“Oh, no!” Laura said. “No, indeed I won’t! I wouldn’t leave home to marry anybody.”
Then suddenly she realized that she was homesick. She wanted to be at home again, so badly that she could hardly bear it. All that week she fought against her longing, hiding it from Mrs. McKee, and on Saturday when they walked again to Manchester there was a letter waiting for her.
Ma had written that Mary was coming home, and Laura must come if Mrs. McKee could find anyone else to stay with her. Ma hoped she could do so, for Laura must be at home when Mary was there.
She dreaded to speak of it to Mrs. McKee, so she said nothing until at the supper table Mrs. McKee asked what was troubling her. Then Laura told what Ma had written.
“Why, of course you must go home,” Mr. McKee said at once. “I will find someone to stay here.”
Mrs. McKee was quiet for a time before she said, “I don’t want anyone but Laura to live with us. I would rather stay by ourselves. We are used to the place now, and nothing ever happens. Laura shall go home and Mattie and I will be all right alone.”
So Mr. McKee carried Laura’s satchel on the Sunday afternoon walk to Manchester, and she said good-by to Mrs. McKee and Mattie and got on the train with him, going home.
All the way she thought of them, standing lonely at the station, and walking the two miles back to the lonely shanty where they must stay, doing nothing but eating and sleeping and listening to the wind, for five months more. It was a hard way to earn a homestead, but there was no other way, for that was the law.
Chapter 15
Mary Comes Home
Laura was so glad to be at home again, out on Pa’s claim. It was good to milk the cow, and to drink all she wanted of milk, and to spread butter on her bread, and eat again of Ma’s good cottage cheese. There were lettuce leaves to be picked in the garden, too, and little red radishes. She had not realized that she was so hungry for these good things to eat. Mrs. McKee and Mattie could not get them, of course, while they were holding down their claim.
At home now there were eggs, too, for Ma’s flock was doing well. Laura helped Carrie hunt for nests that the hens hid in the hay at the stable and in the tall grass nearby.
Grace found a nest of kittens hidden in the manger. They were grandchildren of the little kitten that Pa had bought for fifty cents, and Kitty felt her responsibility. She thought that she should hunt for them as well as for her own kittens. She brought in more gophers than all of them could eat, and every day she piled the extra ones by the house door for Ma.
“I declare,” Ma said, “I never was so embarrassed by a cat’s generosity.”
The day came when Mary was coming home. Pa and Ma drove to town to fetch her, and even the train seemed special that afternoon as it came at last, unrolling its black smoke into a melting line low on the sky. From the rise of ground behind the stable and the garden, they saw the white steam puff up from its engine and heard its whistle; its far rumbling was still, and they knew that it had stopped in town and that Mary must be there now.
What excitement there was when at last the wagon came up from the slough, with Mary sitting on the seat between Pa and Ma. Laura and Carrie both talked at once and Mary tried to talk to both at the same time. Grace was in everyone’s way, her hair flying and her blue eyes wide. Kitty went out through the doorway like a streak, with her tail swelled to a big brush. Kitty did not like strangers, and she had forgotten Mary.
“Weren’t you afraid to come all by yourself on the cars?” Carrie asked.
“Oh, no,” Mary smiled. “I had no trouble. We like to do things by ourselves, at college. It is part of our education.”
She did seem much more sure of herself, and she moved easily around the house, instead of sitting quiet in her chair. Pa brought in her trunk, and she went to it, knelt down and unlocked and opened it quite as if she saw it. Then she took from it, one after another, the presents she had brought.
For Ma there was a lamp mat of woven braid, with a fringe all around it of many-colored beads strung on stout thread.
“It is beautiful,” Ma said in delight.
Laura’s gift was a bracelet of blue and white beads strung on thread and woven together, and Carrie’s was a ring of pink and white beads interwoven.
“Oh, how pretty! how pretty!” Carrie exclaimed. “And it fits, too; it fits perfectly!”
For Grace there was a little doll’s chair, of red and green beads strung on wire. Grace was so overcome as she took it carefully into her hands that she could hardly say thank you to Mary.
“This is for you, Pa,” Mary said, as she gave him a blue silk handkerchief. “I didn’t make this, but I chose it myself. Blanche and I… Blanche is my roommate. We went downtown to find something for you. She can see colors if they are bright, but the clerk didn’t know it. We thought it would be fun to mystify him, so Blanche signaled the colors to me, and he thought we could tell them by touch. I knew by the feeling that it was good silk. My, we did fool that clerk!” and, remembering, Mary laughed.
Mary had often smiled, but it was a long time since they had heard her laugh out, as she used to when she was a little girl. All that it had cost to send Mary to college was more than repaid by seeing her so gay and confident.
“I’ll bet this was the prettiest handkerchief in Vinton, Iowa!” Pa said.
“I don’t see how you put the right colors into your beadwork,” Laura said, turning the bracelet on her wrist. “Every little bead in this lovely bracelet is right. You can’t do that by fooling a clerk.”
“Some seeing person puts the different colors in separate boxes,” Mary explained. “Then we only have to remember where they are.”
“You can do that easily,” Laura agreed. “You always could remember things. You know I never could say as many Bible verses as you.”