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“Thank you for the ride,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” he answered. His hair was not black, as she had thought. It was dark brown, and his eyes were such a dark blue that they did not look pale in his darkly tanned face. He had a steady, dependable, yet light-hearted look.
“Hullo, Wilder!” Cap Garland greeted him and he waved in answer as he drove away. Mr. Clewett was ringing the bell, and the boys were trooping in.
As Laura slipped into her seat, there was barely time for Ida to squeeze her arm delightedly and whisper, “Oh, I wish you could have seen her face! when you came driving up!”
Mary Power and Minnie were beaming at Laura across the aisle, but Nellie was looking intently away from her.
Chapter 17
The Sociable
One Saturday afternoon Mary Power came blowing in to see Laura. Her cheeks were pink with excitement. The Ladies’ Aid Society was giving a dime sociable in Mrs. Tinkham’s rooms over the furniture store, next Friday night.
“I’ll go if you do, Laura,” Mary Power said. “Oh, please may she, Mrs. Ingalls?”
Laura did not like to ask what a dime sociable was. Fond as she was of Mary Power, she felt at a slight disadvantage with her. Mary Power’s clothes were so beautifully fitted because her father tailored them, and she did her hair in the stylish new way, with bangs.
Ma said that Laura might go to the sociable. She had not heard, until now, that a Ladies’ Aid was organized.
To tell the truth, Pa and Ma were sadly disappointed that dear Rev. Alden from Plum Creek was not the preacher. He had wanted to be, and the church had sent him. But when he arrived, he found that Rev. Brown had established himself there. So dear Rev. Alden had gone on as a missionary to the unsettled West.
Pa and Ma could not lose interest in the church, of course, and Ma would work in the Ladies’ Aid. Still, they could not feel as they would have felt had Rev. Alden been the preacher.
All next week Laura and Mary Power looked forward to the sociable. It cost a dime, so Minnie and Ida doubted that they could go, and Nellie said that, really, it didn’t interest her.
Friday seemed long to Laura and Mary Power, they were so
impatient for night to come. That night Laura did not take off her school dress, but put on a long apron and pinned its bib under her chin. Supper was early, and as soon as she had washed the dishes Laura began to get ready for the sociable.
Ma helped her carefully brush her dress. It was brown woolen, made in princess style. The collar was a high, tight band, close under Laura’s chin, and the skirt came down to the tops of her high-buttoned shoes. It was a very pretty dress, with piping of red around wrists and collar, and the buttons all down the front were of brown horn, with a tiny raised castle in the center of each one.
Standing before the looking glass in the front room, where the lamp was, Laura carefully brushed and braided her hair, and put it up and took it down again. She could not arrange it to suit her.
“Oh, Ma, I do wish you would let me cut bangs,” she almost begged. “Mary Power wears them, and they are so stylish.”
“Your hair looks nice the way it is,” said Ma. “Mary Power is a nice girl, but I think the new hair style is well called a ‘lunatic fringe.’”
“Your hair looks beautiful, Laura,” Carrie consoled her. “It’s such a pretty brown and so long and thick, and it shines in the light.”
Laura still looked unhappily at her reflection. She thought of the short hairs always growing at the edge around her forehead. They did not show when they were brushed back, but now she combed them all out and downward. They made a thin little fringe.
“Oh, please, Ma,” she coaxed. “I wouldn’t cut a heavy bang like Mary Power’s, but please let me cut just a little more, so I could curl it across my forehead.”
“Very well, then,” Ma gave her consent.
Laura took the shears from Ma’s workbasket and standing before the glass she cut the hair above her forehead into a narrow fringe about two inches long. She laid her long slate pencil on the heater, and when it was heated she held it by the cool end and wound wisps of the short hair around the heated end. Holding each wisp tightly around the pencil, she curled all the bangs.
The rest of her hair she combed smoothly back and braided. She wound the long braid flatly around and around on the back of her head and snugly pinned it.
“Turn around and let me see you,” Ma said. Laura turned.
“Do you like it, Ma?”
“It looks quite nice,” Ma admitted. “Still, I liked it better before it was cut.”
“Turn this way and let me see,” said Pa. He looked at her a long minute and his eyes were pleased. “Well, if you must wear this ‘lunatic fringe,’ I think you’ve made a good job of it.” And Pa turned again to his paper.
