“Dust devils,” Almanzo remarked, “only there is no dust, nothing but grass. They say they’re a sure sign of cyclone weather.”
The thunderheads piled up in the west; the whole sky looked stormy. The sun was shooting angry red beams of light across the dark clouds when Laura came home. Almanzo hurried away to reach his claim and make things snug there before the rain fell.
But the storm held off. Night came, black and oppressive, with still no rain, and Laura slept uneasily. Suddenly she woke in a glare of light; Ma stood by the bedside, holding a lamp. She shook Laura’s shoulder. “Quick, Laura!” she said. “Get up and help Carrie get her clothes, and come! Pa says there’s a bad storm coming.”
Laura and Carrie snatched up their clothes and followed Ma, who had snatched up Grace and her clothes and a blanket and was hurrying to the open trapdoor of the cellar.
“Go down, girls, quickly. Hurry,” she told them. They tumbled hastily down into the small cellar under the kitchen.
“Where is Pa?” Laura asked.
Ma blew out the lamp. “He is outdoors, watching the cloud. He can get here quickly, now that we are all down out of his way.”
“Why did you blow out the lamp, Ma?” Grace almost whimpered.
“Get into your clothes as well as you can, girls,” Ma said. “We don’t want the lamp, Grace; we don’t want any risk of fire.”
They could hear the roaring of wind, and a strange wild note was in it. Flashes of lightning glared into the darkness. The kitchen overhead was brighter than fire for an instant, then the dark was blacker and seemed to press on the eyeballs.
Ma dressed Grace, while Laura and Carrie somehow got into their clothes. Then they all sat on the earth floor, with their backs against the earth wall, and waited.
Laura knew they were safer in the cellar, but she could hardly bear the closed-in, underground feeling of it. She wanted to be out in the wind with Pa, watching the storm. The wind roared. The lightning slapped her open eyes with glare and darkness. Overhead in the kitchen the clock, pathetically ignorant of the storm, struck one.
It seemed a long time before Pa’s voice came down through the darkness. “You may come up now, Caroline. The storm passed west of us, between here and the Wessington Hills.”
“Oh, Pa, it wasn’t near enough to get the Reverend Brown’s, was it?” Laura asked.
“No. I doubt if this house would have stood if it had come that near,” Pa answered.
Cramped and chilled from sitting so long uncomfortably in the cold cellar, they all crawled wearily into their beds.
All through August the weather was hot, and there were many thunderstorms. Several times Ma roused Laura and Carrie in the night, to go down cellar with her and Grace while Pa watched the storm clouds. The wind blew with terrific force, but it was always a straight wind; and the worst of it passed to the west.
Frightened as she was in these terrifying nights, Laura felt a strange delight in the wild strength of the wind, the terrible beauty of the lightning and the crashes of thunder.
But in the morning they were all tired and heavy-eyed. Pa said, “It seems we have to have about so many electric storms. If we don’t get them in blizzards in the wintertime, we get them in cyclones and thunderstorms in the summer.”
“We can’t do anything about it, so we must take them as they come,” said Ma.
Pa rose from the table, and stretched as he yawned. “Well I can make up my sleep when the cyclone season is over. Right now I have to cut the oats,” and he went out to his work.
He was cutting the oats and wheat again with the old cradle. A harvester cost more money than he had, and he would not go in debt for one.
“This giving a mortgage on everything he owns, to buy a two-hundred-dollar machine, and paying ten per cent interest on the debt, will ruin a man,” he said. “Let these brash young fellows go in debt for machinery and break up all their land. I’m going to let the grass keep on growing, and raise cattle.”
Since he had sold Ellen’s big calf to send Mary to college, he had bought another cow. Ellen’s little calf had grown up, other calves had grown up, until now he had six cows and heifers, besides this year’s calves, so he needed a great deal of grass and hay.
On the last Sunday in August, Almanzo came driving Barnum single. Barnum reared, but Laura was quick, and when his feet touched the ground again she was safely in the buggy seat.
When Barnum had almost reached town and had settled to a trot, Almanzo explained. “I want to break him to drive single. He is so large and strong and such a good-looker that he will be worth more as a single driver than in a team. He must get over this way of starting, though.”
“He is a beauty,” Laura agreed, “and I believe he is really gentle. Let me drive him; I would like to see if I could.”
Almanzo seemed doubtful, but he gave her the lines. “Keep a tight rein on him,” he said. “Don’t let him get the start of you.”
Laura had not realized before how very small her hands were. They looked and felt tiny, holding those leather lines, but she was strong. She drove around the corner by the livery barn and all the way up Main Street, Barnum trotting as fast as he could.
“Did you see them turn and stare?” said Almanzo. “They never expected to see a woman driving that horse.”
Laura saw nothing but Barnum. Across the railroad tracks and on through Poverty Flat, the new part of town, she drove. But her arms were growing tired, and a little way out of town she gave the lines back to Almanzo.
“When my arms are rested, I want to drive again,” she told him.
“You may,” he promised. “You may drive all you want to. It gives my arms a rest, too.”
The next time she took the lines they felt alive. Through them she got the feel of Barnum’s mouth. A kind of thrill came up the lines to her hands. “I do believe Barnum knows I’m driving,” she said in surprise.
“Of course he does. He doesn’t pull so hard, either. Watch him!” Almanzo took the lines. At once they grew tauter and seemed almost to stretch.
“He leans on the bit, with me,” Almanzo said. Abruptly he changed the subject, “Do you know your old schoolteacher, Clewett, is going to start a singing school?”
Laura had not heard this. Almanzo said, “I’d like to have you go with me, if you will.”
“I would like to, very much,” she answered.
“All right, next Friday night. I’ll come for you at seven.” Almanzo went on, “He’s got to learn to walk. He’s never been known to walk yet when he was hitched up. Seems to think that if he can keep on going fast enough he can get away from the buggy.”
“Let me take him again,” Laura said. She loved the feel of Barnum’s mouth coming to her hands through the lines. It was true that he did not pull so hard when she was driving him. “He is really gentle,” she said again, though she knew that he had always been a runaway.
All that afternoon she took turns with Almanzo, driving, and before he stopped to let her get out at home, he reminded her, “Friday night, at seven. I’ll be driving Barnum single, and he may act up, so be ready.”
Chapter 22
Singing School
School began next day in the new brick schoolhouse on Third Street in town. This was a two-story schoolhouse, with two teachers. The small children were in the downstairs room, and the older ones upstairs.
Laura and Carrie were in the upstairs room. It seemed strangely large and empty, without the small children. Yet almost all the seats were filled with boys and girls whom they did not know. Only a few back seats were empty, and these would be filled when the weather grew too cold for farm work and the big boys came to school.
At recess Ida and Laura stood at an upstairs window, looking down at the children playing outdoors, and talking with Mary Power and Minnie Johnson. Ida and Elmer were coming to the singing school Friday night, and so were Minnie and her brother, Arthur, and Mary Power with her new beau, Ed.
“I wonder why Nellie Oleson isn??
?t coming to school,” Laura wondered, and Ida said, “Oh, hadn’t you heard? She’s gone back to New York.”
“Not really!”
“Yes, she’s gone back there to stay with some relatives. You know what I bet, I bet she talks all the time about how wonderful it is in the west!” Ida laughed. They all laughed.
All alone among the empty seats one of the new girls was sitting by herself. She was very blonde, and tall and slender, and she looked unhappy. Suddenly Laura knew how she felt. They were all having such a good time, and there she sat, left out and lonely and shy, as Laura used to feel.
“That new girl looks nice, and she looks lonesome,” Laura said in a low voice. “I’m going to go talk to her.”
The new girl’s name was Florence Wilkins. Her father had a claim northwest of town, and she intended to be a schoolteacher. Laura had been sitting with her and talking only a little while, when the others came from the window and gathered around them. Florence was not coming to the singing school. She lived too far away.
On Friday evening, Laura was ready promptly at seven, in her brown poplin and her brown velvet hat, and promptly at seven Almanzo came. Barnum stopped, and Laura jumped into the buggy so quickly that Almanzo started him again before he had time to rear.
“That’s the first time,” Almanzo said. “He’s getting slower about rearing. Maybe sometime he’ll forget it.”
“Maybe.” Laura doubted it. She quoted, “‘May bees don’t fly in September.’”
Singing school was to be in the church, and as they came into town Almanzo said that they would better leave a little early, before the others came out, because a crowd around Barnum would excite him. Laura replied, “When you think it’s time, just leave, and I will come.”
Almanzo tied Barnum to one of the hitching posts, and they went into the lighted church. He had paid tuition for two, and bought a singing book. The class was already there, and Mr. Clewett was seating them. He placed the bass singers in a group, the tenors in another, and sopranos and altos in groups.
Then he taught them the names and values of the notes, the holds, the slurs, and the rests, and the bass, tenor, and treble clefs. After this, he allowed a short recess, and basses, altos, tenors, and sopranos all mixed together, talking and laughing, until Mr. Clewett called them to order again.
They practiced singing scales. Mr. Clewett gave the pitch with his tuning fork again and again. When almost all of them managed to sound very nearly the same note, they were off, up and down the scale, singing “Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do.” Exhausted from climbing so high, the voices all gladly came down again, “Do, si, la, sol, fa, mi, re, do!”
Up and down and up and down they sang, sometimes striking the notes and sometimes not, but always with good will. Laura had taken a place at the end of a seat, and she watched for a sign from Almanzo. When quietly he went to the door, she slipped away and followed.
While they hurried to the buggy he said, “I’ll help you in before I untie him. Likely he’ll rear as soon as he is untied, but not before if you don’t tighten the lines. Take a good hold on them, but don’t move them until he starts. I’ll try to get in before he comes down, but if I can’t make it, you must hold him. Let him run, but don’t let him run away. Drive him around the church and pass me again. Don’t be afraid, you can drive him. You have, you know.”
She had never driven him when he was starting, Laura thought, though she said nothing. Climbing quickly into the buggy, she took hold of the lines where they lay across the dashboard. She gripped them tightly but did not move them.
At the hitching post, Almanzo untied Barnum. The instant his head was free, Barnum reared. Up and up he went until he stood straight on his hind legs; he was down again and running before Laura could catch her breath. The buggy wheels left the ground and struck it with a jolt.
Laura held firmly to the lines. Barnum was racing away on the open prairie beyond the church. She pulled steadily harder with her right arm than with the left, and to her joy Barnum turned that way. He came swiftly around in a very neat circle. The church whirled in its center, and as its side turned toward her, Laura pulled with all her strength on both lines evenly. But Barnum did not stop. They flashed past Almanzo, still standing at the hitching post.
With Barnum’s first leap, Laura’s heart had leaped too, up into her throat where it nearly choked her. Now they were out on the prairie again. She pulled steadily on the right-hand line, and again Barnum turned. Very quickly the other side of the church was coming toward her, and Laura pulled on both lines. Barnum almost paused, then with a rearing plunge he was running again.
This time Laura’s heart stayed in its place. She pulled with her right arm, and Barnum circled neatly. They passed around the church, and Laura rose a little from the seat. With all her weight she pulled. And Barnum stopped. He reared at once, and leaped and ran.
“All right, run,” Laura thought. She held him firmly; she guided him around the circle on the prairie, and again she braced her feet and pulled with all her might. This time, Almanzo got into the buggy. As he did so, the church door opened. All the singing school pupils came pouring out, and someone shouted, “Need help?”
Barnum rose straight up in the air, and came down running.
Almanzo’s hands closed on the lines ahead of Laura’s, and slid back as she let go. She was glad to let him have the lines.
“Just in time,” he said. “We never would have got away if that crowd had swarmed around us. Was it too much for you?”
Laura was shaking. Her hands were numb, and it was hard to keep her teeth from chattering, so she only said, “Oh, no.”
For a moment or two Almanzo spoke to Barnum, who soon began to trot. Then Laura said, “Barnum wasn’t bad. He was just tired of standing still so long.”
“He was plain mad about it,” Almanzo said. “Next time we’ll leave at recess.” He added, “Let’s go home the long way, it is such a nice night for a drive.”
He turned Barnum to the road that crossed the western end of Big Slough. The wind blew softly in the prairie grass, and above the dark land hung myriads of large stars quivering with light.
On and on Barnum trotted, gently now as if he, too, were enjoying the quietness of the night and the brilliant stars.
Almanzo spoke quietly. “I don’t know when I ever saw the stars so bright.”
Then Laura began to sing softly.
“In the starlight, in the starlight,
Let us wander gay and free,
For there’s nothing in the daylight
Half so dear to you and me.
Like the fairies in the shadow
Of the woods we’ll steal along,
And our sweetest lays we’ll warble,
For the night was made for song.
When none are by to listen,
Or to chide us in our glee,
In the starlight, in the starlight,
Let us wander gay and free.”
Barnum stopped at the door and stood quietly while Laura got out. Almanzo said, “I’ll be along Sunday afternoon.”
“I will be ready,” Laura answered. Then she went in.
Pa and Ma were waiting up for her. Ma gave a little sigh of relief, and Pa asked, “Does that devil horse of Wilder’s drive all right at night?”
“He is really a gentle horse,” said Laura. “And he stood so quietly when I got out. I like him.”
Ma was satisfied, but Pa looked at her sharply. It was not a lie; she had spoken the truth, and she could not tell them how she had driven Barnum. That would worry them, and perhaps they would forbid her to do it again. She intended to drive Barnum. When she and Barnum were used to each other, perhaps, just perhaps, she could make him act gently.
Chapter 23
Barnum Walks
Next Sunday Barnum was as bad as he had ever been. He refused to stand, and Laura had to wait for a third stop before she could leap into the buggy. Then he reared and tried to run, pulling so hard that after a t
ime Almanzo complained, “He is pulling this buggy by the bit and my arms.”
“Let me try,” Laura offered. “It will rest your arms.”
“All right, “Almanzo agreed. “For a minute, but you’ll have to hold hard.”
He let go of the lines when she had a firm grip on them, just behind his. Laura’s arms took the force of Barnum’s pull; his strength flowed up the lines with the thrill she had felt before. Oh, Barnum! she begged silently; please don’t pull so hard, I want so much to drive you.
Barnum sensed the change of drivers and stretched his neck a little farther, feeling the bit; then his trot became slower. He turned the corner by the livery barn, and dropped into a walk.
Barnum was walking. Almanzo was silent and Laura hardly breathed. A little by a tiny little she eased on the lines. Barnum went on walking. The wild horse, the runaway, who never before had been seen to walk when hitched to a buggy, walked the whole length of Main Street. He reached out twice, feeling the bit with his mouth and, finding it to his liking, arched his neck and walked proudly on.
Almanzo said, low, “Better tighten the lines a little so he won’t get the jump on you.”
“No,” Laura answered. “I am going to let him carry the bit easily. I think he likes it.”
All along the street, everyone stopped to stare. Laura did not like to be so conspicuous, but she knew that she must not be nervous now; she must be calm, and keep Barnum walking. “I wish they wouldn’t stare,” she almost whispered, looking straight ahead at Barnum’s placid ears.
In a low tone, too, Almanzo replied, “They have been expecting he would run away with us. Better not let him walk until he starts trotting himself. Tighten the lines and tell him to go. Then he will understand that he trots because you want him to.”
“You take him,” Laura offered. She felt a little dizzy, from the excitement.