By The Shores Of Silver Lake (13 page)

At twilight Mary did not put away her sewing. She told Laura, “I can sew when you can't see to, because I see with my fingers.”

“You sew more beautifully than I can, anytime,”

Laura told her. “You always could.”

Even Laura liked the cosy afternoons of rocking and stitching and talking a little, though she never would truly enjoy sewing as Mary did. Often she was restless in the house. Then she would walk from window to window, looking into a whirl of snowflakes and listening to the wind, till Ma said gently, “I declare I don't know what gets into you, Laura.”

When the sun shone, no matter how cold it was, Laura must go out. When Ma would let them go, she and Carrie, well wrapped up in coats and hoods, with shoes and mittens and mufflers on, went sliding on Silver Lake . Holding hands, they ran a little way and then slid on the dark, smooth ice. First on one foot, then on the other, with little runs between slides, they went back and forth, breathless and warm and laughing.

Those were glorious days when they were out in the glitter of the sharp cold. Then it was good to come into the warm, close house, and good to eat supper, and through the evening of music and singing and dancing, Laura was the merriest of all.

One stormy day Pa brought a wide, square board in by the stove, and with his pencil he marked it off in small squares inside a plain border.

“Whatever are you making, Pa?” Laura asked, and he answered, “Wait and see.”

He heated the tip of the poker red-hot in the stove, and carefully he burned black every alternate little square.

“Curiosity killed a cat, Pa,” Laura said.

“You look pretty healthy,” said Pa. Tantalizing, he sat there whittling until he had made twenty-four small squares of wood. Half of them he laid on the hot stove, turning them until they were burned black all over.

Then he ranged all these pieces in the squares on the board, and set the board on his knees.

“Now, Laura!” he said.

“Now what?” said Laura.

" The s e are checkers, and this is a checker board.

Pull up your chair, and I'll show you how to play checkers."

She learned so well that before that storm ended she had beaten Pa in one game. But after that, they did not play so immoderately. Ma did not care to play, nor Carrie, so after one game Pa always put the board away “Checkers is a selfish game,” he said, “for only two can play it. Bring me the fiddle, Flutterbudget.”

T here came a night when moonlight shone silver clear. The earth was endless white and the wind was still.

Beyond every window the white world stretched far away in frosty glitter, and the sky was a curve of light.

Laura could not settle down to anything. She didn't want to play games. She hardly heard even the music of Pa's fiddle. She did not want to dance, but she felt that she must move swiftly. She must be going somewhere.

Suddenly she exclaimed, “Carrie! Let's go slide on the ice!”

“In the night, Laura?” Ma was astonished.

“It's light outdoors,” Laura replied. “Almost as light as day.”

“It will be all right, Caroline,” Pa said. “There's nothing to hurt them, if they don't stay too long and freeze.”

So Ma told them, "You may go for a quick run.

Don't stay until you get too cold."

Laura and Carrie hurried into their coats and hoods and mittens. Their shoes were new and the soles thick. Ma had knit their stockings of woolen yarn, and their red flannel underclothes came down over their knees and buttoned in a snug band around each stocking. Their flannel petticoats were thick and warm, and their dresses and their coats were wool, and so were their hoods and mufflers.

Out of the warm house they burst into the breath-taking air that tingled with cold. They ran a race on the snowy path down the low hill to the stables. Then they followed the path that the horses and the cow had made when Pa led them through the snow to water at the hole he had cut in the lake ice.

“We mustn't go near the water hole,” Laura said, and she led Carrie along the lake shore until they were well away from it. Then they stopped and looked at the night.

It was so beautiful that they hardly breathed. The great round moon hung in the sky and its radiance poured over a silvery world. Far, far away in every direction stretched motionless flatness, softly shining as if it were made of soft light. In the midst lay the dark, smooth lake, and a glittering moonpath stretched across it. Tall grass stood up in black lines from the snow drifted in the sloughs.

The stable lay low and dark near the shore, and on the low hill stood the dark, small, surveyors' house, with the yellow light in the window twinkling from its darkness.

“How still it is,” Carrie whispered. “Listen how still it is.”

Laura's heart swelled. She felt herself a part of the wide land, of the far deep sky and the brilliant moonlight. She wanted to fly. But Carrie was little and almost afraid, so she took hold of Carrie's hand and said “Let's slide. Come on, run!”

With hands clasped, they ran a little way. Then with right foot first they slid on the smooth ice much farther than they had run.

“On the moonpath, Carrie! Let's follow the moonpath,” Laura cried.

And so they ran and slid, and ran and slid again, on the glittering moonpath into the light from the silver moon. Farther and farther from shore they went, straight toward the high bank on the other side.

They swooped and almost seemed to fly. If Carrie lost her balance, Laura held her up. If Laura was un-steady, Carrie's hand steadied her.

Close to the farther shore, almost in the shadow of the high bank, they stopped. Something made Laura look up to the top of the bank.

And there, dark against the moonlight, stood a great wolf!

He was looking toward her. The wind stirred his fur and the moonlight seemed to run in and out of it.

“Let's go back,” Laura said quickly, as she turned, taking Carrie with her. “I can go faster than you.”

She ran and slid and ran again as fast as she could, but Carrie kept up.

“I saw it too,” Carrie panted. “Was it a wolf?”

“Don't talk!” Laura answered. “Hurry!”

Laura could hear their feet running and sliding on the ice. She listened for a sound behind them, but there was none. Then they ran and slid without a word until they came to the path by the water hole. As they ran up the path, Laura looked back but she could see nothing on the lake nor on the bank beyond.

Laura and Carrie didn't stop running. They ran up the hill to the house, opened the back door and ran into the lean-to. They ran across that, burst through the door into the front room and slammed it shut behind them. Then leaned against it, panting.

Pa sprang to his feet, “What is it?” he asked. “What has frightened you?”

“Was it a wolf, Laura?” Carrie gasped.

“It was a wolf, Pa,” Laura gulped, catching her breath. “A great, big wolf! And I was afraid Carrie couldn't run fast enough but she did.”

“I should say she did!” Pa exclaimed. “Where is this wolf?”

“I don't know. It is gone,” Laura told him.

Ma helped them take off their wraps. “Sit down and rest! You are all out of breath,” she said.

“Where was the wolf?” Pa wanted to know.

“Up on the bank,” Carrie said, and Laura added “The high bank across the lake.”

“Did you girls go clear there?” Pa asked in surprise.

“And ran all the way back after you saw him! I had no idea you would go so far. It is a good half-mile.”

“We followed the moonpath,” Laura told him. Pa looked at her strangely. “You would!” he said. "I thought those wolves had gone. It was careless of me.

I'll hunt them tomorrow."

Mary sat still, but her face was white. “Oh, girls,”

she almost whispered. “Suppose he had caught you!”

Then they all sat silent while Laura and Carrie rested.

Laura was glad to be safe in the warm room with the desolate prairie shut out. If anything had happened to Carrie, it would have been her fault for taking her so far across the lake.

But nothing had happened. She could almost see again the great wolf with the wind ruffling the moonlight on his fur.

“Pa!” she said in a low voice.

“Yes, Laura?” Pa answered.

“I hope you don't find the wolf, Pa,” Laura said.

“Why ever not?” Ma wondered.

“Because he didn't chase us,” Laura told her. “He didn't chase us, Pa, and he could have caught us.”

A long, wild, wolf howl rose and faded away on the stillness.

Another answered it. Then silence again.

Laura's heart seemed to turn over with a sickening flop and she found herself on her feet. She was glad of Ma's steadying hand on her arm.

“Poor girl! You are nervous as a witch and no wonder,” Ma said softly.

Ma took a hot flatiron from the back of the stove, wrapped it tightly in a cloth and gave it to Carrie.

“It is bedtime,” she said. "Here is the hot iron for your feet.

“And here is yours, Laura,” as she wrapped another.

“ B e sure you put it in the middle of the bed so Mary's feet can reach it too.”

As Laura shut the stair door behind them, Pa was talking earnestly to Ma. But Laura could not hear what he said for the ringing in her ears.

A fter breakfast next morning Pa took his gun and set out. All that morning Laura was listening for a shot and not wanting to hear it. All morning she remembered the great wolf sitting quiet in the moonlight that shimmered through his thick fur.

Pa was late for dinner. It was long past noon when he stamped the snow from his feet in the lean-to. He came in and put his gun on the wall, and hung his cap and coat on their nail. His mittens he hung, by their thumbs, to dry on the line behind the stove. Then he washed his face and hands in the tin basin on the bench, and before the small glass that hung above it he combed his hair and his beard.

“Sorry I kept dinner waiting, Caroline,” he said. “I was gone longer than I thought. Went farther than I intended.”

“It doesn't matter, Charles; I've kept dinner warm,”

Ma replied. “Come to the table, girls! Don't keep Pa waiting.”

“How far did you go, Pa?” Mary asked.

“Better than ten miles, all told,” said Pa. “Those wolf tracks led me a chase.”

“Did you get the wolf, Pa?” Carrie wanted to know.

Laura did not say anything.

Pa smiled at Carrie and said, "Now, now, don't ask questions. I'll tell you all about it. I went across the lake, followed the marks you girls made last night.

And what do you suppose I found in that high bank where you saw the wolf?"

“You found the wolf,” Carrie said confidently. Laura still said nothing. Her food was choking her; she could hardly swallow the smallest mouthful.

“I found the wolves' den,'” said Pa. “And the biggest wolves' tracks I ever saw. Girls, there were two big buffalo wolves at that den last night.”

Mary and Carrie gasped. Ma said, “Charles!”

“It's too late to be scared now,” Pa told them. "But that's what you girls did. You went right up to the wolves' den and there were the wolves.

"Their tracks were fresh, and all the signs show plain as day what they were doing. It's an old den, and from their size they're no young wolves. I'd say they'd been living there for some years. But they haven't been living there this winter.

" They came down from the northwest sometime yesterday evening and went pretty straight to that den. They stayed around it, in and out of it, maybe till this morning. I followed their tracks from there, down along Big Slough and out on the prairie, southwest.

“From the time they left the old den, those wolves never stopped. They trotted along, side by side, as if they had started on a long journey and knew where they were going. I followed them far enough to be sure that I couldn't get a shot at them. They've left for good.”

Laura took a deep breath as though she had forgotten to breathe till now. Pa looked at her. “You are glad they got away, Laura?” he asked.

“Yes, Pa, I am,” Laura answered. “ They didn't chase us.”

“No, Laura, they didn't chase you. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why they didn't.”

“And what were they doing at that old den?” Ma wondered.

“ They were just looking at it,” said Pa. "My belief is they came back to visit the old place where they lived before the graders came in and the antelope left.

Maybe they used to live here before the hunters killed the last buffalo. Buffalo wolves were all over this country once, but there's not many left now, even around here. The railroads and settlements kept driving them farther west. One thing's certain if I know anything about wild animal tracks; those two wolves came straight from the west and went straight back west, and all they did here was to stop one night at the old den. And I wouldn't wonder if they're pretty nearly the last buffalo wolves that'll ever be seen in this part of the country."

“Oh, Pa, the poor wolves,” Laura mourned.

“Mercy on us,” Ma said briskly. “There's enough to be sorry for, without being sorry for the feelings of wild beasts! Be thankful the brutes didn't do any worse than scare you girls last night.”

“ That isn't all, Caroline!” Pa announced. “I've got some news. I've found our homestead.”

“Oh, where, Pa! What's it like? How far is it?” Mary and Laura and Carrie asked, excited. Ma said, “That's good, Charles.”

Pa pushed back his plate, drank his tea, wiped his mustache, and said, "It is just right in every way. It lies south of where the lake joins Big Slough, and the slough curves around to the west of it. There's a rise in the prairie to the south of the slough, that will make a nice place to build. A little hill just west of it crowds the slough back on that side. On the quarter section there's upland hay and plow land lying to the south; and good grazing on all of it, everything a farmer could ask for. And it's near the townsite, so the girls can go to school."

“I'm glad, Charles,” said Ma.

“It's a funny thing,” Pa said. “Here I've been looking around this country for months and never finding a quarter section that just exactly suited me. And that one was lying there all the time. Likely enough I wouldn't have come across it at all, if this wolf chase hadn't taken me across the lake and down along the slough on that side.”