“I met your Pa,” Ma answered.
“Oh,” Laura said. Hopefully she thought that she might meet somebody. Maybe, after all, she would not have to be a schoolteacher always.
Chapter 23
Schooltime Begins Again
Afterward it seemed to Laura that she did nothing but study that whole summer long. Of course this was not true. She brought water from the well in the mornings, she milked and moved the picket pins and taught the new calf to drink. She worked in the garden and in the house, and in haying time she trod down the great loads of hay that Pa drove away to town. But the long, hot, sticky hours with schoolbooks and slate seemed to overshadow all else. She didn’t go to town even for Fourth of July. Carrie went with Pa and Ma but Laura stayed at home to take care of Grace and study the Constitution.
Letters came often from Mary, and every week a long letter went to her in return. Even Grace was able to write little letters, as Ma taught her, and these were always sent to Mary with the others.
The hens were laying now. Ma saved the best eggs for setting, and twenty-four chicks hatched. The smallest pullet eggs Ma used in cooking, and for one Sunday dinner, with the first gre
en peas and new potatoes, they ate fried chickens. The other cockerels Ma let grow up. They would be larger to eat, later on.
The gophers came again, and Kitty grew fat in the cornfield. She caught more gophers than she could eat, and at all hours of the day she could be heard mrreowling proudly as she brought a fresh-killed one to lay at Ma’s feet or Laura’s or Carrie’s or Grace’s. She wanted to share her good food, and her puzzled look showed plainly that she could not understand why the whole family did not eat gophers.
The blackbirds came again. Though they were not so many this year, and Kitty caught some of them, still they did damage enough. Again the mellow fall weather came, and Laura and Carrie walked to school.
There were more people in town now, and in all the country around. The school was so crowded that all the seats were filled, and in some of the front seats three of the smaller pupils sat.
There was a new teacher, Mr. Owen, a son of the Mr. Owen whose bay horses had almost won the Fourth of July race. Laura liked and respected him very much. He was not very old, but he was serious and industrious and enterprising.
From the first day, he ruled with a firm hand. Every pupil was obedient and respectful, every lesson was thoroughly learned. On the third day of school, Mr. Owen whipped Willie Oleson.
For some time, Laura did not quite know what she thought about that whipping. Willie was bright enough, but he had never learned his lessons. When he was called upon to recite, he let his mouth fall open and all the sense went out of his eyes. He looked less than half-witted, he hardly looked human. It made anyone turn sick to see him.
He had begun doing this, to tease Miss Wilder. He seemed unable to collect his scattered mind enough to understand anything she said to him. At recess he would do this again, to amuse the other boys. When Mr. Clewett taught, he thought that Willie was a halfwit, and required nothing of him. The habit had grown on Willie, until now at any time he could be seen mooning about with his mouth dropped open and his eyes empty. Laura really thought that Willie’s mind completely left him at these times.
The first time that Willie goggled at Mr. Owen was when his name was asked for the school record. Mr. Owen was startled, and Nellie spoke up. “He’s my brother, Willie Oleson, and he can’t answer questions, they confuse him.”
Several times that day and the next, Laura saw Mr. Owen glance sharply at Willie. Willie was always drooling and staring blankly. When he was called upon to recite, Laura could not bear to see his idiot face. On the third day, Mr. Owen quietly said, “Come with me, Willie.”
He had a pointer in his hand. With the other hand firmly on Willie’s shoulder, he took Willie into the entry and shut the door. He did not say anything. From their seat nearest the door, Ida and Laura heard the swish and thud of the pointer. Everyone heard Willie’s howls.
Mr. Owen came quietly in with Willie. “Stop blubbering,” he said. “Go to your seat and study. I expect you to know and recite your lessons.”
Willie stopped blubbering and went to his seat. After that, one look from Mr. Owen cleared some of the idiot look from Willie’s face. He seemed to be trying to think, and to act like other boys. Laura often wondered whether he could pull his mind together after he had let it go to pieces so, but at least Willie was trying. He was afraid not to try.
Laura and Ida, Mary Power and Minnie, and Nellie Oleson had kept their old seats. They were all tanned brown from the summer sun, except Nellie, who was paler and more ladylike than ever. Her clothes were so beautiful, though her mother did make them from castoffs, that Laura grew dissatisfied with her brown school dress and her blue cashmere for best. She did not complain, of course, but she wanted to.
Hoops had finally come in, and Ma bought a set for Laura. She let down the hem of the brown dress, and made it over so cleverly that it could be worn over hoops perfectly well, and the full blue cashmere needed no changing. Still, Laura felt that all the other girls were better dressed.
Mary Power had a new school dress. Minnie Johnson had a new coat and new shoes. Ida’s clothes came out of a missionary barrel, but Ida was so sweet and merry that she looked perfectly dear in anything. When Laura dressed for school, it seemed to her that the more she fussed with her appearance the more dissatisfying it was.
“Your corset is too loose,” Ma tried to help her one morning. “Pull the strings tighter and your figure will be neater. And I can’t think that a lunatic fringe is the most becoming way to do your hair. It makes any girl’s ears appear larger to comb the hair up back of them and to have that mat of bangs above the forehead.”
Ma was anxiously helpful, but some sudden thought made her laugh softly to herself.
“What is it, Ma? Tell us!” Laura and Carrie begged.
“I was only thinking of the time your Aunt Eliza and I combed our hair up off our ears and went to school that way. The teacher called us up front and shamed us before the whole school, for being so unladylike and bold as to let our ears be seen.” Ma laughed softly again.
“Is that the reason you always wear those soft wings of hair down over your ears?” Laura cried.
Ma looked a little surprised. “Yes, I suppose it is,” she answered, still smiling.
On the way to school Laura said, “Carrie, do you know I’ve never once seen Ma’s ears?”