These Happy Golden Years (Little House 8)

Laura spoke quickly, “Let’s go a little further. I’ve never been over this road. Is there time to go a little further, Almanzo?”

“It’s a good road straight north,” Mr. Boast said. His eyes laughed at Laura. She was sure he guessed what was in her mind, and her eyes laughed back at him as Almanzo started the colts and they went on north. Beyond Mr. Boast’s claim they crossed an end of the slough that ran northeast from Silver Lake. Here a road turned toward town, but it was wet and boggy as Laura had known it would be, so they kept on driving north.

“This is stupid, this isn’t any fun; call this a good road?” Nellie fretted.

“It is good so far,” Laura said quietly.

“Well! we won’t come this way again!” Nellie snapped. Then quickly she recovered her happy vivacity, telling Almanzo how much she enjoyed driving just anywhere with such a good driver and fine team.

Another road branched to the west and Almanzo turned the team into it. Nellie’s home was only a little way ahead. As Almanzo helped her from the buggy at her door, she clung to his hand a moment, saying how much she had enjoyed the drive and, “We’ll go another way next Sunday, won’t we, Mannie?”

“Oh, it’s too bad I suggested going that way, Nellie, if you minded it so much,” said Laura, and Almanzo said only, “Good-by,” and took his place beside Laura.

There was quietness between them for a little while as they drove toward town. Then Laura said, “I am afraid I have made you late for your chores by wanting to take that road.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he reassured her. “The days and nights are as long as they ever were, and I don’t have a cow.”

Again they were silent. Laura felt that she was dull company after Nellie’s lively chatter, but she was determined that Almanzo would decide that. She would never try to hold him, but no other girl was going to edge her out little by little without his realizing it. At home again, as Almanzo and Laura stood beside the buggy, he said, “I suppose we’ll go again next Sunday?”

“We’ll not all go,” Laura answered. “If you want to take Nellie for a drive, do so, but do not come by for me. Good night.”

She went quietly into the house and shut the door.

Sometimes when she was walking to her school, past the hollow that was growing greener with violets’ leaves then blue with their blossoms, Laura wondered if Almanzo would come next Sunday. Sometimes when her three little pupils were diligently studying, she looked up from her own studies and saw the cloud shadows moving over the sunny grass beyond the windows, and wondered. If he didn’t, he didn’t; that was all. And she could only wait until next Sunday.

On Saturday she walked to town and sewed all day for Miss Bell. Pa was breaking sod at home, to make a larger wheat field, so Laura stopped at the post office to see if there were any mail, and there was a letter from Mary! She could hardly wait to get home, to hear Ma read it, for it would tell when Mary was coming home.

No one had written Mary about the new sitting room and the organ that was waiting for her there. Never had anyone in the family had such a surprise as that organ would be for Mary.

“Oh, Ma! a letter from Mary!” she cried, bursting in.

“I’ll finish the supper, Ma, you go read it,” said Carrie. So Ma took a hairpin from her hair, and as she carefully slit the envelope she sat down to read the letter. She unfolded the sheet and began to read, and it was as if all the light went out of the house.

Carrie gave Laura a frightened look, and after a moment Laura asked quietly, “What is it, Ma?”

“Mary does not want to come home,” Ma said. Then, quickly, “I do not mean that. She asks if she may spend her vacation with Blanche, at Blanche’s home. Stir the potatoes, Carrie; they’ll be too brown.”

All through supper they talked about it. Ma read the letter aloud. Mary wrote that Blanche’s home was not far from Vinton, and she very much wanted that Mary should visit it. Her mother was writing to Ma, to invite Mary. Mary would like to go, if Pa and Ma said she might.

“I think she should,” Ma said. “It will be a change for her, and do her good.”

Pa said, “Well,” and so it was settled.

Mary was not coming home that year.

Later, Ma said to Laura that Mary would be at home to stay when she finished college, and it might be that she would never have another opportunity to travel. It was nice that she could have this pleasant time and make so many new friends while she was young. “She will have it to remember,” Ma said.

But that Saturday night, Laura felt that nothing would ever be right again. Next morning, though the sun was shining and the meadow larks singing, they did not mean anything, and as she rode to church in the wagon she said to herself that she would ride in a wagon all the rest of her life. She was quite sure now that Almanzo would take Nellie Oleson driving that day.

Still, at home again she did not take off her brown poplin, but put her big apron on as she had done before. Time went very slowly, but at last it was two o’clock, and looking from the window Laura saw the colts come dashing over the road from town. They trotted up and stopped at the door.

“Would you like to go for a buggy ride?” Almanzo asked as Laura stood in the doorway.

“Oh, yes!” Laura answered. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

Her face looked at her from the mirror, all rosy and smiling, as she tied the blue ribbon bow under her left ear.

In the buggy she asked, “Wouldn’t Nellie go?”