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When the team and wagon were ready to start, Reverend Alden said, “You have had the first church service in this new town. In the spring I will be back to organize a church.” And he said to Mary and Laura and Carrie, “We will have a Sunday school too! You can all help with a Christmas tree next Christmas.”
He climbed into the wagon and went away, leaving them with that to think about and look forward to. Wrapped in shawls and coats and mufflers, they stood watching the wagon going westward on the untouched snow and leaving the marks of its wheels behind it. The cold sun shone brightly and the white world glittered in millions of tiny, sharp points of light.
“Well,” Mrs. Boast said through a fold of shawl drawn across her mouth, “it’s nice to have had the first church service here.”
“What is the name of the town that’s going to be here?” Carrie asked.
“It doesn’t have a name yet, does it, Pa?” said Laura.
“Yes,” Pa answered. “It’s De Smet. It’s named for a French priest who came pioneering out here in the early days.”
They went into the warm house. “That poor boy’ll ruin his health, most likely,” said Ma. “Baching all by himself and trying to live on his own cooking.” She meant Reverend Stuart.
“He’s Scotch,” said Pa, as if that meant that he would be all right.
“What did I tell you, Ingalls, about the spring rush?” said Mr. Boast. “Two homesteaders in here already, and March hardly begun.”
“That struck me too,” said Pa. “I’m making tracks for Brookings tomorrow morning, rain or shine.”
Chapter 24
The Spring Rush
“No music tonight,” Pa said that evening at the supper table. “Early to bed and early to rise, and day after tomorrow our claim’s on the homestead.”
“I’ll be glad, Charles,” said Ma.
After all the bustle of last night and this morning, the house was quiet and composed again. The supper work was done, Grace slept in the trundle bed, and Ma was packing the lunch that Pa would eat on the way to Brookings.
“Listen,” Mary said. “I hear somebody talking.”
Laura pressed her face to a windowpane and shut out the lamplight with her hands. Against the snow she saw a dark team and a wagon full of men. One of them shouted again, then another jumped to the ground. Pa went to meet him and they stood talking. Then Pa came in and shut the door behind him.
“There’s five of them, Caroline,” he said. “Strangers, on their way to Huron.”
“There isn’t room for them here,” said Ma.
“Caroline, we’ve got to put them up for the night. There isn’t any other place they can stay or get a bite to eat. Their team is tired out and they’re greenhorns. If they try to get to Huron tonight, they’ll lose themselves on the prairie and maybe freeze to death.”
Ma sighed. “Well, you know best, Charles.”
So Ma cooked supper for the five strange men. They filled the place with their loud boots and loud voices, and their bedding piled in heaps, ready to make their beds on the floor by the stove. Even before the supper dishes were finished, Ma took her hands from the dishwater and said quietly, “It’s bedtime, girls.”
It was not bedtime, but they knew that she meant they were not allowed to stay downstairs among those strange men. Carrie followed Mary through the stair door, but Ma held Laura back to slip into her hand a strong sliver of wood. “Push this into the slot above the latch,” Ma said. “Push it in well and leave it there. Then no one can lift the latch and open the door. I want the door to be locked. Don’t come down till I call you tomorrow morning.”
In the morning, Laura and Mary and Carrie lay in bed after the sun was up. Downstairs they heard the strangers talking, and breakfast dishes clattering. “Ma said not to come till she called us,” Laura insisted.
“I wish they’d go away,” said Carrie. “I don’t like strangers.”
“I don’t either, and neither does Ma,” Laura said. “It takes them a long time to get started, because they’re greenhorns.”
At last they were gone, and at dinner Pa said he would go to Brookings tomorrow. “No use starting unless I start early,” he said. “It’s a long day’s trip, and there’s no sense in starting after sun-up and having to camp out overnight in this cold.”
That night more strangers came. The next night there were more. Ma said, “Mercy on us, aren’t we to have one night in peace by ourselves?”
“I can’t help it, Caroline,” said Pa. “We can’t refuse folks shelter, when there’s nowhere else they can stay.”
“We can charge them for it, Charles,” Ma said firmly.
