isn't all.

Her mother sent a note to the teacher, and the teacher
sent the dirty little girl home, so everyone knew about
it. And Miss Wilder's mother kept her out of school a
whole morning to fine-comb her hair. Miss Wilder
cried and cried, and she dreaded so to go back to
school that she walked slow and was late. At recess
her whole class made a ring around her and kept
yelling, 'Lazy, lousy, L i z y Jane!' And from that day to
this, she just can't bear her name. As long as she was
in that school, that's what anyone called her that got
mad at her, 'Lazy, lousy, L i z y J a n e ! ' "

She said it so comically that they laughed, though
they were a little ashamed of doing so. Afterward,
they agreed that they would never tell Nellie any-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
thing, because she was two-faced.

T h e school was so noisy that it was not really school
any more. When Miss Wilder rang the bell, all the
pupils joyfully trooped in to annoy her. She could not
watch every one of them at once, she could hardly
ever catch anyone. T h e y banged their slates and their
books, they threw paper wads and spitballs, they
whistled between their teeth and scampered in the
aisles. T h e y were all together against Miss Wilder,
they delighted in harassing and baffling and hounding
her and jeering.

T h a t feeling against Miss Wilder almost frightened

Laura. No one could stop them now. T h e disorder was
so great that Laura could not study. If she could not
learn her lessons, she could not get a teacher's certifi-
cate soon enough to help keep Mary in college. Per-
haps Mary must leave college, because Laura had
twice smiled at naughtiness.

She knew now that she should not have done that. Yet
she did not really repent. She did not forgive Miss

Wilder. She felt hard and hot as burning coal when she
thought of Miss Wilder's treatment of Carrie.

One Friday morning Ida gave up trying to study in
the confusion, and began to draw on her slate. The
whole First spelling class was making mistakes on
purpose and laughing at them. Miss Wilder sent the
class to the board to write the lesson. Then she was
caught between the pupils at the board and those in

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
the seats. Ida was busily drawing, swinging her feet
and humming a little tune in her throat without know-
ing it, and Laura kept her fists clamped to her ears
and tried to study.

When Miss Wilder dismissed school for recess, Ida
showed Laura the picture she had drawn. It was a
comic picture of Miss Wilder, so well done that it
looked exactly like her, only more so. Under it Ida had
written,

We have lots of fun going to school,

Laugh and grow fat is the only rule,

Everyone laughs until their sides ache again

At lazy, lousy, Lizy Jane.

"I can't get the verse just right, somehow," Ida said.

Mary Power and Minnie were admiring the picture
and laughing, and Mary Power said, "Why don't you
get Laura to help you, she makes good verses."

"Oh, will you, Laura? Please," Ida asked. Laura
took the slate and the pencil, and while the others
waited she thought of a tune and fitted words to it.

She meant only to please Ida, and perhaps, just a lit-
tle, to show off what she could do. She wrote, in the
place of the verse that Ida had erased,

Going to school is lots of fun,

From laughing we have gained a ton,

We laugh until we have a pain,

At lazy, lousy, Lizy Jane.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Ida was delighted, and so were the others. Mary

Power said, "I told you Laura could do it." At that mo-
ment Miss Wilder rang the bell. T h e whole recess had
gone, as quickly as that.

T h e boys came in, making all the noise they could,
and as Charley passed by and caught sight of the slate,

Ida laughed and let him take it.

"Oh, n o ! " Laura cried in a whisper, but she was too
late. Until noon the boys were slipping that slate from
one to another, and Laura feared that Miss Wilder
would capture it, with Ida's drawing and her handwrit-
ing on it. Laura breathed a great sigh of relief when
the slate came slipping back, and Ida quickly cleaned
it with her slate-rag.

When they all went out to the crisp, sunny outdoors
to go home for dinner, Laura heard the boys chanting
all along the road to Main Street,

"Going to school is lots of fun,

From laughing we have gained a ton,

We laugh until we have a pain,

At LAZY, LOUSY, LIZY J A N E ! "

Laura gasped. She felt sick for a minute. She cried
out. " T h e y mustn't! We must stop them. Oh, Mary

Power, Minnie, come on, hurry." She called, "Boys!

Charley! Clarence!"

" T h e y don't hear you," Minnie said. "We couldn't
stop them, anyway."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Already the boys were separating at Main Street.

They were only talking, but Laura had no more than
sighed in relief when one began to chant again, and
others joined in. "Going to school is lots of fun—"

Both up and down Main Street they yelled,

"LAZY, LOUSY, LIZY JANE !"

"Oh, why haven't they better sense!" Laura said.

"Laura," said Mary Power, "there's just one thing to
do. Don't tell who wrote that. Ida won't, I know. I
won't, and Minnie won't, will you, Minnie?"

"Cross my heart," Minnie promised. "But what
about Nellie Oleson?"

"She doesn't know. She was talking with Miss

Wilder, the whole recess," Mary Power reminded
them. "And you'll never tell, will you, L a u r a ? "

"Not unless Pa or Ma asks me, straight out," said

Laura.

"Likely they won't think to, and then nobody will
ever know," Mary Power tried to comfort Laura.

While they were eating dinner, Charley and

Clarence passed by, chanting that frightful verse, and

Pa said, "That sounds like some song I don't know.

You ever hear a song before about lazy, lousy, L i z y

Jane?"

"I never did," said Ma. "It doesn't sound like a nice
song."

Laura did not say a word. She thought she had never
been so miserable.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Around the schoolhouse the boys were chanting that
verse. Nellie's brother Willie was with them. Inside
the schoolhouse Ida and Nellie were standing at the
window farthest from Miss Wilder. She must have
known that Nellie had told.

Nellie was furious. She wanted to know who had
written that verse, but Ida had not told her and none
of the others would. No doubt her brother Willie
knew or would find out. He would tell her and then
she would tell Miss Wilder.

After school that night, and again on Saturday, the
boys could be heard chanting those words. In the
bright, clear weather they were all outdoors. Laura
could almost have welcomed a blizzard to shut them
in. She had never felt so ashamed, for she had spread

Nellie's mean tattle-telling farther than Nellie ever
could have. She blamed herself, yet she still blamed

Miss Wilder far more. If Miss Wilder had been only
decently fair to Carrie, Laura never could have got
into such trouble.

T h a t afternoon Mary Power came to visit. Often
on Saturday afternoons she and Laura visited and
worked together. T h e y sat in the pleasant, sunny,
front room.

Laura was crocheting a nubia of soft white wool, for

Mary's Christmas present in college, and Mary Power
was knitting a silk necktie for her father's Christmas.

Ma rocked and knitted, or sometimes read interesting

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
bits to them from the church paper, The Advance.

Grace played about, and Carrie sewed a nine-patch
quilt block.

Those were such pleasant afternoons. T h e winter
sunshine streamed in. T h e room was pleasantly warm
from the coal heater. Kitty, grown now to a cat,
stretched and lazily purred in the sunshine on the rag
rug, or curved purring against the front door, asking
with a mrrreow to be let out to watch for dogs.

Kitty had become famous in town. She was such a
pretty cat, such a clean blue and white, with slender
body and long tail, that everyone wanted to pet her.

But she was a one-family cat. Only the family could
touch her. When anyone else stooped to stroke her,
she flew snarling and clawing into his face. Usually
someone screeched, "Don't touch that cat!" in time to
save him.

She liked to sit on the front doorstep and look about
the town. Boys, and sometimes the men, would set a
new dog on her to see the fun. Kitty sat placidly while
the dog growled and barked, but she was always ready.

When the dog rushed, she rose in air with a heart-
stopping yowl and landed squarely on the dog's back
with all claws sunk into it. T h e dog went away from
there.

They went in a streak, Kitty silently riding and the
dog ki-yi-yowling. When Kitty thought she was far
enough from home she dropped off, but the dog went

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
on. T h e n Kitty walked home with proudly upright
tail. Only a new dog could be set on Kitty.

Nothing could be a greater pleasure than those Sat-
urday afternoons, when Mary Power's friendliness was
added to the coziness of home, and Kitty might fur-
nish exciting entertainment. Now Laura could not
truly enjoy even this. She sat dreading to hear the
boys chanting that verse again, and in her chest was a
gloomy weight.

"I should make a clean breast of it, to Pa and Ma,"

she thought. She felt again a scalding fury against

Miss Wilder. She had not meant to do harm when she
wrote that verse; she had written it at recess, not in
school hours. It was all too difficult to explain. Per-
haps, as Ma had said, it would blow over. Least said,
soonest mended. Yet at that moment perhaps someone
was telling Pa.

Mary Power was troubled, too. T h e y both made
mistakes and had to unravel stitches. Never had they
accomplished so little in a Saturday afternoon. Nei-
ther of them said a word about school. All the pleasure
was gone from school. T h e y were not looking forward
to Monday morning.

That Monday morning was the worst yet. There was
no pretense of study. T h e boys whistled and cat-
called, and scuffled in the aisles. All the little girls but

Carrie were whispering and giggling and even moving
from seat to seat. Miss Wilder's, "Quiet, please!

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Please be quiet!" could hardly be heard.

There was a knock at the door. Laura and Ida heard
it; they sat nearest the door. T h e y looked at each
other, and when the knock came again, Ida raised her
hand. Miss Wilder paid no attention.

Suddenly a loud knock sounded on the entry's inner
door. Everyone heard that. T h e door opened and the
noise died away to silence. T h e room grew deathly
still as Pa came in. Behind him came two other men
whom Laura did not know.

"Good morning, Miss Wilder," said Pa. " T h e school
board decided it was time to visit the school."

"It is about time that something was done," Miss

Wilder returned. She flushed red and then went pale
while she answered, "Good morning," to the other
two men and welcomed them, with Pa, to the front of
the room. T h e y stood looking over it.

Every pupil was perfectly still, and Laura's heart
pounded loud.

"We heard you have been having a little trouble,"

the tall, solemn man said gravely but kindly.

"Yes, and I am very glad of this opportunity to tell
you gentlemen the facts of the case," Miss Wilder
replied angrily. "It is Laura Ingalls who makes all the
trouble in this school. She thinks she can run the
school because her father is on the school board. Yes,

Mr. Ingalls, that is the truth! She brags that she can
run this school. She didn't think I would hear of it,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
but I did!" She flashed a glance of angry triumph at

Laura.

Laura sat dumbfounded. She had never thought that

Miss Wilder would tell a lie.

"I am sorry to hear this, Miss Wilder," said Pa. "I
am sure that Laura did not intend to make trouble."

Laura raised her hand, but Pa lightly shook his head
at her.

"She encourages the boys to be unruly, too. That is
the whole trouble with them," Miss Wilder declared.

"Laura Ingalls e g g s them on, in every kind of mis-
chief and disobedience."

Pa looked at Charley and his eyes were twinkling.

He said, "Young man, I hear you got punished for sit-
ting on a bent pin."

"Oh, no, sir!" Charlie replied, a picture of inno-
cence. "I was not punished for sitting on it, sir, but for
getting up off it."

T h e jolly member of the school board suddenly
choked a laugh into a cough. Even the solemn man's
mustache twitched. Miss Wilder flushed dark red. Pa
was perfectly sober. No one else felt like smiling.

Slowly and weightily, Pa said, "Miss Wilder, we want
you to know that the school board stands with you to
keep order in this school." He looked sternly over the
whole room. "All you scholars must obey Miss Wilder,
behave yourselves, and learn your lessons. We want a
good school, and we are going to have it."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

When Pa spoke like that, he meant what he said,
and it would happen.

The room was still. T h e stillness continued after
the school board had said good day to Miss Wilder and
gone. There was no fidgeting, no whispering. Quietly
every pupil studied, and class after class recited dili-
gently in the quiet.

At home Laura was quiet, too, wondering what Pa
would say to her. It was not her place to s p e a k of
what had happened, until he did. He said nothing
about it until the supper dishes were washed and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
they were all settled for the evening around the
lamp.

T h e n laying down his paper he looked at Laura and
said slowly, "It is time for you to explain what you
said to anyone, that you could give Miss Wilder the
idea that you thought you could run the school be-
cause I am on the school board."

"I didn't say such a thing, and I did not think so,

P a , " Laura said earnestly.

"I know you didn't," said Pa. "But there was some-
thing that gave her such an idea. T h i n k what it could
have been."

Laura tried to think. She was not prepared for this
question, for she had been defending herself in her
mind and declaring that Miss Wilder had told a lie.

She had not looked for the reason why Miss Wilder
told it.

"Did you speak to anyone about my being on the
school board?" Pa prompted her.

Nellie Oleson had often spoken of that, but Laura
had only wished that she wouldn't. T h e n she remem-
bered the quarrel, when Nellie had almost slapped
her. She said, "Nellie Oleson told me that Miss Wilder
said you haven't much to say about the school, even if
you are on the school board. And I said—"

She had been so angry that it was hard to remember
exactly what she had said. "I said that you have as
much to say about the school as anybody. Then I said,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

It's too bad your father doesn't own a place in town.

Maybe if you weren't just country folks, your father
could be on the school board.'"

"Oh, Laura," Ma said sorrowfully. " T h a t made her
angry."

"I wanted to," said Laura. "I meant to make her
mad. When we lived on Plum Creek she was always
making fun of Mary and me because we were country
girls. She can find out what it feels like, herself."

"Laura, Laura," Ma protested in distress. "How can
you be so unforgiving? T h a t was years ago."

"She was impudent to you, too. And mean to Jack,"

Laura said, and tears smarted in her eyes.

"Never mind," Pa said. "Jack was a good dog and
he's gone to his reward. So Nellie twisted what you
said and told it to Miss Wilder, and that's made all this
trouble. I see." He took up his paper. "Well, Laura,
maybe you have learned a lesson that is worth while.

Just remember this, 'A dog that will fetch a bone, will
carry a bone.'"

For a little while there was silence, and Carrie began
to study her spelling. T h e n Ma said, "If you will bring
me your album, Laura, I would like to write in it."

Laura fetched her album from her box upstairs, and

Ma sat at the desk and carefully wrote in it with her
little pearl-handled pen. She dried the page carefully
over the lamp, and returned the album to Laura.

On the smooth, cream-colored page, in Ma's fine

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LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE
handwriting, Laura read:

184

NAME CARDS

After all the preparation for winter, it seemed
that there would be no winter. T h e days were
clear and sunny. T h e frozen ground was bare
of snow.

The fall term of school ended and Miss Wilder went
back to Minnesota. T h e new teacher, Mr. Clewett,
was quiet but firm, a good disciplinarian. There was
not a sound in school now, except the low voices of
classes reciting, and in the rows of seats every pupil
diligently studied.

All the big boys were coming to school. Cap Garland
was there, his face tanned dark red-brown and his
pale hair and pale blue eyes seeming almost white.

His smile still flashed quick as lightning and warmer
than sunshine. Everyone remembered that he had

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
made the terrible trip with Almanzo Wilder, last win-
ter, to bring the wheat that saved them all from dying
of hunger. Ben Woodworth came back to school, and

Fred Gilbert, whose father had brought in the last
mail after the trains stopped running, and Arthur

Johnson, Minnie's brother.

Still there was no snow. At recess and at noon the
boys played baseball, and the big girls did not play
outdoors anymore.

Nellie worked at her crocheting. Ida and Minnie and

Mary Power stood at the window, watching the ball
games. Sometimes Laura stood with them, but usu-
ally she stayed at her desk and studied. She had a
feeling of haste, almost of fear, that she would not be
able to pass the examinations and get a teacher's
certificate when she was sixteen. She was almost fif-
teen now.

"Oh, come on, Laura. Come watch this ball game,"

Ida coaxed one noon. "You have a whole year to study
before you need to know so much."

Laura closed her book. She was happy that the girls
wanted her. Nellie scornfully tossed her head. "I'm
glad I don't have to be a teacher," she said. "My folks
can get along without my having to work."

With an effort Laura held her voice low and an-
swered sweetly. "Of course you needn't, Nellie, but
you see, we aren't poor relations being helped out by
our folks back east."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Nellie was so angry that she stammered as she tried
to speak, and Mary Power interrupted her coolly. "If

Laura wants to teach school, I don't know that it's
anybody's business. Laura is smart. She will be a good
teacher."

"Yes," Ida said, "She's far ahead of—" She stopped
because the door opened and Cap Garland came in.

He had come straight from town and he had in his
hand a small striped paper bag.

"Hello, girls," he said, looking at Mary Power, and
his smile lighted up as he held out the bag to her.

"Have some candy?"

Nellie was quick. "Oh, Cappie!" she cried, taking
the bag. "How did you know that I like candy so
much? The nicest candy in town, too!" She smiled up
into his face with a look that Laura had never seen be-
fore. Cap seemed startled, then he looked sheepish.

"Would you girls like some?" Nellie went on gener-
ously, and quickly she offered each one the opened
bag, then taking a piece herself, she put the bag in her
skirt pocket.

Cap looked pleadingly at Mary Power, but she
tossed her head and looked away. Uncertainly he said,

"Well, I'm glad you like it," and went out to the ball
game.

The next day at noon he brought candy again. Again
he tried to give it to Mary Power, and again Nellie was
too quick.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Oh, Cappie, you are such a dear boy to bring me
more candy," she said, smiling up at him. This time
she turned a little away from the others. She had no
eyes for anyone but Cap. "I mustn't be a pig and eat it
all myself, do have a piece, Cappie," she coaxed. He
took a piece and she rapidly ate all the rest while she
murmured to Cap how nice he was, and so tall and
strong.

Cap looked helpless, yet pleased. He would never
be able to cope with Nellie, Laura knew. Mary

Power was too proud to enter into competition with
her. Angrily Laura wondered, "Must a girl like Nel-
lie be able to grab what she wants?" It was not only
the candy.

Until Mr. Clewett rang the bell, Nellie kept Cap by
her side and listening to her. T h e others pretended
not to notice them. Laura asked Mary Power to write
in her autograph album. All the girls but Nellie were
writing in each other's albums. Nellie did not have
one.

Mary Power sat at her desk and carefully wrote,
with ink, while the others waited to read the verse
when she finished it. Her writing was beautiful, and
so was the verse she had chosen.

The rose of the valley may wither,

The pleasures of youth pass away,

But friendship will blossom forever

While all other flowers decay.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE

Laura's album had many treasures in it now. There
was the verse that Ma had written, and on the next
page was Ida's.

In memory's golden casket,

Drop one pearl for me.

Your loving friend,

Ida B. Wright.

Every now and then Cap looked helplessly at them
over Nellie's shoulder, but they paid no attention to
him or Nellie. Minnie Johnson asked Laura to write
in her album, and Laura said, "I will, if you'll write in
mine."

"I'll do my best, but I can't write as beautifully as

Mary does. Her writing is just like copper plate,"

Minnie said, and she sat down and wrote.

When the name that I write here

Is dim on the page

And the leaves of your album

Are yellow with age,

Still think of me kindly

And do not forget

That wherever I am

I remember you yet.

Minnie Johnson.

Then the bell rang, and they all went to their seats.

That afternoon at recess, Nellie sneered at auto-
graph albums. " T h e y ' r e out of date," she said. "I used

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
to have one, but I wouldn't have one of the old things
now." No one believed her. She said, "In the east,
where I come from, it's name cards that are all the
rage now."

"What are name cards?" Ida asked.

Nellie pretended to be surprised, then she smiled,

"Well, of course you wouldn't know. I'll bring mine to
school and show you, but I won't give you one, be-
cause you haven't one to give me. It's only proper to
exchange name cards. Everybody's exchanging name
cards now, in the east."

T h e y did not believe her. Autograph albums could
not be out of style, because theirs were almost new.

Ma had brought Laura's from Vinton, Iowa, only last

September. On the way home after school, Minnie

Johnson said, "She's just bragging. I don't believe she
had name cards, I don't believe there's any such a
thing."

But next morning she and Mary Power were so
eager to see Laura that they waited for her to come
out of the house. Mary Power had found out about
name cards. Jake Hopp, who ran the newspaper,
had them at the newspaper office next to the bank.

T h e y were colored cards, with colored pictures of
flowers and birds, and Mr. Hopp would print your
name on them.

"I don't believe Nellie Oleson has any," Minnie still
declared. "She only found out about them before we

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
did, and she plans to get some and pretend they came
from the east."

"How much do they cost?" Laura asked.

"That depends on the pictures, and the kind of
printing," Mary told them. " I ' m getting a dozen, with
plain printing, for twenty-five cents."

Laura said no more. Mary Power's father was the
tailor and he could work all winter, but now there was
no carpentering work in town and would be none till
spring. Pa had five to feed at home, and Mary to keep
in college. It was folly even to think of spending
twenty-five cents for mere pleasure.

Nellie had not brought her name cards that morn-
ing. Minnie asked her, as soon as they gathered
around the stove where she was warming her hands af-
ter her long, chilly walk to school.

"My goodness, I forgot all about them!" she said. "I
guess I'll have to tie a string on my finger to remind
me." Minnie's look said to Mary Power and Laura, "I
told you so."

At noon that day Cap did bring candy again, and as
usual Nellie was nearest the door. She began to coo,

"Oo-oo, Cappie!" and just as she was grasping the bag
of candy, Laura reached and whisked it from her sur-
prised hand, and gave it to Mary Power.

Everyone was startled, even Laura. T h e n Cap's
smile lighted his whole face, he glanced gratefully at

Laura and looked at Mary.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

" T h a n k you," Mary said to him. "We will all enjoy
the candy so much." She offered it to the others,
while as he went out to the ball game Cap gave one
backward look, a grin of delight.

"Have a piece, Nellie," Mary Power invited.

"I will!" Nellie took the largest piece. "I do like

Cap's candy, but as for him—pooh! you may have the
greeny."

Mary Power flushed, but she did not answer. Laura
felt her own face flame. "I guess you'd take him well
enough if you could get him," she said. "You knew al
the time he was bringing the candy to Mary."

" M y goodness, I could twist him around my finger if

I wanted to," Nellie bragged. "He isn't such a much.

It's that chum of his I want to know, that young Mr.

Wilder with the funny name. You'll s e e , " she smiled
to herself, " I ' m going riding behind those horses of
his."

Yes, she surely would, Laura thought. Nellie had
been so friendly with Miss Wilder, it was a wonder
that Miss Wilder's brother had not invited her for a
drive before now. As for herself, Laura knew she had
spoiled any chance of such a pleasure.

Mary Power's name cards were finished the next
week, and she brought them to school. They were
beautiful. T h e cards were palest green, and on each
was a picture of a bobolink swaying and singing on a
spray of goldenrod. Beneath it was printed in black let-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
ters, MARY POWER. She gave one to Minnie, one to Ida
and one to Laura, though they had none to give her.

That same day, Nellie brought hers to school. T h e y
were pale yellow, with a bouquet of pansies and a
scroll that said, "For Thoughts." Her name was
printed in letters like handwriting. She traded one of
her cards for one of Mary's.

Next day, Minnie said she was going to buy some.

Her father had given her the money, and she would or-
der them after school if the other girls would come
with her. Ida could not go. She said cheerfully, "I
ought not to waste time. Because I'm an adopted
child, you see, I have to hurry home to help with the
housework as much as I can. I couldn't ask for name
cards. Father Brown is a preacher and such things are
a vanity. So I'll just enjoy looking at yours when you
get them, Minnie."

"Isn't she a dear?" Mary Power said after Ida had
left them. No one could help loving Ida. Laura wished
to be like her, but she wasn't. Secretly she so wanted
name cards that she almost felt envious of Mary

Power and Minnie.

In the newspaper office Mr. Hopp in his ink-spotted
apron spread the sample cards on the counter for them
to see. Each card was more beautiful than the last.

And Laura was mean enough to be pleased that

Nellie's was among them; it proved that she had
bought her cards there.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

T h e y were every pale, lovely color, some even had
gilt edges. There was a choice of six different bou-
quets, and one had a bird's nest nestled among the
flowers, two birds on its rim, and above them the
word Love.

"That's a young man's card," Mr. Hopp told them.

"Only a young fellow's brash enough to hand out a

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
card with 'L o v e ' on it."

"Of course," Minnie murmured, flushing.

It was so hard to choose among them that finally

Mr. Hopp said, "Well, take your time. I'll go on get-
ting out the paper."

He went back to inking the type and laying sheets of
paper on it. He had lighted the lamp before Minnie fi-
nally decided to take the pale blue card. T h e n guiltily,
because they were so late, they all hurried home.

Pa was washing his hands and Ma was putting sup-
per on the table when Laura came in, breathless.

Quietly Ma asked, "Where have you been, L a u r a ? "

"I'm sorry, Ma. I only meant to take a minute,"

Laura apologized. She told them about name cards.

Of course she did not say that she wanted some. Pa re-
marked that Jake was up-and-coming, bringing out
such novelties.

"How much do they cost?" he asked, and Laura an-
swered that the cheapest cost twenty-five cents a
dozen.

It was almost bedtime, and Laura was staring at the
wall, thinking about the War of 1812, when Pa folded
his paper, laid it down, and said, " L a u r a . "

"Yes, P a ? "

"You want some of these new-fangled name cards,
don't you?" Pa asked.

"I was just thinking the same thing, Charles," said

Ma.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Well, yes, I do want them," Laura admitted. "But I
don't need them."

Pa's eyes smiled twinkling at her as he took from his
pocket some coins and counted out two dimes and a
nickel. "I guess you can have them, Half-Pint," he
said. "Here you are."

Laura hesitated. " D o you really think I ought to?

Can we afford it?" she asked.

" L a u r a ! " Ma said. She meant, "Are you questioning
what your Pa does?" Quickly Laura said, "Oh, Pa,
thank you!"

T h e n Ma said, "You are a good girl, Laura, and we
want you to have the pleasures of other girls of your
age. Before school tomorrow morning, if you hurry,
you can run up the street and order your name cards."

In her lonely bed that night without Mary, Laura
felt ashamed. She was not truly good, like Ma and

Mary and Ida Brown. At that very minute she was so
happy to think of having name cards, not only be-
cause they were beautiful, but partly to be meanly
even with Nellie Oleson, and partly to have things as
nice as Mary Power and Minnie had.

Mr. Hopp promised that the cards would be ready
on Wednesday at noon, and that day Laura could
hardly eat her dinner. Ma excused her from doing the
dishes, and she hurried to the newspaper office.

There they were, delicate pink cards, with a spray of
pinker roses and blue cornflowers. Her name was

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
printed in thin, clear type: Laura Elizabeth Ingalls.

She had hardly time to admire them, for she must
not be late to school. A long block from Second

Street, she was hurrying along the board sidewalk,
when suddenly a shining buggy pulled up beside it.

Laura looked up, surprised to see the brown Mor-
gans. Young Mr. Wilder stood by the buggy, his cap in
one hand. He held out his other hand to her and said,

"Like a ride to the schoolhouse? You'll get there
quicker."

He took her hand, helped her into the buggy, and
stepped in beside her. Laura was almost speechless
with surprise and shyness and the delight of actually
riding behind those beautiful horses. T h e y trotted
gaily but very slowly and their small ears twitched, lis-
tening for the word to go faster.

"I—I'm Laura Ingalls," Laura said. It was a silly
thing to say. Of course he must know who she was.

"I know your father, and I've seen you around town
for quite a while," he replied. " M y sister often spoke
of you."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Such beautiful horses! What are their names?" she
asked. She knew quite well, but she had to say some-
thing.

" T h e near one is Lady, and the other is Prince," he
told her.

Laura wished he would let them go faster—as fast
as they could go. But it would not be polite to ask.

She thought of speaking about the weather, but that
seemed silly.

She could not think of anything to say, and in all this
time they had gone only one block.

"I have been getting my name cards," she heard
herself saying.

"That so?" he said. "Mine are just plain cards. I
brought them out from Minnesota."

He took one from his pocket and handed it to her.

He was driving with one capable hand, keeping the
lines in play between his gloved fingers. T h e card was
plain and white. Printed on it in Old English letters
was, Almanzo James Wilder.

"It's kind of an outlandish name," he said.

Laura tried to think of something nice to say about
it. She said, "It is quite unusual."

"It was wished on me," he said grimly. "My folks
have got a notion there always has to be an Almanzo
in the family, because 'way back in the time of the

Crusades there was a Wilder went to them, and an

Arab or somebody saved his life. El Manzoor, the

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
name was. T h e y changed it after a while in England,
but I guess there's no way to improve it much."

"I think it is a very interesting name," said Laura
honestly.

She did think so, but she did not know what to do
with the card. It seemed rude to give it back to him,
but perhaps he did not mean her to keep it. She held
it so that he could take it back if he wanted to. T h e
team turned the corner at Second Street. In a panic

Laura wondered whether, if he did not take back his
card, she should give him one of hers. Nellie had said
it was proper to exchange name cards.

She held his card a little nearer to him, so that he
could see it plainly. He went on driving.

"Do you—do you want your card back?" Laura
asked him.

"You can keep it if you want to," he replied.

"Then do you want one of mine?" She took one out
of the package and gave it to him.

He looked at it and thanked her. "It is a very pretty
card," he said as he put it in his pocket.

They were at the schoolhouse. He held the reins
while he sprang out of the buggy, took off his cap and
offered his hand to help her down. She did not need
help; she barely touched his glove with her mitten-tip
as she came lightly to the ground.

"Thank you for the ride," she said.

"Don't mention it," he answered. His hair was not

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
black, as she had thought. It was dark brown, and his
eyes were such a dark blue that they did not look pale
in his darkly tanned face. He had a steady, depend-
able, yet light-hearted look.

"Hullo, Wilder!" Cap Garland greeted him and he
waved in answer as he drove away. Mr. Clewett was
ringing the bell, and the boys were trooping in.

As Laura slipped into her seat, there was barely
time for Ida to squeeze her arm delightedly and whis-
per, "Oh, I wish you could have seen her face! when
you came driving u p ! "

Mary Power and Minnie were beaming at Laura
across the aisle, but Nellie was looking intently away
from her.

200

THE SOCIABLE

One Saturday afternoon Mary Power came
blowing in to see Laura. Her cheeks were
pink with excitement. The Ladies' Aid Soci-
ety was giving a dime sociable in Mrs. Tinkham's
rooms over the furniture store, next Friday night.

"I'll go if you do, Laura," Mary Power said. "Oh,
please may she, Mrs. Ingalls?"

Laura did not like to ask what a dime sociable was.

Fond as she was of Mary Power, she felt at a slight dis-
advantage with her. Mary Power's clothes were so
beautifully fitted because her father tailored them,
and she did her hair in the stylish new way, with
bangs.

Ma said that Laura might go to the sociable. She

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
had not heard, until now, that a Ladies' Aid was orga-
nized.

To tell the truth, Pa and Ma were sadly disappointed
that dear Rev. Alden from Plum Creek was not the
preacher. He had wanted to be, and the church had
sent him. But when he arrived, he found that Rev.

Brown had established himself there. So dear Rev.

Alden had gone on as a missionary to the unsettled

West.

Pa and Ma could not lose interest in the church, of
course, and Ma would work in the Ladies' Aid. Still,
they could not feel as they would have felt had Rev.

Alden been the preacher.

All next week Laura and Mary Power looked for-
ward to the sociable. It cost a dime, so Minnie and

Ida doubted that they could go, and Nellie said that,
really, it didn't interest her.

Friday seemed long to Laura and Mary Power, they
were so impatient for night to come. That night Laura
did not take off her school dress, but put on a long
apron and pinned its bib under her chin. Supper was
early, and as soon as she had washed the dishes Laura
began to get ready for the sociable.

Ma helped her carefully brush her dress. It was
brown woolen, made in princess style. The collar was
a high, tight band, close under Laura's chin, and the
skirt came down to the tops of her high-buttoned
shoes. It was a very pretty dress, with piping of red

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
around wrists and collar, and the buttons all down the
front were of brown horn, with a tiny raised castle in
the center of each one.

Standing before the looking glass in the front room,
where the lamp was, Laura carefully brushed and
braided her hair, and put it up and took it down again.

She could not arrange it to suit her.

"Oh, Ma, I do wish you would let me cut bangs,"

she almost begged. "Mary Power wears them, and
they are so stylish."

"Your hair looks nice the way it is," said Ma. " M a r y

Power is a nice girl, but I think the new hair style is
well called a 'lunatic fringe.'"

"Your hair looks beautiful, Laura," Carrie consoled
her. "It's such a pretty brown and so long and thick,
and it shines in the light."

Laura still looked unhappily at her reflection.

She thought of the short hairs always growing at
the edge around her forehead. T h e y did not show
when they were brushed back, but now she combed
them all out and downward. T h e y made a thin little
fringe.

"Oh, please, M a , " she coaxed. "I wouldn't cut a
heavy bang like Mary Power's, but please let me cut
just a little more, so I could curl it across my fore-
head."

"Very well, then," Ma gave her consent.

Laura took the shears from Ma's workbasket and

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standing before the glass she cut the hair above her
forehead into a narrow fringe about two inches long.

She laid her long slate pencil on the heater, and when
it was heated she held it by the cool end and wound
wisps of the short hair around the heated end. Holding
each wisp tightly around the pencil, she curled all the
bangs.

T h e rest of her hair she combed smoothly back and
braided. She wound the long braid flatly around and
around on the back of her head and snugly pinned it.

"Turn around and let me see you," Ma said.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Laura turned. " D o you like it, M a ? "

"It looks quite nice," Ma admitted. "Still, I liked it
better before it was cut."

"Turn this way and let me s e e , " said Pa. He looked
at her a long minute and his eyes were pleased. "Well,
if you must wear this 'lunatic fringe,' I think you've
made a good job of it." And Pa turned again to his
paper.

"I think it is pretty. You look very nice," Carrie said
softly.

Laura put on her brown coat and set carefully over
her head her peaked hood of brown woolen lined with
blue. T h e brown and the blue edges of cloth were
pinked, and the hood had long ends that wound
around her neck like a muffler.

She took one more look in the glass. Her cheeks
were pink with excitement, and the curled bangs were
stylish under the hood's blue lining that made her
eyes very blue.

Ma gave her a dime and said, "Have a pleasant time,

Laura. I am sure you will remember your manners."

Pa asked, "Had I better go with her as far as the
door, Caroline?"

"It's early yet, and only across the street, and she's
going with Mary Power," Ma answered.

Laura went out into the dark and starry night. Her
heart was beating fast with anticipation. Her breath
puffed white in the frosty air. Lamplight made glowing

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
patches on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store
and the drugstore, and above the dark furniture store
two windows shone bright. Mary Power came out of
the tailor shop, and together they climbed the outdoor
stairs between it and the furniture store.

Mary Power knocked on the door, and Mrs. Tink-
ham opened it. She was a tiny woman, in a black
dress with white lace ruffles at throat and wrists. She
said good evening, and took Mary Power's dime and

Laura's. T h e n she said, "Come this way to leave your
wraps."

All the week Laura had hardly been able to wait to
see what a sociable was, and now she was here. Some
people were sitting in a lighted room. She felt embar-
rassed as she hurriedly followed Mrs. Tinkham past
them into a small bedroom. She and Mary Power laid
their coats and hoods on the bed. T h e n quietly they
slipped into chairs in the larger room.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson sat on either side of the win-
dow. T h e window had dotted-Swiss curtains, and be-
fore it stood a polished center table, holding a large
glass lamp with a white china shade on which red
roses were printed. Beside the lamp lay a green plush
photograph album.

A bright flowered carpet covered the whole floor. A
tall shining heater with isinglass windows stood in its
center. T h e chairs around the walls were all of pol-
ished woods. Mr. and Mrs. Woodworth were sitting on

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
a sofa with shining high wooden back and ends and a
glittering black haircloth seat.

Only the walls of boards were like those in the front
room at home, and these were thickly hung with pic-
tures of people and places that Laura did not know.

Some had wide, heavy, gilded frames. Of course Mr.

Tinkham owned the furniture store.

Cap Garland's older sister Florence was there, with
their mother. Mrs. Beardsley was there, and Mrs.

Bradley, the druggist's wife. T h e y all sat dressed up
and silent. Mary Power and Laura did not speak, ei-
ther. T h e y did not know what to say.

Someone knocked at the door. Mrs. Tinkham hur-
ried to it, and Rev. and Mrs. Brown came in. His rum-
bling voice filled the room with greetings to everyone,
and then he talked with Mrs. Tinkham about the
home he had left in Massachusetts.

"Not much like this place," he said. "But we are all
strange here."

He fascinated Laura. She did not like him. Pa said
he claimed to be a cousin of John Brown of Ossa-
watomie who had killed so many men in Kansas and
finally succeeded in starting the Civil War. Rev.

Brown did look just like the picture of John Brown in

Laura's history book.

His face was large and bony. His eyes were sunk
deep under shaggy white eyebrows and they shone
hot and fierce even when he was smiling. His coat

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
hung loose on his big body, his hands at the end of
the sleeves were large and rough with big knuckles.

He was untidy. Around his mouth his long white
beard was stained yellow as if with dribbling tobacco
juice.

He talked a great deal, and after he came the oth-
ers talked some, except M a r y Power and Laura.

T h e y tried to sit politely, but now and then they did
fidget. It was a long time before Mrs. T i n k h a m be-
gan to bring plates from the kitchen. On each plate
was a small sauce dish of custard and a piece of
cake.

When Laura had eaten hers, she murmured to Mary

Power, " L e t ' s go home," and Mary answered, "Come
on, I'm going." T h e y set their empty dishes on a
small table near them, put on their coats and hoods,
and said good-by to Mrs. Tinkham.

Down on the street once more, Laura drew a deep
breath. "Whewl If that is a sociable, I don't like socia-
bles."

"Neither do I," Mary Power agreed. "I wish I hadn't
gone. I'd rather have the dime."

Pa and Ma looked up in surprise when Laura came
in, and Carrie eagerly asked, "Did you have a good
time, L a u r a ? "

"Well, no, I didn't," Laura had to admit. "You
should have gone, Ma, instead of me. Mary Power and

I were the only girls there. We had no one to talk to."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"This is only the first sociable," Ma made excuse.

"No doubt when folks here are better acquainted, the
sociables will be more interesting. I know from reading

The Advance that church sociables are greatly enjoyed."

209

LITERARIES

Christmas was near, yet there was still no snow.

There had not been a single blizzard. In the
mornings the frozen ground was furry white
with hoarfrost, but it vanished when the sun rose.

Only the underneath of the sidewalk and the shadows
of the stores were frosty when Laura and Carrie hur-
ried to school. T h e wind nipped their noses and
chilled their mittened hands and they did not try to
talk through their mufflers.

T h e wind had a desolate sound. T h e sun was small
and the sky was empty of birds. On the endless dull
prairie the grasses lay worn-out and dead. T h e school-
house looked old and gray and tired.

It seemed that the winter would never begin and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
never end. Nothing would ever happen but going to
school and going home, lessons at school and lessons
at home. Tomorrow would be the same as today, and
in all her life, Laura felt, there would never be any-
thing but studying and teaching school. Even Christ-
mas would not be a real Christmas without Mary.

The book of poems, Laura supposed, was still hid-
den in Ma's bureau drawer. Every time Laura passed
the bureau at the head of the stairs in Ma's room, she
thought of that book and the poem she had not fin-
ished reading. "Courage!" he said, and pointed to the
land, "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward
soon." She had thought the same thought so often
that it was stale, and even looking forward to the book
for Christmas was no longer exciting.

Friday night came again. Laura and Carrie washed
the dishes as usual. As usual, they brought their books
to the lamplit table. Pa was in his chair, reading the
paper. Ma was gently rocking and her knitting needles
were clicking as they always did. As usual, Laura
opened her history book.

Suddenly she could not bear it all. She thrust back
her chair, slammed her book shut and thumped it
down on the table. Pa and Ma started, and looked at
her in surprise.

"I don't care!" she cried out. "I don't want to study!

I don't want to learn! I don't want to teach school,
ever!"

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Ma looked as stern as it was possible for her to look.

" L a u r a , " she said, "I know you would not swear, but
losing your temper and slamming things is as bad as
saying the words. L e t us have no more wooden swear-
ing."

Laura did not answer.

"What is the matter, L a u r a ? " Pa asked. "Why don't
you want to learn, and to teach school?"

"Oh, I don't know!" Laura said in despair. "I am so
tired of everything. I want—I want something to hap-
pen. I want to go West. I guess I want to just play, and

I know I am too old," she almost sobbed, a thing she
never did.

"Why, L a u r a ! " Ma exclaimed.

"Never mind," Pa said soothingly. "You have been
studying too hard, that is all."

"Yes, put away your books for this evening," said

Ma. " I n the last bundle of Youth's Companions, there
are still some stories that we have not read. You may
read one to us, Laura, wouldn't you like that?"

"Yes, M a , " Laura answered hopelessly. Even reading
a story was not what she wanted. She did not know
what she wanted, but she knew she could not have it,
whatever it was. She got the Youth's Companions and
pulled her chair to the table again. "You choose the
story you want, Carrie," she said.

Patiently she read aloud, while Carrie and Grace lis-
tened wide-eyed and Ma's rocker swayed and her

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
knitting needles clicked. Pa had gone across the
street, to spend an evening talking with the men
around the stove in Fuller's hardware store.

Suddenly the door opened and Pa burst in, saying,

"Put on your bonnets, Caroline and girls! There's a
meeting at the schoolhouse!"

"Whatever in the world—" Ma said.

"Everybody's going!" said Pa. "We are starting a lit-
erary society."

Ma laid aside her knitting. "Laura and Carrie, get
your wraps on while I bundle up Grace."

Quickly they were ready to follow Pa's lighted
lantern. When Ma blew out the lamp, Pa picked it up.

"Better take it along, we'll want lights in the school-
house," he explained.

Other lanterns were coming along Main Street, and
bobbing into the darkness of Second Street ahead. Pa
called for Mr. Clewett, who was there and had
brought the schoolhouse key. T h e desks looked weird
in flickering lantern light. Others had brought lamps,
too. Mr. Clewett lighted a large one on his desk, and

Gerald Fuller drove a nail into the wall and hung up a
lamp with a tin reflector. He had closed his store for
the meeting. All the storekeepers were closing their
stores and coming. Almost everyone in town was com-
ing. Pa's lamp helped the lanterns to make the school-
house quite light.

T h e seats were filled and men were standing thick

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behind them, when Mr. Clewett called the room to
order. He said that the purpose of this meeting was to
organize a literary society.

" T h e first thing in order," he said, "will be a roll call
of members. I will then hear nominations for tempo-
rary chairman. T h e temporary chairman will take
charge, and we will then proceed to nominate and bal-
lot for permanent officers."

Everyone was a little taken aback, and felt less jolly,
but it was an interesting question, who could be
elected President. T h e n Pa stood up by his seat, and
said, "Mr. Clewett and townfolks, what we've come
here for is some fun to liven us up. It does not seem
necessary to organize anything.

"From what I've s e e n , " Pa went on, "the trouble
with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get
to paying more attention to the organization than to
what they're organized for. I take it we're pretty well
agreed right now on what we want. If we start orga-
nizing and electing, the chances are we won't be as
well agreed on who's to be elected to fill office. So I
suggest, let's just go straight ahead and do what we
want to do, without any officers. We've got the
schoolteacher, Mr. Clewett, to act as leader. L e t him
give out a program, every meeting, for the next
meeting. Anybody that gets a good idea can speak
up for it, and anybody that's called on will pitch in
and do his share in the programs the best he can, to

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give everybody a good time."

"That's the ticket, Ingalls!" Mr. Clancy sang out,
and as Pa sat down, a good many began to clap, Mr.

Clewett said, "All in favor, say 'Aye!'" A loud chorus
of "Ayes" voted that it should be so.

Then for a minute, no one knew what to do next.

Mr. Clewett said, "We haven't any program for this

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
meeting." Some man answered, "Shucks, we aren't
going home yet!" T h e barber suggested singing, and
someone said, "You got some pupils that can speak
pieces? How about it, Clewett?" T h e n a voice said,

"How about a spelling match?" Several chimed in to
that, "That's the notion!" "That's the idea! Let's
have a spelling match!"

Mr. Clewett appointed Pa and Gerald Fuller as lead-
ers. There was a good deal of joking as they took their
places in the front corners of the room and began to
call out names.

Laura sat anxiously waiting. T h e grown-ups were
chosen first, of course. One by one they went up, and
as the two lines grew longer, Laura grew more afraid
that Gerald Fuller might call her before Pa did. She
did not want to spell against Pa. At last there was the
most anxious pause. It was Pa's turn to choose, and
though he made a joke that set everyone laughing,

Laura could see that he was hesitating. He decided,
and called, "Laura Ingalls."

She hurried to take the next place in his line. Ma
was already in it, above her. Gerald Fuller called then,

"Foster!" Last of the grown-ups, Mr. Foster took the
place opposite Laura. Perhaps Pa should have chosen
him because he was grown-up, but Pa had wanted

Laura. Surely, Laura thought, Mr. Foster could not be
much of a speller. He was one of the homesteaders
who drove oxen, and last winter he had stupidly

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
jumped off Almanzo Wilder's horse, Lady, and let her
run away while he fired at the antelope herd, though
he was not within range.

Rapidly now all the school pupils were chosen, even
the smallest. T h e two lines went from the teacher's
desk all around the walls to the door. T h e n Mr.

Clewett opened the speller.

First he gave out the primer words. " F o e , low, woe,
roe, row, hero—" and he caught Mr. Barclay! Con-
fused, Mr. Barclay spelled, "Hero; h-e, he, r-o-e, ro,
hero," and the roar of laughter surprised him. He
joined in it as he went to a seat, the first one down.

T h e words grew longer. More and more spellers
went down. First Gerald Fuller's side was shorter,
then Pa's, then Gerald Fuller's again. Everyone grew
warm from laughter and excitement. Laura was in her
element. She loved to spell. Her toes on a crack in the
floor and her hands behind her, she spelled every
word that came to her. Down went four from the en-
emy's side, and three from Pa's, then the word came
to Laura. She took a deep breath and glibly spelled,

"Differentiation: d-i-f, dif; f-e-r, fer, differ; e-n-t,
different; i, différend; a-t-i-o-n, ashun; differentiation!"

Slowly almost all the seats filled with breathless,
laughing folks who had been spelled down. Six re-
mained in Gerald Fuller's line, and only five in Pa's—

Pa and Ma and Florence Garland and Ben Woodworth
and Laura.

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"Repetitious," said Mr. Clewett. Down went one
from the other side, leaving the lines even. Ma's gen-
tle voice spelled, "Repetitious: r-e, re; p-e-t, pet,
repet; i, repeti; t-i-o-u-s, shius, repetitious."

"Mimosaceous," said Mr. Clewett. Gerald Fuller
spelled, "Mimosaceous; m-i-m, mim; o-s-a, mimosa;
t-i—" He was watching Mr. Clewett. "No, s-i-," he
began again. "That's got me beat," he said, and sat
down.

"Mimosaceous," said Florence Garland. "M-i-m,
mim; o-s-a, mimosa; t-e—" And she had been a
schoolteacher!

T h e next one on Gerald Fuller's side went down,
then Ben shook his head and quit without trying.

Laura stood straighter, waiting to spell the word.

Now at the head of the other line, Mr. Foster began.

"Mimosaceous: m-i, mi; m-o, mimo; s-a, sa, mimosa;
c-e-o-u-s, sius, mimosaceous."

A great burst of applause rose up, and some man
shouted, "Good for you, Foster!" Mr. Foster had taken
off his thick jacket and he stood in his checked shirt,
smiling sheepishly. But there was a glint in his eye. No
one had guessed that he was a brilliant speller.

Fast and hard the words came pelting then, the
tricky words from the very back of the spelling book.

On the other line, everyone went down but Mr.

Foster. Ma went down. Only Pa and Laura were left,
to down Mr. Foster.

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Not one of them missed a word. In breathless si-
lence, Pa spelled, Mr. Foster spelled, Laura spelled,
then Mr. Foster again. He was one against two. It
seemed that they could not beat him.

Then, "Xanthophyll," said Mr. Clewett. It was

Laura's turn.

"Xanthophyll," she said. To her surprise, she was
suddenly confused. Her eyes shut. She could almost
see the word on the speller's last page, but she could
not think. It seemed that she stood a long time in a
dreadful silence full of watching eyes.

"Xanthophyll," she said again desperately, and she
spelled quickly, "X-a-n, zan; t-h-o, tho, zantho; p-h—"

Wildly she thought, "Grecophil," and in a rush she
ended, "-M-?" Mr. Clewett shook his head.

Trembling, Laura sat down. Now there was only Pa
left.

Mr. Foster cleared his throat. "Xanthophyll," he
said. "X-a-n, zan; t-h-o, tho, zantho; p-h-y—" Laura
could not breathe. No one breathed. " - 1 , " said Mr.

Foster.

Mr. Clewett waited. Mr. Foster waited, too. It
seemed that the waiting lasted forever. At last Mr.

Foster said, "Well, then, I'm beat," and he sat down.

The crowd applauded him anyway, for what he had
done. He had won respect that night.

"Xanthophyll," said Pa. It seemed impossible now
that anyone could spell that dreadful word, but Laura

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
thought, Pa can, he must, he's GOT to!

"X-a-n, zan," said Pa; "t-h-o, tho, zantho; p-h-y—"

he seemed slower, perhaps, than he was. "Double-l,"

he said.

Mr. Clewett clapped the speller shut. There had
never been such thundering applause as that applause
for Pa. He had spelled down the whole town.

T h e n , still warm and all stirred up, everyone was
getting into wraps.

"I don't know when I've had such a good time!"

Mrs. Bradley said to Ma.

" T h e best of it is, to think we'll have another meet-
ing next Friday," said Mrs. Garland.

Still talking, the crowd was streaming out and
lanterns went jogging toward Main Street.

"Well, do you feel some better, Laura?" Pa asked,
and she answered, "Oh, yes! Oh, didn't we have a
good time!"

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THE WHIRL OF GAIETY

Now there was always Friday evening to look
forward to, and after the second Literary,
there was such rivalry between the enter-
tainers that there was news almost every day.

The second Literary was entirely charades, and Pa
carried off the honors of the whole evening. Nobody
could guess his charade.

He played it alone, in his everyday clothes. Walking
up the central aisle, he carried two small potatoes be-
fore him on the blade of his ax. T h a t was all.

Then he stood twinkling, teasing the crowd, and
giving hints. "It has to do with the Bible," he said.

"Why, every one of you knows it." He said, "It's
something you often consult." He even said, "It's

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helpful in understanding Saint Paul." He teased,

"Don't tell me you all give u p ! "

Every last one of them had to give up, and Laura
was almost bursting with pride and delight when at
last Pa told them, "It's Commentators on the Ac's."

As this sunk in, up rose a roar of laughter and ap-
plause.

On the way home, Laura heard Mr. Bradley say,

"We'll have to go some, to beat that stunt of Ingalls!"

Gerald Fuller, in his English way, called, "I say, there's
talent enough for a musical program, what?"

For the next Literary, there was music. Pa with his
fiddle and Gerald Fuller with his accordion made such
music that the schoolhouse and the crowd seemed to
dissolve in an enchantment. Whenever they stopped,
applause roared for more.

It seemed impossible ever to have a more marvelous
evening. But now the whole town was aroused, and
families were driving in from the homestead claims to
attend the Literaries. T h e men in town were on their
mettle; they planned a superb musical evening. T h e y
practiced for it, and they borrowed Mrs. Bradley's or-
gan.

On that Friday they wrapped the organ carefully
in quilts and horse blankets, they loaded it into

Mr. Foster's ox wagon and took it carefully to the
schoolhouse. It was a beautiful organ, all shining
wood, with carpeted pedals and a top climbing up
in tapering wooden pinnacles, tiny shelves, and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
diamond-shaped mirrors. Its music rack was a lace
pattern in wood, with red cloth behind it that showed
through the holes, and on either side was a round
place on which to set a lamp.

T h e teacher's desk was moved away, and that organ
set in its place. On the blackboard Mr. Clewett wrote
out the program. There was organ music by itself, or-
gan music with Pa's fiddle, and organ music with the
singing of quartets and duets and solos. Mrs. Bradley
sang,

"Backward, turn backward,

Oh Time in thy flight.

Make me a child again,

Just for tonight."

Laura could hardly bear the sadness of it. Her throat
swelled and ached. A tear glittered on Ma's cheek be-
fore she could catch it with her handkerchief. All the
women were wiping their eyes, and the men were
clearing their throats and blowing their noses.

Everyone said that surely nothing could be better
than that musical program. But Pa said mysteriously,

"You wait and s e e . "

As if this were not enough, the church building was
roofed at last, and now every Sunday there were two
church services and Sunday school.

It was a nice church, though so new that it still
looked raw. As yet there was no bell in the belfry, nor
any finish on the board walls. Outside, they were not

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
yet weathered gray, and inside they were bare boards
and studding. T h e pulpit and the long benches with
boxed-in ends were raw lumber, too, but it was all
fresh and clean-smelling.

In the small entry built out from the door there was
room enough to settle clothing blown awry by the
wind, before going into the church, and Mrs. Bradley
had lent her organ, so there was organ music with the
singing.

Laura even enjoyed Rev. Brown's preaching. What
he said did not make sense to her, but he looked like
the picture of John Brown in her history book, come
alive. His eyes glared, his white mustache and his
whiskers bobbed, and his big hands waved and clawed
and clenched into fists pounding the pulpit and shak-
ing in air. Laura amused herself, too, by changing his
sentences in her mind, to improve their grammar. She
need not remember the sermon, for at home Pa re-
quired her and Carrie only to repeat the text correctly.

Then, when the sermon was over, there was more
singing.

Best of all was Hymn Eighteen, when the organ
notes rolled out and everybody vigorously sang:

"We are going forth with our staff in hand

Through a desert wild in a stranger land,

But our faith is bright and our hope is strong,

And the Good Old Way is our pilgrim song."

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

T h e n , all together letting out their voices in chorus
louder than the swelling organ song,

"'Tis the Good Old Way by our fathers trod,

'Tis the Way of Life and it leadeth unto God,

'Tis the only path to the realms of Day,

We are going home in the GOOD OLD WAY!"

With Sunday school and morning church, Sunday
dinner and dishes, and going to church again in the
evening, every Sunday fairly flew past. There was
school again on Monday, and the rising excitement of
waiting for the Friday Literary; Saturday was not long
enough for talking it all over, then Sunday came again.

As if all this were not more than enough, the Ladies'

Aid planned a great celebration of Thanksgiving, to
help pay for the church. It was to be a New England

Supper. Laura rushed home from school to help Ma
peel and slice and stew down the biggest pumpkin
that Pa had raised last summer. She carefully picked
over and washed a whole quart of small white navy
beans, too. Ma was going to make a mammoth pump-
kin pie and the largest milkpan full of baked beans, to
take to the New England Supper.

There was no school on Thanksgiving Day. There
was no Thanksgiving dinner, either. It was a queer,
blank day, full of anxious watching of the pie and the
beans and of waiting for the evening. In the afternoon
they all took turns, bathing in the washtub in the

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
kitchen, by daylight. It was so strange to bathe by
daylight, and on Thursday.

Then Laura carefully brushed her school dress, and
brushed and combed and braided her hair and curled
her bangs afresh. Ma dressed in her second-best, and

Pa trimmed his whiskers and put on his Sunday
clothes.

At lamp-lighting time, when they were all hungry
for supper, Ma wrapped the great pan of beans in
brown wrapping paper and a shawl, to keep the beans
hot, while Laura bundled Grace into her wraps and
hurried into her own coat and hood. Pa carried the
beans, Ma bore in both hands the great pumpkin pie,
baked in her large, square bread-baking tin. Laura
and Carrie carried between them a basket full of Ma's
dishes, and Grace held on to Laura's other hand.

As soon as they passed the side of Fuller's store they
could see, across the vacant lots behind it, the church
blazing with light. Wagons and teams and saddle
ponies were already gathering around it, and people
were going into its dimly lighted entry.

All the bracket lamps on the inside walls of the
church were lighted. Their glass bowls were full of
kerosene and their light shone dazzling bright from
the tin reflectors behind their clear glass chimneys.

All the benches had been set back against the walls,
and two long, white-covered tables stretched glitter-
ing down the middle of the room.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"Oo, look!" Carrie cried out.

Laura stood stock-still for an instant. Even Pa and

Ma almost halted, though they were too grown-up to
show surprise. A grown-up person must never let feel-
ings be shown by voice or manner. So Laura only
looked, and gently hushed Grace, though she was as
excited and overwhelmed as Carrie was.

In the very center of one table a pig was standing,
roasted brown, and holding in its mouth a beautiful
red apple.

Above all the delicious scents that came from those
tables rose the delicious smell of roast pork.

In all their lives, Laura and Carrie had never seen so
much food. Those tables were loaded. There were
heaped dishes of mashed potatoes and of mashed
turnips, and of mashed yellow squash, all dribbling
melted butter down their sides from little hollows in
their peaks. There were large bowls of dried corn,
soaked soft again and cooked with cream. There were
plates piled high with golden squares of corn bread
and slices of white bread and of brown, nutty-tasting
graham bread. There were cucumber pickles and beet
pickles and green tomato pickles, and glass bowls on
tall glass stems were full of red tomato preserves and
wild-chokecherry jelly. On each table was a long,
wide, deep pan of chicken pie, with steam rising
through the slits in its flaky crust.

Most marvelous of all was the pig. It stood so life-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
like, propped up by short sticks, above a great pan
filled with baked apples. It smelled so good. Better
than any smell of any other food was that rich, oily,
brown smell of roasted pork, that Laura had not
smelled for so long.

Already people were sitting at the tables, filling and
refilling their plates, passing dishes to each other, eat-
ing and talking. Already the rich, pale meat, steaming
hot inside its rim of crackling brown fat, was being
sliced away from one side of the pig.

"How much pork have you got there?" Laura heard
a man ask as he passed back his plate for more, and
the man who was carving answered, while he cut a
thick slice, "Can't say exactly, but it weighed a good
forty pounds, dressed."

There was not a vacant place at the table. Up and
down behind the chairs Mrs. Tinkham and Mrs.

Bradley were hurrying, reaching behind shoulders to
refill cups with tea or coffee. Other ladies were clear-
ing away used plates and replacing them with clean
ones. As soon as anyone finished eating and left his
place, it was taken, though the supper cost fifty cents.

The church was almost full of people, and more were
coming in.

This was all new to Laura. She felt lost and did not
know what to do, until she saw Ida busily washing
dishes at a table in a corner. Ma had begun to help
wait on table, so Laura went to help Ida.

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"Didn't you bring an apron?" Ida asked. " T h e n pin
this towel on, so I can't splash your dress." Being a
minister's daughter, Ida was used to church work. Her
sleeves were rolled up, her dress was covered by a big
apron, and she laughed and chattered while she
washed dishes at a great rate and Laura swiftly wiped
them.

"Oh, this supper's a great success!" Ida rejoiced.

"Did you ever think we'd get such a crowd!"

" N o , " Laura answered. She whispered, "Will any-
thing be left for us to eat?"

"Oh, y e s ! " Ida answered confidently, and she went
on, low, "Mother Brown always sees to that. She's
keeping back a couple of the best pies and a layer
c a k e . "

Laura did not care so much for the fruit pies and the
cake, but she did hope that some of the pork might be
left when her turn came to go to the table.

Some was left when Pa got places for Carrie and

Grace and himself. Laura glimpsed them, eating hap-
pily, while she went on wiping dishes. As fast as she
wiped plates and cups, they were whisked away to the
tables, while even faster, it seemed, more dirty ones
were piled around the dishpan.

"We really need help here," Ida said cheerfully. No
one had expected such a crowd. Ma was fairly flying
about, and so were most of the other ladies. Faithfully

Laura kept on wiping dishes. She would not leave Ida

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
to cope with them alone, though she grew hungrier
and hungrier, and had less and less hope of getting
anything to eat.

It was a long time before the tables began to be de-
serted. At last only the members of the L a d i e s ' Aid,
and Ida and Laura, were still hungry. T h e n plates and
cups, knives and forks and spoons, were washed and
wiped again, one table was set again, and they could
sit down. A pile of bones lay where the pig had been,
but Laura was happy to see that plenty of meat re-
mained on them, and some chicken pie was left in the
pan. Quietly Mrs. Brown brought out the kept-back
layer cake and the pies.

For a little while Laura and Ida rested and ate, while
the women complimented each other's cooking and
said what a success the supper had been. There was a
clamor of talking all along the crowded benches by the
walls, and in the corners and around the stove the men
stood talking.

Then the tables were finally cleared. Laura and Ida
washed and wiped dishes again, and the women
sorted them out and packed them into baskets with
whatever food was left. It was a compliment to Ma's
cooking that not a bite of the pumpkin pie nor a
spoonful of the beans remained. Ida washed the bak-
ing pan and the milkpan, Laura wiped them, and Ma
crowded them into her basket.

Mrs. Bradley was playing the organ, and Pa and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
some others were singing, but Grace was asleep and it
was time to go home.

"I know you are tired, Caroline," said Pa as he car-
ried Grace homeward, while Ma carried the lantern to
light the way and Laura and Carrie followed, lugging
the basket of dishes. "But your Aid Society sociable
was a great success."

"I am tired," Ma replied. A little edge to her gentle
voice startled Laura. "And it wasn't a sociable. It was
a New England Supper."

Pa said no more. T h e clock was striking eleven
when he unlocked the door, and the next day was an-
other school day, and tomorrow night was the Friday

Literary.

It was to be a debate, "Resolved: That Lincoln was
a greater man than Washington." Laura was eager to
hear it, for Lawyer Barnes was leading the affirmative
and his argument would be good.

" T h e y will be educational," she said to Ma while
they were hurriedly getting ready to go. She was really
carrying on an argument with herself, for she knew
that she should be studying. She had missed two whole
evenings of study in that one week. Still, there would
be a few days at Christmas, between the school terms,
when she could make up for lost time.

T h e Christmas box had gone to Mary. In it Ma care-
fully placed the nubia that Laura had crocheted of
soft, fleecy wool, as white as the big snowflakes falling

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
gently outside the window. She put in the lace collar
that she had knitted of finest white sewing thread.

Then she put in six handkerchiefs that Carrie had
made of thin lawn. T h r e e were edged with narrow,
machine-made lace, and three were plainly hemmed.

Grace could not yet make a Christmas present, but
she had saved her pennies to buy half a yard of blue
ribbon, and Ma had made this into a bow for Mary to
pin at her throat, on the white lace collar. T h e n they
had all written a long Christmas letter, and into the
envelope Pa put a five-dollar bill.

"That will buy the little things she n e e d s , " he said.

Mary's teacher had written, praising Mary highly.

The letter said, too, that Mary could send home an
example of her bead work if she could buy the beads,
and that she needed a special slate to write on, and
that perhaps later they would wish her to own an-
other kind of special slate on which to write Braille, a
kind of writing that the blind could read with their
fingers.

"Mary will know that we are all thinking of her at

Christmas time," said Ma, and they were all happier
in knowing that the Christmas box was on its way.

Still, without Mary it was not like Christmas. Only

Grace was wholly joyous when at breakfast they
opened the Christmas presents. For Grace there was a
real doll, with a china head and hands, and little black
slippers sewed on her cloth feet. Pa had put rockers

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
on a cigar box to make a cradle for the doll, and Laura
and Carrie and Ma had made little sheets and a pillow
and a wee patchwork quilt, and had dressed the doll in
a nightgown and a nightcap. Grace was perfectly
happy.

Together Laura and Carrie had bought a German-
silver thimble for Ma, and a blue silk necktie for Pa.

And at Laura's plate was the blue-and-gilt book, Ten-
nyson's Poems, Pa and Ma did not guess that she was
not surprised. T h e y had brought from Iowa a book for

Carrie, too, and kept it hidden. It was Stories of the

Moorland.

T h a t was all there was to Christmas. After the
morning's work was done, Laura at last sat down to
read " T h e Lotos-Eaters." Even that poem was a dis-
appointment, for in the land that seemed always after-
noon the sailors turned out to be no good. They
seemed to think they were entitled to live in that
magic land and lie around complaining. When they
thought about bestirring themselves, they only
whined, "Why should we ever labor up the laboring
wave?" Why, indeed! Laura thought indignantly.

Wasn't that a sailor's job, to ever labor up the laboring
wave? But no, they wanted dreamful ease. Laura
slammed the book shut.

She knew there must be beautiful poems in such a
book, but she missed Mary so much that she had no
heart to read them.

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Then Pa came hurrying from the post office with a
letter. T h e handwriting was strange, but the letter was
signed, Mary! She wrote that she placed the paper on
a grooved, metal slate, and by feeling the grooves she
could form the letters with a lead pencil. This letter
was her Christmas present to them all.

She wrote that she liked college and that the teach-
ers said she was doing well in her studies. She was
learning to read and to write Braille. She wished that
she might be with them on Christmas, and they must
think of her on Christmas day as she would be think-
ing of them all.

Quietly the day went by after the letter was read.

Once Laura said, "If only Mary were here, how she
would enjoy the Literaries!"

Then suddenly she thought how swiftly everything
was changing. It would be six more years before Mary
came home, and nothing could ever be again the same
as it had been.

Laura did no studying at all between those school
terms, and January went by so quickly that she had
hardly time to catch her breath. That winter was so
mild that school was not closed for even one day.

Every Friday night there was a Literary, each more
exciting than the last.

There was Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works. From miles
around, everyone came that night. Horses and wagons
and saddle ponies were tied to all the hitching posts.

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T h e brown Morgans stood covered with neatly buck-
led blankets, and Almanzo Wilder stood with Cap

Garland in the crowded schoolhouse.

A curtain of white sheets hid the teacher's platform.

When this curtain was drawn aside, a great gasp went
up, for all along the wall and across each end of the
platform was a row of wax figures, life-size.

At least, they looked as if they were made of wax.

Their faces were white as wax, except for painted-
on black eyebrows and red lips. Draped in folds of
white cloth, each figure stood as motionless as a
graven image.

After some moments of gazing on those waxen fig-
ures, Mrs. Jarley stepped from behind the drawn-
back curtain. No one knew who she was. She wore a
sweeping black gown and a scoop bonnet, and in her
hand she held the teacher's long pointer.

In a deep voice she said, "George Washington, I
command thee! Live and move!" and with the pointer
she touched one of the figures.

T h e figure moved! In short, stiff jerks, one arm
lifted and raised from the folds of white cloth a wax-
like hand gripping a hatchet. T h e arm made chopping
motions with the hatchet.

Mrs. Jarley called each figure by its name, touched
it with the pointer, and each one moved jerkily.

Daniel Boone raised and lowered a gun. Queen Eliza-
beth put on and took off a tall gilt crown. Sir Walter

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Raleigh's stiff hand moved a pipe to and from his mo-
tionless lips.

One by one all those figures were set in motion.

They kept on moving, in such a lifeless, waxen way
that one could hardly believe they were really alive.

When finally the curtain was drawn to, there was
one long, deep breath, and then wild applause. All the
wax figures, naturally alive now, had to come out be-
fore the curtain while louder and louder grew the ap-
plause. Mrs. Jarley took off her bonnet and was

Gerald Fuller. Queen Elizabeth's crown and wig fell
off, and she was Mr. Bradley. There seemed no end to
the hilarious uproar.

"This is the climax, surely," Ma said on the way
home.

"You can't tell," Pa said teasingly, as if he knew
more than he would say. "This whole town has its gin-
ger up now."

Mary Power came next day to visit with Laura, and
all the afternoon they talked about the waxworks.

That evening when Laura settled down to study she
could only yawn.

"I might as well go to bed," she said, " I ' m too
slee—" and she yawned enormously.

"This will make two evenings you've lost this
week," said Ma. "And tomorrow night there's church.

We are living in such a whirl of gaiety lately that I de-
clare— Was that a knock at the door?"

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

T h e knock was repeated, and Ma went to the door.

Charley was there, but he would not come in. Ma
took an envelope that he handed her, and shut the
door.

" T h i s is for you, Laura," she said.

Carrie and Grace looked on wide-eyed, and Pa and

Ma waited while Laura read the address on the enve-
lope. "Miss Laura Ingalls, De Smet, Dakota Terri-
tory."

"Why, what in the world," she said. She slit the en-
velope carefully with a hairpin and drew out a folded
sheet of gilt-edged notepaper. She unfolded it and
read aloud.

Ben M. Woodworth
requests the pleasure of
your company at his home

Saturday Evening

January 28th

Supper at Eight o'clock

Just as Ma sometimes did, Laura sat limply down.

Ma took the invitation from her hand and read it again.

"It's a party," Ma said. "A supper party."

"Oh, Laura! You're asked to a party!" Carrie ex-
claimed. T h e n she asked, "What is a party like?"

"I don't know," Laura said. "Oh, Ma, what will I
do? I never went to a party. How must I behave at a
party?"

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"You have been taught how to behave wherever you
are, Laura," Ma replied. "You need only behave prop-
erly, as you know how to do."

No doubt this was true, but it was no comfort to

Laura.

239

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

All the next week Laura thought of the party.

She wanted to go and she did not want to.

Once, long ago when she was a little girl, she
had gone to Nellie Oleson's party, but that was a little
girl's party. This would be different.

At school Ida and Mary Power were excited about it.

Arthur had told Minnie that it would be a birthday
party, for Ben's birthday. From politeness they could
hardly say a word about it, because Nellie was with
them at recess, and Nellie had not been invited. She
could not have come, because she lived in the country.

On the night of the party, Laura was dressed and
ready at seven o'clock. Mary Power was coming to go
with her to the depot, but she would not come for half
an hour yet.

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Laura tried to read again her favorite of Tennyson's
poems,

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad

And the musk of the rose is blown.

She could not sit still. She took one more look into
the looking glass that hung on the wall. She wished so
much to be tall and slim that she almost hoped to see
a slender, tall girl. But in the glass she saw a small,
round girl in a Sunday-best dress of blue cashmere.

At least it was a young lady's dress, so long that it hid
the high tops of her buttoned shoes. T h e full-gathered
skirt was gathered as full in the back as it could possi-
bly be. Over it fitted the tight basque that came down
in points in front and in back, and buttoned snugly
with little green buttons straight up the front. A band
of blue-and-gold-and-green plaid went around the skirt
just above the hem, and narrow strips of plaid edged
the pointed bottom of the basque and went around the
wrists of the tight, long sleeves. T h e upstanding collar
was of the plaid, with a frill of white lace inside it, and

Ma had lent Laura her pearl-shell pin to fasten the col-
lar together under her chin.

Laura could not find one fault with the dress. But,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
oh! how she wished she were tall and willowy, like

Nellie Oleson. Her waist was as round as a young tree,
her arms were slender but round, too, and her very
small hands were rather plump and capable-looking.

T h e y were not thin and languid like Nellie's hands.

Even the face in the glass was all curves. T h e chin
was a soft curve and the red mouth had a short, curv-
ing upper lip. T h e nose was almost right, but the least
bit of a saucy tilt kept it from being Grecian. The
eyes, Laura thought, were too far apart, and they were
a softer blue than Pa's. T h e y were wide-open and
anxious. T h e y did not sparkle at all.

Straight across the forehead was the line of curled
bangs. At least, her hair was thick and very long,
though it was not golden. It was drawn back smooth
from the bangs to the heavy mat of the coiled braid
that covered the whole back of her head. Its weight
made her feel really grown-up. She turned her head
slowly to see the lamplight run glistening on its brown
smoothness. T h e n suddenly she realized that she was
behaving as if she were vain of her hair.

She went to the window. Mary Power was not yet in
sight. Laura so dreaded the party that she felt she
simply could not go.

"Sit down and wait quietly, Laura," Ma gently ad-
monished her. Just then Laura caught sight of Mary

Power, and feverishly she got into her coat and put on
her hood.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

She and Mary Power said hardly anything as they
walked together up Main Street to its end, then fol-
lowed the railroad track to the depot, where the

Woodworths lived. T h e upstairs windows were
brightly lighted, and a lamp burned in the telegraph
office downstairs, where Ben's older brother Jim was
still working. He was the telegraph operator. T h e
electric telegraph's chattering sounded sharp in the
frosty night.

"I guess we go into the waiting room," Mary Power
said. "Do we knock, or just go right in?"

"I don't know," Laura confessed. Oddly, she felt a
little better because Mary Power was uncertain, too.

Still her throat was thick and her wrists were flutter-
ing. The waiting room was a public place, but its door
was shut and this was a party.

Mary Power hesitated, then knocked. She did not
knock loudly, but the sound made them both start.

No one came. Boldly Laura said, " L e t ' s go right in!"

As she spoke, she took hold of the door handle, and
suddenly Ben Woodworth opened the door.

Laura was so upset that she could not answer his,

'Good evening." He was wearing his Sunday suit and
stiff white collar. His hair was damp and carefully
combed. He added, "Mother's upstairs."

They followed him across the waiting room and up
the stairs to where his mother was waiting in a little
hall at their head. She was small as Laura, and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
plumper, and she was daintiness itself, in a soft, thin
gray dress with snowy white ruffles at throat and
wrists. But she was so friendly that Laura felt com-
fortable at once.

In her bedroom they took off their wraps. T h e room
was as dainty as Mrs. Woodworth. T h e y hesitated to
lay their coats on the dainty bed, with its knitted
white coverlet and ruffled pillow shams. Thin, ruffled
white muslin curtains were draped back at the win-
dows, and on a little stand-table a knitted lace doily
lay under the lamp. White knitted lace to match was
spread on the bureau top, and white lace was draped
across the top of the mirror frame.

Mary Power and Laura looked into the mirror, and
with their fingers they fluffed up their bangs, slightly
flattened by their hoods. T h e n in the friendliest way

Mrs. Woodworth said, "If you've finished your primp-
ing, come into the sitting room."

Ida and Minnie, Arthur and Cap and Ben were al-
ready there. Mrs. Woodworth said, smiling, "Now
when Jim comes up from work, our party will be com-
plete." She sat down and began to talk pleasantly.

T h e sitting room was pleasant with shaded lamp-
light and cozy with warmth from the heater. Dark red
cloth curtains were draped at the windows, and the
chairs were not set against the wall but gathered about
the stove, where the coals glowed through the isin-
glass of the stove's door. Besides the plush photograph

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L I T T L E TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE
album on the center-table's marble top, there were
several other books standing on its lower shelf. Laura
longed to look into them, but it would not be polite to
be so inattentive to Mrs. Woodworth.

After a few moments Mrs. Woodworth excused her-
self and went into the kitchen. T h e n a stillness settled
on everyone. Laura felt that she should say some-
thing, but she could think of nothing to say. Her feet
seemed too big and she did not know what to do with
her hands.

Through a doorway she saw a long table covered
with a white cloth. China and silver sparkled on it, in
the light of a lamp that hung suspended on long gilt
chains from the ceiling. Glittering glass pendants
hung down all around the edge of the lamp's milk-
white shade.

It was all so pretty, but Laura could not forget her
feet. She tried to draw them farther back beneath her
skirts. She looked at the other girls, and knew that she
must say something, for no one else could. Yet it was
more than she could do, to break that silence. Her
heart sank as she thought that, after all, a party was as
uncomfortable as a sociable.

Then footsteps came springing up the stairs, and

Jim came breezing in. He looked around at them all,
and gravely asked, "Are you playing Quaker meet-
ing?"

They all laughed. After that they were able to talk,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
though all the time they heard small clinks of china
from the other room where Mrs. Woodworth was
moving about the table. Jim was so much at ease that
he called out, "Supper ready, mother?"

"Yes, it is," Mrs. Woodworth said from the doorway.

"Won't you all come into the dining room?"

It seemed that the Woodworths used that room only
for eating in.

Eight places were set at the table, and on each of
the plates was a soup plate full of steaming oyster
soup. Ben's place was at the head of the table, Jim's at
the foot. Mrs. Woodworth told each of the others
where to sit, and said that she would wait on them all.

Now Laura's feet were under the table, her hands
had something to do, and it was all so bright and gay
that she was no longer bashful.

In the very center of the table was a silver castor
holding cut-glass bottles of vinegar, mustard and pep-
per sauce, and tall salt- and pepper-shakers. T h e plate
at each place was of white china with a wreath of tiny,
many-colored flowers around the edge. Beside each
plate a white napkin stood up, folded in such a way
that it partly opened out like a large flower.

Most marvelous of all, in front of each plate was an
orange. Not only that; for these oranges, too, had been
made into flowers. T h e orange's peel had been cut
down from the top in little pointed sections, and each
section was curled inward and down, like a flower's

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
red-gold petals. Held within these petals, the flesh of
the orange curved up, covered with its thin, white
skin.

The oyster soup alone was treat enough to make a
party, and to go with it Mrs. Woodworth passed a bowl
of tiny, round oyster crackers. When the last drop of
that delicious soup had been spooned up and swal-
lowed, she took away the soup plates, and she set on
the table a platter heaped with potato patties. T h e
small, flat cakes of mashed potatoes were fried a
golden brown. She brought then a platter full of hot,
creamy, brown codfish balls, and then a plate of tiny,
hot biscuits. She passed butter in a round glass butter
dish.

Mrs. Woodworth urged generous helpings, not once,
but twice. T h e n she brought cups of coffee, and
passed the cream and sugar.

After all this, she cleared the table again, and
brought in a white-frosted birthday cake. She set it
before Ben and placed a stack of small plates beside
it. Ben stood up to cut the cake. He put a slice on
each plate, and Mrs. Woodworth set one at each place.

They waited then until Ben had cut his own slice of
cake.

Laura was wondering about the orange before her. If
those oranges were meant to be eaten, she did not
know when or how. T h e y were so pretty, it was a pity
to spoil them. Still, she had once eaten part of an

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
orange, so she knew how good an orange tastes.

Everyone took a bite of cake, but no one touched an
orange. Laura thought that perhaps the oranges were
to be taken home. Perhaps she could take home an or-
ange, to divide with Pa and Ma and Carrie and Grace.

T h e n everyone saw Ben take his orange. He held it
carefully over his plate, stripped off the petaled peel-
ing, and broke the orange into its sections. He took a
bite from one section, then he took a bite of cake.

Laura took up her orange, and so did everyone else.

Carefully they peeled them, divided them into sec-
tions, and ate them with the slices of cake.

All the peelings were neat on the plates when sup-
per was finished. Laura remembered to wipe her lips
daintily with her napkin and fold it, and so did the
other girls.

"Now we'll go downstairs and play games," Ben
said.

As they all got up from the table, Laura said low to

Mary Power, "Oughtn't we to help with the dishes?"

and Ida asked right out, "Sha'n't we help wash the
dishes first, Mrs. Woodworth?" Mrs. Woodworth
thanked them, but said, " R u n along and enjoy your-
selves, girls! Never mind the dishes!"

T h e big waiting room downstairs was bright with
light from the bracket lamps, and warm from the
red-hot heating stove. T h e r e was plenty of room to
play the liveliest games. First they played drop-the-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
handkerchief, then they played blind-man's-buff.

When at last they all dropped panting onto the
benches to rest, Jim said, "I know a game you've
never played!"

Eagerly they all wanted to know what it was.

"Well, I don't believe it's got a name, it's so new,"

Jim answered. "But you all come into my office and

I'll show you how it's played."

In the small office there was barely room for them

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
all to stand in a half circle, as Jim told them to do,
with Jim at one end and Ben at the other, crowded
against Jim's worktable. Jim told them all to join
hands.

"Now stand still," he told them. T h e y all stood still,
wondering what next.

Suddenly a burning tingle flashed through Laura; all
the clasped hands jerked, the girls screamed, the boys
yelled. Laura was frightfully startled. She made no
sound and did not move.

All the others began excitedly to ask, "What was
that? What was it? What did you do, Jim? Jim, how
did you do that?" Cap said, "I know it was your elec-
tricity, Jim, but how did you do it?"

Jim only laughed and asked, "Didn't you feel any-
thing, L a u r a ? "

"Oh, yes! I felt it," Laura answered.

" T h e n why didn't you yell?" Jim wanted to know.

"What was the use?" Laura asked him, and Jim
could not tell her that.

"But what was it?" she demanded, with all the oth-
ers, and Jim would answer only, "Nobody knows."

Pa, too, had said that nobody knows what electricity
is. Benjamin Franklin had discovered that it is light-
ning, but nobody knows what lightning is. Now it
worked the electric telegraph, and still nobody knew
what it was.

T h e y all felt queer, looking at the little brass ma-

250

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
chine on the table, that could send its clicking mes-
sages so far and fast. Jim made one click on it. "That's
heard in St. Paul," he said.

"Right now?" Minnie asked, and Jim said, "Right
now."

T h e y were standing silent when Pa opened the door
and walked in.

"Is the party over?" he asked. "I came to see my girl
home." T h e big clock was striking ten. No one had
noticed how late it was.

While the boys put on their coats and caps that had
been hanging in the waiting room, the girls went up-
stairs to thank Mrs. Woodworth and tell her good
night. In the dainty bedroom they buttoned their
coats and tied on their hoods and said Oh! what a
good time they had had! Now that the dreaded party
was over, Laura only wished that it could last longer.

Downstairs Rev. Brown had come for Ida, and Laura
and Mary Power walked home with Pa.

Ma was waiting up when Laura and Pa came in.

"I can see what a good time you've had, by the way
your eyes are shining," Ma smiled at Laura. "Now slip
quietly up to bed, for Carrie and Grace are asleep. To-
morrow you can tell all of us about the party."

"Oh, Ma, each one of us had a whole orange!"

Laura couldn't help saying then, but she saved the
rest to tell them all together.

251

THE MADCAP DAYS

After the party, Laura hardly cared about study-
ing. T h e party had made such a jolly friendli-
ness among the big girls and boys that now at
recess and noon on stormy days they gathered around
the stove, talking and joking.

T h e pleasant days between snowstorms were even
livelier. T h e n they all played at snowballing each
other outdoors. This was not ladylike, but it was such
fun! T h e y came in panting and laughing, stamping
snow from their shoes and shaking it from coats and
hoods in the entry, and they went to their seats warm
and glowing and full of fresh air.

Laura was having such a good time that she almost
forgot about improving her opportunity in school. She

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
stayed at the head of all her classes, but her grades
were no longer 100. She made mistakes in arithmetic,
sometimes even in history. Once her arithmetic grade
went down to 93. Still, she thought she could make up
lost time by studying hard next summer, though she
knew by heart the true words:

Lost, between sunrise and sunset,

One golden hour, set with sixty diamond minutes.

No reward is offered, for it is gone forever.

The little boys brought their Christmas-present
sleds to school. Sometimes the big boys borrowed
them, and took the girls sled-riding. T h e boys pulled
the sleds, for there were no hills to slide down, and
this winter no blizzards made big, hard snowdrifts.

Then Cap and Ben made a hand-bobsled, big
enough for all four girls to crowd into. T h e four boys
pulled it. At recess they raced at great speed, far out
onto the prairie road and back. At noon they had time
to go even farther.

At last Nellie Oleson could not bear standing alone
at the window and watching this. She had always dis-
dained to play outdoors in the cold that might roughen
her delicate complexion and chap her hands, but one
day at noon she declared that she would go for a sled
ride.

T h e sled was not large enough for five, but the boys

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
would not agree to let any one of the other girls stay
behind. T h e y coaxed all five girls into the sled. The
girls' feet stuck out from the sides, their skirts had to
be gathered in till their woolen stockings showed
above their high shoetops. Away they went, out on the
snowy road.

T h e y were windblown, disheveled, red-faced from
cold and wind and laughter and excitement as the
boys swung in a circle over the prairie and ran toward
town, drawing the sled behind them. T h e y whisked
past the schoolhouse and Cap shouted, " L e t ' s go up
and down Main Street!"

With laughter and shouts the other boys agreed,
running even faster.

Nellie shrieked, "Stop this minute! Stop! Stop, I
tell you!"

Ida called, "Oh boys, you mustn't!" but she could
not stop laughing. Laura was laughing, too, for they
were such a funny sight, heels kicking helplessly,
skirts blowing, fascinators and mufflers and hair whip-
ping in the wind. Nellie's screaming only added to the
boys' merriment as they ran the faster. Surely, Laura
thought, they wouldn't go onto Main Street. Surely
they would turn back any minute.

"No! No! Arthur, n o ! " Minnie was screaming, and

Mary Power was begging, "Don't! Oh, please don't!"

Laura saw the brown Morgan horses standing blan-
keted at the hitching posts. Almanzo Wilder, in a big

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
fur coat, was untying them. He turned to see what
caused the girls' screaming, and at the same instant

Laura knew that the boys meant to take them all past
him, past all the eyes on Main Street. This was not
funny at all.

The other girls were making such a commotion that

Laura had to speak low, to be heard.

"Cap!" she said. "Please make them stop. Mary
doesn't want to go on Main Street."

Cap began to turn at once. T h e other boys pulled
against him, but Cap said, "Aw, come on," and swung
the sled.

They were on their way back to the schoolhouse and
the bell was ringing. At the schoolhouse door they
scrambled out of the sled good-naturedly, all but

Nellie. Nellie was furious.

"You boys think you're smart!" she raged. "You—
you—you ignorant westerners!"

The boys looked at her, sober and silent. T h e y
could not say what they wanted to, because she was a
girl. T h e n Cap glanced anxiously at Mary Power, and
she smiled at him.

" T h a n k you, boys, for the ride," Laura said.

"Yes, thank you all, it was such fun!" Ida chimed in.

" T h a n k you," Mary Power said, smiling at Cap, and
his flashing smile lighted up his whole face.

"We'll go again at recess," he promised, as they all
trooped into the schoolhouse.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

In March the snow was melting, and final examina-
tions were near. Still Laura did not study as she
should. All the talk now was about the last Literary of
that winter. What it would be was a secret that every-
one was trying to guess. Even Nellie's family was
coming to it, and Nellie was going to wear a new
dress.

At home, instead of studying, Laura sponged and
pressed her blue cashmere and freshened its lace frill.

She so wanted a hat to wear instead of her hood that

Ma bought for her half a yard of beautiful brown vel-
vet.

"I know you'll take the very best care of the hat,"

Ma made excuse to herself, "and it will be perfectly
good to wear for some winters to come."

So on Saturdays Mary Power and Laura made their
hats. Mary's was of dark blue cloth, trimmed with a
twist of black velvet and blue, all from her father's
scrap bag. Laura's was of that lovely brown velvet, so
soft to touch, and with a tawny-golden sheen to its
silkiness. She wore it for the first time to the Literary.

In the schoolhouse no preparation was to be seen,
except that the teacher's desk had been moved from
the platform. People crowded three in a seat, and
every inch of standing room was jammed. Even on the
teacher's desk, boys stood tightly crowded. Mr.

Bradley and Lawyer Barnes pressed back the mass of
people, to keep the center aisle clear. No one knew

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
why, and no one knew what was happening when a
great shout went up from the people outside who were
trying to get in.

Then up the center aisle came marching five black-
faced men in raggedy-taggedy uniforms. White circles
were around their eyes and their mouths were wide
and red. Up onto the platform they marched, then fac-
ing forward in a row suddenly they all advanced,
singing,

"Oh, talk about your Mulligan Guards!

These darkies can't be beat!"

Backward, forward and backward and forward they
marched, back and forth, back and forth.

"Oh TALK aBOUT your MULLigan GUARDS!

These DARKies CAN't be BEAT!

We MARCH in TIME and CUT a SHINE!

Just WATCH these DARKies' feet!"

The man in the middle was clog dancing. Back
against the wall stood the four raggedy black-faced
men. One played a jew's-harp, one played a mouth or-
gan, one kept the time with rattling bones, and one
man clapped with hands and feet.

The cheering started; it couldn't be stopped. Feet
could not be kept still. T h e whole crowd was carried
away by the pounding music, the grinning white-eyed
faces, the wild dancing.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

There was no time to think. When the dancing
stopped, the jokes began. T h e white-circled eyes
rolled, the big red mouths blabbed questions and an-
swers that were the funniest ever heard. T h e n there
was music again, and even wilder dancing.

When the five darkies suddenly raced down the
aisle and were gone, everyone was weak from excite-

L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
ment and laughing. It did not seem possible that the
whole evening had gone. T h e famous minstrel shows
in New York surely could not be better than that min-
strel show had been. T h e n a question ran through the
whole jostling crowd, "Who were they?"

In their rag-tag clothing and with their blackened
faces, it had been hard to know who they were. Laura
was sure that the clog dancer was Gerald Fuller, for
she had once seen him dance a jig on the sidewalk in
front of his hardware store. And as she remembered
the black hands that had held the long, flat, white
bones between their fingers and kept them rattling
out the tunes, she would have been certain that the
darky was Pa, if the darky had had whiskers.

"Pa couldn't have cut off his whiskers, could he?"

she asked Ma, and in horror Ma answered, "Mercy,
no!" T h e n she added, "I hope not."

"Pa must have been one of the darkies," Carrie said,

"because he did not come with us."

"Yes, I know he was practicing to be in the minstrel
show," said Ma, walking faster.

"Well, but none of the darkies had whiskers, M a , "

Carrie reminded her.

" M y goodness," Ma said. "Oh my goodness." She
had been so carried away that she had not thought of
that. "He couldn't have," she said, and she asked

Laura, " D o you suppose he would?"

"I don't know," Laura answered. She really thought

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that, for such an evening, Pa would have sacrificed
even his whiskers, but she did not know what he had
done.

T h e y hurried home. Pa was not there. It seemed a
much longer time than it was, before he came in,
cheerfully asking, "Well, how was the minstrel show?"

His long brown whiskers were as they had always
been.

"What did you do with your whiskers?" Laura cried.

Pa pretended to be surprised and puzzled, asking,

"Why, what is wrong with my whiskers?"

"Charles, you'll be the death of me," Ma said, help-
lessly laughing. But looking closely, Laura saw the
smallest white smudge in the laughing-wrinkles at the
corner of his eye, and she found a very little black
grease in his whiskers.

"I know! You blacked them and smoothed them
down behind that high coat-collar!" she accused him,
and he could not deny it. He had been the darky who
rattled the bones.

Such an evening came once in a lifetime, Ma said,
and they all sat up late, talking about it. There would
be no more Literaries that winter, for spring was com-
ing soon.

"We'll move back to the claim as soon as school lets
out," Pa said. "How will all of you like that?"

"I must be looking over my garden seeds," Ma said
thoughtfully.

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"I'll be glad to go. Grace and I'll pick violets again,"

said Carrie. "Won't you be glad, Grace?" But Grace
was almost asleep in Ma's lap in the rocking chair. She
only opened one eye and murmured, "Vi'lets."

"How about you, L a u r a ? " Pa asked. "I've been
thinking that by now you might want to stay in town."

"I might," Laura admitted. "I do like living in town
better than I ever thought I would. But everyone will
be moving out to hold down claims all summer, and
we'll come back to town next winter, won't we?"

"Yes, I really think we will," said Pa. "We might as
well, as long as I can't rent this building, and it is safer
for you girls going to school. Though we might as well
have stayed on the claim this winter. Well, that's the
way it goes. Get ready for a hard winter, and there's
not so much as one blizzard."

He said it so comically that they all burst out laugh-
ing at the joke on them.

After that, there was moving to think about, and in
the warming air scented with damp earth, Laura felt
less than ever like studying. She knew she could pass
the examinations, even if her grades were not as high
as they should be.

When her conscience pricked her, she thought re-
belliously that she wouldn't see Ida and Mary Power
and Minnie and the boys again, all summer long. She
promised herself that she would study really hard,
next summer.

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In the examinations she did not make one perfect
grade. Her history grade was only 99, and in arith-
metic she earned only 92 plus. That was her record,
and she could never change it now.

T h e n suddenly she knew that there must be no
more self-indulgence. There were only ten months
left, before she would be sixteen years old. Summer
was before her, with blue skies and great blowing
white clouds, the violets blooming in the buffalo wal-
low and the wild roses spangling the prairie grasses,
but she must stay in the house and study. She must. If
she did not, perhaps next spring she could not get a
teacher's certificate, and Mary might have to leave
college.

262

UNEXPECTED IN APRIL

Everything was settled in the little house on the
homestead. Outdoors the snow was all gone, a
green mist of new grass lay over the prairie,
and plowed land spread black and sweet-smelling un-
der the warm sun.

For two hours that morning Laura had studied. Now
as she cleared away the dinner dishes she saw her slate
and schoolbooks waiting and she felt the soft breeze
beguiling her to go walking with Carrie and Grace in
the spring weather. She knew she had to study.

"I think I'll go to town this afternoon," said Pa as he
put on his hat. "Is there anything you want me to get,

Caroline?"

Suddenly the breeze was icy cold, and Laura looked.

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quickly from the window. She exclaimed, "Pa!

There's a blizzard cloud!"

"Why, it can't be! This late in April?" Pa turned to
see for himself.

T h e sunlight went out, the sound of wind changed
as it rose. T h e storm struck the little house. A
whirling whiteness pressed against the window and
the cold came in.

"On second thought," said Pa, "I believe I'd rather
stay home this afternoon."

He drew a chair close to the stove and sat down.

" I ' m glad all the stock is in the stable. I was going to
get picket ropes in town," he added.

Kitty was frantic. T h i s was the first blizzard she had
known. She did not know what to make of it, when all
of her fur stood up and crackled. Trying to soothe her,

Grace discovered that a spark would snap from her
wherever she was touched. Nothing could be done
about that, except not to touch her.

T h r e e days and nights the blizzard raged. Pa put the
hens in the stable lest they freeze. It was so cold that
the dismal days were spent close to the stove, and
though the light was dim, Laura doggedly studied
arithmetic. "At least," she thought, "I don't want to
go walking."

On the third day, the blizzard left the prairie cov-
ered with fine, hard snow. It was still frozen when Pa
walked to town next day. He brought back news that

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two men had been lost in that blizzard.

They had come from the east on the train, in the
warm spring morning. T h e y had driven out to see
friends on a claim south of town, and just before noon
they had set out to walk to another claim two miles
away.

After the blizzard, the whole neighborhood turned
out to search for them, and they were found beside a
haystack, frozen to death.

"Being from the east, they didn't know what to do,"

said Pa. If they had dug into the haystack and plugged
the hole behind them with hay, they might have lived
through the blizzard.

"But whoever could have expected such a blizzard,
so late," said Ma.

"Nobody knows what will happen," Pa said. "Pre-
pare for the worst and then you've some grounds to
hope for the best, that's all you can do."

Laura objected. "You were all prepared for the
worst last winter, Pa, and all that work was wasted.

There wasn't one blizzard till we were back here and
not prepared for it."

"It does seem that these blizzards are bound to
catch us, coming or going," Pa almost agreed.

"I don't see how anybody can be prepared for any-
thing," said Laura. "When you expect something, and
then something else always happens."

"Laura," said Ma.

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"Well, it does, M a , " Laura protested.

" N o , " Ma said. "Even the weather has more sense
in it than you seem to give it credit for. Blizzards
come only in blizzard country. You may be well pre-
pared to teach school and still not be a schoolteacher,
but if you were not prepared, it's certain that you
won't b e . "

T h a t was so. Later Laura remembered that Ma had
once been a schoolteacher. That evening when she
had put away her books to help Ma get supper, she
asked, "How many terms of school did you teach,

M a ? "

"Two," said Ma.

"What happened then?" Laura asked.

"I met your P a , " Ma answered.

" O h , " Laura said. Hopefully she thought that she
might meet somebody. Maybe, after all, she would not
have to be a schoolteacher always.

266

SCHOOLTIME

BEGINS AGAIN

Afterward it seemed to Laura that she did no-
thing but study that whole summer long. Of
course this was not true. She brought water
from the well in the mornings, she milked and moved
the picket pins and taught the new calf to drink. She
worked in the garden and in the house, and in haying
time she trod down the great loads of hay that Pa
drove away to town. But the long, hot, sticky hours
with schoolbooks and slate seemed to overshadow all
else. She didn't go to town even for Fourth of July.

Carrie went with Pa and Ma but Laura stayed at home
to take care of Grace and study the Constitution.

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Letters came often from Mary, and every week a
long letter went to her in return. Even Grace was able
to write little letters, as Ma taught her, and these were
always sent to Mary with the others.

T h e hens were laying now. Ma saved the best eggs
for setting, and twenty-four chicks hatched. The
smallest pullet e g g s Ma used in cooking, and for one

Sunday dinner, with the first green peas and new
potatoes, they ate fried chickens. T h e other cockerels

Ma let grow up. T h e y would be larger to eat, later on.

T h e gophers came again, and Kitty grew fat in the
cornfield. She caught more gophers than she could
eat, and at all hours of the day she could be heard
mrreowling proudly as she brought a fresh-killed one
to lay at Ma's feet or Laura's or Carrie's or Grace's.

She wanted to share her good food, and her puzzled
look showed plainly that she could not understand
why the whole family did not eat gophers.

T h e blackbirds came again. Though they were not
so many this year, and Kitty caught some of them,
still they did damage enough. Again the mellow fall
weather came, and Laura and Carrie walked to
school.

There were more people in town now, and in all the
country around. T h e school was so crowded that all
the seats were filled, and in some of the front seats
three of the smaller pupils sat.

There was a new teacher, Mr. Owen, a son of the

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Mr. Owen whose bay horses had almost won the

Fourth of July race. Laura liked and respected him
very much. He was not very old, but he was serious
and industrious and enterprising.

From the first day, he ruled with a firm hand. Every
pupil was obedient and respectful, every lesson was
thoroughly learned. On the third day of school, Mr.

Owen whipped Willie Oleson.

For some time, Laura did not quite know what she
thought about that whipping. Willie was bright
enough, but he had never learned his lessons. When
he was called upon to recite, he let his mouth fall
open and all the sense went out of his eyes. He looked
less than half-witted, he hardly looked human. It
made anyone turn sick to see him.

He had begun doing this, to tease Miss Wilder. He
seemed unable to collect his scattered mind enough to
understand anything she said to him. At recess he
would do this again, to amuse the other boys. When

Mr. Clewett taught, he thought that Willie was a
halfwit, and required nothing of him. T h e habit had
grown on Willie, until now at any time he could be
seen mooning about with his mouth dropped open
and his eyes empty. Laura really thought that Willie's
mind completely left him at these times.

The first time that Willie goggled at Mr. Owen was
when his name was asked for the school record. Mr.

Owen was startled, and Nellie spoke up. "He's my

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brother, Willie Oleson, and he can't answer ques-
tions, they confuse him."

Several times that day and the next, Laura saw Mr.

Owen glance sharply at Willie. Willie was always
drooling and staring blankly. When he was called
upon to recite, Laura could not bear to see his idiot
face. On the third day, Mr. Owen quietly said, "Come
with me, Willie."

He had a pointer in his hand. With the other hand
firmly on Willie's shoulder, he took Willie into the en-
try and shut the door. He did not say anything. From
their seat nearest the door, Ida and Laura heard the
swish and thud of the pointer. Everyone heard Willie's
howls.

Mr. Owen came quietly in with Willie. "Stop blub-
bering," he said. "Go to your seat and study. I expect
you to know and recite your lessons."

Willie stopped blubbering and went to his seat. Af-
ter that, one look from Mr. Owen cleared some of the
idiot look from Willie's face. He seemed to be trying
to think, and to act like other boys. Laura often won-
dered whether he could pull his mind together after
he had let it go to pieces so, but at least Willie was try-
ing. He was afraid not to try.

Laura and Ida, Mary Power and Minnie, and Nellie

Oleson had kept their old seats. T h e y were all tanned
brown from the summer sun, except Nellie, who was
paler and more ladylike than ever. Her clothes were so

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beautiful, though her mother did make them from
castoffs, that Laura grew dissatisfied with her brown
school dress and her blue cashmere for best. She did
not complain, of course, but she wanted to.

Hoops had finally come in, and Ma bought a set for

Laura. She let down the hem of the brown dress, and
made it over so cleverly that it could be worn over
hoops perfectly well, and the full blue cashmere
needed no changing. Still, Laura felt that all the other
girls were better dressed.

Mary Power had a new school dress. Minnie John-
son had a new coat and new shoes. Ida's clothes came
out of a missionary barrel, but Ida was so sweet and
merry that she looked perfectly dear in anything.

When Laura dressed for school, it seemed to her that
the more she fussed with her appearance the more
dissatisfying it was.

"Your corset is too loose," Ma tried to help her one
morning. "Pull the strings tighter and your figure will
be neater. And I can't think that a lunatic fringe is the
most becoming way to do your hair. It makes any
girl's ears appear larger to comb the hair up back of
them and to have that mat of bangs above the fore-
head."

Ma was anxiously helpful, but some sudden thought
made her laugh softly to herself.

"What is it, Ma? Tell u s ! " Laura and Carrie begged.

"I was only thinking of the time your Aunt Eliza

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and I combed our hair up off our ears and went to
school that way. T h e teacher called us up front and
shamed us before the whole school, for being so un-
ladylike and bold as to let our ears be seen." Ma
laughed softly again.

"Is that the reason you always wear those soft wings
of hair down over your ears?" Laura cried.

Ma looked a little surprised. "Yes, I suppose it is,"

she answered, still smiling.

On the way to school Laura said, "Carrie, do you
know I've never once seen Ma's ears?"

" T h e y ' r e probably pretty ears, too," said Carrie.

"You look like her, and your ears are little and pretty."

"Well," Laura began; then she stopped and spun
around and round, for the strong wind blowing
against her always made the wires of her hoop skirt
creep slowly upward under her skirts until they
bunched around her knees. T h e n she must whirl
around and around until the wires shook loose and
spiraled down to the bottom of her skirts where they
should be.

As she and Carrie hurried on she began again. "I
think it was silly, the way they dressed when Ma was
a girl, don't you? Drat this wind!" she exclaimed as
the hoops began creeping upward again.

Quietly Carrie stood by while Laura whirled. "I'm
glad I'm not old enough to have to wear hoops," she
said. " T h e y ' d make me dizzy."

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"They are rather a nuisance," Laura admitted. "But
they are stylish, and when you're my age you'll want
to be in style."

Living in town was so exciting that fall that Pa said
there was no need of Literaries. There was church
every Sunday, prayer meeting every Wednesday night.

The Ladies' Aid planned two sociables, and there was
talk of a Christmas tree. Laura hoped there would be
one, for Grace had never seen a Christmas tree. In No-
vember, there was to be a week of revival meetings at
the church, and Mr. Owen, with the school board's ap-
proval, was planning a School Exhibition.

School would go on without interruption until the

School Exhibition just before Christmas. So the big
boys did not wait until winter, but came to school in

November. More smaller pupils had to be crowded
three in a seat to make room for them.

"This school needs a larger building," Mr. Owen
said to Laura and Ida one day at recess. "I am hoping
that the town can afford to build one next summer.

There really is a need for a graded school, even. I am
counting a great deal upon the showing we make at
the School Exhibition, to acquaint the people with the
school and its needs."

After that, he told Laura and Ida that their part in
the Exhibition would be to recite the whole of Ameri-
can history, from memory.

"Oh, do you think we can do it, L a u r a ? " Ida gasped

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
when he had left them.

"Oh, y e s ! " Laura answered. "You know we like his-
tory."

" I ' m glad you've got the longer part, anyway," said

Ida. "I've only got to remember from John Quincy

Adams to Rutherford B. Hayes, but you've got all that
about the discoveries and the map and the battles, and
the Western Reserve and the Constitution. My! I
don't know how you ever can!"

"It's longer, but we've studied it more and reviewed
it oftener," said Laura. She was glad to have that part;
she thought it more interesting.

T h e other girls were talking eagerly about the re-
vival meetings. Everyone in town and from all the
near-by country would go to them. Laura did not
know why, for she had never been to a revival meet-
ing, but when she said she should stay home and
study, Nellie exclaimed in horror, "Why, people who
don't go to revival meetings are atheists!"

T h e others did not say a word in Laura's defense,
and Ida's brown eyes pleaded anxiously when she
said, "You are coming, aren't you, L a u r a ? "

T h e revival meetings would last a whole week, and
besides the daily lessons, there was the School Exhi-
bition to prepare for. Monday night Laura hurried
home from school to study till supper time; she
thought about history while she washed the dishes,
and then snatched a little time with her books while

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Pa and Ma were dressing.

"Hurry, Laura, or we'll be late! It's church time
now," said Ma.

Standing before the glass, Laura hurriedly set her
darling brown velvet hat evenly on her bangs, and
fluffed them out. Ma waited by the door with Carrie
and Grace. Pa shut the stove's draft and turned down
the lamp wick.

"Are you all ready?" he asked; then he blew out
the lamp. By his lantern light they all went out, and
he locked the door. Not a window on Main Street
was lighted. Behind Fuller's Hardware the last
lanterns were bobbing across the vacant lots toward
the brightly lighted church, and wagons, buggies,
and blanketed horses stood thick in the shadows
around it.

T h e church was crowded, and hot from the dazzling
lamps and the coal heater. Graybeards sat close
around the pulpit, families were in the middle seats,
and young men and boys filled the back seats. Laura
saw everyone she knew and many strangers, as Pa led
the way up the aisle, looking for a vacant place. He
stopped next to the front seat, and Ma with Grace,
then Carrie and Laura, edged past knees and sat
down.

Reverend Brown rose from his chair behind the pul-
pit and gave out a hymn, Number 1 5 4 . Mrs. Brown
played the organ, and everyone stood up and sang.

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"There were ninety and nine that safely lay

In the shelter of the fold,

But one was out on the hills away,

Far off from the gates of gold,

Away on the mountains wild and bare,

Away from the tender shepherd's care."

If a revival meeting could be nothing but singing,

Laura would have loved it, though she felt that she
should be studying, not wasting time in enjoyment.

Her voice rose clear and true as Pa's, as they sang,

"Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!"

T h e n the long prayer began. Laura bent her head
and closed her eyes while Reverend Brown's harsh
voice singsonged on and on. It was a great relief to
stand up at last, and sing again. This was a hymn with
a dancing swing and a throbbing beat.

"Sowing the seed by the daylight fair,

Sowing the seed by the noonday glare,

Sowing the seed by the fading light,

Sowing the seed in the solemn night,

Oh, what shall the harvest be-e-e,

Oh, what shall the harvest be?"

Reverend Brown's preaching went on with the
throbbing and swinging. His voice rose and fell, thun-
dered and quivered. His bushy white eyebrows raised
and lowered, his fist thumped the pulpit. "Repent ye,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
repent ye while yet there is time, time to be saved
from damnation!" he roared.

Chills ran up Laura's spine and over her scalp. She
seemed to feel something rising from all those people,
something dark and frightening that grew and grew
under that thrashing voice. T h e words no longer made
sense, they were not sentences, they were only dread-
ful words. For one horrible instant Laura imagined
that Reverend Brown was the Devil. His eyes had
fires in them.

"Come forward, come forward and be saved! Come
to salvation! Repent, ye sinners! Stand up, stand up
and sing! Oh, lost lambs! Flee from the wrath! Pull,
pull for the shore!" His hands lifted them all to their
feet, his loud voice sang:

"Pull for the shore, sailor!

Pull for the shore!"

"Come! Come!" his voice roared through the storm
of singing, and someone, a young man, came stum-
bling up the aisle.

"Heed not the stormy winds,

Though loudly they roar."

"Bless you, bless you, my sinning brother, down on
your knees and God bless you; are there any more?

Any more?" Reverend Brown was shouting, and his

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
voice roared again into the song, "Pull for the Shore!"

T h e first words of that hymn had made Laura want
to laugh. She remembered the tall thin man and the
pudgy little one, so solemnly singing it, and all the
storekeepers popping from the torn screen doors.

Now she felt that all the noise and excitement was not
touching her.

She looked at Pa and Ma. T h e y were quietly stand-
ing and quietly singing, while the dark, wild thing that
she had felt was roaring all around them like a bliz-
zard.

Another young man, and then an older woman, went
forward and knelt. T h e n church was over, yet some-
how not over. People were pressing forward to crowd
around those three and wrestle for their souls. In a low
voice Pa said to Ma, "Come, let's g o . "

He carried Grace down the aisle toward the door.

Ma followed with Carrie, and behind her Laura fol-
lowed close. In the back seats all the young men and
boys stood watching the people passing by. Laura's
dread of strangers came over her and the open door
ahead seemed a refuge from their eyes.

She did not notice a touch on her coat sleeve until
she heard a voice saying, "May I see you home?"

It was Almanzo Wilder.

Laura was so surprised that she could not say a
word. She could not even nod or shake her head. She
could not think. His hand stayed on her arm and he

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
walked beside her through the door. He protected her
from being jostled in the crowded entry.

Pa had just lighted the lantern. He lowered the
chimney and looked up, just as Ma turned back and
asked, "Where's Laura?" T h e y both saw Laura with

Almanzo Wilder beside her, and Ma stood petrified.

"Come on, Caroline," said Pa. Ma followed him, and
after one wide-eyed stare, Carrie did too.

The ground was white with snow and it was cold,
but there was no wind, and stars shone brightly in the
sky.

Laura could not think of a word to say. She wished
that Mr. Wilder would say something. A faint scent of
cigar smoke came from his thick cloth overcoat. It was
pleasant, but not as homelike as the scent of Pa's pipe.

It was a more dashing scent, it made her think of Cap
and this young man daring that dangerous trip to bring
back the wheat. All this time she was trying to think
of something to say.

To her complete surprise, she heard her own voice,

"Anyway, there's no blizzard."

"No. This is a nice winter, not much like the Hard

Winter," said he.

Again there was silence, except for the crunch of
their feet on the snow-covered path.

On Main Street, dark groups hurried homeward,
with lanterns that cast big shadows. Pa's lantern went
straight across the street. Pa and Ma and Carrie and

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Grace went in and were at home.

Laura and Almanzo stood outside the closed door.

"Well, good night," he said, as he made a backward
step and raised his cap. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Good night," Laura answered, as she quickly
opened the door. Pa was holding the lantern up while

Ma lighted the lamp, and he was saying, "—trust him
anywhere, and it's only walking home from Church."

"But she's only fifteen!" said Ma.

T h e n the door was shut. Laura was inside the warm
room. T h e lamp was lighted, and everything was
right.

"Well, what did you think of the revival meeting?"

Pa asked, and Laura answered, "It isn't much like

Reverend Alden's quiet sermons. I like his better."

"So do I," said Pa. T h e n Ma said it was past bed-
time.

Several times next day, Laura wondered what young

Mr. Wilder had meant by saying that he would see her
that night. She did not know why he had walked
home with her. It was an odd thing for him to do, for
he was a grown-up. He had been a homesteader for a
few years, so he must be at least twenty-three years
old, and he was Pa's friend more than hers.

T h a t night in church she did not mind the sermon at
all. She only wished she need not be there, when so
many people, all together, grew so excited. She was
glad when Pa said again, " L e t ' s g o . "

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Almanzo Wilder stood in the line of young men near
the door, and Laura was embarrassed. She saw now
that several young men were taking young ladies
home. She felt her cheeks flushing and she did not
know where to look. Again he asked, "May I see you
home?" and this time she answered politely, "Yes."

She had thought what she would have said last

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
night, so now she spoke about Minnesota. She had
come from Plum Creek and he had come from Spring

Valley, but before that he had lived in New York

State, near Malone. Laura thought she kept the con-
versation going quite well, until they reached the door
where she could say, "Good night."

Every night that week he saw her home from the re-
vival meeting. She still could not understand why. But
the week soon ended, so that again she could spend
the evenings in study, and she forgot to wonder about

Almanzo in her dread of the School Exhibition.

282

THE SCHOOL EXHIBITION

The room was warm and the lamp burned clear
and bright, but Laura's chilly fingers could
hardly button her blue cashmere basque and
it seemed to her that the looking glass was dim. She
was dressing to go to the School Exhibition.

She had dreaded it for so long that now it did not
seem real, but it was. Somehow she had to get
through it.

Carrie was frightened, too. Her eyes were very large
in her thin face, and she whispered to herself,

"'Chisel in hand stood the sculptor boy,'" while Laura
tied on her hair ribbon. Ma had made a new dress of

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bright plaid woolen for Carrie to wear when she spoke
her piece.

"Ma, please hear me say my piece again," she
begged.

"There isn't time, Carrie," Ma replied. "We're al-
most late as it is. I'm sure you know it perfectly well.

I'll hear you say it on the way. Are you ready, Laura?"

"Yes, M a , " Laura said faintly.

Ma blew out the lamp. Outdoors a cold wind was
blowing and snow blew white along the ground.

Laura's skirts whipped in the wind, her hoops crawled
up maddeningly, and she feared that the curl was
coming out of her bangs.

Desperately she tried to remember all that she must
say, but she could not get beyond, "America was dis-
covered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Columbus,
a native of Genoa in Italy—" Carrie was breathlessly
chanting, "'Waiting the hour when at God's com-
m a n d — ' "

Pa said, "Hullo, they've got the church lighted up."

Both the schoolhouse and the church were lighted.

A thick, dark line of people with splotches of yellow
lanternlight was moving toward the church.

"What's up?" Pa asked, and Mr. Bradley answered,

"So many have come, they can't all get into the
schoolhouse. Owen's moving us into the church."

Mrs. Bradley said, "I hear you're going to give us a
real treat tonight, Laura."

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Laura hardly knew what she answered. She was
thinking, "Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa
in Italy—America was discovered by Christopher

Columbus in 1492. Christopher Columbus, a—" She
had to get past Columbus.

In the entry the crowd was so jammed that she
feared her wire hoops were pressed out of shape.

There was no more room for wraps on the hooks
there. T h e aisles were packed with people trying to
find seats. Mr. Owen was heard repeating, " T h e s e
front seats are reserved for the scholars. Pupils please
come forward to these seats."

Ma said she would take care of the wraps. She
helped Carrie out of her coat and hood while Laura
took off her coat and hat and nervously felt her
bangs.

"Now, Carrie, you have only to do as well as you
have been doing," Ma said as she straightened Car-
rie's full plaid skirt. "You know your piece perfectly."

"Yes, M a , " Carrie whispered. Laura could not
speak. Dumbly she guided Carrie up the aisle. On the
way Carrie pressed back against her and looked up
pleadingly. " D o I look all right?" she whispered.

Laura looked at Carrie's round, scared eyes. One
whisp of fair hair straggled above them. Laura
smoothed it back. T h e n Carrie's hair was perfectly
sleek from the middle parting to the two stiff braids
hanging down her back.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

"There, now you look just right!" Laura said. "Your
new plaid dress is beautiful." Her voice did not seem
to be hers, it was so serene.

Carrie's face lighted up, and she went wriggling past

Mr. Owen to her classmates in the front seat.

Mr. Owen said to Laura, " T h e pictures of the Presi-
dents are being put up on the wall here, just as they
were in the schoolhouse. My pointer is on the pulpit.

When you come to George Washington, take up the
pointer, and point to each President as you begin to
speak about him. That will help you remember the
proper order."

"Yes, sir," Laura said, but now she knew that Mr.

Owen was worrying, too. She, of all persons, must not
fail, because hers was the principal part in the Exhibi-
tion.

"Did he tell you about the pointer?" Ida whispered,
as Laura sat down beside her. Ida looked like a dim
copy of her usual happy self. Laura nodded, and they
watched Cap and Ben, who were tacking up the pic-
tures of the Presidents on the board wall, between the
studding. T h e pulpit had been moved back against
the wall to leave the platform clear. T h e y could see
the long school pointer lying on it.

"I know you can do your part, but I'm scared," Ida
quavered.

"You won't be when the time comes," Laura en-
couraged her. "Why, we are always good in history. It's

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
easier than the mental arithmetic we've got to do."

"I'm glad you have the beginning part, anyway," Ida
said. "I couldn't do that, I just couldn't."

Laura had been glad to have that part because it
was more interesting. Now there was only a jumble in
her head. She kept trying to remember all that history,
though she knew it was too late now. But she must re-
member it. She dared not fail.

"Please come to order," Mr. Owen said. T h e School

Exhibition began.

Nellie Oleson, Mary Power and Minnie, Laura and

Ida and Cap and Ben and Arthur filed up onto the
platform. Arthur was wearing new shoes, and one of
them squeaked. In a row, they all faced the church
full of watching eyes. It was all a blur to Laura.

Rapidly Mr. Owen began to ask questions.

Laura was not frightened. It did not seem real that
she was standing in the dazzle of light, wearing her
blue cashmere and reciting geography. It would be
shameful to fail to answer, or to make a mistake, be-
fore all those people and Pa and Ma, but she was not
frightened. It was all like a dream of being half-
asleep, and all the time she was thinking, "America
was discovered by Christopher Columbus—" She did
not make one mistake in geography.

There was applause when that was over. T h e n
came grammar. This was harder because there was
no blackboard. It is easy enough to parse every word

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
in a long, complex-compound sentence full of adver-
bial phrases, when you see the sentence written on
slate or blackboard. It is not so easy to keep the
whole sentence in mind and not omit a word nor so
much as a comma. Still, only Nellie and Arthur made
mistakes.

Mental arithmetic was even harder. Laura disliked
arithmetic. Her heart beat desperately when her turn
came and she was sure she would fail. She stood
amazed, hearing her voice going glibly through prob-
lems in short division. " P i v i d e 3 4 7 , 2 6 4 by 16. Six-
teen into 34 goes twice, put down 2 and carry 2;
sixteen into 27 goes once, put down 1 and carry 11;
sixteen into 1 1 2 goes seven times, put down 7 and
carry naught; sixteen into 6 does not go, put down
naught; sixteen into 64 goes 4 times, put down 4.

T h r e e hundred and forty-seven thousand, two hun-
dred and sixty-four divided by sixteen equals—
twenty-one thousand, seven hundred and four."

She need not multiply back to make sure the answer
was right. She knew it was right because Mr. Owen
set another problem.

At last he said, "Class dismissed."

Through a great noise of applause, they all turned
and filed back to their seat. Now the younger pupils
would speak their pieces. T h e n Laura's turn would
come.

While one after another the girls and boys were

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
called to the platform and recited, Laura and Ida sat
still and stiff with dread. All the history that Laura
knew raced madly through her mind. "America was
discovered . . . T h e Congress of Confederated

Colonies in Philadelphia assembled . . . 'There is only
one word in this petition which I disapprove, and that
is the word Congress . . .' Mr. Benjamin Harrison rose
and said, 'There is but one word in this paper, Mr.

President, which I approve, and that is the word Con-
gress.' . . . 'And George the Third . . . may profit by
their example. If this be treason, gentlemen, make the
most of it!' . . . Give me liberty or give me death. . . .

We hold these truths to be self-evident. . . . Their feet
left bloody tracks upon the snow. . . . "

Suddenly Laura heard Mr. Owen say, "Carrie In-
galls."

Carrie's thin face was strained and pale as she made
her way to the aisle. All the buttons up the back of her
plaid dress were buttoned outside-in. Laura should
have thought to button her up; but no, she had left
poor little Carrie to do the best she could, alone.

Carrie stood very straight, her hands behind her
back and her eyes fixed above the crowd. Her voice
was clear and sweet as she recited:

"Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy

With his marble block before him,

And his face lit up with a smile of joy

As an angel dream passed o'er him.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

He carved that dream on the yielding stone

With many a sharp incision;

In Heaven's own light the sculptor shone—

He had caught that angel vision.

"Sculptors of life are we as we stand,

With our lives uncarved before us,

Waiting the hour when at God's command

Our life-dream passes o'er us.

Let us carve it then on the yielding stone

With many a sharp incision.

Its Heavenly beauty shall be our own—

Our lives, that angel vision."

She had not once faltered, nor missed a single word.

Laura was proud, and Carrie flushed rosily as she
marched smiling down to her place amid a loud clap-
ping of hands.

T h e n Mr. Owen said, "Now we will listen to a re-
view of the history of our country from its discovery to
the present time, given by Laura Ingalls and Ida

Wright. You may begin, Laura."

T h e time had come. Laura stood up. She did not
know how she got to the platform. Somehow she was
there, and her voice began. "America was discovered
by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Christopher

Columbus, a native of Genoa in Italy, had long sought
permission to make a voyage toward the west in order
to discover a new route to India. At that time Spain
was ruled by the united crowns of—"

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Her voice was shaking a little. She steadied it and
went carefully on. It did not seem real that she was
standing there, in her blue cashmere held grandly out
by the hoops, with Ma's pearl pin fastening the lace
cascade under her chin, and her bangs damp and hot
across her forehead.

She told of the Spanish and the French explorers
and their settlements, of Raleigh's lost colony, of the

English trading companies in Virginia and in Massa-
chusetts, of the Dutch who bought Manhattan Island
and settled the Hudson Valley.

At first she spoke into a blur, then she began to see
faces. Pa's stood out from all the others. His eyes met
hers and they were shining as slowly he nodded his
head.

T h e n she was really launched upon the great his-
tory of America. She told of the new vision of free-
dom and equality in the New World, she told of the
old oppressions of Europe and of the war against
tyranny and despotism, of the war for the indepen-
dence of the thirteen new States, and of how the

Constitution was written and these thirteen States
united. T h e n , taking up the pointer, she pointed to

George Washington.

There was not a sound except her voice as she told
about his poor boyhood, his work as a surveyor, his
defeat by the French at Fort Duquesne, and then of
his long, disheartening years of war. She told of his

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
unanimous election as the First President, the Father
of his Country, and of the laws passed by the First

Congress and the Second, and the opening of the

Northwest Territory. T h e n , after John Adams, came

Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, established religious freedom and private prop-
erty in Virginia, and founded the University of

Virginia, and bought for the new country all the land
between the Mississippi and California.

Next came Madison, the war of 1812, the invasion,
the defeat, the burning of the Capitol and the White

House in Washington, the brave sea-battles fought by

American sailors on America's few ships, and at last
the victory that finally won independence.

T h e n came Monroe, who dared to tell all the older,
stronger nations and their tyrants never again to in-
vade the New World. Andrew Jackson went down
from Tennessee and fought the Spanish and took

Florida, then the honest United States paid Spain for
it. In 1820 came hard times; all the banks failed, all
business stopped, all the people were out of work and
starving.

T h e n Laura moved the pointer to the picture of

John Quincy Adams. She told of his election. She told
of the Mexicans who had fought a war of indepen-
dence, too, and won it, so that now they could trade
where they pleased. So down from the Missouri went
the Santa Fe traders, across a thousand miles of desert,

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
to trade with Mexico. T h e n the first wagon wheels
rolled into Kansas.

Laura had finished. T h e rest was Ida's part.

She laid down the pointer and bowed in the still-
ness. A loud crash of applause almost made her jump
out of her skin. T h e noise grew louder and louder un-
til she felt as if she must push against it to reach her
seat. It did not stop even when at last she reached her
place beside Ida and weakly sat down. It went on until

Mr. Owen stopped it.

Laura was trembling all over. She wanted to say an
encouraging word to Ida, but she could not. She could
only sit and rest, and be thankful that the ordeal was
past.

Ida did very well. She did not make one mistake.

Laura was glad to hear the loud applause for Ida, too.

After Mr. Owen had dismissed the audience, getting
out of the church was slow work. Everyone stood be-
tween the seats and in the aisles, talking about the

Exhibition. Laura could see that Mr. Owen was
pleased.

"Well, little Half-Pint, you did a fine job," Pa said
when Laura and Carrie had pushed through the crowd
to him and Ma. "You did, too, Carrie."

"Yes," said Ma. "I am very proud of you both."

"I did remember every word," Carrie agreed hap-
pily. "But, oh, I am glad it's over," she sighed.

"So—am—I,"

said Laura, struggling into her coat.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Just then she felt a hand on the coat collar, helping
her, and she heard a voice say, "Good evening, Mr.

Ingalls."

She looked up into the face of Almanzo Wilder.

He did not say anything and neither did she, until
they were out of the church and following Pa's lantern

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
along the snowy path. T h e wind had died down. T h e
air was very cold and still, and there was moonlight on
the snow.

Then Almanzo said, "I guess I ought to have asked
you if I may see you home."

"Yes," Laura said. "But anyway, you are."

"It was such a tussle, getting out of that crowd," he
explained. He was silent a minute and then asked,

"May I see you home?"

Laura could not help laughing, and he joined in.

"Yes," Laura said. She wondered again why he was
doing this, when he was so much older than she. Mr.

Boast, or any friend of Pa's, might see her safely
home if Pa was not there to do it, but now Pa was
there. She thought he had a pleasant laugh. He
seemed to enjoy everything. Probably his brown
horses were tied on Main Street, so he was going that
way, anyway.

"Are your horses tied on Main Street?" she asked
him.

" N o , " he answered. "I left them on the south side
of the church, out of the wind." T h e n he said, "I am
making a cutter."

Something in the way he said it gave Laura a wild
hope. She thought how wonderful it would be to go
sleighriding behind those swift horses. Of course he
could not mean to ask her, still she felt almost dizzy.

"If this snow holds, there ought to be some good

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
sleighing," he said. "It looks like we're going to get
another mild winter."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" Laura answered. She was
sure now that he would not ask her to go sleighing.

"It takes some little time to build just right," he
said, "and then I'm going to paint it, two coats. It
won't be ready to take out till some time after Christ-
mas. Do you like to go sleighing?"

Laura felt as if she were smothering.

"I don't know," she replied. "I never went." Then
boldly she burst out, "But I'm sure I would like to."

"Well," he said, "I'll come around some time in Jan-
uary and maybe you'd like to go for a little spin and
see how you like it. Some Saturday, say? Would that
suit you?"

"Yes. Oh, yes!" Laura exclaimed. " T h a n k you."

"All right, then I'll be around, in a couple of weeks
if this weather holds," he said. T h e y had come to the
door, and he took off his cap and said good night.

Laura fairly danced into the house.

"Oh, Pa! Ma! what do you think! Mr. Wilder's mak-
ing a cutter, and he's going to take me sleighriding!"

Pa and Ma glanced at each other, and it was a sober
glance. Laura quickly said, "If I may go. May I?

P l e a s e ? "

"We will see when the time comes," Ma answered.

But Pa's eyes were kind as he looked at Laura and she
was sure that when the time came, she could go

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
sleighriding. She thought what fun it must be, to go
speeding swiftly and smoothly through the cold,
sunny air, behind those horses. And she could not
help thinking in delight, "Oh, won't Nellie Oleson be
mad!"

297

UNEXPECTED

IN DECEMBER

Next day was blank and limp. They would not
try again to have Christmas without Mary.

T h e only presents hidden away were for

Carrie and Grace, and though Christmas was not until
tomorrow, they had opened that morning the small

Christmas box from Mary.

There .would be a whole week without school.

Laura knew that she should improve the time in
study, but she could not settle down to her books.

"It's no fun studying at home when Mary isn't here
to study with," she said.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Dinner was over and the house all in order, but it
seemed empty without Mary in her rocking chair.

Laura stood looking around the room as though
searching for something she had lost.

Ma laid down her church paper. "I declare I can't
get used to her being gone, either," she said. " T h i s
piece by a missionary is interesting, but I have read
aloud to Mary for so long that I can't properly read to
myself."

"I wish she hadn't gone!" Laura burst out, but Ma
said she must not feel so.

"She is doing so well in her studies, and it is wonder-
ful that she is learning so many things—running a
sewing machine, and playing the organ, and doing
such pretty beadwork."

T h e y both looked toward the small vase made of
tiny beads, blue and white, strung on fine wire, that

Mary had made and sent home for them all for Christ-
mas. It stood on the desk near Laura. She went to it
and stood fingering the bead fringe around it as Ma
talked on.

"I am a little worried about how we are going to find
the money for the new summer clothes she needs, and
we must manage to send her a little spending money.

She should have a Braille slate of her own, too. T h e y
are expensive."

"I'll be sixteen, two months from now," Laura said

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
hopefully. "Maybe I can get a certificate next sum-
mer."

"If you can teach a term next year, we may be able
to have Mary come home for a summer vacation," said

Ma. "She has been away so long, she ought to come
home for a little while, and it would cost only the rail-
road fare. But we must not count our chickens before
they are hatched."

" I ' d better be studying, anyway," Laura sighed. She
was ashamed of her moping idleness, when Mary had
the patience to do such perfect work with tiny beads
that she could not see.

Ma took up her paper again and Laura bent over her
books, but she could not rouse herself from her list-
lessness.

From the window, Carrie announced, "Mr. Boast is
coming! And there's another man with him. That's
him now, at the door!"

" ' T h a t is h e , ' " said Ma.

Laura opened the door and Mr. Boast came in, say-
ing, "How do you do, everyone? This is Mr. Brew-
ster."

Mr. Brewster's boots, his thick jacket and his hands
showed that he was a homesteader. He did not have
much to say.

"How do you do?" said Ma as she placed chairs for
them both. "Mr. Ingalls is over in town somewhere.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

How is Mrs. Boast? I am disappointed that she did not
come with you."

"I didn't plan to come," said Mr. Boast. "We just
stepped in to speak to this young lady," and his black
eyes flashed a look at Laura.

She was very much startled. She sat very straight, as

Ma had taught her, with her hands folded in her lap
and her shoes drawn back beneath her skirts, but her
breath caught. She could not think what Mr. Boast
meant.

He went on. " L e w Brewster, here, is looking for a
teacher for the new school they are starting in their
district. He came in to the School Exhibition last
night. He figures that Laura's the teacher they want,
and I tell him he can't do better."

Laura's heart seemed to leap and fall back, and go
on falling.

"I am not old enough yet," she said.

"Now, Laura," Mr. Boast said to her earnestly,

"there is no need to tell your age unless someone asks
you. T h e question is, Will you teach this school if the
county superintendent gives you a certificate?"

Laura was speechless. She looked at Ma and Ma
asked, "Where is the school, Mr. Brewster?"

"Twelve miles south of here," Mr. Brewster replied.

Laura's heart sank even further. So far from home,
among strangers, she would have to depend entirely

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
upon herself, with no help at all. She could not come
home until the school term was over. Twelve miles
and back was too far to travel.

Mr. Brewster went on, "It's a small neighborhood.

T h e country around there isn't settled up yet. We
can't afford more than a two-month's school, and all
we can pay is twenty dollars a month and board."

" I ' m sure that seems a reasonable sum," said Ma.

It would be forty dollars, Laura thought. Forty dol-
lars! She had not realized that she could earn so much
money.

"Mr. Ingalls would rely on your advice, J know, Mr.

Boast," Ma added.

" L e w Brewster and I knew each other back East,"

said Mr. Boast. "It's a good chance for Laura if she'll
take it."

Laura was so excited she could hardly speak. "Why,
y e s , " she managed to stammer. "I would be glad to
teach the school if I could."

" T h e n we must hurry along," said Mr. Boast as he
and Mr. Brewster stood up. "Williams is in town, and
if we can catch him before he starts home, he'll come
over and give you the examination right now."

T h e y had said good day to Ma and hurried away.

"Oh, M a ! " Laura gasped. " D o you think I can
pass?"

"I believe you can, Laura," Ma said. " D o not be ex-

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
cited nor frightened. There is no occasion to be. Just
pretend that it is a school examination and you will be
all right."

It was only a moment before Carrie exclaimed,

"That's him now—"

" ' T h i s is h e , ' " Ma said almost sharply.

"That's he coming— It don't sound right, M a — "

"'Doesn't sound right,'" said Ma.

"Right straight across from Fuller's Hardware!"

cried Carrie.

T h e knock came at the door. Ma opened it. A large
man, with a pleasant face and friendly manner, told
her that he was Williams, the county superintendent.

" S o you're the young lady that wants a certifi-
cate!" he said to Laura. "There's not much need to
give you an examination. I heard you last night. You
answered all the questions. But I see your slate and
pencil on the table, so we might as well go over some
of it."

T h e y sat together at the table. Laura worked exam-
ples in arithmetic, she spelled, she answered ques-
tions in geography. She read Marc Antony's oration on
the death of Caesar. She felt quite at home with Mr.

Williams while she diagrammed sentences on her slate
and rapidly parsed them.

Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle

Wheeling near its brow.

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"'I' is the personal pronoun, first person singular,
here used as the subject of the verb 'saw,' past tense
of the transitive verb 'to s e e . ' 'Saw' takes as its object
the common generic noun, 'eagle,' modified by the
singular article, 'an.'

'"Scaling yonder peak' is a participial phrase, ad-
junct of the pronoun, 'I',' hence adjectival. 'Wheeling'

is the present participle of the intransitive verb, 'to
wheel,' here used as adjunct to the noun, 'eagle,'

hence adjectival. 'Near its brow' is a prepositional
phrase, adjunct of the present participle of the verb 'to
wheel,' hence adverbial."

After only a few such sentences, Mr. Williams was
satisfied. "There is no need to examine you in his-
tory," he said. "I heard your review of history last
night. I will cut your grades a little for I must not give

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE
you more than a third grade certificate until next year.

May I have the use of pen and ink?" he asked Ma.

" T h e y are here at the desk," Ma showed him.

He sat at Pa's desk and spread a blank certificate on
it. For moments there was no sound but the faint
scratch of his sleeve on the paper as he wrote. He
wiped the pen-point on the wiper, corked the ink bot-
tle again, and stood up.

"There you are, Miss Ingalls," he said. "Brewster
asked me to tell you that the school opens next Mon-
day. He will come for you Saturday or Sunday, de-
pending on the looks of the weather. You know it is
twelve miles south of town?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Brewster said so," Laura replied.

"Well, I wish you good luck," he said cordially.

" T h a n k you, sir," Laura answered.

When he had said good day to Ma and gone, they
read the certificate.

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L I T T L E TOWN ON T H E PRAIRIE

Laura still stood in the middle of the room, holding
that certificate, when Pa came in.

"What is it, Laura?" he asked. "You look as if you
expect that paper to bite you."

" P a , " Laura said, "I am a schoolteacher."

"What!" said Pa. "Caroline, what is this?"

"Read it." Laura gave him the certificate and sat
down. "And he didn't ask me how old I a m . "

When Pa had read the certificate and Ma had told
him about the school, he said, "I'll be jiggered." He
sat down and slowly read the certificate again.

"That's fine," he said. "That's pretty fine for a
fifteen-year-old." He meant to speak heartily but his
voice had a hollow sound, for now Laura was going
away.

She could not think what it would be to teach
school twelve miles away from home, alone among
strangers. T h e less she thought of it the better, for she
must go, and she must meet whatever happened as it
came.

"Now Mary can have everything she needs, and she
can come home this next summer," she said. "Oh, Pa,
do you think I—I can teach school?"

"I do, Laura," said Pa. "I am sure of it."

307

Come Home to Little House

The M A R T H A Years

B y M e l i s s a Wiley

Illustrated by R e n é e G r a e f

LITTLE HOUSE IN THE HIGHLANDS

The C H A R L O T T E Years

B y M e l i s s a Wiley

Illustrated b y D a n A n d r e a s e n

LITTLE HOUSE BY BOSTON BAY

The C A R O L I N E Years

B y M a r i a D . Wilkes

Illustrated b y D a n A n d r e a s e n

LITTLE HOUSE IN BROOKFIELD

LITTLE TOWN AT THE CROSSROADS

LITTLE CLEARING IN THE WOODS

ON TOP OF CONCORD HILL

The L A U R A Years

B y L a u r a I n g a l l s Wilder

Illustrated by Garth Williams

LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE

FARMER BOY

ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK

BY THE SHORES OF SILVER LAKE

T H E LONG WINTER

LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE

THESE HAPPY GOLDEN YEARS

T H E FIRST FOUR YEARS

The R O S E Years

B y R o g e r L e a M a c B r i d e

Illustrated b y D a n A n d r e a s e n

& D a v i d Gilleece

LITTLE HOUSE ON ROCKY RIDGE

LITTLE FARM IN THE OZARKS

IN THE LAND OF THE BIG RED APPLE

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL

LITTLE TOWN IN THE OZARKS

NEW DAWN ON ROCKY RIDGE

ON THE BANKS OF THE BAYOU

BACHELOR GIRL