On the Banks of Plum Creek: Chapters 20–40

As soon as Laura and Mary had washed the breakfast dishes, they went up the ladder and put on their Sunday dresses. Mary’s was a blue-sprigged calico, and Laura’s was red-sprigged.

She looked solemnly at Mary and Laura, and they were solemn, too.

Inside it a big man in a leather apron made a bellows puff! puff! at red coals.

They must not be beholden for the loan of a slate.

The rabbits loped before the wind and the great clear sky curved over it all.

Nellie flounced by Mary and Laura, and dug her hands into a pail of candy.

His clothes were black and his big cravat was black and his hair and the beard that went around his face were dark.

She knew all about Moses in the bulrushes.

The two hens and their gawky pullets were eating grasshoppers with all their might.

He stirred up the smoldering fires and thick smoke hid him again.

Then Laura saw him go to the plow and lift it out of the furrow.

He went, driving Sam and David toward the stable with the idle plow.

Rain drummed on the roof, rain poured from the eaves.

“’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

A pair of new shoes hung by their heels from a branch. Lavish strings of white popcorn were looped all over this.

The golden-brown fur cuddled her neck and softly hugged her shoulders. Down her front it hid the threadbare fastenings of her coat.

All up the wall and across the roof went the sound of their raspy claws crawling.

They ran back with them sopping wet and Mr. Nelson put one on the pitchfork tines.

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.

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

The tea-kettle hummed, the fire shone brightly from the draughts above the stove hearth.

Through the window Laura saw snow scudding before the wind in fast white swirls over the ground.

“In Wisconsin we always had plenty of bear meat and venison, and in Indian Territory there were deer and antelope, jackrabbits, turkeys, and geese, all the meat a man could want. Here there are only little cotton-tail rabbits.”

While Ma rocked and mended, she heard Carrie say her letters in the primer.

The cow coaxed, “Moo-oo,” and the big calf cried, “Baw!”

Carrie was fretful, and Ma’s smile was tired.

It shambled behind the corner of the house and darkened the front window.

I wasn’t slow in digging up out of that den. I came scrabbling through the top of that snow bank, and where do you suppose I was?

Pa’s voice rollicked with the rollicking tune, and Carrie laughed and clapped her hands, and Laura’s feet were dancing.

“’Twas a calm, still night,
And the moon’s pale light
Shone soft o’er hill and vale…”