“I heard the barber’s shears go snip, snip,” said Pa.
“Well, lie down and go to sleep,” Ma yawned.
“My hair was being cut,” said Pa.
“I never knew you to be upset by a dream before.” Ma yawned again. “Lie down and turn over and you won’t go on dreaming it.”
“Caroline, my hair was being cut,” Pa repeated.
“What do you mean?” Ma asked, more awake now.
“I am telling you,” Pa said. “In my sleep I put up my hand and— Here. Feel my head.”
“Charles! Your hair’s been cut!” Ma exclaimed. Laura heard her sit up in bed. “I can feel it, there’s a place on your head—”
“Yes, that’s the spot,” said Pa. “I put up my hand—”
Ma interrupted. “A place as big as my hand, shorn clean off.”
“I put up my hand,” said Pa, “and I took hold of— something—”
“What? What was it?” Ma asked.
“I think,” said Pa, “I think it was a mouse.”
“Where is it?” Ma cried out.
“I don’t know. I threw it away, as hard as I could,” said Pa.
“My goodness!” Ma said weakly. “It must have been a mouse. Cutting off your hair to make its
elf a nest.”
After a minute Pa said, “Caroline, I swear—”
“No, Charles,” Ma murmured.
“Well, I would swear, if I did, that I can’t lie awake nights to keep mice out of my hair.”
“I do wish we had a cat,” Ma wished hopelessly.
Sure enough, in the morning a mouse lay dead by the bedroom wall where Pa had thrown it. And Pa appeared at breakfast with an almost bare spot on the back of his head, where the mouse had shorn his hair away.
He would not have minded so much, but there was not time for the hair to grow before he must go to a meeting of county commissioners. The country was settling so rapidly that already a county was being organized, and Pa must help. As the oldest settler, he could not shirk his duty.
The meeting was to be held at Whiting’s homestead claim, four miles northeast of town. No doubt Mrs. Whiting would be there, and Pa could hot keep his hat on.
“Never mind,” Ma consoled him. “Just tell them how it happened. Likely they have mice.”
“There’ll be more important things to talk about,” said Pa. “No, better just let them think this is the way my wife cuts my hair.”
“Charles, you wouldn’t!” Ma exclaimed, before she saw that he was teasing her.
When he drove away in the wagon that morning, he told Ma not to expect him for dinner. He had a ten-mile drive to make, on top of the time spent at the meeting.
It was supper time when he came driving to the stable. He unhitched and came hurrying to the house so quickly that he met Carrie and Grace running out.
“Girls! Caroline!” he called. “Guess what I’ve brought you!” His hand was in his pocket and his eyes were twinkling.