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Then the long prayer began. Laura bent her head and closed her eyes while Reverend Brown’s harsh voice singsonged on and on. It was a great relief to stand up at last, and sing again. This was a hymn with a dancing swing and a throbbing beat.
“Sowing the seed by the daylight fair,
Sowing the seed by the noonday glare,
Sowing the seed by the fading light,
Sowing the seed in the solemn night,
Oh, what shall the harvest be-e-e,
Oh, what shall the harvest be?”
Reverend Brown’s preaching went on with the throbbing and swinging. His voice rose and fell, thundered and quivered. His bushy white eyebrows raised and lowered, his fist thumped the pulpit. “Repent ye, repent ye while yet there is time, time to be saved from damnation!” he roared.
Chills ran up Laura’s spine and over her scalp. She seemed to feel something rising from all those people, something dark and frightening that grew and grew under that thrashing voice. The words no longer made sense, they were not sentences, they were only dreadful words. For one horrible instant Laura imagined that Reverend Brown was the Devil. His eyes had fires in them.
“Come forward, come forward and be saved! Come to salvation! Repent, ye sinners! Stand up, stand up and sing! Oh, lost lambs! Flee from the wrath! Pull, pull for the shore!” His hands lifted them all to their feet, his loud voice sang:
“Pull for the shore, sailor!
Pull for the shore!”
“Come! Come!” his voice roared through the storm of singing, and someone, a young man, came stumbling up the aisle.
“Heed not the stormy winds,
Though loudly they roar.”
“Bless you, bless you, my sinning brother, down on your knees and God bless you; are there any more? Any more?” Reverend Brown was shouting, and his voice roared again into the song, “Pull for the Shore!”
The first words of that hymn had made Laura want to laugh. She remembered the tall thin man and the pudgy little one, so solemnly singing it, and all the storekeepers popping from the torn screen doors. Now she felt that all the noise and excitement was not touching her.
She looked at Pa and Ma. They were quietly standing and quietly singing, while the dark, wild thing that she had felt was roaring all around them like a blizzard.
Another young man, and then an older woman, went forward and knelt. Then church was over, yet somehow not over. People were pressing forward to crowd around those three and wrestle for their souls. In a low voice Pa said to Ma, “Come, let’s go.”
He carried Grace down the aisle toward the door. Ma followed with Carrie, and behind her Laura followed close. In the back seats all the young men and boys stood watching the people passing by. Laura’s dread of strangers came over her and the open door ahead seemed a refuge from their eyes.
She did not notice a touch on her coat sleeve until she heard a voice saying, “May I see you home?”
It was Almanzo Wilder.
Laura was so surprised that she could not say a word. She could not even nod or shake her head. She could not think. His hand stayed on her arm and he walked beside her through the door. He protected her from being jostled in the crowded entry.
Pa had just lighted the lantern. He lowered the chimney and looked up, just as Ma turned back and asked, “Where’s Laura?” They both saw Laura with Almanzo Wilder beside her, and Ma stood petrified.
“Come on, Caroline,” said Pa. Ma followed him, and after one wide-eyed stare, Carrie did too.
The ground was white with snow and it was cold, but there was no wind, and stars shone brightly in the sky.
Laura could not think of a word to say. She wished that Mr. Wilder would say something. A faint scent of cigar smoke came from his thick cloth overcoat. It was pleasant, but not as homelike as the scent of Pa’s pipe. It was a more dashing scent, it made her think of Cap and this young man daring that dangerous trip to bring back the wheat. All this time she was trying to think of something to say.
To her complete surprise, she heard her own voice, “Anyway, there’s no blizzard.”
“No. This is a nice winter, not much like the Hard Winter,” said he.
Again there was silence, except for the crunch of their feet on the snow-covered path.
