When Laura looked for the blackbirds, to dress them for dinner, she could not find them and Ma would not say where they were.
“Wait and see,” Ma answered mysteriously. “Meantime, we’ll boil this corn, and cut it off the cobs, to dry.”
There is a knack to cutting corn from a cob. The knife must slice evenly, the whole length of the rows, cutting deep enough to get almost the whole kernel, but not so deep as to cut even an edge from the sharp pocket in which each kernel grows. The kernels fall away in milky slabs, moist and sticky.
Ma spread these on a clean, old tablecloth laid outdoors in the sunshine, and she covered them with another cloth, to keep away the blackbirds and the chickens and the flies. The hot sun would dry the corn, and next winter, soaked and boiled, it would be good eating.
“That’s an Indian idea,” Pa remarked, when he came to dinner. “You’ll admit yet, Caroline, there’s something to be said for Indians.”
“If there is,” Ma replied, “you’ve already said it, many’s the time, so I needn’t.” Ma hated Indians, but now she was brimming with some secret. Laura guessed that it must be the missing blackbirds. “Comb your hair and sit up to the table, Charles,” Ma said.
She opened the oven door, and took out the tin milk pan. It was full of something covered thickly over with delicately browned biscuit crust. She set it before Pa and he looked at it amazed. “Chicken pie!”
“‘Sing a song of si
xpence—’” said Ma.
Laura went on from there, and so did Carrie and Mary and even Grace.
“A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie!
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Was not that a dainty dish
To set before the king?”
“Well, I’ll be switched!” said Pa. He cut into the pie’s crust with a big spoon, and turned over a big chunk of it onto a plate. The underside was steamed and fluffy. Over it he poured spoonfuls of thin brown gravy, and beside it he laid half a blackbird, browned, and so tender that the meat was slipping from the bones. He handed that first plate across the table to Ma.
The scent of that opened pie was making all their mouths water so that they had to swallow again and again while they waited for their portions, and under the table the kitty curved against their legs, her hungry purring running into anxious miows.
“The pan held twelve birds,” said Ma. “Just two apiece, but one is all that Grace can possibly eat, so that leaves three for you, Charles.”
“It takes you to think up a chicken pie, a year before there’s chickens to make it with,” Pa said. He ate a mouthful and said, “This beats a chicken pie all hollow.”
They all agreed that blackbird pie was even better than chicken pie. There were, besides, new potatoes and peas, and sliced cucumbers, and young boiled carrots that Ma had thinned from the rows, and creamy cottage cheese. And the day was not even Sunday. As long as the blackbirds lasted, and the garden was green, they could eat like this every day.
Laura thought, “Ma is right, there is always something to be thankful for.” Still, her heart was heavy. The oats and the corn crop were gone. She did not know how Mary could go to college now. The beautiful new dress, the two other new dresses, and the pretty underwear, must be laid away until next year. It was a cruel disappointment to Mary.
Pa ate the last spoonful of pink, sugary cream from his saucer of tomatoes, and drank his tea. Dinner was over. He got up and took his hat from its nail and he said to Ma, “Tomorrow’s Saturday. If you’ll plan to go to town with me, we can pick out Mary’s trunk.”
Mary gasped. Laura cried out, “Is Mary going to college?”
Pa was astonished. He asked, “What’s the matter with you, Laura?”
“How can she?” Laura asked him. “There isn’t any corn, or any oats.”
“I didn’t realize you’re old enough to be worrying,” said Pa. “I’m going to sell the heifer calf.”
Mary cried out, “Oh no! Not the heifer!”
In another year the heifer would be a cow. Then they would have had two cows. Then they would have had milk and butter all the year around. Now, if Pa sold the heifer, they would have to wait two more years for the little calf to grow up.