“Why do you need a slate to tell a story?” Laura asked as she laid the slate in Ma’s lap.
“You’ll see,” said Ma, and she told this story:
Far in the woods there was a pond, like this:
The pond was full of fishes, like this:
Down below the pond lived two homesteaders, each in a little tent, because they had not built their houses yet:
They went often to the pond to fish, and they made crooked paths:
A little way from the pond lived an old man and an old woman in a little house with a window:
One day the old woman went to the pond to get a pail of water: And she saw the fishes all flying out of the pond, like this:
The old woman ran back as fast as she could go, to tell the old man, “All the fishes are flying out of the pond!”
The old man stuck his long nose out of the house to have a good look:
And he said: “Pshaw! It’s nothing but tadpoles!”
“It’s a bird!” Carrie yelled, and she clapped her hands and laughed till she rolled off the footstool. Laura and Mary laughed too and coaxed, “Tell us another, Ma! Please!”
“Well, if I must,” said Ma, and she began, “This is the house that Jack built for two pieces of money.”
She covered both sides of the slate with the pictures of that story. Ma let Mary and Laura read it and look at the pictures as long as they liked. Then she asked, “Mary, can you tell that story?”
“Yes!” Mary answered.
Ma wiped the slate clean and gave it to Mary “Write it on the slate, then,” she said. “And Laura and Carrie, I have new playthings for you.”
She gave her thimble to Laura, and Mary’s thimble to Carrie, and she showed them that pressing the thimbles into the frost on the windows made perfect circles. They could make pictures on the windows.
With thimble-circles Laura made a Christmas tree. She made birds flying. She made a log house with smoke coming out of the chimney. She even made a roly-poly man and a roly-poly woman. Carrie made just circles.
When Laura finished her window and Mary looked up from the slate, the room was dusky. Ma smiled at them.
“We have been so busy we forgot all about dinner,” she said. “Come eat your suppers now.”
“Don’t you have to do the chores first?” Laura asked.
“Not tonight,” said Ma. “It was so late when I fed the stock this morning that I gave them enough to last till tomorrow. Maybe the storm will not be so bad then.”
All at once Laura felt miserable. So did Mary. And Carrie whimpered, “I want Pa!”
“Hush, Carrie!” Ma said, and Carrie hushed.
“We must not worry about Pa,” Ma said, firmly. She lighted the lamp, but she did not set it in the window. “Come eat your suppers now,” she said again, “and then we’ll all go to bed.”
Chapter 39
The Third Day
All night the house shook and jarred in the wind. Next day the storm was worse than ever. The noises of the wind were more terrible and snow struck the windows with an icy rattle.
Ma made ready to go to the stable. “Eat your breakfast, girls, and be careful with the fire,” she said. Then she was gone into the storm.
After a long time she came back and another day began.