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“Whatever did Nellie Oleson want my seat for?” Laura exclaimed. “Hers is just as good, or almost.”
“That’s Nellie for you,” said Mary. “She just wants anything that anybody else has, that’s all. Oh Laura, she’ll be fit to be tied when I tell her that Almanzo Wilder brought you home in his new cutter!”
They both laughed. Laura felt a little ashamed, but she could not help laughing. They remembered Nellie’s bragging that she was going to ride behind those brown horses. And she never had done it yet.
“I can hardly wait,” Mary said.
Mrs. Power said, “I don’t think that’s very nice, Mary.”
“I know it isn’t,” Mary admitted. “But if you knew how that Nellie Oleson’s always bragging and showing off, and picking on Laura. And now to think that Laura’s teaching school, and Almanzo Wilder’s beauing her home.”
“Oh, no! He isn’t!” Laura cried out. “It isn’t like that at all. He came for me as a favor to Pa.”
Mary laughed. “He must think a lot of your Pa!” she began to tease; then she looked at Laura and said, “I’m sorry. I won’t talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t mean that,” Laura said. Everything is simple when you are alone, or at home, but as soon as you meet other people you are in difficulties. “I just don’t want you to think Mr. Wilder’s my beau, because he isn’t.”
“All right,” Mary said.
“And I only ran in for a minute,” Laura explained. “I put wash-water on, and it must be hot now. Tell me where you are in your lessons, Mary.”
When Mary told her, Laura saw that she was keeping up with the class by her studying at night. Then she went home.
All that day was such a happy time. Laura did her washing and sprinkled and ironed the clean, fresh clothes. Then in the cosy sitting room she ripped her beautiful brown velvet hat, talking all the time with Ma and Carrie and Grace. She brushed and steamed the velvet and draped it again over the buckram frame, and tried it on. It looked like a new hat, even more becoming than before. There was just time enough to brush and sponge and press her brown dress, and then to help Ma get an early supper. Afterward, they all bathed one by one in the warm kitchen, and went to bed.
“If I could only live like this always, I’d never want anything more,” Laura thought as she went to sleep. “But maybe I appreciate it more because I have only tonight and tomorrow morning…”
The morning sunshine and the sky had their quiet, Sunday look, and the town was quiet with a Sunday stillness when Laura and Carrie and Grace and Ma sedately went out on Sunday morning. The morning work was done, the beans for Sunday dinner were baking slowly in the oven. Pa carefully closed the heating-stove’s drafts and came out and locked the door.
Laura and Carrie went ahead; Pa and Ma came behind them, holding Grace’s hands. All fresh and clean and dressed in Sunday best, they walked slowly in the cold Sunday morning, taking care not to slip on the icy paths. Carefully along the street and single file across lots behind Fuller’s store, everyone else was going toward the church, too.
As she went in, Laura looked eagerly over the partly filled seats, and there was Ida! Ida’s brown eyes danced when she saw Laura, and she slid along the seat to make room, and gave Laura’s arm a squeeze. “My, I’m glad to see you!” she whispered. “When did you come?”
“Friday after school. I’ve got to go back this afternoon,” Laura answered. There was a little time to talk before Sunday School.
“Do you like teaching?” Ida asked.
“No, I do not! But don’t tell anybody else. I’m getting along all right so far.”
“I won’t,” Ida promised. “I knew you would. But your place at school is awfully e
mpty.”
“I’ll be back. It’s only seven weeks more,” Laura said.
“Laura,” Ida said. “You don’t care if Nellie Oleson sits with me while you’re gone, do you?”
“Why, Ida Brow…” Laura began. Then she saw that Ida was only teasing. “Of course not,” she said. “You ask her and see if she will.”
Because they were in church and could not laugh, they sat silently shaking and almost choking in their effort to keep their faces sober. Lawyer Barnes was rapping the pulpit to bring the Sunday School to order, and they could not talk any more. They must rise and join in the singing.
“Sweet Sabbath School! more dear to me
Than fairest palace dome,
My heart e’er turns with joy to thee,
My own dear Sabbath home.”
