Chapter 4
Pa finishes the house
When Laura woke up the next morning, the warm sun was on her face. She ran outdoors. Mary was talking to Ma by the fire. There were no wolves anywhere. Pa came up the creek road with his gun in hand. He had made sure that the wolves were gone.
They all sat by the fire and ate their breakfast. 'I'll make a door today,' Pa said. 'I want more than a quilt between us and the wolves next time.'
After breakfast, Pa took the horses and his axe and went to get wood for the door. Mary watched, but Laura helped Pa to make the door. She gave him his saw, which he used to cut the logs at the ends. With his axe he made nice straight boards from the logs. He laid the long boards on the ground and fastened some shorter boards across them. That made the door. Then Pa made a door frame and put hinges on the door to make it open and close. While he put the door in place, Laura stood against it to hold it up, and Pa fastened the hinges to the frame.
When the door was finished, it was beautiful and strong. 'Now we're all safe!' said Pa. 'And I had a fine little helper!' He put his hand gently on Laura's head. The sun was going down, the wind was cooler, and supper was cooking on the fire. It was salt pork, which made the best supper smells that Laura had ever smelled.
That night Pa said to Ma, 'Now, Caroline, I'm going to build you a fireplace. Then you can do your cooking inside the house. I've never seen such a sunny place as this, but I suppose that one of these days the rains will come.' 'Yes, Charles,' Ma said. 'Good weather always comes to an end, sooner or later.'
And so Pa was soon cutting away the grass just outside the wall of the house where he was going to build the fireplace. Then he climbed into the wagon. He looked down at Laura; she was looking up at him. 'Do you want to go along, Laura? You and Mary?'
Ma said that they could. The girls climbed up and sat on the high seat beside Pa. Pet and Patty started with a little jump and pulled the wagon down the new road that Pa's wagon wheels had begun to make.
They rode through dry valleys and over low, round hills. Forests covered some of these hills, but some of them were open and grassy. Deer were lying under the trees or standing and eating grass in the sun. They lifted their heads and watched the wagon with their large, soft eyes. Birds sang and rabbits jumped out of the way of the wagon.
When they arrived at the creek, Pa said, 'You girls can play, but don't go too far into the water.'
So Laura and Mary played by the creek while Pa dug the big rocks that he needed for the fireplace. When the wagon was full, they rode home to the High Prairie, where the wind was blowing and the grass was singing. Laura decided she liked the High Prairie best. It was so wide and sweet and clean.
That afternoon, the family watched Pa build the fireplace. First, he had cleared grass in a square outside the house wall. Now he put a row of rocks around the square. Next he mixed earth and water to a beautiful, thick mud. He put some mud over the rocks. In the mud he put another row of rocks. With rocks and mud and more rocks and more mud, Pa built the fireplace and chimney as high as the house wall. Then he used wood and mud to finish the top of the chimney. Finally he went into the house, and with his axe and saw he cut a hole in the wall. And there was the fireplace! The whole family stood and admired it. Ma carefully built a little fire in the new fireplace and cooked a prairie chicken for supper. And that evening they ate in their house. The chicken tasted so good in Laura's mouth. Her hands and face were washed and her hair was brushed. She sat up straight on her log chair and used her knife and fork nicely, as Ma had taught her. She did not say anything, because children must not speak at the table until they are spoken to, but she looked at Pa and Ma and Mary and Baby Carrie, and she felt happy. It was nice to be in a house again.
All day long, every day, Laura and Mary were busy. When the dishes were washed and the beds were made, there was always plenty to do and to see. In the tall grass, they looked for birds and watched baby prairie chickens running to their mothers. They watched snakes lying still in the sun or moving fast through the prairie. All the time, of course, either Laura or Mary was taking care of Baby Carrie. Sometimes Laura forgot to be quiet when Baby Carrie was sleeping. She ran around and shouted until Ma came to the door and said, 'Laura, dear, must you shout like an Indian? In fact, you girls are getting as brown as Indians in the sun! Why can't you learn to keep your hats on?'
'Pa, when are we going to see a papoose?' Laura asked. Pa was up on the house wall, beginning to put on the roof.
'Why do you want to see an Indian baby?' Ma said, surprised. 'Put on your hat and forget your crazy ideas.' Suddenly, a wolf howled right in Laura's ear.
She pulled away from the wall. The wolf was just on the other side of it. Laura was too scared to speak. Then many wolves started howling all around the house, and Laura got out of bed. Pa turned his head and saw her standing there.
'Do you want to see them, Laura?' he asked, softly.
Without saying anything, Laura walked over to Pa. He put down his gun and lifted her up to the window. There in the light of the moon sat a half circle of wolves. They looked at Laura, and she looked at them. The biggest one was taller than Laura. His coat was gray and his eyes were shining and green. Laura looked and looked at that wolf.
'He's awfully big,' Laura said into Pa's ear.
'Yes, and see how his coat shines,' Pa said into her hair. 'They're in a circle around the house.'
Laura went with him to the other window. There she saw the other half of the circle of wolves. The big wolf lifted his nose to the sky and howled. All the other wolves answered him. The noise filled the wide prairie.
'Now go back to bed, Laura,' Pa said. 'Go to sleep. Jack and I will take care of you all.'
So Laura went back to bed. She heard the wolves howling and trying to smell them through the cracks in the walls of the house. It was a long time before she fell asleep.
