The Long Winter (Little House 6)

There was nothing to say to that. Pa thought a minute and said, “Laura, I wish you’d go to town and get it. I don’t want to lose the time. I can keep on mowing, after a fashion, while you’re gone. Be as quick as you can. Ma will give you the five cents to pay for it. Buy it at Fuller’s Hardware.”

“Yes, Pa,” Laura said. She dreaded going to town because so many people were there. She was not exactly afraid, but strange eyes looking at her made her uncomfortable.

She had a clean calico dress to wear and she had shoes. While she hurried to the house, she thought that Ma might let her wear her Sunday hair-ribbon and perhaps Mary’s freshly ironed sunbonnet.

“I have to go to town, Ma,” she said, rushing in breathless.

Carrie and Mary listened while she explained and even Grace looked up at her with big, sober blue eyes.

“I will go with you to keep you company,” Carrie volunteered.

“Oh, can she, Ma?” Laura asked.

“If she can be ready as soon as you are,” Ma gave permission.

Quickly they changed to fresh dresses and put on their stockings and shoes. But Ma saw no reason for hair-ribbons on a week day and she said Laura must wear her own sunbonnet.

“It would be fresher,” Ma said, “if you took care to keep it so.” Laura’s bonnet was limp from hanging down her back and the strings were limp too. But that was Laura’s own fault.

Ma gave her five cents from Pa’s pocketbook and with Carrie she hurried away toward town.

They followed the road made by Pa’s wagonwheels, past the well, down the dry, grassy slope into Big Slough, and on between the tall slough-grasses to the slope up on the other side. The whole shimmering prairie seemed strange then. Even the wind blowing the grasses had a wilder sound. Laura liked that and she wished they did not have to go into town where the false fronts of the buildings stood up square-topped to pretend that the stores behind them were bigger than they were.

Neither Laura nor Carrie said a word after they came to Main Street. Some men were on the store porches and two teams with wagons were tied to the hitching posts. Lonely, on the other side of Main Street, stood Pa’s store building. It was rented and two men sat inside it talking.

Laura and Carrie went into the hardware store. Two men were sitting on nail kegs and one on a plow. They stopped talking and looked at Laura and Carrie. The wall behind the counter glittered with tin pans and pails and lamps.

Laura said, “Pa wants a mowing-machine section, please.”

The man on the plow said, “He’s broke one, has he?” and Laura said, “Yes, sir.”

She watched him wrap in paper the sharp and shining three-cornered tooth. He must be Mr. Fuller. She gave him the five cents and, taking the package in her hand, she said, “Thank you,” and walked out with Carrie.

That was over. But they did not speak until they had walked out of town. Then Carrie said, “You did that beautifully, Laura.”

“Oh, it was just buying something,” Laura replied.

“I know, but I feel funny when people look at me. I feel… not scared, exactly… “Carrie said.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Laura said. “We mustn’t ever be scared.” Suddenly she told Carrie, “I feel the same way.”

“Do you, really? I didn’t know that. You don’t act like it. I always feel so safe when you’re there,” Carrie said.

“You are safe when I’m there,” Laura answered. “I’d take care of you. Anyway, I’d try my best.”

“I know you would,” Carrie said.

It was nice, walking together. To take care of their shoes, they did not walk in the dusty wheel-tracks. They walked on the harder strip in the middle where only horses’ hoofs had discouraged the grass. They were not walking hand in hand, but they felt as if they were.

Ever since Laura could remember, Carrie had been her little sister. First she had been a tiny baby, then she had been Baby Carrie, then she had been a clutcher and tagger, always asking “Why?” Now she was ten years old, old enough to be really a sister. And they were out together, away from even Pa and Ma. Their errand was done and off their minds, and the sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the prairie spread far all around them. They felt free and independent and comfortable together.

“It’s a long way around to where Pa is,” Carrie said. “Why don’t we go this way?” and she pointed toward the part of the slough where they could see Pa and the horses.

Laura answered, “That way’s through the slough.”

“It isn’t wet now, is it?” Carrie asked.

“All right, let’s,” Laura answered. “Pa didn’t say to go by the road, and he did say to hurry.”