“Now Laura and Carrie, there’s no cause to worry,” Ma said. “I’m sure you can keep up with your classes.”
They looked at Ma in surprise. She had taught them so well at home that they knew they could keep up with their classes. They were not worried about that. But they only said, “Yes, Ma.”
They hurried to wash the dishes and make their bed and hurriedly Laura swept their bedroom floor. Then they dressed carefully in their woolen winter dresses and nervously combed their hair and braided it. They tied on their Sunday hair-ribbons. With the steel buttonhook they buttoned their shoes.
“Hurry up, girls!” Ma called. “It’s past eight o’clock.”
At that moment, Carrie nervously jerked one of her shoe-buttons off. It fell and rolled and vanished down a crack of the floor.
“Oh, it’s gone!” Carrie gasped. She was desperate. She could not go where strangers would see that gap in the row of black buttons that buttoned up her shoe.
“We must take a button off one of Mary’s shoes,” Laura said.
But Ma had heard the button fall, downstairs. She found it and sewed it on again, and buttoned the shoe for Carrie.
At last they were ready. “You look very nice,” Ma said, smiling. They put on their coats and hoods and took their schoolbooks. They said good-by to Ma and Mary and they went out into Main Street.
The stores were all open. Mr. Fuller and Mr. Bradley had finished sweeping out; they stood holding their brooms and looking at the morning. Carrie took hold of Laura’s hand. It helped Laura, to know that Carrie was even more scared than she was.
Bravely they crossed wide Main Street and walked steadily on along Second Street. The sun was shining brightly. A tangle of dead weeds and grasses made shadows beside the wheel-tracks. Their own long shadows went before them, over many footprints in the paths. It seemed a long, long way to the schoolhouse that stood on the open prairie with no other buildings near.
In front of the schoolhouse strange boys were playing ball, and two strange girls stood on the platform before the entry door.
Laura and Carrie came nearer and nearer. Laura’s throat was so choked that she could hardly breathe. One of the strange girls was tall and dark. Her smooth, black hair was twisted into a heavy knot at the back of her head. Her dress of indigo blue woolen was longer than Laura’s brown one.
Then suddenly Laura saw one of the boys spring into the air and catch the ball. He was tall and quick and he moved as beautifully as a cat. His yellow hair was sun-bleached almost white and his eyes were blue. They saw Laura and opened wide. Then a flashing grin lighted up his whole face and he threw the ball to her.
She saw the ball curving down through the air, coming swiftly. Before she could think, she had made a running leap and caught it.
A great shout went up from the other boys. “Hey, Cap!” they shouted. “Girls don’t play ball!”
“I didn’t think she’d catch it,” Cap answered.
“I don’t want to play,” Laura said. She threw back the ball.
“She’s as good as any of us!” Cap shouted. “Come on and play,” he said to Laura, and then to the other girls, “Come on, Mary Power and Minnie! You play with us, too!”
But Laura picked up the books she had dropped and took Carrie’s hand again. They went on to the other girls at the schoolhouse door. Those girls would not play with boys, of course. She did not know why she had done such a thing and she was ashamed, fearful of what these girls must be thinking of her.
“I’m Mary Power,” the dark girl said, “and this is Minnie Johnson.” Minnie Johnson was thin and fair and pale, with freckles.
“I’m Laura Ingalls,” Laura said, “and this is my little sister, Carrie.”
Mary Power’s eyes smiled. They were dark blue eyes, fringed with long, black lashes. Laura smiled back and she made up her mind that she would twist up her own hair tomorrow and ask Ma to make her next dress as long as Mary’s.
“That was Cap Garland that threw you the ball,” Mary Power said.
There was no time to say anything more, for the teacher came to the door with the hand-bell, and they all went in to school. They hung their coats and hoods on a row of nails in the entry, where the broom stood in a corner by the water-pail on its bench. Then they went into the schoolroom.
It was so new and shining that Laura felt timid again, and Carrie stood close to her. All the desks were patent desks, made of wood varnished as smooth as glass. They had black iron feet and the seats were curved a little, with curving backs that were part of the desks behind them. The desk-tops had grooves to hold pe
ncils and shelves underneath them for slates and books.
There were twelve of these desks in a row up each side of the big room. A large heating stove stood in the middle of the room, with four more desks in front of it and four more behind it. Almost all those seats were empty. On the girls’ side of the room, Mary Power and Minnie Johnson sat together in one of the back seats. Cap Garland and three other big boys sat in back seats on the boys’ side—a few little boys and girls sat in front seats. They had all been coming to school for a week now, and knew where to sit, but Laura and Carrie did not.
The teacher said to them, “You’re new, aren’t you?” She was a smiling young lady, with curled bangs. The bodice of her black dress was buttoned down the front with twinkling jet buttons. Laura told her their names and she said, “And I’m Florence Garland. We live back of your father’s place, on the next street.” So Cap Garland was Teacher’s brother and they lived in the new house out on the prairie beyond the stable.
“Do you know the Fourth Reader?” Teacher asked.