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“They’re probably pretty ears, too,” said Carrie. “You look like her, and your ears are little and pretty.”
“Well,” Laura began; then she stopped and spun around and round, for the strong wind blowing against her always made the wires of her hoop skirt creep slowly upward under her skirts until they bunched around her knees. Then she must whirl around and around until the wires shook loose and spiraled down to the bottom of her skirts where they should be.
As she and Carrie hurried on she began again. “I think it was silly, the way they dressed when Ma was a girl, don’t you? Drat this wind!” she exclaimed as the hoops began creeping upward again.
Quietly Carrie stood by while Laura whirled. “I’m glad I’m not old enough to have to wear hoops,” she said. “They’d make me dizzy.”
“They are rather a nuisance,” Laura admitted. “But they are stylish, and when you’re my age you’ll want to be in style.”
Living in town was so exciting that fall that Pa said there was no need of Literaries. There was church every Sunday, prayer meeting every Wednesday night. The Ladies’ Aid planned two sociables, and there was talk of a Christmas tree. Laura hoped there would be one, for Grace had never seen a Christmas tree. In November, there was to be a week of revival meetings at the church, and Mr. Owen, with the school board’s approval, was planning a School Exhibition.
School would go on without interruption until the School Exhibition just before Christmas. So the big boys did not wait until winter, but came to school in November. More smaller pupils had to be crowded three in a seat to make room for them.
“This school needs a larger building,” Mr. Owen said to Laura and Ida one day at recess. “I am hoping that the town can afford to build one next summer. There really is a need for a graded school, even. I am counting a great deal upon the showing we make at the School Exhibition, to acquaint the people with the school and its needs.”
After that, he told Laura and Ida that their part in the Exhibition would be to recite the whole of American history, from memory.
“Oh, do you think we can do it, Laura?” Ida gasped when he had left them.
“Oh, yes!” Laura answered. “You know we like history.”
“I’m glad you’ve got the longer part, anyway,” said Ida. “I’ve only got to remember from John Quincy Adams to Rutherford B. Hayes, but you’ve got all that about the discoveries and the map and the battles, and the Western Reserve and the Constitution. My! I don’t know how you ever can!”
“It’s longer, but we’ve studied it more and reviewed it oftener,” said Laura. She was glad to have that part; she thought it more interesting.
The other girls were talking eagerly about the
revival meetings. Everyone in town and from all the near-by country would go to them. Laura did not know why, for she had never been to a revival meeting, but when she said she should stay home and study, Nellie exclaimed in horror, “Why, people who don’t go to revival meetings are atheists!”
The others did not say a word in Laura’s defense, and Ida’s brown eyes pleaded anxiously when she said, “You are coming, aren’t you, Laura?”
The revival meetings would last a whole week, and besides the daily lessons, there was the School Exhibition to prepare for. Monday night Laura hurried home from school to study till supper time; she thought about history while she washed the dishes, and then snatched a little time with her books while Pa and Ma were dressing.
“Hurry, Laura, or we’ll be late! It’s church time now,” said Ma.
Standing before the glass, Laura hurriedly set her darling brown velvet hat evenly on her bangs, and fluffed them out. Ma waited by the door with Carrie and Grace. Pa shut the stove’s draft and turned down the lamp wick.
“Are you all ready?” he asked; then he blew out the lamp. By his lantern light they all went out, and he locked the door. Not a window on Main Street was lighted. Behind Fuller’s Hardware the last lanterns were bobbing across the vacant lots toward the brightly lighted church, and wagons, buggies, and blanketed horses stood thick in the shadows around it.
The church was crowded, and hot from the dazzling lamps and the coal heater. Graybeards sat close around the pulpit, families were in the middle seats, and young men and boys filled the back seats. Laura saw everyone she knew and many strangers, as Pa led the way up the aisle, looking for a vacant place. He stopped next to the front seat, and Ma with Grace, then Carrie and Laura, edged past knees and sat down.
Reverend Brown rose from his chair behind the pulpit and gave out a hymn, Number 154. Mrs. Brown played the organ, and everyone stood up and sang.
“There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold,
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold,
Away on the mountains wild and bare,
Away from the tender shepherd’s care.”
If a revival meeting could be nothing but singing, Laura would have loved it, though she felt that she should be studying, not wasting time in enjoyment. Her voice rose clear and true as Pa’s, as they sang,
“Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!”
