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In a wide drawer of the bottom row was only a crust of bread and half a pie. Here Laura put Ma’s loaf of bread and the wedding cake. She cut a piece from the ball of butter, put it on a small plate, and placed it beside the bread. Then she pushed the drawer shut.
By the iron ring fastened in the pantry floor, she knew there was a trap door. She straightened the ring up, and pulled. The trap door rose, and rested against the pantry wall opposite the shelves. There, beneath where it had been, the cellar stairs went down.
Carefully covering the ball of butter, Laura carried it town the stairs into the cool, dark cellar, and set it on a hanging shelf that swung from the ceiling. She heard steps overhead, and as she came up the cellar stairs she heard Almanzo calling her name.
“I thought you were lost in this big house!” he said.
“I was putting the butter down cellar so it would keep cool,” Laura said.
“Like your pantry?” he asked her, and she thought how many hours he must have worked, to put up all those shelves and to make and fit those many drawers.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then let’s go look at Lady’s big little colt. I want you to see the horses in their stalls, and the place I have fixed for your cow. She’s picketed out to grass now, just out of reach of the young trees.” Almanzo led the way through the lean-to and outdoors.
They explored the long stable and the yard beyond it. Almanzo showed her the new haystacks on the north, to shelter the yard and stable when the winter winds came. Laura petted the horses and the colt, and Shep as he followed close at their heels. They looked at the little maples and box elders and willows and cottonwoods.
Quickly, the afternoon was gone. It was time for chores and supper.
“Don’t build a fire,” Almanzo told her. “Set out that bread and butter your mother gave us; I’ll milk Fawn, and we’ll have bread and new milk for supper.”
“And cake,” Laura reminded him.
When they had eaten supper and washed the few dishes, they sat on the front doorstep as evening came. They heard Prince blow out his breath, whoof! as he lay down on his bed of clean hay in the stable. They saw the dim bulk of Fawn on the grass, where she lay chewing her cud and resting. Shep lay at their feet; already he was half Laura’s dog.
Laura’s heart was full of happiness. She knew she need never be homesick for the old home. It was so near that she could go to it whenever she wished, while she and Almanzo made the new home in their own little house.
All this was theirs; their own horses, their own cow, their own claim. The many leaves of their little trees rustled softly in the gentle breeze.
Twilight faded as the little stars went out and the moon rose and floated upward. Its silvery light flooded the sky and the prairie. The winds that had blown whispering over the grasses all the summer day now lay sleeping, and quietness brooded over the moon-drenched land.
“It is a wonderful night,” Almanzo said.
“It is a beautiful world,” Laura answered, and in memory she heard the voice of Pa’s fiddle and the echo of a song,
“Golden years are passing by
These happy, golden years.”
The End
