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“I think it is pretty. You look very nice,” Carrie said softly.
Laura put on her brown coat and set carefully over her head her peaked hood of brown woolen lined with blue. The brown and the blue edges of cloth were pinked, and the hood had long ends that wound around her neck like a muffler.
She took one more look in the glass. Her cheeks were pink with excitement, and the curled bangs were stylish under the hood’s blue lining that made her eyes very blue.
Ma gave her a dime and said, “Have a pleasant time, Laura. I am sure you will remember your manners.”
Pa asked, “Had I better go with her as far as the door, Caroline?”
“It’s early yet, and only across the street, and she’s going with Mary Power,” Ma answered.
Laura went out into the dark and starry night. Her heart was beating fast with anticipation. Her breath puffed white in the frosty air. Lamplight made glowing patches on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store and the drugstore, and above the dark furniture store two windows shone bright. Mary Power came out of the tailor shop, and together they climbed the outdoor stairs between it and the furniture store.
Mary Power knocked on the door, and Mrs. Tinkham opened it. She was a tiny woman, in a black dress with white lace ruffles at throat and wrists. She said good evening, and took Mary Power’s dime and Laura’s. Then she said, “Come this way to leave your wraps.”
All the week Laura had hardly been able to wait to see what a sociable was, and now she was here. Some people were sitting in a lighted room. She felt embarrassed as she hurriedly followed Mrs. Tinkham past them into a small bedroom. She and Mary Power laid their coats and hoods on the bed. Then quietly they slipped into chairs in the larger room.
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson sat on either side of the window. The window had dotted-Swiss curtains, and before it stood a polished center table, holding a large glass lamp with a white china shade on which red roses were printed. Beside the lamp lay a green plush photograph album.
A bright flowered carpet covered the whole floor. A tall shining heater with isinglass windows stood in its center. The chairs around the walls were all of polished woods. Mr. and Mrs. Woodworth were sitting on a sofa with shining high wooden back and ends and a glittering black haircloth seat.
Only the walls of boards were like those in the front room at home, and these were thickly hung with pictures of people and places that Laura did not know.
Some had wide, heavy, gilded frames. Of course Mr. Tinkham owned the furniture store. Cap Garland’s older sister Florence was there, with their mother. Mrs. Beardsley was there, and Mrs. Bradley, the druggist’s wife. They all sat dressed up and silent. Mary Power and Laura did not speak, either. They did not know what to say.
Someone knocked at the door. Mrs. Tinkham hurried to it, and Rev. and Mrs. Brown came in. His rumbling voice filled the room with greetings to everyone, and then he talked with Mrs. Tinkham about the home he had left in Massachusetts.
“Not much like this place,” he said. “But we are all strange here.”
He fascinated Laura. She did not like him. Pa said he claimed to be a cousin of John Brown of Ossawatomie who had killed so many men in Kansas and finally succeeded in starting the Civil War. Rev. Brown did look just like the picture of John Brown in Laura’s history book.
His face was large and bony. His eyes were sunk deep under shaggy white eyebrows and they shone hot and fierce even when he was smiling. His coat hung loose on his big body, his hands at the end of the sleeves were large and rough with big knuckles. He was untidy. Around his mouth his long white beard was stained yellow as if with dribbling tobacco juice.
He talked a great deal, and after he came the others talked some, except Mary Power and Laura. They tried to sit politely, but now and then they did fidget. It was a long time before Mrs. Tinkham began to bring plates from the kitchen. On each plate was a small sauce dish of custard and a piece of cake.
When Laura had eaten hers, she murmured to Mary Power, “Let’s go home,” and Mary answered, “Come on, I’m going.” They set their empty dishes on a small table near them, put on their coats and hoods, and said good-by to Mrs. Tinkham.
Down on the street once more, Laura drew a deep breath. “Whew! If that is a sociable, I don’t like sociables.”
“Neither do I,” Mary Power agreed. “I wish I hadn’t gone. I’d rather have the dime.”
Pa and Ma looked up in surprise when Laura came in, and Carrie eagerly asked, “Did you have a good time, Laura?”
“Well, no, I didn’t,” Laura had to admit. “You should have gone, Ma, instead of me. Mary Power and I were the only girls there. We had no one to talk to.”
“This is only the first sociable,” Ma made excuse. “No doubt when folks here are better acquainted, the sociables will be more interesting. I know from reading The Advance that church sociables are greatly enjoyed.”
Chapter 18
Literaries
Christmas was near, yet there was still no snow. There had not been a single blizzard. In the mornings the frozen ground was furry white with hoarfrost, but it vanished when the sun rose. Only the underneath of the sidewalk and the shadows of the stores were frosty when Laura and Carrie hurried to school. The wind nipped their noses and chilled their mittened hands and they did not try to talk through their mufflers.
The wind had a desolate sound. The sun
was small and the sky was empty of birds. On the endless dull prairie the grasses lay worn-out and dead. The schoolhouse looked old and gray and tired.
It seemed that the winter would never begin and never end. Nothing would ever happen but going to school and going home, lessons at school and lessons at home. Tomorrow would be the same as today, and in all her life, Laura felt, there would never be anything but studying and teaching school. Even Christmas would not be a real Christmas without Mary.
