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She liked to sit on the front doorstep and look about the town. Boys, and sometimes the men, would set a new dog on her to see the fun. Kitty sat placidly while the dog growled and barked, but she was always ready. When the dog rushed, she rose in air with a heart-stopping yowl and landed squarely on the dog’s back with all claws sunk into it. The dog went away from there.
They went in a streak, Kitty silently riding and the dog ki-yi-yowling. When Kitty thought she was far enough from home she dropped off, but the dog went on. Then Kitty walked home with proudly upright tail. Only a new dog could be set on Kitty.
Nothing could be a greater pleasure than those Saturday afternoons, when Mary Power’s friendliness was added to the coziness of home, and Kitty might furnish exciting entertainment. Now Laura could not truly enjoy even this. She sat dreading to hear the boys chanting that verse again, and in her chest was a gloomy weight.
“I should make a clean breast of it, to Pa and Ma,” she thought. She felt again a scalding fury against Miss Wilder. She had not meant to do harm when she wrote that verse; she had written it at recess, not in school hours. It was all too difficult to explain. Perhaps, as Ma had said, it would blow over. Least said, soonest mended. Yet at that moment perhaps someone was telling Pa.
Mary Power was troubled, too. They both made mistakes and had to unravel stitches. Never had they accomplished so little in a Saturday afternoon. Neither of them said a word about school. All the pleasure was gone from school. They were not looking forward to Monday morning.
That Monday morning was the worst yet. There was no pretense of study. The boys whistled and catcalled, and scuffled in the aisles. All the little girls but Carrie were whispering and giggling and even moving from seat to seat. Miss Wilder’s, “Quiet, please! Please be quiet!” could hardly be heard.
There was a knock at the door. Laura and Ida heard it; they sat nearest the door. They looked at each other, and when the knock came again, Ida raised her hand. Miss Wilder paid no attention.
Suddenly a loud knock sounded on the entry’s inner door. Everyone heard that. The door opened and the noise died away to silence. The room grew deathly still as Pa came in. Behind him came two other men whom Laura did not know.
“Good morning, Miss Wilder,” said Pa. “The school board decided it was time to visit the school.”
“It is about time that something was done,” Miss Wilder returned. She flushed red and then went pale while she answered, “Good morning,” to the other two men and welcomed them, with Pa, to the front of the room. They stood looking over it.
Every pupil was perfectly still, and Laura’s heart pounded loud.
“We heard you have been having a little trouble,” the tall, solemn man said gravely but kindly.
“Yes, and I am very glad of this opportunity to tell you gentlemen the facts of the case,” Miss Wilder replied angrily. “It is Laura Ingalls who makes all the trouble in this school. She thinks she can run the school because her father is on the school board. Yes, Mr. Ingalls, that is the truth! She brags that she can run this school. She didn’t think I would hear of it, but I did!” She flashed a glance of angry triumph at Laura.
Laura sat dumbfounded. She had never thought that Miss Wilder would tell a lie.
“I am sorry to hear this, Miss Wilder,” said Pa. “I am sure that Laura did not intend to make trouble.”
Laura raised her hand, but Pa lightly shook his head at her.
“She encourages the boys to be unruly, too. That is the whole trouble with them,” Miss Wilder declared. “Laura Ingalls eggs them on, in every kind of mischief and disobedience.”
Pa looked at Charley and his eyes were twinkling. He said, “Young man, I hear you got punished for sitting on a bent pin.”
“Oh, no, sir!” Charlie replied, a picture of innocence. “I was not punished for sitting on it, sir, but for getting up off it.”
The jolly member of the school board suddenly choked a laugh into a cough. Even the solemn man’s mustache twitched. Miss Wilder flushed dark red. Pa was perfectly sober. No one else felt like smiling.
Slowly and weightily, Pa said, “Miss Wilder, we want you to know that the school board stands with you to keep order in this school.” He looked sternly over the whole room. “All you scholars must obey Miss Wilder, behave yourselves, and learn your lessons. We want a good school, and we are going to have it.”
When Pa spoke like that, he meant what he said, and it would happen.
The room was still. The stillness continued after the school board had said good day to Miss Wilder and gone. There was no fidgeting, no whispering. Quietly every pupil studied, and class after class recited diligently in the quiet.
At home Laura was quiet, too, wondering what Pa would say to her. It was not her place to speak of what had happened, until he did. He said nothing about it until the supper dishes were washed and they were all settled for the evening around the lamp.
Then laying down his paper he looked at Laura and said slowly, “It is time for you to explain what you said to anyone, that you could give Miss Wilder the idea that you thought you could run the school because I am on the school board.”
“I didn’t say such a thing, and I did not think so, Pa,” Laura said earnestly.
“I know you didn’t,” said Pa. “But there was something that gave her such an idea. Think what it could have been.”
Laura tried to think. She was not prepared for this question, for she had been defending herself in her mind and declaring that Miss Wilder had told a lie. She had not looked for the reason why Miss Wilder told it.
“Did you speak to anyone about my being on the school board?” Pa prompted her.
Nellie Oleson had often spoken of that, but Laura had only wished that she wouldn’t. Then she remembered the quarrel, when Nellie had almost slapped her. She said, “Nellie Oleson told me that Miss Wilder said you haven’t much to say about the school, even if you are on the school board. And I said—”
