By the Shores of Silver Lake (Little House 5)

“I wouldn’t think of staying without it,” said Pa. “But the coal’s there.”

“Well, supper’s on the table,” said Ma. “Wash up and eat before it gets cold. It does look like a good chance, Charles.”

At supper they talked of nothing else. It would be pleasant to live in a snug house; the shanty was cold with wind blowing through its cracks, though the door was shut and a fire was in the stove.

“Don’t it make you feel rich—” Laura began.

“‘Doesn’t,’” said Ma.

“Doesn’t it make you feel rich, Ma, just to think of the whole winter’s provisions laid in, already?” said Laura.

“Not a penny going out till spring,” said Pa.

“Yes, Laura, it does,” Ma smiled. “You’re right, Charles, of course; we must stay.”

“Well, I don’t know, Caroline,” Pa said. “In some ways maybe we’d better not. So far as I know, we won’t have a neighbor nearer than Brookings. That’s sixty miles. If anything happened—”

A knock at the door startled them all. In answer to Pa’s “Come in!” a big man opened the door. He was bundled in thick coats and a muffler. His short beard was black, his cheeks were red, and his eyes were as black as the eyes of the little papoose in Indian Territory whom Laura had never forgotten.

“Hullo, Boast!” Pa said. “Come up to the fire; it’s chilly tonight. This is my wife and girls. Mr. Boast has filed on a homestead out here, and he’s been working on the grade.”

Ma gave Mr. Boast a chair by the fire and he held his hands out to the warmth. One hand was bandaged. “Did you hurt your hand?” Ma asked kindly.

“Only a sprain,” said Mr. Boast, “but the heat feels good on it.” Turning to Pa he went on, “I’m needing some help, Ingalls. You remember my team that I sold Pete? He paid me part down and said he’d pay the rest next payday. But he’s kept putting it off, and now I’m darned if he hasn’t skipped out with the team. I’d go after him and take them, but his son’s with him and they’d put up a fight. I don’t want trouble with two toughs at once, and me with a lame hand.”

“There’s enough of us around yet to tend to it,” said Pa.

“I don’t mean that,” said Mr. Boast. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Then just where do I come in?” Pa asked.

“I was thinking. There’s no law out here, no way to collect a debt, no officers, not even a county. But maybe Pete don’t know that.”

“Oho!” said Pa. “You want me to make out some papers to serve on him?”

“I’ve got a man that’ll act as sheriff and serve them,” Mr. Boast said. His eyes twinkled as much as Pa’s, but the twinkles were not alike. Mr. Boast’s eyes twinkled small and black, Pa’s twinkled wide and blue.

Pa laughed out loud and slapped his knee. “What a joke! Lucky I’ve got some legal cap left. I’ll make out your papers, Boast! Go get your sheriff!”

Mr. Boast hurried away while Ma and Laura hastily cleared the table. Pa squared up to it and wrote on a large sheet of paper, red-lined down the sides.

“There!” he said finally, “that looks important. And finished just in time.”

Mr. Boast was knocking at the door. Another man was with him, wrapped in a big overcoat, a cap pulled low over his eyes and a muffler wrapped around his neck and across his mouth.

“Here you are, Sheriff!” Pa said to him. “Serve this writ of attachment and bring back the team or the money, dead or alive, with costs of this suit at law!” Their laughter seemed to shake the shanty.

Pa looked at the cap and muffler that hid the man’s face. “Lucky for you it’s a cold night, Sheriff!” he said.

When the two men shut the door behind them, and Pa stopped laughing, he said to Ma, “That was the head surveyor, or I’ll eat my hat!” He slapped his thigh and roared again.

In the night Mr. Boast’s voice and Pa’s woke Laura. At the door Mr. Boast was saying, “I saw your light and stopped by to tell you it worked. Pete was so scared he’d have turned over the money and the team both. That crook’s got reason to be scared of the law. Here are the costs, Ingalls. The surveyor wouldn’t take any; he said the fun of it more than paid him.”

“You keep his share,” said Pa. “I’ll take mine. The dignity of this court must be upheld!”

When Mr. Boast laughed, Laura and Mary and Carrie and Ma all burst out laughing. They couldn’t help it. Pa’s laugh was like great bells ringing; it made you feel warm and happy. But Mr. Boast’s laugh made everybody laugh.

“Hush, you’ll wake Grace,” Ma said.