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“First! the heel and then the toe,
That’s the way the steps do go,
First the heel and then the toe,
That’s the way the steps do go,
First-the-heel-and-then-the-toe—”
Faster and faster he played, and faster they danced, with higher and higher steps, back and forth and whirling back again till they were breathless and hot with dancing and laughing.
“Now then,” said Pa, “try a bit of a waltz,” and the music flowed smoothly in gliding long waves. “Just float on the music,” Pa sang to them softly. “Just float on the music, glide smoothly and turn.”
Laura and Carrie waltzed across the room and back, and around and around the room, while Grace sat up in Ma’s lap and watched them with round eyes and Mary listened quietly to the music and the dancing feet.
“That’s fine, girls,” said Pa. “We must have more of it this winter. You’re growing up now and you must know how to dance. You’re going to be fine dancers, both of you.”
“Oh, Pa, you aren’t stopping!” Laura cried.
“It’s long past bedtime,” said Pa. “And there’ll be plenty more long, cosy evenings before spring.”
Bitter cold came down the stairway when Laura opened the door. She hurried up the steps, carrying the lighted lantern, and behind her Mary and Carrie hurried. There was a little warmth around the stovepipe that came up from the room below, and close to it they undressed and with shivering fingers pulled their nightgowns over their underflannels. Chattering, they crawled into their cold beds and Laura blew out the lantern.
In the dark she and Mary cuddled together, and slowly the blankets lost their chill. All around the house the black cold of the night was as high as the sky and as wide as the world, and there was nothing in it but the lonely wind.
“Mary,” Laura whispered. “I guess the wolves have gone. I didn’t hear them howl, did you?”
“I hope they have,” Mary answered drowsily.
Chapter 16
Winter Days
The weather grew colder. Silver Lake was frozen. Snow fell, but always the wind blew the ice clean, drifting the snow into the tall grass of the sloughs and driving it into waves on the low shores.
On the whole white prairie nothing moved but blowing snow, and the only sound in the vast silence was the sound of the wind.
In the snug house Laura and Carrie helped Ma with the housework, and Grace played, running about the big room with toddling short steps. Whenever she was tired of play she climbed into Mary’s lap, for that was the warmest place and Mary would always tell her a story. Listening to stories, Grace would fall asleep. Then Ma laid her in her trundle bed by the stove, and they all settled down for a cosy afternoon of knitting and sewing and crocheting.
Pa did the chores and walked the trap line he had set along the edge of Big Slough. In the lean-to he skinned foxes and coyotes and muskrats, and stretched the furs on boards to dry.
The prairie was so desolate and the wind so cold that Mary did not go out at all. She loved to sit sewing in the pleasant, warm house, taking tiny, even stitches with the needle that Laura threaded for her.
At twilight Mary did not put away her sewing. She told Laura, “I can sew when you can’t see to, because I see with my fingers.”
“You sew more beautifully than I can, anytime,” Laura told her. “You always could.”
Even Laura liked the cosy afternoons of rocking and stitching and talking a little, though she never would truly enjoy sewing as Mary did. Often she was restless in the house. Then she would walk from window to window, looking into a whirl of snowflakes and listening to the wind, till Ma said gently, “I declare I don’t know what gets into you, Laura.”
When the sun shone, no matter how cold it was, Laura must go out. When Ma would let them go, she and Carrie, well wrapped up in coats and hoods, with shoes and mittens and mufflers on, went sliding on Silver Lake. Holding hands, they ran a little way and then slid on the dark, smooth ice. First on one foot, then on the other, with little runs between slides, they went back and forth, breathless and warm and laughing.
Those were glorious days when they were out in the glitter of the sharp cold. Then it was good to come into the warm, close house, and good to eat supper, and through the evening of music and singing and dancing, Laura was the merriest of all.
One stormy day Pa brought a wide, square board in by the stove, and with his pencil he marked it off in small squares inside a plain border.
“Whatever are you making, Pa?” Laura asked, and he answered, “Wait and see.”
He heated the tip of the poker red-hot in the stove, and carefully he burned black every alternate little square.
