By the Shores of Silver Lake (Little House 5)

“I guess she’s behind the house, I’ll get her,” Carrie said, and she ran, calling, “Grace!” In a minute she came from behind the shanty, her eyes large and scared and the freckles standing out from her pale face. “Pa, I can’t find her!”

“She must be close by,” said Ma, and she called, “Grace! Grace!” Pa shouted too, “Grace!”

“Don’t stand there! Go look for her, Carrie! Laura, go!” Ma said. She exclaimed, “The well!” and ran down the path.

The cover was on the well, so Grace had not fallen into it.

“She can’t be lost,” Pa said.

“I left her outdoors. I thought she was with you,” said Ma.

“She can’t be lost,” Pa insisted. “She wasn’t out of my sight a minute.” He shouted, “Grace! Grace!”

Laura ran panting up the hill. She could not see Grace anywhere. Along the edge of the Big Slough toward Silver Lake she looked, and over the flowery prairie. Quickly, quickly she looked, again and again, seeing nothing but wild flowers and grasses. “Grace! Grace!” she screamed. “Grace!”

Pa met her on the slope as she ran down and Ma came up gasping for breath. “She must be in sight, Laura,” Pa said. “You must have missed seeing her. She can’t be—” Terribly he exclaimed, “The Big Slough!” He turned and ran.

Ma ran after him, calling back, “Carrie, you stay with Mary! Laura, look for her, go look!”

Mary stood in the doorway of the shanty calling, “Grace! Grace!” More faintly from Big Slough came Pa’s shouts and Ma’s, “Grace! Where are you? Grace!”

If Grace was lost in the Big Slough, how could anyone find her? The old, dead grass stood higher than Laura’s head, over acres and acres, for miles and miles. The deep mud sucked at bare feet, and there were water holes. Laura could hear, where she stood, the sound of the coarse slough grass in the wind, a muffling sound that almost smothered even Ma’s shrill call, “Grace!”

Laura felt cold and sick.

“Why don’t you look for her?” Carrie cried. “Don’t stand there! Do something! I’m going myself!”

“Ma told you to stay with Mary,” said Laura. “So you’d better stay.”

“She told you to look!” Carrie screamed. “Go look! Go look! Grace! Grace!”

“Shut up! Let me think!” Laura screeched, and she started running across the sunny prairie.

Chapter 30

Where Violets Grow

Laura was running straight toward the south. Grass whipped soft against her bare feet. Butterflies fluttered over the flowers. There wasn’t a bush nor a weed that Grace could be hidden behind. There was nothing, nothing but grass and flowers swaying in the sunshine.

If she were little and playing all by herself, Laura thought, she wouldn’t go into the dark Big Slough, she wouldn’t go into the mud and the tall grass.

“Oh, Grace, why didn’t I watch you?” she thought. Sweet pretty little helpless sister—“Grace! Grace!” she screamed. Her breath caught and hurt in her side.

She ran on and on. “Grace must have gone this way. Maybe she chased a butterfly. She didn’t go into Big Slough! She didn’t climb the hill, she wasn’t there. Oh, baby sister, I couldn’t see you anywhere east or south on this hateful prairie.”

“Grace!”

The horrible, sunny prairie was so large. No lost baby could ever be found on it. Ma’s calling and Pa’s shouts came from Big Slough. They were thin cries, lost in wind, lost on the enormous bigness of the prairie.

Laura’s breathing hurt her sides under the ribs. Her chest was smothering and her eyes were dizzy. She ran up a low slope. Nothing, nothing, not a spot of shadow was anywhere on the level prairie all around her. She ran on, and suddenly the ground dropped before her. She almost fell down a steep bank.

There was Grace. There, in a great pool of blue, sat Grace. The sun shone on her golden hair blowing in the wind. She looked up at Laura with big eyes as blue as violets. Her hands were full of violets. She held them up to Laura and said, “Sweet! Sweet!”

Laura sank down and took Grace in her arms. She held Grace carefully and panted for breath. Grace leaned over her arm to reach more violets. They were surrounded by masses of violets blossoming above low-spreading leaves. Violets covered the flat bottom of a large, round hollow. All around this lake of violets, grassy banks rose almost straight up to the prairie level. There in the round, low place the wind hardly disturbed the fragrance of the violets. The sun was warm there, the sky was overhead, the green walls of grass curved all around, and butterflies fluttered over the crowding violet-faces.

Laura stood up and lifted Grace to her feet. She took the violets that Grace gave her, and clasped her hand. “Come, Grace,” she said. “We must go home.”

She gave one look around the little hollow while she helped Grace climb the bank.