On the Banks of Plum Creek Read online

  The creek was talking to itself under the yellow willows. One by one the great stars swung low and seemed to quiver and flicker in the little wind.

  Laura was snug in Pa’s arm. His beard softly tickled her cheek and the delicious candy-taste melted on her tongue.

  After a while she said, “Pa.”

  “What, little half-pint?” Pa’s voice asked against her hair.

  “I think I like wolves better than cattle,” she said.

  “Cattle are more useful, Laura,” Pa said.

  She thought about that a while. Then she said, “Anyway, I like wolves better.”

  She was not contradicting; she was only saying what she thought.

  “Well, Laura, we’re going to have a good team of horses before long,” Pa said. She knew when that would be. It would be when they had a wheat crop.

  Chapter 12

  The Christmas Horses

  Grasshopper weather was strange weather. Even at Thanksgiving, there was no snow.

  The door of the dugout was wide open while they ate Thanksgiving dinner. Laura could see across the bare willow-tops, far over the prairie to the place where the sun would go down. There was not one speck of snow. The prairie was like soft yellow fur. The line where it met the sky was not sharp now; it was smudged and blurry.

  “Grasshopper weather,” Laura thought to herself. She thought of grasshoppers’ long, folded wings and their high-jointed hind legs. Their feet were thin and scratchy. Their heads were hard, with large eyes on the corners, and their jaws were tiny and nibbling.

  If you caught a grasshopper and held him, and gently poked a green blade of grass into his jaws, they nibbled it fast. They swiftly nibbled in the whole grass blade, till the tip of it went into them and was gone.

  Thanksgiving dinner was good. Pa had shot a wild goose for it. Ma had to stew the goose because there was no fireplace, and no oven in the little stove. But she made dumplings in the gravy. There were corn dodgers and mashed potatoes. There were butter, and milk, and stewed dried plums. And three grains of parched corn lay beside each tin plate.

  At the first Thanksgiving dinner the poor Pilgrims had nothing to eat but three parched grains of corn. Then the Indians came and brought them turkeys, so the Pilgrims were thankful.

  Now, after they had eaten their good, big Thanksgiving dinner, Laura and Mary could eat their grains of corn and remember the Pilgrims. Parched corn was good. It crackled and crunched, and its taste was sweet and brown.

  Then Thanksgiving was past and it was time to think of Christmas. Still there was no snow and no rain. The sky was gray, the prairie was dull, and the winds were cold. But the cold winds blew over the top of the dugout.

  “A dugout is snug and cosy,” said Ma. “But I do feel like an animal penned up for the winter.”

  “Never mind, Caroline,” Pa said. “We’ll have a good house next year.” His eyes shone and his voice was like singing. “And good horses, and a buggy to boot! I’ll take you riding, dressed up in silks! Think, Caroline—this level, rich land, not a stone or stump to contend with, and only three miles from a railroad! We can sell every grain of wheat we raise!”

  Then he ran his fingers through his hair and said, “I do wish I had a team of horses.”

  “Now, Charles,” said Ma. “Here we are, all healthy and safe and snug, with food for the winter. Let’s be thankful for what we have.”

  “I am,” Pa said. “But Pete and Bright are too slow for harrowing and harvesting. I’ve broken up that big field with them, but I can’t put it all in wheat, without horses.”

  Then Laura had a chance to speak without interrupting. She said, “There isn’t any fireplace.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?” Ma asked her.

  “Santa Claus,” Laura answered.

  “Eat your supper, Laura, and let’s not cross bridges till we come to them,” said Ma.

  Laura and Mary knew that Santa Claus could not come down a chimney where there was no chimney. One day Mary asked Ma how Santa Claus would come. Ma did not answer. Instead, she asked, “What do you girls want for Christmas?”

  She was ironing. One end of the ironing-board was on the table and the other on the bedstead. Pa had made the bedstead that high, on purpose. Carrie was playing on the bed and Laura and Mary sat at the table. Mary was sorting quilt blocks and Laura was making a little apron for the rag doll, Charlotte. The wind howled overhead and whined in the stovepipe, but there was no snow yet.

  Laura said, “I want candy.”

  “So do I,” said Mary, and Carrie cried, “Tandy?”

  “And a new winter dress, and a coat, and a hood,” said Mary.

  “So do I,” said Laura. “And a dress for Charlotte, and—”

  Ma lifted the iron from the stove and held it out to them. They could test the iron. They licked their fingers and touched them, quicker than quick, to the smooth hot bottom. If it crackled, the iron was hot enough.

  “Thank you, Mary and Laura,” Ma said. She began carefully ironing around and over the patches on Pa’s shirt. “Do you know what Pa wants for Christmas?”

  They did not know.

  “Horses,” Ma said. “Would you girls like horses?”

  Laura and Mary looked at each other.

  “I only thought,” Ma went on, “if we all wished for horses, and nothing but horses, then maybe—”

  Laura felt queer. Horses were everyday; they were not Christmas. If Pa got horses, he would trade for them. Laura could not think of Santa Claus and horses at the same time.

  “Ma!” she cried. “There IS a Santa Claus, isn’t there?”

  “Of course there’s a Santa Claus,” said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again.

  “The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can’t be just one man, don’t you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in New York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.

  “Well,” said Ma. “Then you see—”

  “I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.

  Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

  Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.

  Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.

  “If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said, “Yes, Laura.”

  Laura thought about that. So did Mary. They thought, and they looked at each other, and they knew what Ma wanted them to do. She wanted them to wish for nothing but horses for Pa. They looked at each other again and they looked away quickly and they did not say anything. Even Mary, who was always so good, did not say a word.

  That night after supper Pa drew Laura and Mary close to him in the crook of his arms. Laura looked up at his face, and then she snuggled against him and said, “Pa.”

  “What is it, little half-pint of sweet cider?” Pa asked, and Laura said:

  “Pa, I want Santa Claus—to bring—”

  “What?” Pa asked.

  “Horses,” said Laura. “If you will let me ride them sometimes.”

  “So do I!” said Mary. But Laura had said it first.

  Pa was surprised. His eyes shone soft and bright at them. “Would you girls really like horses?” he asked them.

  “Oh yes, Pa!” they said.

  “In that case,” said Pa, smiling, “I have an idea that Santa Claus will bring us all a fine team of horses.”

  That settled it. They would not have any Christmas, only horses. Laura and Mary sob
erly undressed and soberly buttoned up their nightgowns and tied their nightcap strings. They knelt down together and said,

  “Now I lay me down to sleep,

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

  If I should die before I wake

  I pray the Lord my soul to take,

  and please bless Pa and Ma and Carrie and everybody and make me a good girl for ever ’n’ ever. Amen.”

  Quickly Laura added, in her own head, “And please make me only glad about the Christmas horses, for ever ’n’ ever amen again.”

  She climbed into bed and almost right away she was glad. She thought of horses sleek and shining, of how their manes and tails blew in the wind, how they picked up their swift feet and sniffed the air with velvety noses and looked at everything with bright, soft eyes. And Pa would let her ride them.

  Pa had tuned his fiddle and now he set it against his shoulder. Overhead the wind went wailing lonely in the cold dark. But in the dugout everything was snug and cosy.

  Bits of fire-light came through the seams of the stove and twinkled on Ma’s steel knitting needles and tried to catch Pa’s elbow. In the shadows the bow was dancing, on the floor Pa’s toe was tapping, and the merry music hid the lonely crying of the wind.

  Chapter 13

  A Merry Christmas

  Next morning, snow was in the air. Hard bits of snow were leaping and whirling in the howling wind.

  Laura could not go out to play. In the stable, Spot and Pete and Bright stood all day long, eating the hay and straw. In the dugout, Pa mended his boots while Ma read to him again the story called Millbank. Mary sewed and Laura played with Charlotte. She could let Carrie hold Charlotte, but Carrie was too little to play with paper dolls; she might tear one.

  That afternoon, when Carrie was asleep, Ma beckoned Mary and Laura. Her face was shining with a secret. They put their heads close to hers, and she told them. They could make a button-string for Carrie’s Christmas!

  They climbed onto their bed and turned their backs to Carrie and spread their laps wide. Ma brought them her button-box.

  The box was almost full. Ma had saved buttons since she was smaller than Laura, and she had buttons her mother had saved when her mother was a little girl. There were blue buttons and red buttons, silvery and goldy buttons, curved-in buttons with tiny raised castles and bridges and trees on them, and twinkling jet buttons, painted china buttons, striped buttons, buttons like juicy blackberries, and even one tiny dog-head button. Laura squealed when she saw it.

  “Sh!” Ma shushed her. But Carrie did not wake up.

  Ma gave them all those buttons to make a button-string for Carrie.

  After that, Laura did not mind staying in the dugout. When she saw the outdoors, the wind was driving snowdrifts across the bare frozen land. The creek was ice and the willow-tops rattled. In the dugout she and Mary had their secret.

  They played gently with Carrie and gave her everything she wanted. They cuddled her and sang to her and got her to sleep whenever they could. Then they worked on the button string.

  Mary had one end of the string and Laura had the other. They picked out the buttons they wanted and strung them on the string. They held the string out and looked at it, and took off some buttons and put on others. Sometimes they took every button off, and started again. They were going to make the most beautiful button-string in the world. One day Ma told them that this was the day before Christmas. They must finish the button-string that day.

  They could not get Carrie to sleep. She ran and shouted, climbed on benches and jumped off, and skipped and sang. She did not get tired. Mary told her to sit still like a little lady, but she wouldn’t. Laura let her hold Charlotte, and she jounced Charlotte up and down and flung her against the wall.

  Finally Ma cuddled her and sang. Laura and Mary were perfectly still. Lower and lower Ma sang, and Carrie’s eyes blinked till they shut. When softly Ma stopped singing, Carrie’s eyes popped open and she shouted, “More, Ma! More!”

  But at last she fell asleep. Then quickly, quickly, Laura and Mary finished the button-string. Ma tied the ends together for them. It was done; they could not change one button more. It was a beautiful button-string.

  That evening after supper, when Carrie was sound asleep, Ma hung her clean little pair of stockings from the table edge. Laura and Mary, in their nightgowns, slid the buttonstring into one stocking.

  Then that was all. Mary and Laura were going to bed when Pa asked them, “Aren’t you girls going to hang your stockings?”

  “But I thought,” Laura said, “I thought Santa Claus was going to bring us horses.”

  “Maybe he will,” said Pa. “But little girls always hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve, don’t they?”

  Laura did not know what to think. Neither did Mary. Ma took two clean stockings out of the clothes-box, and Pa helped hang them beside Carrie’s. Laura and Mary said their prayers and went to sleep, wondering.

  In the morning Laura heard the fire crackling. She opened one eye the least bit, and saw lamplight, and a bulge in her Christmas stocking.

  She yelled and jumped out of bed. Mary came running, too, and Carrie woke up. In Laura’s stocking, and in Mary’s stocking, there were little paper packages, just alike. In the packages was candy.

  Laura had six pieces, and Mary had six. They had never seen such beautiful candy. It was too beautiful to eat. Some pieces were like ribbons, bent in waves. Some were short bits of round stick candy, and on their flat ends were colored flowers that went all the way through. Some were perfectly round and striped.

  In one of Carrie’s stockings were four pieces of that beautiful candy. In the other was the button-string. Carrie’s eyes and her mouth were perfectly round when she saw it. Then she squealed, and grabbed it and squealed again. She sat on Pa’s knee, looking at her candy and her button-string and wriggling and laughing with joy.

  Then it was time for Pa to do the chores. He said, “Do you suppose there is anything for us in the stable?” And Ma said, “Dress as fast as you can, girls, and you can go to the stable and see what Pa finds.”

  It was winter, so they had to put on stockings and shoes. But Ma helped them button up the shoes and she pinned their shawls under their chins. They ran out into the cold.

  Everything was gray, except a long red streak in the eastern sky. Its red light shone on the patches of gray-white snow. Snow was caught in the dead grass on the walls and roof of the stable and it was red. Pa stood waiting in the stable door. He laughed when he saw Laura and Mary, and he stepped outside to let them go in.

  There, standing in Pete’s and Bright’s places, were two horses.

  They were larger than Pet and Patty, and they were a soft, red-brown color, shining like silk. Their manes and tails were black. Their eyes were bright and gentle. They put their velvety noses down to Laura and nibbled softly at her hand and breathed warm on it.

  “Well, flutterbudget!” said Pa. “And Mary. How do you girls like your Christmas?”

  “Very much, Pa,” said Mary, but Laura could only say, “Oh, Pa!”

  Pa’s eyes shone deep and he asked, “Who wants to ride the Christmas horses to water?”

  Laura could hardly wait while he lifted Mary up and showed her how to hold on to the mane, and told her not to be afraid. Then Pa’s strong hands swung Laura up. She sat on the horse’s big, gentle back and felt its aliveness carrying her.

  All outdoors was glittering now with sunshine on snow and frost. Pa went ahead, leading the horses and carrying his ax to break the ice in the creek so they could drink. The horses lifted their heads and took deep breaths and whooshed the cold out of their noses. Their velvety ears pricked forward, then back and forward again.

  Laura held to her horse’s mane and clapped her shoes together and laughed. Pa and the horses and Mary and Laura were all happy in the gay, cold Christmas morning.

  Chapter 14

  Spring Freshet

  In the middle of the night Laura sat straight up in be
d. She had never heard anything like the roaring at the door. “Pa! Pa, what’s that?” she screamed.

  “Sounds like the creek,” he said, jumping out of bed. He opened the door, and the roaring came into the black darkness of the dugout. It scared Laura.

  She heard Pa shouting, “Jiminy crickets! It’s raining fish-hooks and hammer handles!”

  Ma said something that Laura could not hear.

  “Can’t see a thing!” Pa shouted. “It’s dark as a stack of black cats! Don’t worry, the creek can’t get this high! It will go over the low bank on the other side!”

  He shut the door and the roaring was not so loud.

  “Go to sleep, Laura,” he said. But Laura lay awake, listening to that roaring thundering by the door.

  Then she opened her eyes. The window was gray. Pa was gone, Ma was getting breakfast, but the creek was still roaring.

  In a flash Laura was out of bed and opening the door. Whoosh! Icy cold rain went all over her and took her breath away. She jumped out, into cold water pouring down her whole skin. Right at her feet the creek was rushing and roaring.

  The path ended where she was. Angry water was leaping and rolling over the steps that used to go down to the footbridge. The willow clumps were drowned and tree tops swirled in yellow foam. The noise crowded into Laura’s ears. She could not hear the rain. She felt it beating on her sopping-wet nightgown, she felt it striking her head as if she had no hair, but she heard only the creek’s wild roaring.

  The fast, strong water was fearful and fascinating. It snarled foaming through the willow tops and swirled far out on the prairie. It came dashing high and white around the bend upstream. It was always changing and always the same, strong and terrible.

  Suddenly Ma jerked Laura into the dugout, asking her, “Didn’t you hear me call you?”

  “No, Ma,” Laura said.

  “Well, no,” said Ma, “I suppose you didn’t.” Water was streaming down Laura and making a puddle around her bare feet. Ma pulled off her sticking-wet nightgown and rubbed her hard all over with a towel.