The door opened, and Pa came in. Soberly he put his gun in its place.
“Not a goose within gunshot,” he said. “The whole flock rose when it came to Silver Lake and kept on going north. They must have seen the new buildings and heard the noise. Looks like hunting’s going to be slim around here from now on.”
Chapter 27
Living in Town
All around the unfinished, little town the endless prairie lay greening in the sunshine for new grass was starting everywhere. Silver Lake was blue, and the large white clouds in the sky were mirrored in the clear water.
Slowly Laura and Carrie walked on either side of Mary toward the town. Behind them came the loaded wagon, Pa and Ma and Grace riding in it, and the cow Ellen tied behind. They were all moving to Pa’s building in town.
The surveyors had come back. Mr. and Mrs. Boast were gone to their claim. There was nowhere to live except in Pa’s unfinished building, and in all the hustle, bustle and busyness of the town there was no one that Laura knew. She did not feel all alone and happy on the prairie now; she felt lonely and scared. The town’s being there made the difference.
Men were busily working on the new buildings all up and down Main Street. Shavings and sawdust and ends of boards were scattered on the muddy and trampled young grass in the street, and wheels had cut deep ruts through it. Through the frames of buildings that did not have the siding on yet, and down alleys between the buildings, and beyond both ends of the street, the clean, green prairie rippled far away and quiet under the clear sky, but the town was troubled and noisy with rasping saws and pounding hammers and the thud of boxes and sharp crash of boards unloaded from wagons, and men loudly talking.
Timidly Laura and Carrie waited to let Pa’s wagon come up, and they led Mary along beside it until they came to the corner where Pa’s building was.
The tall false fronts loomed up, cutting off half the sky. Pa’s building had a front door, with a glass window at each side. The door opened into one long room. Far at its other end was a back door, and near it a side window. The floor was wide boards, and the walls were boards with daylight coming through the cracks and knotholes. That was all.
“This place isn’t very warm nor tight, Caroline,” Pa said. “I haven’t had time to put on the siding nor to ceil the inside, and there’s no cornice under the eaves to cover that big crack. But we’ll be warm enough, now that spring has come, and I’ll soon get the building finished.”
“You must build a stair, so we can get into the loft,” said Ma. “Now I shall just stretch a curtain across to make two rooms so we will have a place to sleep until you can put up a partition. Warm as this weather is, we don’t need siding and ceiling.”
Pa put Ellen and the horses in a small stable at the back of the lot. Then he set up the stove and stretched a rope for Ma’s curtain. Ma hung sheets on it while Laura helped Pa set up the bedstead. Then Carrie helped her make the beds while Mary amused Grace and Ma got supper.
The lamplight shone on the white curtain while they ate, but the end of the long room was shadowy and the chilly air coming through all the cracks made the lamp flicker and the curtain move. There was too much empty space in that building but all the time Laura felt that strangers were close outside it. Lamplight shone out of strangers’ windows, footsteps passed with a lantern, and voices were talking though she could not hear the words. Even when the night was still, she felt crowded by so many other people so near. She lay in bed with Mary in the dark and airy room, and stared at the vague white curtain and listened to the stillness and felt trapped in town.
Sometime in the night she dreamed of wolves’ howling, but she was in bed and the howling was only the wind. She was cold. She was too cold to wake up. The covers seemed very thin. She snuggled closer to Mary and burrowed her cold head under the thin covers. In her sleep she was tight and shivering, till finally she grew cosily warm. The next she knew, she heard Pa singing.
“Oh, I am as happy as a big sunflower
That nods and bends in the breezes!
And my heart is as light as the wind that blows
The leaves from off the treeses!”
Laura opened one eye and peeked from under the covers. Snow fell softly onto her face, a great lot of snow.
“Ow!” she said.
“Lie still, Laura!” said Pa. “All you girls lie still. I’ll shovel you out in a minute. Soon as I get this fire started and the snow off Ma.”
Laura heard the stove lids clatter. She heard the scratch of a match and the crackle of burning kindling. She did not stir. The covers were heavy over her and she was warm as toast.
Soon Pa came behind the curtain. “There’s a good foot of snow on these beds!” he exclaimed. “But I’ll have it off in three jerks of a lamb’s tail. Lie still now, girls!”
Laura and Mary lay perfectly still while Pa shoveled the snow off their covers, and the cold came through them. They lay shivering and watching while with his shovel he took the snow off Carrie and Grace. Then he went to the stable to shovel out Ellen and the horses.
“Get up, girls!” Ma called. “Bring your clothes and dress by the fire.”
Laura jumped out of the warm bed and grabbed her clothes from the chair where she had laid them the night before. She shook the snow off them and ran barefoot over snow scattered on the cold floor, to the stove beyond the curtain. As she ran she said, “Wait, Mary. I’ll come back in a minute and shake the snow off your clothes.”
She shook out her petticoats and her dress so quickly that the snow had no time to melt on them. Quickly she shook her stockings and emptied the snow from her shoes, and put them on. She hurried so fast that when she was dressed she was quite warm. Then she shook the snow from Mary’s clothes and helped her quickly to the warmth that the oven gave out.
Carrie came running with little squeals and jumps. “Oo, the snow burns my feet!” she said, laughing though her teeth chattered from cold. It was so exciting to wake up in a snowdrift that she wouldn’t wait in bed until Laura could shake her clothes. Laura helped button her up, then they put on their coats, and with the stove shovel and the broom they scooped and swept back the snow into piles in the far corners of the long room.
Snow lay in piles and drifts all along the street. Every lumber pile was a mountain of snow, and from the drifts the bare timbers of unfinished buildings stuck up thin and yellow. The sun was up, and all the slopes of snow were rosy and all the hollows blue. Through every crack the air came in as cold as ice.