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“We will see how well you know your spelling,” she said. She tapped upon her table. “Third spelling class, rise. Come forward.”
The shanty trembled in the wind that every moment howled louder around it. Heat from the red-cheeked stove melted the snow that was blown through the cracks and made wet streaks on the floor. Clarence correctly spelled every word that Laura gave him, while she wondered whether she should dismiss school early. If she waited and the storm grew worse, Charles and Martha might never reach their home.
It seemed to her that the wind had a strangely silvery sound. She listened; they all listened. She did not know what to make of it. The sky was not changed; gray, low clouds were moving fast above the prairie covered with blowing snow. The strange sound grew clearer, almost like music. Suddenly the whole air filled with a chiming of little bells. Sleigh bells!
Everyone breathed again, and smiled. Two brown horses swiftly passed the window. Laura knew them; they were Prince and Lady, young Mr. Wilder’s horses! The sleigh bells rang louder, and stopped; then a few bells shook out small tinkles. The brown horses were standing close outside the south wall, in the shelter of the shanty.
Laura was so excited that she had to steady her voice. “The class may be seated.” She waited a moment; then, “You may all put away your books. It is a little early, but the storm is growing worse. School is dismissed.”
Chapter 4
Sleigh Bells
Clarence dashed outdoors, and back again, shouting. “It’s someone for you, Teacher!”
Laura was helping Ruby into her coat. “Tell him I will be there in a minute.”
“Come on, Charles! You ought to see his horses!” Clarence slammed the door so that the shanty shook. Laura quickly put on her coat and tied her hood and muffler. She shut the stove’s drafts, thrust her hands into her mittens and took her books and dinner pail. She made sure the door was fastened behind her. All the time she was so excited that she could hardly breathe. Pa had not come, but she was going home, after all!
Almanzo Wilder was sitting in a cutter so low and small that it was hardly more than a heap of furs on the snow behind Prince and Lady. He was muffled in a buffalo coat and a fur cap with flaps that was as snug as a hood.
He did not step out into the storm. Instead, he lifted the fur robes and gave Laura his hand to help her step into the cutter. Then he tucked the robes around her. They were furry, warm buffalo skins, lined with flannel.
“You want to stop at Brewster’s?” he asked.
“I must, to leave the dinner pail and get my satchel,” Laura said.
In the Brewster house Johnny was screaming angrily, and when Laura came out of the house she saw Almanzo looking at it with disgust. But it was all behind her now; she was going home. Almanzo tucked the robes snugly around her, the sleigh bells began merrily ringing, and swiftly behind the brown horses she was going home.
She said through her thick black woolen veil, “It’s nice of you to come for me. I was hoping Pa would come.”
Almanzo hesitated. “We…ell. He was figuring he would, but I told him it’s a drive that would be pretty hard on his team.”
“They’ll have to bring me back,” Laura said doubtfully. “I must be at school Monday morning.”
“Maybe Prince and Lady could make the drive again,” Almanzo said.
Laura was embarrassed; she had not meant to hint. She had not even thought of his bringing her back. Again, she had spoken before she thought. How right Pa’s advice had been; she should always, always, think before she spoke. She thought: “After this, I shall always think before I speak,” and she said, without thinking how rude it would sound, “Oh, you needn’t bother. Pa will bring me back.”
“It would be no bother,” Almanzo said. “I told you I’d take you for a sleigh ride when I got my cutter made. This is the cutter. How do you like it?”
“I think it’s fun to ride in; it’s so little,” Laura answered.
“I made it smaller than the boughten ones. It’s only five feet long, and twenty-six inches wide at the bottom. Makes it snugger to ride in, and lighter for the horses to pull,” Almanzo explained. “They hardly know they’re pulling anything.”
“It’s like flying!” Laura said. She had never imagined such wonderful speed.
The low clouds raced backward overhead, the blown snow smoked backward on either side, and swiftly onward went the glossy brown horses, streaming music from their strings of bells. There was not a jolt nor a jar; the little cutter skimmed the snow as smoothly as a bird in air.
Almost too soon, though not soon enough, they were flashing past the windows of Main Street, and here was Pa’s front door again, opening, and Pa standing in it. Laura was out of the cutter and up the steps before she thought, then, “Oh, thank you, Mr. Wilder; good night!” she called back all in a breath, and she was at home.
Ma’s smile lighted her whole face. Carrie came running to unwind Laura’s muffler and veil, while Grace clapped her hands and shouted, “Laura’s come home!” Then Pa came in and said, “Let’s look at you. Well, well, the same little Flutterbudget!”
There was so much to say and to tell. The big sitting room had never looked so beautiful. The walls were dark brown now; every year the pine boards grew darker. The table was covered with the red-checked cloth, and the braided rag rugs were gay on the floor. The rocking chairs stood by the white-curtained windows; Mary’s boughten chair, and the willow chair that Pa had made for Ma so long ago in the Indian territory. The patchwork cushions were in them, and there was Ma’s workbasket and her knitting with the needles thrust into the ball of yarn. Kitty lazily stretched and yawned, and came to curve purring against Laura’s ankles. There on Pa’s desk was the blue-bead basket that Mary had made.
The talking went on at the supper table; Laura was more hungry for talk than food. She told about each one of her pupils at school, and Ma told of Mary’s latest letter; Mary was doing so well in the college for the blind, in Iowa. Carrie told all the news of the school in town, Grace told of the words she had learned to read, and of Kitty’s last fight with a dog.
After supper, when Laura and Carrie had done the dishes, Pa said as Laura had been hoping he would, “If you’ll bring me the fiddle, Laura, we’ll have a little music.”
