On The Banks Of Plum Creek (21 page)

They washed and wiped the dishes. They shook the snow off their bedcovers and made their bed. They warmed again by the stove, then they polished it, and Mary cleaned the woodbox while Laura swept the floors.

Ma had not come back. So Laura took the dust-cloth and wiped the window sills and the benches and every curve of Ma's willow rocking-chair. She climbed on a bench and very carefully wiped the clock-shelf and the clock, and the little brown-spotted dog and her own jewel-box with the gold teapot and cup-and-saucer on top. But she did not touch the pretty china shepherdess standing on the bracket that Pa had carved for Ma. Ma allowed no one else to touch the shepherdess.

While Laura was dusting, Mary combed Carrie's hair and put the red-checked cloth on the table, and got out the school-books and the slate.

At last the wind howled into the lean-to with a cloud of snow and Ma.

Her skirt and her shawl were frozen stiff with ice. She had had to draw water from the well for the horses and Spot and the calf. The wind had flung the water on her and the cold had frozen her soaked clothes. She had not been able to get to the barn with enough water. But under the icy shawl she had saved almost all the milk.

She rested a little, and said she must bring in wood. Mary and Laura begged her to let them bring it, but Ma said:

"No. You girls are not big enough and you'd be lost. You do not know what this storm is like. I'll get the wood. You open the door for me.

She piled wood high on the woodbox and around it, while they opened and shut the door for her. Then she rested, and they mopped up the puddles of snow melting from the wood.

“You are good girls,” Ma said. She looked around at the house, and praised them for doing the work so nicely while she was gone. “Now,”

she said, “you may study your lessons.”

Laura and Mary sat down to their books.

Laura looked steadily at the page, but she could not study. She heard the storm howling and she heard things in the air moaning and shrieking. Snow swish-swished against the windows. She tried not to think of Pa. Suddenly the words on the page smeared together and a drop of water splashed on them.

She was ashamed. It would be shameful even for Carrie to cry, and Laura was eight years old. She looked sidewise to make sure that Mary had not seen that tear fall. Mary's eyes were shut so tight that her whole face was crinkled, and Mary's mouth was wabbling.

“I don't believe we want lessons, girls!” Ma said. “Suppose we don't do anything today but play. Think what we'll play first. Pussy-in-the-corner! Would you like that?”

“Oh yes!” they said.

Laura stood in one corner, Mary in another, and Carrie in the third. There were only three corners, because the stove was in one. Ma stood in the middle of the floor and cried,

“Poor pussy wants a corner!”

Then all at once they ran out of their corners and each tried to get into another corner.

Jack was excited. Ma dodged into Mary's corner, and that left Mary out to be poor pussy.

Then Laura fell over Jack, and that left Laura out. Carrie ran laughing into the wrong corners at first, but she soon learned.

They all ran until they were gasping from running and shouting and laughing. They had to rest, and Ma said, “Bring me the slate and I'll tell you a story.”

“Why do you need a slate to tell a story?”

Laura asked as she laid the slate in Ma's lap.

“You'll see,” said Ma, and she told this story:

Far in the woods there was a pond, like this:

The pond was full of fishes, like this: Down below the pond lived two home-steaders, each in a little tent, because they had not built their houses yet: They went often to the pond to fish, and they made crooked paths:

A little way from the pond lived an old man and an old woman in a little house with a window:

One day the old woman went to the pond to get a pail of water:

And she saw the fishes all flying out of the pond, like this:

The old woman ran back as fast as she could go, to tell the old man, “All the fishes are flying out of the pond!” The old man stuck his long nose out of the house to have a good look:

And he said: “Pshaw! It's nothing but tad-poles!”

“It's a bird!” Carrie yelled, and she clapped her hands and laughed till she rolled off the footstool. Laura and Mary laughed too and coaxed, “Tell us another, Ma! Please!”

“Well, if I must,” said Ma, and she began,

“This is the house that Jack built for two pieces of money.”

She covered both sides of the slate with the pictures of that story. Ma let Mary and Laura read it and look at the pictures as long as they liked. Then she asked, “Mary, can you tell that story?”

“Yes!” Mary answered.

Ma wiped the slate clean and gave it to Mary “Write it on the slate, then,” she said.

“And Laura and Carrie, I have new playthings for you.”

She gave her thimble to Laura, and Mary's thimble to Carrie, and she showed them that pressing the thimbles into the frost on the windows made perfect circles. They could make pictures on the windows.

With thimble-circles Laura made a Christmas tree. She made birds flying. She made a log house with smoke coming out of the chimney. She even made a roly-poly man and a roly-poly woman. Carrie made just circles.

When Laura finished her window and Mary looked up from the slate, the room was dusky.

Ma smiled at them.

“We have been so busy we forgot all about dinner,” she said. “Come eat your suppers now.”

“Don't you have to do the chores first?”

Laura asked.

“Not tonight,” said Ma. “It was so late when I fed the stock this morning that I gave them enough to last till tomorrow. Maybe the storm will not be so bad then.”

All at once Laura felt miserable. So did Mary. And Carrie whimpered, “I want Pa!”

“Hush, Carrie!” Ma said, and Carrie hushed.

“We must not worry about Pa,” Ma said, firmly. She lighted the lamp, but she did not set it in the window. “Come eat your suppers now,” she said again, “and then we'll all go to bed.”

All night the house shook and jarred in the wind. Next day the storm was worse than ever. Thenoises of the wind were more terrible and snow struck the windows with an icy rattle.

Ma made ready to go to the stable. “Eat your breakfast, girls, and be careful with the fire,” she said. Then she was gone into the storm.

After a long time she came back and another day began.

It was a dark, long day. They huddled close to the stove and the cold pressed against their backs. Carrie was fretful, and Ma's smile was tired. Laura and Mary studied hard, but they turns looking out at the snow blowing in waves over the ground. The sky looked like ice. Even the air looked cold above that fast-blowing flood of snow, and the sunshine that came through the peep-hole was no warmer than a shadow.

Sidewise from the peep-hole, Laura glimpsed something dark. A furry big animal was wading deep in the blowing snow. A bear, she thought. It shambled behind the corner of the house and darkened the front window.

“Ma ! ” she cried. The door opened, the snowy, furry animal came in. Pa's eyes looked out of its face. Pa's voice said, “Have you been good girls while I was gone?”

Ma ran to him. Laura and Mary and Carrie ran, crying and laughing. Ma helped him out of his coat. The fur was full of snow that show-ered on the floor. Pa let the coat drop, too.

“Charles! You're frozen!” Ma said.

“Just about,” said Pa. “And I'm hungry as a wolf. Let me sit down by the fire, Caroline, and feed me.”

His face was thin and his eyes large. He sat shivering, close to the oven, and said he was only cold, not frost-bitten. Ma quickly warmed some of the bean broth and gave it to him.

“That's good,” he said. “That warms a fellow.”

Ma pulled off his boots and he put his feet up to the heat from the oven.

“Charles,” Ma asked, “did you— Were you—” She stood smiling with her mouth trembling.

“Now, Caroline, don't you ever worry about me,” said Pa. “I'm bound to come home to take care of you and the girls.” He lifted Carrie to his knee, and put an arm around Laura, and the other around Mary. “What did you think, Mary?”

“I thought you would come,” Mary answered.

“That's the girl! And you, Laura?”

“I didn't think you were with Mr. Fitch telling stories,” said Laura. “I—I kept wishing hard.”

“There you are, Caroline! How could a fellow fail to get home?” Pa asked Ma. “Give me some more of that broth, and I'll tell you all about it.”

They waited while he rested, and ate bean broth with bread, and drank hot tea. His hair and his beard were wet with snow melting in them. Ma dried them with a towel. He took her hand and drew her down beside him and asked:

“Caroline, do you know what this weather means? It means we'll have a bumper crop of wheat next year!”

“Does it, Charles?” said Ma.

“We won't have any grasshoppers next summer. They say in town that grasshoppers come only when the summers are hot and dry and the winters are mild. We are getting so much snow now that we're bound to have fine crops next year.”

“That's good, Charles,” Ma said, quietly.

“Well, they were talking about all this in the store, but I knew I ought to start home. Just as I was leaving, Fitch showed me the buffalo coat. He got it cheap from a man who went east on the last train running, and had to have money to buy his ticket. Fitch said I could have the coat for ten dollars. Ten dollars is a lot of money, but—”

“I'm glad you got the coat, Charles,” said Ma.

"As it turned out, it's lucky I did, though I didn't know it then. But going to town, the wind went right through me. It was cold enough to freeze the nose off a brass monkey.

And seemed like my old coat didn't even strain that wind. So when Fitch told me to pay him when I sell my trapped furs next spring, I put that buffalo coat on over my old one.

"As soon as I was out on the prairie I saw the cloud in the north-west, but it was so small and far away that I thought I could beat it home. Pretty soon I began to run, but I was no more than halfway when the storm struck me.

I couldn't see my hand before my face.

"It would be all right if these blizzard winds didn't come from all directions at once. I don't know how they do it. When a storm comes from the north-west, a man ought to be able to go straight north by keeping the wind on his left cheek. But a fellow can't do anything like that in a blizzard.

"Still, it seemed I ought to be able to walk straight ahead, even if I couldn't see or tell directions. So I kept on walking, straight ahead, I thought. Till I knew I was lost. I had come a good two miles without getting to the creek, and I had no idea which way to turn. The only thing to do was to keep on going. I had to walk till the storm quit. If I stopped I'd freeze.

and his beard were wet with snow melting in them. Ma dried them with a towel. He took her hand and drew her down beside him and asked:

“Caroline, do you know what this weather means? It means we'll have a bumper crop of wheat next year!”

“Does it, Charles?” said Ma.

“We won't have any grasshoppers next summer. They say in town that grasshoppers come only when the summers are hot and dry and the winters are mild. We are getting so much snow now that we're bound to have fine crops next year.”

“That's good, Charles,” Ma said, quietly.

“Well, they were talking about all this in the store, but I knew I ought to start home. Just as I was leaving, Fitch showed me the buffalo coat. He got it cheap from a man who went east on the last train running, and had to have money to buy his ticket. Fitch said I could have the coat for ten dollars. Ten dollars is a lot of money, but—”

“I'm glad you got the coat, Charles,” said Ma.

"As it turned out, it's lucky I did, though I didn't know it then. But going to town, the wind went right through me. It was cold enough to freeze the nose off a brass monkey.

And seemed like my old coat didn't even strain that wind. So when Fitch told me to pay him when I sell my trapped furs next spring, I put that buffalo coat on over my old one.

"As soon as I was out on the prairie I saw the cloud in the north-west, but it was so small and far away that I thought I could beat it home. Pretty soon I began to run, but I was no more than halfway when the storm struck me.

I couldn't see my hand before my face.

"It would be all right if these blizzard winds didn't come from all directions at once. I don't know how they do it. When a storm comes from the north-west, a man ought to be able to go straight north by keeping the wind on his left cheek. But a fellow can't do anything like that in a blizzard.

"Still, it seemed I ought to be able to walk straight ahead, even if I couldn't see or tell directions. So I kept on walking, straight ahead, I thought. Till I knew I was lost. I had come a good two miles without getting to the creek, and I had no idea which way to turn. The only thing to do was to keep on going. I had to walk till the storm quit. If I stopped I'd freeze.

“So I set myself to outwalk the storm. I walked and walked. I could not see any more than if I had been stone blind. I could hear nothing but the wind. I kept on walking in that white blur. I don't know if you noticed, there seem to be voices howling and things screaming overhead, in a blizzard?”

“Yes, Pa, I heard them!” Laura said.

“So did I,” said Mary. And Ma nodded.

“And balls of fire,” said Laura.

“Balls of fire?” Pa asked.

“That will keep, Laura,” said Ma. “Go on, Charles. What did you do?”

“I kept on walking,” Pa answered. “I walked till the white blur turned gray and then black, and I knew it was night. I figured I had been walking four hours, and these blizzards last three days and nights. But I kept on walking.”