Little Town On The Prairie (21 page)

When the five darkies suddenly raced down the aisle and were gone, everyone was weak from excitement and laughing. It did not seem possible that the whole evening had gone. The famous minstrel shows in New York surely could not be better than that minstrel show had been. The 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!” The 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, Ma,”

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, “Do you suppose he would?”

“I don't know,” Laura answered. She really thought that, for such an evening, Pa would have sacrificed even his whiskers, but she did not know what he had done.

The 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, helplessly 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 coming 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.

“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, Laura?” 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 laughing 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 rebelliously 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.

In the examinations she did not make one perfect grade. Her history grade was only 99, and in arithmetic she earned only 92 plus. That was her record, and she could never change it now.

The 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 wallow 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.

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 under 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.

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.

The sunlight went out, the sound of wind changed as it rose. The 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. This 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.

Three 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 covered with fine, hard snow. It was still frozen when Pa walked to town next day. He brought back news that two men had been lost in that blizzard.

They had come from the east on the train, in the warm spring morning. The 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. “Prepare 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 anything,” said Laura. “When you expect something, and then something else always happens.”

“Laura,” said Ma.

“Well, it does, Ma,” Laura protested.

“No,” 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 prepared to teach school and still not be a schoolteacher, but if you were not prepared, it's certain that you won't be.”

That 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, Ma?”

“Two,” said Ma.

“What happened then?” Laura asked.

“I met your Pa,” Ma answered.

“Oh,” Laura said. Hopefully she thought that she might meet somebody. Maybe, after all, she would not have to be a schoolteacher always.

Afterward it seemed to Laura that she did nothing 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.

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.

The hens were laying now. Ma saved the best eggs for setting, and twenty-four chicks hatched. The smallest pullet eggs Ma used in cooking, and for one Sunday dinner, with the first green peas and new potatoes, they ate fried chickens. The other cockerels Ma let grow up. The y would be larger to eat, later on.

The 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.

The 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. The 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 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. The 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 brother, Willie Oleson, and he can't answer questions, 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 entry 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 blubbering,” 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. After 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 wondered whether he could pull his mind together after he had let it go to pieces so, but at least Willie was trying. He was afraid not to try.

Laura and Ida, Mary Power and Minnie, and Nellie Oleson had kept their old seats. The y were all tanned brown from the summer sun, except Nellie, who was paler and more ladylike than ever. Her clothes were so 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 Johnson 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 forehead.”