On the Banks of Plum Creek Read online

  Gray-green lichens with ruffled edges grew flat on it. Wandering ants crossed it. Often a butterfly stopped to rest there. Then Laura watched the velvety wings slowly opening and closing, as if the butterfly breathed with them. She saw the tiny feet on the rock, and the feelers quivering, and even the round, lidless eyes.

  She never tried to catch a butterfly. She knew that its wings were covered with feathers too tiny to see. A touch would brush off those tiny feathers and hurt the butterfly.

  The sun was always warm on the big gray rock. Sunshine was always on the waving prairie grasses, and birds and butterflies in the sunshine. Breezes always blew there, warm and perfumed from the sun-warmed grasses. Far away, toward the place where the sky came down to the land, small dark things moved on the prairie. They were cattle, grazing.

  Laura and Mary never went to play on the gray rock in the mornings, and they did not stay there when the sun was going down, because morning and evening the cattle went by.

  They went by in a herd, with trampling hoofs and tossing horns. Johnny Johnson, the herd boy, walked behind them. He had a round red face, and round blue eyes, and pale, whitey-yellow hair. He grinned, and did not say anything. He couldn’t. He did not know any words that Laura and Mary knew.

  Late one afternoon Pa called them from the creek. He was going to the big rock to see Johnny Johnson bring the cattle home, and Laura and Mary could go with him.

  Laura skipped with joy. She had never been so close to a herd of cattle, and she would not be afraid when Pa was there. Mary came slowly, staying close to Pa.

  The cattle were already quite near. Their bawling was growing louder. Their horns tossed above the herd, and a thin, golden dust rose up around them.

  “Here they come!” Pa said. “Scramble up!” He boosted Mary and Laura onto the big rock. Then they looked at the cattle.

  Red backs and brown backs, black and white and spotted backs, surged by. Eyes rolled and tongues licked flat noses; heads tipped wickedly to gouge with fierce horns. But Laura and Mary were safe on the high gray rock, and Pa stood against it, watching.

  The last of the herd was going by, when both Laura and Mary caught sight of the prettiest cow they had ever seen.

  She was a small white cow. She had red ears, and in the middle of her forehead there was a red spot. Her small white horns curved inward, pointing to that red spot. And on her white side, right in the middle, there was a perfect circle of red spots as big as roses.

  Even Mary jumped up and down.

  “Oh, look! Oh, look!” Laura shouted. “Pa, see the cow with the wreath of roses!”

  Pa laughed. He was helping Johnny Johnson drive that cow away from the others. He called back: “Come along, girls! Help me drive her into the stable!”

  Laura jumped off the rock and ran to help him, shouting, “Why, Pa, why? Oh, Pa, are we going to keep her?”

  The little white cow went into the stable, and Pa answered, “She’s our cow!”

  Laura turned and ran as fast as she could. She pounded down the path and rushed into the dugout, yelling: “Oh, Ma, Ma! Come see the cow! We’ve got a cow! Oh, Ma, the prettiest cow!”

  Ma took Carrie on her arm and came to see.

  “Charles!” she said.

  “She’s ours, Caroline!” said Pa. “How do you like her?”

  “But, Charles!” Ma said.

  “I got her from Nelson,” Pa told her. “I’m paying him by day’s work. Nelson’s got to have help, haying and harvesting. Look at her. She’s a good little milch cow. Caroline, we’re going to have milk and butter.”

  “Oh, Charles!” said Ma.

  Laura did not wait to hear any more. She turned around and ran again, as fast as she could go, along the path and down into the dugout. She grabbed her tin cup from the supper table and she rushed back again.

  Pa tied the pretty white cow in her own little stall, beside Pete and Bright. She stood quietly chewing her cud. Laura squatted down beside her, and holding the tin cup carefully in one hand, she took hold of that cow with her other hand and squeezed just as she had seen Pa do when he milked. And sure enough a streak of warm white milk went straight into the tin cup.

  “My goodness! What is that child doing!” Ma exclaimed.

  “I’m milking, Ma,” said Laura.

  “Not on that side,” Ma told her, quickly. “She’ll kick you.”

  But the gentle cow only turned her head and looked at Laura with gentle eyes. She looked surprised, but she did not kick.

  “Always milk a cow from the right side, Laura,” said Ma. But Pa said: “Look at the little half-pint! Who taught you to milk?”

  Nobody had taught Laura. She knew how to milk a cow; she had watched Pa do it. Now they all watched her. Streak after streak of milk zinged into the tin cup; then streak after streak purred and foamed, till the white foam rose up almost to the cup’s brim.

  Then Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura each took a big swallow of that warm, delicious milk, and what was left Carrie drank up. They felt good inside and they all stood looking at that beautiful cow.

  “What is her name?” Ma asked.

  Pa’s big laugh rang out and he said, “Her name is Reet.”

  “Reet?” Ma repeated. “What outlandish name is that?”

  “The Nelsons called her some Norwegian name,” said Pa. “When I asked what it meant, Mrs. Nelson said it was a reet.”

  “What on earth is a reet?” Ma asked him.

  “That’s what I asked Mrs. Nelson,” said Pa. “She kept on saying, ‘a reet,’ and I guess I looked as foolish as I felt, for finally she said, ‘a reet of roses.’”

  “A wreath!” Laura shouted. “A wreath of roses!”

  Then they all laughed till they could not laugh any more, and Pa said: “It does beat all. In Wisconsin we lived among Swedes and Germans. In Indian Territory we lived among the Indians. Now here in Minnesota all the neighbors are Norwegians. They’re good neighbors, too. But I guess our kind of folks is pretty scarce.”

  “Well,” said Ma, “we’re not going to call this cow Reet, nor yet Wreath of Roses. Her name is Spot.”

  Chapter 7

  Ox on the Roof

  Now Laura and Mary had chores to do.

  Every morning before the sun was up they had to drive Spot to the big gray rock to meet the herd, so that Johnny could take her with the other cattle to eat grass all day. And every afternoon they had to remember to meet the herd and put Spot in the stable.

  In the mornings they ran through the dewy chill grass that wet their feet and dabbled the hems of their dresses. They liked to splash their bare feet through the grass all strung with dewdrops. They liked to watch the sun rise over the edge of the world.

  First everything was gray and still. The sky was gray, the grass was gray with dew, the light was gray, and the wind held its breath.

  Then sharp streaks of green came into the eastern sky. If there was a little cloud, it turned pink. Laura and Mary sat on the damp, cold rock, hugging their chilly legs. They rested their chins on their knees and watched, and in the grass below them Jack sat, watching, too. But they never could see when the sky first began to be pink.

  The sky was very faintly pink, then it was pinker. The color went higher up the sky. It grew brighter and deeper. It blazed like fire, and suddenly the little cloud was glittering gold. In the center of the blazing color, on the flat edge of the earth, a tiny sliver of sun appeared. It was a short streak of white fire. Suddenly the whole sun bounded up, round and huge, far bigger than the ordinary sun and throbbing with so much light that its roundness almost burst.

  Laura couldn’t help blinking. While she blinked just once, the sky turned blue, the golden cloud vanished. The everyday sun shone over the prairie grasses where thousands of birds were flying and twittering.

  In the evenings when the cattle came home, Laura and Mary always ran fast to get up on the big rock before all those heads and horns and trampling legs reached them.

  Pa was working for Mr. Nels
on now, and Pete and Bright had no work to do. They went with Spot and the other cattle to eat grass. Laura was never afraid of gentle, white Spot, but Pete and Bright were so big that they would scare anybody.

  One evening all the cattle were angry. They came bellowing and pawing, and when they reached the big rock they did not go by. They ran around it, bawling and fighting. Their eyes rolled, their horns tossed and slashed at each other. Their hoofs raised a smudge of dust and their clashing horns were frightful.

  Mary was so scared that she could not move. Laura was so scared that she jumped right off the rock. She knew she had to drive Spot and Pete and Bright into the stable.

  The cattle towered up in the dust. Their feet trampled and their horns slashed and they bawled. But Johnny helped to head Pete and Bright and Spot toward the stable. Jack helped, too. Jack growled at their heels and Laura ran yelling behind them. And with his big stick Johnny drove the herd away.

  Spot went into the stable. Then Bright went in. Pete was going in, and Laura was not scared now, when suddenly big Pete wheeled around. His horns hooked and his tail stood up, and he galloped after the herd.

  Laura ran in front of him. She waved her arms and yelled. He bellowed, and went thundering toward the creek bank.

  Laura ran with all her might, to get in front of him again. But her legs were short and Pete’s were long. Jack came running as fast as he could. But he only made Pete jump longer jumps.

  Pete jumped right on top of the dugout. Laura saw his hind leg go down, down through the roof. She saw him sit on it. That big ox was going to fall on Ma and Carrie, and it was Laura’s fault because she had not stopped him.

  He heaved and pulled his leg up. Laura had not stopped running. She was in front of Pete now and Jack was in front of him, too.

  They chased Pete into the stable and Laura put up the bars. She was shaking all over and her legs were weak. Her knees kept hitting together.

  Ma had come running up the path, carrying Carrie. But no harm had been done. There was only a hole through the roof where Pete’s leg had come down and gone up again. Ma said it had given her a turn to see it coming down through the ceiling.

  “But there’s no great damage done,” she said.

  She stuffed the hole full of grass, and swept out the earth that had fallen into the dugout. Then she and Laura laughed because it was funny to live in a house where a steer could step through the roof. It was like being rabbits.

  Next morning while Laura was doing the dishes, she saw some little dark things rolling down the whitewashed wall. They were crumbs of earth. She looked up to see where they came from, and she jumped away from there quicker than a rabbit. A big rock smashed down, and the whole ceiling poured down over it.

  The sun shone down into the house and the air was full of dust. Ma and Mary and Laura choked and sneezed, looking up at the sky where a ceiling should have been. Carrie sat sneezing in Ma’s arms. Jack rushed in, and when he saw the sky overhead he growled at it. Then he sneezed.

  “Well, that settles it,” said Ma.

  “What does, Ma?” Laura asked. She thought Ma meant something was settling the dust.

  “This does,” Ma said. “Pa will have to mend that roof tomorrow.”

  Then they carried out the rock and the earth and the bunches of hay that had fallen. Ma swept and swept again with the willow-twig broom.

  That night they slept in their house, under the starry sky. Such a thing had never happened before.

  Next day Pa had to stay at home to build a new roof. Laura helped him carry fresh willow boughs and she handed them to him while he wedged them into place. They put clean fresh grass thick over the willows. They piled earth on the grass. Then over the top Pa laid strips of sod cut from the prairie.

  He fitted them together and Laura helped him stamp them down.

  “That grass will never know it’s been moved,” Pa said. “In a few days you won’t be able to tell this new roof from the prairie.”

  He did not scold Laura for letting Pete get away. He only said, “It’s no place for a big ox to be running, right over our roof!”

  Chapter 8

  Straw-Stack

  When Mr. Nelson’s harvesting was done, Pa had paid for Spot. He could do his own harvesting now. He sharpened the long, dangerous scythe that little girls must never touch, and he cut down the wheat in the small field beyond the stable. He bound it in bundles and stacked them.

  Then every morning he went to work on the level land across the creek. He cut the prairie grass and left it to dry in the sunshine. He raked it into piles with a wooden rake. He yoked Pete and Bright to the wagon, and he hauled the hay and made six big stacks of it over there.

  At night he was always too tired, now, to play the fiddle. But he was glad because when the hay was stacked he could plow that stubble land, and that would be the wheat-field.

  One morning at daylight three strange men came with a threshing-machine. They threshed Pa’s stack of wheat. Laura heard the harsh machinery noises while she drove Spot through the dewy grass, and when the sun rose chaff flew golden in the wind.

  The threshing was done and the men went away with the machine before breakfast. Pa said he wished Hanson had sown more wheat.

  “But there’s enough to make us some flour,” he said. “And the straw, with what hay I’ve cut, will feed the stock through the winter. Next year,” he said, “we’ll have a crop of wheat that will amount to something!”

  When Laura and Mary went up on the prairie to play, that morning, the first thing they saw was a beautiful golden straw-stack.

  It was tall and shining bright in the sunshine. It smelled sweeter than hay.

  Laura’s feet slid in the sliding, slippery straw, but she could climb faster than straw slid. In a minute she was high on top of that stack.

  She looked across the willow-tops and away beyond the creek at the far land. She could see the whole, great, round prairie. She was high up in the sky, almost as high as birds. Her arms waved and her feet bounced on the springy straw. She was almost flying, ’way high up in the windy sky.

  “I’m flying! I’m flying!” she called down to Mary. Mary climbed up to her.

  “Jump! Jump!” Laura said. They held hands and jumped, round and round, higher and higher. The wind blew and their skirts flapped and their sunbonnets swung at the ends of the sunbonnet strings around their necks.

  “Higher! Higher!” Laura sang, jumping. Suddenly the straw slid under her. Over the edge of the stack she went, sitting in straw, sliding faster and faster. Bump! She landed at the bottom. Plump! Mary landed on her.

  They rolled and laughed in the crackling straw. Then they climbed the stack, and slid down it again. They had never had so much fun.

  They climbed up and slid, climbed and slid, until there was hardly any stack left in the middle of loose heaps of straw.

  Then they were sober. Pa had made that straw-stack and now it was not at all as he had left it. Laura looked at Mary and Mary looked at her, and they looked at what was left of that straw-stack. Then Mary said she was going into the dugout, and Laura went quietly with her. They were very good, helping Ma and playing nicely with Carrie, until Pa came to dinner.

  When he came in he looked straight at Laura, and Laura looked at the floor.

  “You girls mustn’t slide down the strawstack any more,” Pa said. “I had to stop and pitch up all that loose straw.”

  “We won’t, Pa,” Laura said, earnestly, and Mary said, “No, Pa, we won’t.”

  After dinner Mary washed the dishes and Laura dried them. Then they put on their sunbonnets and went up the path to the prairie. The straw-stack was golden-bright in the sunshine.

  “Laura! What are you doing!” said Mary.

  “I’m not doing anything!” said Laura. “I’m not even hardly touching it!”

  “You come right away from there, or I’ll tell Ma!” said Mary.

  “Pa didn’t say I couldn’t smell it,” said Laura.

  She stood cl
ose to the golden stack and sniffed long, deep sniffs. The straw was warmed by the sun. It smelled better than wheat kernels taste when you chew them. Laura burrowed her face in it, shutting her eyes and smelling deeper and deeper.

  “Mmm!” she said.

  Mary came and smelled it and said, “Mmm!”

  Laura looked up the glistening, prickly, golden stack. She had never seen the sky so blue as it was above that gold. She could not stay on the ground. She had to be high up in that blue sky.

  “Laura!” Mary cried. “Pa said we mustn’t!”

  Laura was climbing. “He did not, either!” she contradicted. “He did not say we must not climb up it. He said we must not slide down it. I’m only climbing.”

  “You come right straight down from there,” said Mary.

  Laura was on top of the stack. She looked down at Mary and said, like a very good little girl, “I am not going to slide down. Pa said not to.”

  Nothing but the blue sky was higher than she was. The wind was blowing. The green prairie was wide and far. Laura spread her arms and jumped, and the straw bounded her high.

  “I’m flying! I’m flying!” she sang. Mary climbed up, and Mary began to fly, too.

  They bounced until they could bounce no higher. Then they flopped flat on the sweet warm straw. Bulges of straw rose up on both sides of Laura. She rolled onto a bulge and it sank, but another rose up. She rolled onto that bulge, and then she was rolling faster and faster; she could not stop.

  “Laura!” Mary screamed. “Pa said—” But Laura was rolling. Over, over, over, right down that straw-stack she rolled and thumped in straw on the ground.

  She jumped up and climbed that strawstack again as fast as she could. She flopped and began to roll again. “Come on, Mary!” she shouted. “Pa didn’t say we can’t roll!”

  Mary stayed on top of the stack and argued. “I know Pa didn’t say we can’t roll, but—”

  “Well, then!” Laura rolled down again. “Come on!” she called up. “It’s lots of fun!”