He had brought four fat ducks, and he said he could have killed hundreds. But four were all they needed. He said to Ma, “You save the feathers from the ducks and geese we eat, and I’ll shoot you a feather bed.”
He could, of course, have got a deer, but the weather was not yet cold enough to freeze the meat and keep it from spoiling before they could eat it. And he had found the place where a flock of wild turkeys roosted. “Our Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys,” he said. “Great, big, fat fellows. I’ll get them when the time comes.”
Pa went whistling to mix mud and cut green sticks and build the chimney up again, while Ma cleaned the ducks. Then the fire merrily crackled, a fat duck roasted, and the cornbread baked. Everything was snug and cozy again.
After supper Pa said he supposed he’d better start to town early next morning. “Might as well go and get it over with,” he said.
“Yes, Charles, you’d better go,” Ma said.
“We could get along all right, if I didn’t,” said Pa. “There’s no need of running to town all the time, for every little thing. I have smoked better tobacco than that stuff Scott raised back in Indiana, but it will do. I’ll raise some next summer and pay him back. I wish I hadn’t borrowed those nails from Edwards.”
“You did borrow them, Charles,” Ma replied. “And as for the tobacco, you don’t like borrowing any more than I do. We need more quinine. I’ve been sparing with the cornmeal, but it’s almost gone and so is the sugar. You could find a bee-tree, but there’s no cornmeal tree to be found, so far as I know, and we’ll raise no corn till next year. A little salt pork would taste good, too, after all this wild game. And, Charles, I’d like to write to the folks in Wisconsin. If you mail a letter now, they can write this winter, and then we can hear from them next spring.”
“You’re right, Caroline. You always are,” Pa said. Then he turned to Mary and Laura and said it was bedtime. If he was going to start early in the morning, he’d better start sleeping early tonight.
He pulled off his boots while Mary and Laura got into their nightgowns. But when they were in bed he took down his fiddle. Softly he played and softly sang,
“So green grows the laurel,
And so does the rue,
So woeful, my love,
At the parting with you.”
Ma turned toward him and smiled. “Take care of yourself on the trip, Charles, and don’t worry about us,” she told him. “We will be all right.”
Chapter 17
Pa Goes To Town
Before dawn, Pa went away. When Laura and Mary woke, he was gone and everything was empty and lonely. It was not as though Pa had only gone hunting. He was going to town, and he would not be back for four long days.
Bunny had been shut in the stable, so she couldn’t follow her mother. The trip was too long for a colt. Bunny whinnied lonesomely. Laura and Mary stayed in the house with Ma. Outdoors was too large and empty to play in when Pa was away. Jack was uneasy, too, and watchful.
At noon Laura went with Ma to water Bunny and to move the cow’s picket-pin to fresh grass. The cow was quite gentle now. She followed where Ma led, and she would even let Ma milk her.
At milking-time Ma was putting on her bonnet, when suddenly all Jack’s hair stood up stiff on his neck and back, and he rushed out of the house. They heard a yell and a scramble and a shout: “Call off your dog! Call off your dog!”
Mr. Edwards was on top of the woodpile, and Jack was climbing up after him.
“He’s got me treed,” Mr. Edwards said, backing along the top of the woodpile. Ma could hardly make Jack come away. Jack grinned savagely and his eyes were red. He had to let Mr. Edwards come down from the woodpile, but he watched him every minute.
Ma said, “I declare, he seems to know that Mr. Ingalls isn’t here.”
Mr. Edwards said that dogs knew more than most folks gave them credit for.
On his way to town that morning, Pa had stopped at Mr. Edwards’ house and asked him to come over every day to see that everything was all right. And Mr. Edwards was such a good neighbor that he had come at chore time, to do the chores for Ma. But Jack had made up his mind not to let anyone but Ma go near the cow or Bunny while Pa was gone. He had to be shut in the house while Mr. Edwards did the chores.
When Mr. Edwards went away he said to Ma, “Keep that dog in the house tonight, and you’ll be safe enough.”
The dark crept slowly all around the house. The wind cried mournfully and owls said, “Who-oo? Oo-oo.” A wolf howled, and Jack growled low in his throat. Mary and Laura sat close to Ma in the firelight. They knew they were safe in the house, because Jack was there and Ma had pulled the latch-string in.
Next day was empty like the first. Jack paced around the stable and around the house, then around the stable and back to the house. He would not pay any attention to Laura.
That afternoon Mrs. Scott came to visit with Ma. While they visited, Laura and Mary sat politely, as still as mice. Mrs. Scott admired the new rocking-chair. The more she rocked in it, the more she enjoyed it, and she said how neat and comfortable and pretty the house was.
She said she hoped to goodness they would have no trouble with Indians. Mr. Scott had heard rumors of trouble. She said, “Land knows, they’d never do anything with this country themselves. All they do is roam around over it like wild animals. Treaties or no treaties, the land belongs to folks that’ll farm it. That’s only common sense and justice.”