On The Banks Of Plum Creek (18 page)

All day the sun beat hot on the house. All day it was full of the crawling sound that went up the wall and over the roof and down. All day grasshoppers' heads with bulging eyes, and grasshoppers' legs clutching, were thick along the bottom edge of the shut windows; all day they tried to walk up the sleek glass and fell back, while thousands more pushed up and tried and fell.

Ma was pale and tight. Pa did not talk and his eyes could not twinkle. Laura could not shake the crawling sound out of her ears nor brush it off her skin.

The fourth day came and the grasshoppers went on walking. The sun shone hotter than ever, with a terribly bright light.

It was nearly noon when Pa came from the stable shouting: “Caroline! Caroline! Look outdoors! The grasshoppers are flying!”

Laura and Mary ran to the door. Everywhere grasshoppers were spreading their wings and rising from the ground. More and more of them filled the air, flying higher and higher, till the sunshine dimmed and darkened and went out as it had done when the grasshoppers came.

Laura ran outdoors. She looked straight up at the sun through a cloud that seemed almost like snowflakes. It was a dark cloud, gleaming, glittering, shimmering bright and whiter as she looked high and farther into it. And it was rising instead of falling.

The cloud passed over the sun and went on far to the west until it could be seen no longer.

There was not a grasshopper left in the air or on the ground, except here and there a crip-pled one that could not fly but still hobbled westward.

The stillness was like the stillness after a storm.

Ma went into the house and threw herself down in the rocking-chair. “My Lord!” she said. “My Lord!” The words were praying, but they sounded like, “Thank you!”

Laura and Mary sat on the doorstep. They could sit on the doorstep now; there were no grasshoppers.

“How still it is!” Mary said.

Pa leaned in the doorway and said, earnestly, "I would like some one to tell me how they all knew at once that it was time to go, and how they knew which way was west and their ancestral home."

But no one could tell him.

All the days were peaceful after that July day when the grasshoppers flew away.

Rain fell and grass grew again over all the land that they had eaten bare and left brown and ugly. Ragweeds grew faster, and careless weeds, and the big, spreading tumbleweeds like bushes.

Willows and cottonwoods and plum thickets put out leaves again. There would be no fruit, for blossom-time was past. There would be no wheat. But wild hay was growing coarse in low places by the creek. Potatoes lived, and there were fish in the fish-trap.

Pa hitched Sam and David to Mr. Nelson's plow, and plowed part of the weedy wheat-field. He plowed a wide fire-break west of the house, from the creek to the creek again. On the field he sowed turnip seeds.

“It's late,” he said. “ The old folks say to sow turnips the twenty-fifth of July, wet or dry. But I guess the old folks didn't figure on grasshoppers. And likely there will be as many turnips as you and the girls can handle, Caroline. I won't be here to do it.”

He must go away to the east again, to work where there were harvests, for the house was not yet paid for and he must buy salt and cornmeal and sugar. He could not stay to cut the hay that Sam and David and Spot must have to eat next winter. But Mr. Nelson agreed to cut and stack Pa's wild hay for a share of it.

Then one early morning Pa went walking away. He went whistling out of sight, with his jumper-roll on his shoulder. But there was not one hole in his boots. He would not mind the walk, and some day he would come walking back again.

In the mornings after the chores and the housework were done, Laura and Mary studied their books. In the afternoons Ma heard their lessons. Then they might play or sew their seams, till time to meet the herd and bring Spot and her calf home. Then came chores again and supper and the supper dishes and bedtime.

After Mr. Nelson stacked Pa's hay by the stable, the days were warm on the sunny side of the stacks, but their shady sides were cool.

The wind blew chill and the mornings were frosty.

One morning when Laura drove Spot and her calf to meet the herd, Johnny was having trouble with the cattle. He was trying to drive them out on the prairie to the west, where the frostbitten, brown grass was tall. The cattle did not want to go. They kept turning and dodging back.

Laura and Jack helped him drive them. The sun was coming up then and the sky was clear.

But before Laura got back to the house, she saw a low cloud in the west. She wrinkled her nose and sniffed long and deep, and she remembered Indian Territory.

“Ma ! ” she called. Ma came outdoors and looked at the cloud.

“It's far away, Laura,” Ma said. “Likely it won't come so far.”

All morning the wind blew out of the west.

At noon it was blowing more strongly, and Ma and Mary and Laura stood in the dooryard and watched the dark cloud coming nearer.

“I wonder where the herd is,” Ma worried.

At last they could see a flickering brightness under the cloud.

“If the cows are safe across the creek we needn't worry,” said Ma. “Fire can't cross that fire-break. Better come in the house, girls, and eat your dinner.”

She took Carrie into the house, but Laura and Mary looked just once more at the smoke rolling nearer. Then Mary pointed and opened her mouth but could not speak. Laura screamed, “Ma! Ma! A wheel of fire!”

In front of the red-flickering smoke a wheel of fire came rolling swiftly, setting fire to the grass as it came. Another and another, another, came rolling fast before the wind. The first one was whirling across the fire-break.

With water-pail and mop Ma ran to meet it.

She struck it with the wet mop and beat it out black on the ground. She ran to meet the next one, but more and more were coming.

“Stay back, Laura!” she said.

Laura stayed backed flat against the house, holding Mary's hand tight, and watching. In the house Carrie was crying because Ma had shut her in.

The wheels of fire came on, faster and faster. They were the big tumbleweeds, that had ripened round and dry and pulled up their small roots so that the wind would blow them far and scatter their seeds. Now they were burning, but still they rolled before the roaring wind and the roaring big fire that followed them.

Smoke swirled now around Ma where she ran, beating with her mop at those fiery swift wheels. Jack shivered against Laura's legs and tears ran out of her smarting eyes.

Mr. Nelson's gray colt came galloping and Mr. Nelson jumped off it at the stable. He grabbed a pitchfork and shouted: "Run quick!

Bring wet rags!" He went running to help Ma.

Laura and Mary ran to the creek with gunny sacks. They ran back with them sopping wet and Mr. Nelson put one on the pitchfork tines. Ma's pail was empty; they ran and filled it.

The wheels of fire were running up the knoll. Streaks of fire followed through the dry grass. Ma and Mr. Nelson fought them with the mop and the wet sacks.

“ The hay-stacks! The hay-stacks!” Laura screamed. One wheel of fire had got to the hay-stacks. Mr. Nelson and Ma went running through the smoke. Another wheel came rolling over the black-burned ground to the house. Laura was so frightened that she did not know what she was doing. Carrie was in the house. Laura beat that burning wheel to death with a wet gunny sack.

Then there were no more wheels. Ma and Mr. Nelson had stopped the fire at the hay-stack. Bits of sooty hay and grass swirled in the air, while the big fire rushed to the fire-break.

It could not get across. It ran fast to the south, to the creek. It ran north and came to the creek there. It could not go any farther, so it dwindled down and died where it was.

The clouds of smoke were blowing away and the prairie fire was over. Mr. Nelson said he had gone on his gray colt after the cattle; they were safe on the other side of the creek.

“We are grateful to you, Mr. Nelson,” said Ma. “You saved our place. The girls and I could never have done it alone.”

When he had gone away she said, “There is nothing in the world so good as good neighbors. Come now, girls, and wash, and eat your dinner.”

After the prairie fire the weather was so cold that Ma said they must hurry to dig the potatoes and pull the turnips before they froze.

She dug the potatoes while Mary and Laura picked them up and carried them down cellar in pails. The wind blew hard and sharp. They wore their shawls, but of course not their mittens. Mary's nose was red and Laura's was icy cold, and their hands were stiff and their feet were numb. But they were glad they had so many potatoes.

It was good to thaw by the stove when the chores were done, and to smell the warm smells of potatoes boiling and fish frying. It was good to eat and to go to bed.

Then in dark, gloomy weather they pulled the turnips. That was harder than picking up potatoes. The turnips were big and stubborn, and often Laura pulled till she sat down hard when the turnip came up.

All the juicy green tops must be cut off with the butcher knife. The juice wet their hands and the wind chapped them till they cracked and bled, and Ma made a salve of lard and bees-wax melted together, to rub on their hands at night.

But Spot and her calf ate the juicy turnip tops and loved them. And it was good to know that there were turnips enough in the cellar to last all winter long. There would be boiled turnips, and mashed turnips and creamed turnips. And in the winter evenings a plate of raw turnips would be on the table by the lamp; they would peel off the thick rinds and eat the raw turnips in crisp, juicy slices.

One day they put the last turnip in the cellar, and Ma said, “Well, it can freeze now.”

Sure enough, that night the ground froze, and in the morning snow was falling thick outside the windows.

Now Mary thought of a way to count the days until Pa would come home. His last letter had said that two more weeks would finish the threshing where he was. Mary brought out the slate, and on it she made a mark for each day of one week, seven marks. Under them she made another mark for each day of the next week, seven more marks.

The last mark was for the day he would come. But when they showed the slate to Ma, she said, “Better make marks for another week, for Pa to walk home on.”

So Mary slowly made seven marks more.

Laura did not like to see so many marks between now and the time that Pa would come home. But every night before they went to bed, Mary rubbed out one mark. That was one day gone.

Every morning Laura thought, “This whole day must go by before Mary can rub out another mark.”

Outdoors smelled good in the chilly mornings. The sun had melted away the snow, but the ground was hard and frosty. Plum Creek was still awake. Brown leaves were floating away on the water under the wintry blue sky.

At night it was cosy to be in the lamplit house by the warm stove. Laura played with Carrie and Jack on the clean, smooth floor. Ma sat comfortably mending, and Mary's book was spread under the lamp.

“It's bedtime, girls,” Ma said, taking off her thimble. Then Mary rubbed one more mark, and put the slate away.

One night she rubbed out the first day of the last week. They all watched her do it, and Mary said, as she put the slate away, “Pa is walking home now! Those are the marks he will walk on.”

In his corner Jack suddenly made a glad sound, as if he understood her. He ran to the door. He stood up against the door, scratching and whining and waggling. Then Laura heard, faintly whistling through the wind, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”

“It's Pa! Pa ! ” she shrieked and tore the door open and ran pell-mell down through the windy dark with Jack bounding ahead.

“Hullo, half-pint!” Pa said, hugging her tight. “Good dog, Jack!” Lamplight streamed from the door and Mary was coming, and Ma and Carrie. “How's my little one?” Pa said, giving Carrie a toss. “Here's my big girl,” and he pulled Mary's braid. “Give me a kiss, Caroline, if you can reach me through these wild Indians.”

Then there was supper to get for Pa, and no one thought of going to bed. Laura and Mary told him everything at once, about the wheels of fire and potatoes and turnips and how big Spot's calf was and how far they had studied in their books, and Mary said: “But, Pa, you can't be here. You didn't walk off the marks on the slate.”

She showed him the marks still there, the marks he was supposed to walk on.

“I see!” said Pa. "But you did not rub out the marks for the days it took my letter to come so far. I hurried fast all the way, too, for they say it's already a hard winter in the north.

What do we need to get in town, Caroline?"

Ma said they did not need anything. They had eaten so many fish and potatoes that the flour was still holding out, and the sugar, and even the tea. Only the salt was low, and it would last several days.

“Then I'd better get the wood up before we go to town,” said Pa. "I don't like the sound of that wind, and they tell me that Minnesota blizzards come up fast and sudden. I heard of some folks that went to town and a blizzard came up so quickly they couldn't get back.

Their children at home burned all the furniture, but they froze stark stiff before the blizzard cleared up enough so the folks could get home."

Now in the daytimes Pa was driving the wagon up and down Plum Creek, and bringing load after load of logs to the pile by the door. He cut down old plum trees and old willows and cottonwoods, leaving the little ones to grow. He hauled them and stacked them, and chopped and split them into stove wood, till he had a big woodpile.

With his short-handled ax in his belt, his traps on his arm, and his gun against his shoulder, he walked far up Plum Creek, setting traps for muskrat and mink and otter and fox.