Little House On The Prairie (14 page)

He drank his coffee and wiped his mustache with his handkerchief, and said: “Ah! That hits the spot, Caroline! Now I'm beginning to thaw out.”

Then his eyes twinkled at Ma and he told her to open the square package on the table.

“Be careful,” he said. “Don't drop it.”

Ma stopped unwrapping it and said: “Oh, Charles! You didn't!”

“Open it,” Pa said.

In that square package there were eight small squares of window-glass. They would have glass windows in their house.

Not one of the squares was broken. Pa had brought them safely all the way home. Ma shook her head and said he shouldn't have spent so much, but her whole face was smiling and Pa laughed with joy. They were all so pleased. All winter long they could look out of the windows as much as they liked, and the sunshine could come in.

Pa said he thought that Ma and Mary and Laura would like glass windows better than any other present, and he was right. They did.

But the windows were not all he had brought them. There was a little paper sack full of pure white sugar. Ma opened it and Mary and Laura looked at the sparkling whiteness of that beautiful sugar, and they each had a taste of it from a spoon. Then Ma tied it carefully up. They would have white sugar when company came.

Best of all, Pa was safely home again.

Laura and Mary went back to sleep, very comfortable all over. Everything was all right when Pa was there. And now he had nails, and cornmeal, and fat pork, and salt, and everything. He would not have to go to town again for a long time.

In those three days the norther had howled and screeched across the prairie till it blew itself out. Now the sun was warm and the wind was mild, but there was a feeling of au-tumn in the air.

Indians came riding on the path that passed so close to the house. They went by as though it were not there.

They were thin and brown and bare. They rode their little ponies without saddle or bridle.

They sat up straight on the naked ponies and did not look to right or left. But their black eyes glittered.

Laura and Mary backed against the house and looked up at them. And they saw red-brown skin bright against the blue sky, and scalplocks wound with colored string, and feathers quivering. The Indians' faces were like the red-brown wood that Pa had carved to make a bracket for Ma.

“I thought that trail was an old one they didn't use any more,” Pa said. “I wouldn't have built the house so close to it if I'd known it's a highroad.”

Jack hated Indians, and Ma said she didn't blame him. She said, “I declare, Indians are getting so thick around here that I can't look up without seeing one.”

As she spoke she looked up, and there stood an Indian. He stood in the doorway, looking at them, and they had not heard a sound.

“Goodness!” Ma gasped.

Silently Jack jumped at the Indian. Pa 227 caught him by the collar, just in time. The Indian hadn't moved; he stood as still as if Jack hadn't been there at all.

“How!” he said to Pa.

Pa held on to Jack and replied, “How!” He dragged Jack to the bedpost and tied him there. While he was doing it, the Indian came in and squatted down by the fire.

Then Pa squatted down by the Indian, and they sat there, friendly but not saying a word, while Ma finished cooking dinner.

Laura and Mary were close together and quiet on their bed in the corner. They couldn't take their eyes from that Indian. He was so still that the beautiful eagle-feathers in his scalplock didn't stir. Only his bare chest and the leanness under his ribs moved a little to his breathing. He wore fringed leather leggings, and his moccasins were covered with beads.

Ma gave Pa and the Indian their dinners on two tin plates, and they ate silently. Then Pa gave the Indian some tobacco for his pipe.

They filled their pipes, and they lighted the tobacco with coals from the fire, and they 228 silently smoked until the pipes were empty.

All this time nobody had said anything. But now the Indian said something to Pa. Pa shook his head and said, “No speak.”

A while longer they all sat silent. Then the Indian rose up and went away without a sound.

“My goodness gracious!” Ma said.

Laura and Mary ran to the window. They saw the Indian's straight back, riding away on a pony. He held a gun across his knees, its ends stuck out on either side of him.

Pa said that Indian was no common trash.

He guessed by the scalplock that he was an Osage.

“Unless I miss my guess,” Pa said, “that was French he spoke. I wish I had picked up some of that lingo.”

“Let Indians keep themselves to themselves,” said Ma, “and we will do the same. I don't like Indians around underfoot.”

Pa told her not to worry.

“That Indian was perfectly friendly,” he said. "And their camps down among the bluffs are peaceable enough. If we treat them well 229 and watch Jack, we won't have any trouble."

The very next morning, when Pa opened the door to go to the stable, Laura saw Jack standing in the Indian trail. He stood stiff, his back bristled, and all his teeth showed. Before him in the path the tall Indian sat on his pony.

Indian and pony were still as still. Jack was telling them plainly that he would spring if they moved. Only the eagle feathers that stood up from the Indian's scalplock were waving and spinning in the wind.

When the Indian saw Pa, he lifted his gun and pointed it straight at Jack.

Laura ran to the door, but Pa was quicker.

He stepped between Jack and that gun, and he reached down and grabbed Jack by the collar. He dragged Jack out of the Indian's way, and the Indian rode on, along the trail.

Pa stood with his feet wide apart, his hands in his pockets, and watched the Indian riding farther and farther away across the prairie.

“That was a darned close call!” Pa said.

“Well, it's his path. An Indian trail, long before we came.”

He drove an iron ring into a log of the house 230 wall, and he chained Jack to it. After that, Jack was always chained. He was chained to the house in the daytime, and at night he was chained to the stable door, because horse-thieves were in the country now. They had stolen Mr. Edwards' horses.

Jack grew crosser and crosser because he was chained. But it could not be helped. He would not admit that the trail was the Indians' trail, he thought it belonged to Pa. And Laura knew that something terrible would happen if Jack hurt an Indian.

Winter was coming now. The grasses were a dull color under a dull sky. The winds wailed as if they were looking for something they could not find. Wild animals were wearing their thick winter fur, and Pa set his traps in the creek bottoms. Every day he visited them, and every day he went hunting. Now that the nights were freezing cold, he shot deer for meat. He shot wolves and foxes for their fur, and his traps caught beaver and muskrat and mink.

He stretched the skins on the outside of the house and carefully tacked them there, to dry.

In the evenings he worked the dried skins between his hands to make them soft, and he added them to the bundle in the corner. Every day the bundle of furs grew bigger.

Laura loved to stroke the thick fur of red foxes. She liked the brown, soft fur of beaver, too, and the shaggy wolfs fur. But best of all she loved the silky mink. Those were all furs that Pa saved to trade next spring in Independence. Laura and Mary had rabbit-skin caps, and Pa's cap was muskrat.

One day when Pa was hunting, two Indians came. They came into the house, because Jack was chained.

Those Indians were dirty and scowling and mean. They acted as if the house belonged to 232 them. One of them looked through Ma's cupboard and took all the cornbread. The other took Pa's tobacco-pouch. They looked at the pegs where Pa's gun belonged. Then one of them picked up the bundle of furs.

Ma held Baby Carrie in her arms, and Mary and Laura stood close to her. They looked at that Indian taking Pa's furs. They couldn't do anything to stop him.

He carried them as far as the door. Then the other Indian said something to him. They made harsh sounds at each other in their throats, and he dropped the furs. They went away.

Ma sat down. She hugged Mary and Laura close to her and Laura felt Ma's heart beating.

“Well,” Ma said, smiling, “I'm thankful they didn't take the plow and seeds.”

Laura was surprised. She asked, “What plow?”

'The plow and all our seeds for next year are in that bundle of furs," said Ma.

When Pa came home they told him about those Indians, and he looked sober. But he said that all was well that ended well.

That evening when Mary and Laura were in bed, Pa played his fiddle. Ma was rocking in the rocking-chair, holding Baby Carrie against her breast, and she began to sing softly with the fiddle:

"Wild roved an Indian maid, Bright Alfarata, ..

Where flow the waters Of the blue Juniata.

Strong and true my arrows are In my painted quiver Swift goes my light canoe Adown the rapid river.

"Bold is my warrior good, The love of Alfarata Proud wave his sunny plumes Along the Juniata.

Soft and low he speaks to me, And then his war-cry sounding Rings his voice in thunder loud From height to height resounding.

"So sang the Indian maid, Bright Alfarata Where sweep the waters Of the blue Juniata.

Fleeting years have borne away The voice of Alfarata Still flow the waters Of the blue Juniata."

Ma's voice and the fiddle's music softly died away. And Laura asked, “Where did the voice of Alfarata go, Ma?”

“Goodness!” Ma said. “Aren't you asleep yet?”

“I'm going to sleep,” Laura said. “But please tell me where the voice of Alfarata went?”

“Oh I suppose she went west,” Ma answered. “That's what the Indians do.”

“Why do they do that, Ma?” Laura asked.

“Why do they go west?”

“They have to,” Ma said.

“Why do they have to?”

“The government makes them, Laura,” said Pa. “Now go to sleep.”

He played the fiddle softly for a while. Then Laura asked, “Please, Pa, can I ask just one more question?”

“May I,” said Ma.

Laura began again. “Pa, please, may I—”

“What is it?” Pa asked. It was not polite for little girls to interrupt, but of course Pa could do it.

“Will the government make these Indians go west?”

“Yes,” Pa said. "When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on.

The government is going to move these Indians farther west, any time now. That's why 236 we're here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick.

Now do you understand?"

“Yes, Pa,” Laura said. “But, Pa, I thought this was Indian Territory. Won't it make the Indians mad to have to—”

“No more questions, Laura,” Pa said, firmly.

“Go to sleep.”

The days were short and cold, the wind whistled sharply, but there was no snow. Cold rains were falling. Day after day the rain fell, pattering on the roof and pouring from the eaves.

Mary and Laura stayed close by the fire, sewing their nine-patch quilt blocks, or cutting paper dolls from scraps of wrapping-paper, and hearing the wet sound of the rain.

Every night was so cold that they expected to see snow next morning, but in the morning they saw only sad, wet grass.

They pressed their noses against the squares of glass in the windows that Pa had made, and they were glad they could see out. But they wished they could see snow.

Laura was anxious because Christmas was near, and Santa Claus and his reindeer could not travel without snow. Mary was afraid that, even if it snowed, Santa Claus could not find them, so far away in Indian Territory. When they asked Ma about this, she said she didn't know.

“What day is it?” they asked her, anxiously.

“How many more days till Christmas?” And they counted off the days on their fingers, till there was only one more day left.

Rain was still falling that morning. There was not one crack in the gray sky. They felt almost sure there would be no Christmas. Still, they kept hoping.

Just before noon the light changed. The 239 clouds broke and drifted apart, shining white in a clear blue sky. The sun shone, birds sang, and thousands of drops of water sparkled on the grasses. But when Ma opened the door to let in the fresh, cold air, they heard the creek roaring.

They had not thought about the creek. Now they knew they would have no Christmas, because Santa Claus could not cross that roaring creek.

Pa came in, bringing a big fat turkey. If it weighed less than twenty pounds, he said, he'd eat it, feathers and all. He asked Laura “How's that for a Christmas dinner? Think you can manage one of those drumsticks?”

She said, yes, she could. But she was sober.

Then Mary asked him if the creek was going down, and he said it was still rising.

Ma said it was too bad. She hated to think of Mr. Edwards eating his bachelor cooking all alone on Christmas day. Mr. Edwards had been asked to eat Christmas dinner with them, but Pa shook his head and said a man would risk his neck, trying to cross that creek now.

“No,” he said. "That current's too strong.

We'll just have to make up our minds that Edwards won't be here tomorrow."

Of course that meant that Santa Claus could not come, either.

Laura and Mary tried not to mind too much.

They watched Ma dress the wild turkey, and it was a very fat turkey. They were lucky little girls, to have a good house to live in, and a warm fire to sit by, and such a turkey for their Christmas dinner. Ma said so, and it was true.

Ma said it was too bad that Santa Claus couldn't come this year, but they were such good girls that he hadn't forgotten them; he would surely come next year.

Still, they were not happy.

After supper that night they washed their hands and faces, buttoned their red-flannel nightgowns, tied their night-cap strings, and soberly said their prayers. They lay down in bed and pulled the covers up. It did not seem at all like Christmas time.