Little Town On The Prairie (12 page)

Laura was enjoying school. She knew all the pupils now, and she and Ida, Mary Power and Minnie, were becoming fast friends. At recess and noon they were always together.

In the crisp, sunny weather the boys played ante-over and catch, and sometimes they just threw the ball against the schoolhouse and ran jostling and bumping together to catch it in the wild prairie grasses. Often they coaxed Laura, “Come, play with us, Laura. Aw, come on!”

It was tomboyish to run and play, at her age. But she did so love to run and jump and catch the ball and throw it, that sometimes she did join in the games.

The boys were only little boys. She liked them, and she never complained when the games grew rough now and then. One day she overheard Charley saying,

“She isn't a sissy, even if she is a girl.”

Hearing that made her feel glad and cozy. When even little boys like a big girl, she knows that everyone likes her.

The other girls knew that Laura was not really a tomboy, even when her face was hot from running and jumping, and the hairpins were coming loose in her hair. Ida sometimes played, too, and Mary Power and Minnie would look on, applauding. Only Nellie Oleson turned up her nose.

Nellie would not even go walking, though they asked her politely. It was all “too rough, really,” she said.

“She's afraid of spoiling her New York State complexion,” Ida laughed.

“I think she stays in the school house to make friends with Miss Wilder,” said Mary Power. “She talks to her all the time.”

“Well, let her. We have a much better time without her,” Minnie said.

"Miss Wilder used to live in New York State, too.

Likely that is what they talk about," Laura remarked.

Mary Power gave her a laughing, sidelong glance and squeezed her arm. No one called Nellie “teacher's pet,” but that was what they were thinking. Laura did not care. She was at the head of the class in all their studies, and she need not be a teacher's pet to stay there.

Every evening after supper she studied till bedtime.

It was then that she missed Mary most painfully.

They had always gone over their lessons together. But she knew that far away in Iowa, Mary was studying, too, and if she were to stay in college and enjoy all its wonderful opportunities of learning, Laura must get a teacher's certificate.

All this went through her head in a flash, while she went walking, arm in arm with Mary Power and Ida.

“You know what I think?” Minnie asked.

“No, what?” they all asked her.

“I bet that's what Nellie's scheming about,” Minnie said, and she nodded at a team that was coming toward them along the wagon tracks ahead. It was the brown Morgan horses.

All their slender legs were moving swiftly, their hoofs raising little explosions of dust. Their glossy shoulders glistened, their black manes and tails blew shining in the wind. Their ears pricked forward, and their glancing bright eyes saw everything gaily. Dancing little red tassels trimmed their bridles.

Sunlight ran glistening on the curve of their arched necks, straight along their smooth sides and curving again on their round haunches. And behind them ran a shining new buggy. Its dashboard glittered, its spotless black top curved over the seat on gleaming black spokes, its wheels were red. Laura had never seen such a buggy.

“Why didn't you bow, Laura?” Ida asked when it had sped by.

“Didn't you see him raise his hat to us?” said Mary Power. Laura had seen only the beautiful horses, till the buggy flashed before her eyes.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be impolite,” she said. “ The y are just like poetry, aren't they?”

“You don't mean she's setting her cap for him, Minnie,” Mary Power said. “Why, he's a grown-up man, he's a homesteader.”

“I've seen her looking at those horses,” said Minnie.

“I bet she's made up her mind to get a ride behind them. You know that kind of scheming look she has sometimes. And now that he's got such a buggy—”

“He didn't have any buggy last Fourth of July,” said Laura.

“It's just come from the east,” Minnie told them.

“He ordered it after he sold his wheat crop. He had a wonderful wheat crop.” Minnie always knew such news, because her brother Arthur told her.

Slowly Mary Power said, “I do believe you are right, I wouldn't put it past her.”

Laura felt a little guilty. She wouldn't make up to Miss Wilder just to get a ride behind Almanzo Wilder's horses. Yet she had often thought that if Miss Wilder liked her, she might someday take her riding behind them.

Miss Wilder had taken a claim on this road, only a quarter of a mile beyond the schoolhouse. She lived there in a little claim shanty. Almanzo often brought her to the schoolhouse in the morning, or stopped after school to take her home. And always, when she saw those horses, Laura hoped that Miss Wilder might, perhaps, sometime, ask her for a ride. Could it be that she was as horrid as Nellie Oleson?

Now that she had seen that buggy, more than ever Laura wanted such a ride. How could she prevent such thoughts, when those horses were so beautiful and the buggy so swift?

“It's almost time for the bell,” Ida said, and they all turned back to the schoolhouse. The y must not be late. In the entry they drank from the dipper that floated in the water pail there. The n they went in, tanned and windblown, and hot and dusty. Nellie was neat and ladylike, her skin was white, and every hair of her head was in its place.

She looked down her nose at them, and smiled a lofty smile. Laura looked straight back at her, and Nellie gave a little flounce of her shoulder and chin.

“You needn't think you're so much, Laura Ingalls!”

Nellie said. “Miss Wilder says your father has nothing much to say about this school, even if he is on the school board.”

“Why!” Laura gasped.

“I guess he's got as much to say about this school as anybody, and maybe more!” Ida said stoutly. “Hasn't he, Laura?”

“He certainly has!” Laura cried.

“Yes,” said Mary Power. “He has more, because Laura and Carrie are in this school and the others on the board haven't any children.”

Laura was furious with rage, that Nellie dared to say anything against Pa. On the steps Miss Wilder was ringing the bell and its noise clanged in Laura's head.

She said, “It's just too bad your folks are nothing but country folks, Nellie. If you lived in town, then maybe your father could be on the school board and have something to say about this school.”

Nellie was going to slap her. Laura saw her hand rising, and she barely had time to think that she must not, must not slap Nellie, and to hope she wouldn't.

The n Nellie's hand dropped quickly and she slid into her seat. Miss Wilder had come in.

All the pupils came clattering, and Laura sat down in her own seat. She was still so angry that she could hardly see. Under the desk-top Ida's hand gave her clenched fist a quick little squeeze that meant, “Good for you! You served her right!”

Miss Wilder was puzzling everyone in school.

From the first day, of course, the boys had been trying to find out how far they could go in naughtiness before she made them behave themselves, and no one could understand why she did not show them.

At first they fidgeted and then they began making little noises with their books and slates. Miss Wilder paid no attention until the noise was disturbing. The n she did not speak sharply to the noisiest boy, but smiled at them all and politely asked them to be quieter.

“I know you do not realize that you are disturbing others,” she said.

The y did not know what to make of this. When she turned to the blackboard, the noise would grow loud again. The boys even began to whisper.

Every day Miss Wilder asked everyone, several times, to be just a little quieter, please. This was not fair to those who were making no noise at all. Soon all the boys were whispering, nudging each other, and sometimes slyly scuffing in their seats. Some of the little girls wrote notes to each other on their slates.

Still Miss Wilder did not punish anyone. One afternoon she rapped on her desk to call the whole school to attention, and talked to them about how good she was sure they all meant to be. She said she did not believe in punishing children. She meant to rule them by love, not fear. She liked them all and she was sure that they liked her. Even the big girls were embarrassed by her way of talking.

“Birds in their little nests agree,” she said, smiling, and Laura and Ida almost squirmed from embarrass-ment. Besides, that showed that she knew nothing at all about birds.

Miss Wilder kept on always smiling even when her eyes were worried. Only her smiles at Nellie Oleson seemed real. She seemed to feel that she could depend on Nellie Oleson.

“She's a—well, almost a hypocrite,” Minnie said, low, one day at recess. The y were standing at the win-dow, watching the boys play ball. Miss Wilder and Nellie were chatting together by the stove. It was cooler at the window, but the other girls would rather be there.

“I don't think she really is, quite,” Mary Power answered. “Do you, Laura?”

“No-o,” Laura said. “Not exactly. I think she just hasn't got very good judgment. But she does know everything in the books. She is a good scholar.”

“Yes, she is,” Mary Power agreed. “But can't a person know what is in books and still have more common sense? I wonder what is going to happen when the big boys come to school, if she can't control these little ones.”

Minnie's eyes lighted up with excitement, and Ida laughed. Ida would be good and gay and laughing, no matter what happened, but Mary Power was sober and Laura was worried. She said, “Oh, we must not have trouble in school!” She must be able to study and get a teacher's certificate.

Now that Laura and Carrie were living in town, they went home at noon for a good, hot dinner.

Surely the hot food was better for Carrie, though it seemed to make no difference. She was still pale and spindly, and always tired. Often her head ached so badly that she could not learn her spelling. Laura helped her with it. Carrie would know every word in the morning; then when she was called upon to recite, she would make a mistake.

Ida and Nellie still brought their dinners to school, and so did Miss Wilder. The y ate together, cozily by the stove. When the other girls came back to school, Ida would join them, but Nellie often chatted with Miss Wilder through the whole noon hour.

Several times she said to the other girls, with a sly smile, “One of these days I'm going riding behind those Morgan horses, in that new buggy. You just wait and see!” The y did not doubt it.

Coming in one day at noon, Laura took Carrie to the stove, to take off her wraps in the warmth. Miss Wilder and Nellie were there, talking earnestly together. Laura heard Miss Wilder say indignantly,

“—school board!” The n they both saw her.

“I must ring the bell,” Miss Wilder said hurriedly, and she did not look at Laura as she passed by her.

Perhaps Miss Wilder had some complaint against the school board, Laura thought, and she had remembered when she saw Laura, that Pa was on the board.

That afternoon, again, Carrie missed three words in her spelling lesson. Laura's heart ached. Carrie looked so white and pitiful, she tried so hard, but it was plain to see that her head was aching terribly. It would be a little comfort to her, Laura thought, that Mamie Beardsley made some mistakes, too.

The n Miss Wilder closed her speller, and said sadly that she was disappointed and grieved. "Go to your seat, Mamie, and study this same lesson again,“ she said. ”Carrie, you may go to the blackboard. I want to see you write, 'cataract,' 'separate,' and 'exasperate,'

on the board, correctly, fifty times each."

She said it with a kind of triumph in her voice.

Laura tried to control her temper, but she could not.

She was furious. It was meant as a punishment for poor little Carrie, to make her stand ashamed before the whole school. It was not fair! Mamie had missed words, too. Miss Wilder let Mamie off, and punished Carrie. She must see that Carrie did her best, and was not strong. She was mean, mean and cruel, and she was not fair!

Laura had to sit helpless. Carrie went miserably but bravely to the blackboard. She was trembling and she had to wink back tears but she would not cry. Laura sat watching her thin hand slowly writing, one long line of words and then another. Carrie grew pale and paler, but she kept on writing. Suddenly her face went gray, and she hung on to the eraser trough.

Quickly Laura raised her hand, then she jumped up, and when Miss Wilder looked at her she spoke without waiting for permission. “Please! Carrie is going to faint.”

Miss Wilder turned swiftly and saw Carrie.

“Carrie! You may sit down!” she said. Sweat came out on Carrie's face and it was not so deathly gray.

Laura knew the worst was over. “Sit down on the front seat,” Miss Wilder said, and Carrie was able to get to it.

The n Miss Wilder turned to Laura. “Since you do not want Carrie to write her misspelled words, Laura, you may go to the board and write them.”

The whole school was frozen silent, looking at Laura. It was a disgrace for her, one of the big girls, to stand at the blackboard writing words as a punishment. Miss Wilder looked at Laura, too, and Laura looked straight back.

The n she went to the blackboard and took the chalk. She began to write. She felt her face grow flaming hot, but after a moment she knew that no one was jeering at her. She went on rapidly writing the words, all alike, one below another.

Several times she heard behind her a low, repeated,

“Sssst! Sssst!” The whole room was noisy, as usual.

The n she heard a whispered, “Laura! Sssst!”

Charley was signaling to her. He whispered, "Sssst!

Don't do it! Tell her you won't do it! We'll all stand by you!"

Laura was warmed all through. But the one thing that must not happen was trouble in school. She smiled and frowned and shook her head at Charley.

He sank back, disappointed but quiet. The n suddenly Laura's eye caught a furious glance from Miss Wilder.