He unhitched the horses and hurried them away.
“Now whatever can that be?” Ma said to Laura. They waited. As soon as possible, Pa came hurrying back. He lifted the blanket away, and there stood a shining new sewing machine.
“Oh, Charles!” Ma gasped.
“Yes, Caroline, it is yours,” Pa said proudly. “There’ll be a lot of extra sewing, with Mary coming home and Laura going away, and I thought you’d need some help.”
“But how could you?” Ma asked, touching the shiny black iron of the machine’s legs.
“I had to sell a cow anyway, Caroline; there wouldn’t be room in the stable next winter unless I did,” Pa explained. “Now if you will help me unload this thing, we will take its cover off and see how it looks.”
A long time ago, Laura remembered, a tone in Ma’s voice when she spoke of a sewing machine had made Laura think that she wanted one. Pa had remembered that.
He took the endgate out of the wagon, and he and Ma and Laura lifted the sewing machine carefully down and carried it into the sitting room, while Carrie and Grace hovered around excitedly. Then Pa lifted the box-cover of the machine and they stood in silent admiration.
“It is beautiful,” Ma said at last, “and what a help it will be. I can hardly wait to use it.” But this was late on Saturday afternoon. The sewing machine must stand still over Sunday.
Next week Ma studied the instruction book and learned to run the machine, and the next Saturday she and Laura began to work on the lawn dress. The lawn was so crisp and fresh, the colors so dainty, that Laura was afraid to cut it lest she make a mistake, but Ma had made so many dresses that she did not hesitate. She took Laura’s measurements; then, with her dressmaker chart, she made the pattern for the waist, and fearlessly cut the lawn.
They made the waist tight-fitting, with two clusters of tucks down the back, and two in front. Down the center of the front, between the tucks, tiny, white pearl buttons buttoned the waist. The collar was a straight, upstanding fold of the lawn; the sleeves were long, gathered at the shoulders and close-fitting to the waist, finished with a hem the width of the tucks.
The skirt was gathered very full all round into a narrow waistband, which buttoned over the bottom of the waist to secure them from slipping apart. All down the full skirt, tucks went around and around it, spaced evenly a little way apart, and beneath the bottom tuck was a full-gathered ruffle four inches wide that just touched Laura’s shoe tips.
This dress was finished when Almanzo brought Laura home on the last Friday in May.
“Oh! it is pretty, Ma!” Laura said when she saw it. “All those tucks are so even, and stitched so beautifully.”
“I declare,” said Ma, “I don’t know how we ever got along without that sewing machine. It does the work so easily; tucking is no trouble at all. And such beautiful stitching. The best of seamstresses could not possibly equal it by hand.”
Laura was silent a moment, looking at her new, machine-stitched dress. Then she said, “Mr. Wilkins paid me another month’s salary today, and I really don’t need it. I have fifteen dollars left of my April pay. I will need a new dress for next fall…”
“Yes, and you will need a nice wedding dress,” Ma interrupted.
“Fifteen dollars ought to buy the two,” Laura considered. “They, with the clothes I have, will be enough for a long time. Besides, I will have another twenty-two dollars next month. I wish you and Pa would take this fifteen dollars. Please, Ma. Use it to pay for Mary’s visit home, or to buy the clothes she needs.”
“We can manage without taking the money for your last term of school,” Ma said quietly.
“I know you can, but there are so many things for you and Pa to manage. I would like to help again just this once. Then I would feel all right about going away and not helping any more, and having all these nice clothes for myself,” Laura urged.
Ma yielded. “If it will please you to do so, give the money to your Pa. Since he spent the cow money for the sewing machine, he will be glad to have it, I know.”
Pa was surprised and objected that Laura would need the money herself. But when she explained and urged again, he took it gladly. “It will help me out of a pinch,” he admitted. “But this is the last one. From now on I think we will have clear sailing. The town is growing so fast that I am going to have plenty of carpenter work. The cattle are growing fast, too. Beats all how they multiply, and they live off the homestead, and next year I win my bet with Uncle Sam and this homestead will be ours. So you need never worry about helping any more, Half-Pint. You have done your share and then some.”
When she drove away with Almanzo that Sunday evening, Laura’s heart was brimming with contentment. But it seemed that always there must be some wish unsatisfied. Now she regretted that she would miss Mary’s coming home. Mary was coming that week, and Laura would be teaching a class in fractions in Wilkins school when Mary came.
On Friday afternoon, Almanzo drove Prince and Lady, and they trotted fast all the way home. As they came near the door of home, Laura heard the music of the organ. Before Almanzo stopped the horses she was out of the buggy and running into the house.
“See you Sunday,” he called after her, and she fluttered her ringed hand in answer. Then she was giving Mary a big hug before she could get up from the organ stool, and the first thing Mary said was, “Oh, Laura! I was so surprised to find the organ waiting here for me.”
“We had to keep the secret a long time,” Laura answered. “But it didn’t spoil by keeping, did it? Oh, Mary, let me look at you. How well you’re looking!”
Mary was even more beautiful than ever. Laura would never grow tired of looking at her. And now there was so much to tell each other that they talked every moment. Sunday afternoon they walked once more to the top of the low hill beyond the stable, and Laura picked wild roses to fill Mary’s arms.
“Laura,” Mary asked soberly, “do you really want to leave home to marry that Wilder boy?”
Laura was serious, too. “He isn’t that Wilder boy any more, Mary. He is Almanzo. You don’t know anything about him, do you? or not much since the Hard Winter.”
“I remember his going after the wheat, of course. But why do you want to leave home and go with him?” Mary persisted.