Chapter 6
Summertime on the prairie
Summer had come to the prairie, and the air was still and warm. One evening Laura and Pa were sitting outside under a big moon while Pa played his fiddle. Everything was so beautiful. Laura wanted it to stay that way forever. Suddenly she heard a strange, low sound far away. 'What's that?' she asked.
Pa listened. 'Cattle!' he said.
'It must be the cattle herds going north.' They listened together and Laura thought she could hear a song.
'Is that singing, Pa?' she asked.
'Yes,' Pa said. 'The cowboys are singing to their cattle. It's time for them to sleep, and you too!'
The next morning when Laura ran out of the house, two strange men were sitting on horses by the stable. They were talking to Pa. They were as red-brown as Indians, and they wore big, wide hats and cowboy boots. Handkerchiefs were tied around their necks, and guns were at their sides. They said goodbye to Pa and rode away across the hot prairie.
'What a piece of luck!' Pa said to Ma. 'Those men are cowboys. They want me to help them to move the cattle across the creek. They'll pay me with beef. How would you like a good piece of beef?'
'Oh, Charles!' Ma said, and her eyes shone.
Pa tied his biggest handkerchief around his neck. He showed Laura how a cowboy pulls it up over his mouth and nose to keep the dust out. Then Pa rode Patty down the Indian trail. All day the sun shone hot and the sound of cattle herds came nearer. Laura and Mary could see the dust that they made. 'You did the right thing,' Pa told her. 'We don't want to make enemies of the Indians.' Then he said, 'What a smell!'
'They wore fresh skunk skins around their waists,' said Ma. 'And that was all they wore.'
Later, when Laura and Mary were helping Pa clean the prairie chickens, Laura said, 'I wanted to untie Jack to eat those Indians.'
Pa laid down his knife and asked in a terrible voice, 'Did you girls even think of untying Jack?'
Laura dropped her head and whispered, 'Yes, Pa.'
'After I told you not to?' Pa said, in a more terrible voice.
'Yes, Pa,' Mary whispered, almost crying.
For a moment Pa was silent.
'After this,' he then said in his angry voice, 'you girls must do as I say. You must always obey me. Do you hear?'
'Yes, Pa,' Laura and Mary whispered.
'If the Indians come again and Jack is untied, he'll bite them. And then there will be trouble. Bad trouble. Do you understand?'
'Yes, Pa,' the girls said. But they did not understand.
'Do as you're told,' said Pa, 'and you'll be safe.'
One day Pa said that the Indians had left their little camp on the prairie. 'Do you want to see it?' he asked Laura and Mary.
When the girls jumped up and down with excitement, Pa said, 'Come on then, let's go.'
The ground was hot under their feet. They went farther and farther into the big prairie. At last they went down into the little valley where the Indians had camped. Laura and Mary looked around. There were small animals, flowers, and trees. It was a beautiful secret place. 'Pa, are there other Indian camps on the prairie?' Laura asked.
'Yes, Laura,' he answered.
'Are there Indians in them?' she whispered.
'I don't know,' said Pa. 'Perhaps.'
She held one of his hands and Mary held the other, and together they looked at the Indians' camp. There were old campfires. They could see where Indian horses had eaten the grass, where big and small moccasins had walked, and where Indians had cooked and eaten.
Suddenly Laura shouted, 'Look! Look!' Something bright blue was shining on the ground. She picked it up. It was a beautiful blue bead. Laura shouted with excitement.
Then Mary saw a red bead, and Laura saw a green one, and they forgot everything except beads. They found white beads and brown beads, and more and more red and blue beads. All that afternoon they looked for beads. When they had finished, the sun was going down. Laura had a handful of beads, and so did Mary. Pa put them carefully in his pockets, and they all went home together.
Supper was cooking on the fire when they arrived, and Baby Carrie was playing on the floor. 'Sorry we're late!' said Pa, and then he took the beads out of his pockets and showed them to Ma. 'But look what the girls found,' he said.
'Oh, they're beautiful!' Ma said with a smile.
Laura thought the beads looked even prettier than before.
She touched her beads with her finger and watched them shine. 'These are mine,' she said.
Then Mary said, 'Carrie can have mine.' Ma waited for Laura to speak. But Laura didn't want to say anything. She felt all hot inside and wished that Mary wasn't always such a good girl. But she couldn't let Mary be better than she was.
So she said, slowly, 'Carrie can have mine, too.'
'You're good little girls,' Ma said. She put Mary's beads into Mary's hands, and Laura's into Laura's hands, and she said, 'You can make a pretty necklace for Carrie to wear around her neck.'
Mary and Laura sat side by side on their bed and made Carrie's necklace. They didn't say anything. Perhaps Mary felt sweet and good inside, but Laura didn't. When she looked at Mary she wanted to hit her. So she didn't look at her again.
The beads made a beautiful necklace. Carrie laughed when she saw it. Then Ma tied it around Carrie's little neck and Laura felt a little bit better. It looked so pretty on her.
But when Carrie felt the beads on her neck, she tried to break the necklace. So Ma untied it and put it away.
'Carrie can wear it when she's older,' Ma said.
Laura still wanted those pretty beads for herself. But she knew it had been a wonderful day. She knew she was never going to forget the Indian camp.
