On The Banks Of Plum Creek (17 page)

The church was full of light. Light spilled out of all its windows and ran out into the darkness from the door when it opened to let some one in. Laura almost jumped out from under the blankets before she remembered that she must never stand up in the wagon when the horses were going.

Pa drove to the church steps and helped them all out. He told them to go in, but they waited in the cold until he had covered Sam and David with their blankets. Then he came, and they all went into the church together.

Laura's mouth fell open and her eyes stretched to look at what she saw. She held Mary's hand tightly and they followed Ma and Pa. They sat down. Then Laura could look with all her might.

Standing in front of the crowded benches was a tree. Laura decided it must be a tree.

She could see its trunk and branches. But she had never before seen such a tree.

Where leaves would be in summer, there were clusters and streamers of thin green paper. Thick among them hung little sacks made of pink mosquito-bar. Laura was almost sure she could see candy in them. From the branches hung packages wrapped in colored paper, red packages and pink packages and yellow packages, all tied with colored string.

Silk scarves were draped among them. Red mittens hung by the cord that would go around your neck and keep them from being lost if you were wearing them. A pair of new shoes hung by their heels from a branch. Lav-ish strings of white popcorn were looped all over this.

Under the tree and leaning against it were all kinds of things. Laura saw a crinkly-bright washboard, a wooden tub, a churn and dasher, a sled made of new boards, a shovel, a long-handled pitchfork.

Laura was too excited to speak. She squeezed Mary's hand tighter and tighter, and she looked up at Ma, wanting so much to know what that was. Ma smiled down at her and answered, "That is a Christmas tree, girls.

Do you think it is pretty?"

They could not answer. They nodded while they kept on looking at that wonderful tree.

They were hardly even surprised to know that this was Christmas, though they had not expected Christmas yet because there was not enough snow. Just then Laura saw the most wonderful thing of all. From a far branch of that tree hung a little fur cape, and a muff to match!

The Reverend Alden was there. He preached about Christmas, but Laura was looking at that tree and she could not hear what he said. Everyone stood up to sing and Laura stood up, but she could not sing. Not a sound would come out of her throat. In the whole world, there couldn't be a store so wonderful to look at as that tree.

After the singing, Mr. Tower and Mr. Beadle began taking things off it, and reading out names. Mrs. Tower and Miss Beadle brought those things down past the benches, and gave them to the person whose name was on them.

Everything on that tree was a Christmas present for somebody!

When Laura knew that, the lamps and people and voices and even the tree began to whirl. They whirled faster, noisier, and more excited. Some one gave her a pink mosquito-bar bag. It did have candy in it, and a big popcorn ball. Mary had one, too. So did Carrie.

Every girl and boy had one. Then Mary had a pair of blue mittens. Then Laura had a red pair.

Ma opened a big package, and there was a warm, big, brown-and-red plaid shawl for her.

Pa got a woolly muffler. Then Carrie had a rag doll with a china head. She screamed for joy.

Through the laughing and talking and rustling of papers Mr. Beadle and Mr. Tower went on shouting names.

The little fur cape and muff still hung on the tree, and Laura wanted them. She wanted to look at them as long as she could. She wanted to know who got them. They could not be for Nellie Oleson who already had a fur cape.

Laura did not expect anything more. But to Mary came a pretty little booklet with Bible pictures in it, from Mrs. Tower.

Mr. Tower was taking the little fur cape and the muff from the tree. He read a name, but Laura could not hear it through all the joyful noise. She lost sight of the cape and muff among all the people. They were gone now.

Then to Carrie came a cunning little brown-spotted white china dog. But Carrie's arms and her eyes were full of her doll. So Laura held and stroked and laughed over the sleek little dog.

“Merry Christmas, Laura!” Miss Beadle said, and in Laura's hand she put a beautiful little box. It was made of snow-white, gleaming china. On its top stood a wee, gold-colored teapot and a gold-colored tiny cup in a gold-colored saucer.

The top of the box lifted off. Inside was a nice place to keep a breast-pin, if some day Laura had a breast-pin. Ma said it was a jewel-box.

There had never been such a Christmas as this. It was such a large, rich Christmas, the whole church full of Christmas. There were so many lamps, so many people, so much noise and laughter, and so many happinesses in it.

Laura felt full and bursting, as if that whole big rich Christmas were inside her, and her mittens and her beautiful jewel-box with the wee gold cup-and-saucer and teapot, and her candy and her popcorn ball. And suddenly someone said, “ The s e are for you, Laura.”

Mrs. Tower stood smiling, holding out the little fur cape and muff.

“For me?” Laura said. “For me?” Then everything else vanished while with both arms she hugged the soft furs to her.

She hugged them tighter and tighter, trying to believe they were really hers, that silky-soft little brown fur cape and the muff.

All around her Christmas went on, but Laura knew only the softness of those furs.

People were going home. Carrie was standing on the bench while Ma fastened her coat and tied her hood more snugly. Ma was saying, “Thank you so much for the shawl, Brother Alden. It is just what I needed.”

Pa said, “And I thank you for the muffler. It will feel good when I come to town in the cold.”

The Reverend Alden sat down on the bench and asked, “And does Mary's coat fit?”

Laura had not noticed Mary's coat until then. Mary had on a new dark-blue coat. It was long, and its sleeves came down to Mary's wrists. Mary buttoned it up, and it fitted.

“And how does this little girl like her furs?”

the Reverend Alden smiled. He drew Laura between his knees. He laid the fur cape around her shoulders and fastened it at the throat. He put the cord of the muff around her neck, and her hands went inside the silky muff.

“There!” the Reverend Alden said. “Now my little country girls will be warm when they come to Sunday school.”

“What do you say, Laura?” Ma asked, but the Reverend Alden said, "There is no need.

The way her eyes are shining is enough."

Laura could not speak. The golden-brown fur cuddled her neck and softly hugged her shoulders. Down her front it hid the threadbare fastenings of her coat. The muff came far up her wrists and hid the shortness of her coat sleeves.

“She's a little brown bird with red trimmings,” the Reverend Alden said.

Then Laura laughed. It was true. Her hair and her coat, her dress and the wonderful furs, were brown. Her hood and mittens and the braid on her dress were red.

“I'll tell my church people back east about our little brown bird,” said the Reverend Alden. “You see, when I told them about our church out here, they said they must send a box for the Christmas tree. They all gave things they had. The little girls who sent your furs and Mary's coat needed larger ones.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Laura. “And please, sir, tell them thank you, too.” For when she could speak, her manners were as nice as Mary's.

Then they all said good night and Merry Christmas to the Reverend Alden. Mary was so beautiful in her Christmas coat. Carrie was so pretty on Pa's arm. Pa and Ma were smiling so happily and Laura was all gladness.

Mr. and Mrs. Oleson were going home, too.

Mr. Oleson's arms were full of things, and so were Nellie's and Willie's. No wickedness boiled up in Laura now; she only felt a little bit of mean gladness.

“Merry Christmas, Nellie,” Laura said.

Nellie stared, while Laura walked quietly on, with her hands snuggled deep in the soft muff. Her cape was prettier than Nellie's, and Nellie had no muff.

After Christmas there were a few snowy Sundays but Pa made a bobsled of split willows and they all went to Sunday school, snug in the new coat and the furs, the shawl and muffler.

One morning Pa said the chinook was blowing. The chinook was a warm wind from the north-west. In a day it melted the snow away, and Plum Creek was running full. Then came rains, pouring day and night. Plum Creek roared humping down its middle and swirled far beyond its low banks.

Then the air was mild, and the creek was tame again. Suddenly the plums and the willows blossomed and their new leaves uncurled. The prairies were green with grass, and Mary and Laura and Carrie ran barefooted over the fresh softness.

Every day was warmer than the day before, till hot summer came. It was time for Laura and Mary to go to school, but they did not go that year, because Pa must go away again and Ma wanted them at home with her. The summer was very hot. Dry, hot winds blew and there was no rain.

One day when Pa came in to dinner he said,

“ The grasshoppers are hatching. This hot sun is bringing them out of the eggs and up through the ground like corn popping.”

Laura ran out to see. The grass on the knoll was hopping full of tiny green things. Laura caught one in her hands and looked at it. Its wee, small wings and its tiny legs and its little head and even its eyes were the color of the grass. It was so very tiny and so perfect. Laura could hardly believe it would ever be a big, brown, ugly grasshopper.

“They'll be big, fast enough,” said Pa.

“Eating every growing thing.”

Day by day more and more grasshoppers hatched out of the ground. Green grasshoppers of all sizes were swarming everywhere and eating. The wind could not blow loud enough to hide the sound of their jaws, nipping, gnawing, chewing.

They ate all the green garden rows. They ate the green potato tops. They ate the grass, and the willow leaves, and the green plum thickets and the small green plums. They ate the whole prairie bare and brown. And they grew.

They grew large and brown and ugly. Their big eyes bulged and their horny legs took them hopping everywhere. Thick over all the ground they were hopping, and Laura and Mary stayed in the house.

There was no rain, and the days went by hotter and hotter, uglier and uglier and filled with the sound of grasshoppers until it seemed more than could be borne.

“Oh, Charles,” Ma said one morning,

“seems to me I just can't bear one more day of this.”

Ma was sick. Her face was white and thin, and she sat down tired as she spoke.

Pa did not answer. For days he had been going out and coming in with a still, tight face.

He did not sing or whistle any more. It was worst of all when he did not answer Ma. He walked to the door and stood looking out.

Even Carrie was still. They could feel the heat of the day beginning, and hear the grasshoppers. But the grasshoppers were making a new sound. Laura ran to look out at them, excited, and Pa was excited, too.

“Caroline!” he said. "Here's a strange thing.

Come look!"

All across the dooryard the grasshoppers were walking shoulder to shoulder and end to end, so crowded that the ground seemed to be moving. Not a single one hopped. Not one turned its head. As fast as they could go, they were all walking west.

Ma stood beside Pa, looking. Mary asked,

“Oh, Pa, what does it mean?” and Pa said, “I don't know.”

He shaded his eyes and looked far to west and east. “It's the same, as far as the eye can see. The whole ground is crawling, crawling west.”

Ma whispered, “Oh, if they would all go away!”

They all stood looking at that strange sight.

Only Carrie climbed onto her high chair and beat the table with her spoon.

“In a minute, Carrie,” Ma said. She kept on watching the grasshoppers walking by. There was no space between them and no end to them.

“I want my breakfast!” Carrie shouted. No one else moved. Finally Carrie shouted, almost crying, “Ma!Ma ! ”

“There, you shall have your breakfast,” Ma said, turning around. Then she cried out, “My goodness!”

Grasshoppers were walking over Carrie.

They came pouring in the eastern window, side by side and end to end, across the window sill and down the wall and over the floor. They went up the legs of the table and the benches and Carrie's high stool. Under the table and benches, and over the table and benches and Carrie, they were walking west.

“Shut the window!” said Ma.

Laura ran on the grasshoppers to shut it.

Pa went outdoors and around the house. He came in and said, "Better shut the upstairs windows. Grasshoppers are as thick walking up the east side of the house as they are on the ground, and they are not going around the attic window. They are going right in."

All up the wall and across the roof went the sound of their raspy claws crawling. The house seemed full of them. Ma and Laura swept them up and threw them out the western window. None came in from the west, though the whole western side of the house was covered with grasshoppers that had walked over the roof and were walking down to the ground and going on west with the others.

That whole day long the grasshoppers walked west. All the next day they went on walking west. And all the third day they walked without stopping.

No grasshopper turned out of its way for anything.

They walked steadily over the house. They walked over the stable. They walked over Spot until Pa shut her in the stable. They walked into Plum Creek and drowned, and those behind kept on walking in and drowning until dead grasshoppers choked the creek and filled the water and live grasshoppers walked across on them.