These Happy Golden Years (24 page)

They made a tight-fitting basque, pointed at the bottom back and front, lined with black cambric lining and boned with whalebones on every seam. It had a high collar of the cashmere. The sleeves were lined, too.

They were long and plain and beautifully fitted, with a little fullness at the top but tight at the wrists. A shirring around each armhole, in front, made a graceful fullness over the breast, that was taken up by darts below. Small round black buttons buttoned the basque straight down the front.

The skirt just touched the floor all around. It fitted 272

smoothly at the top, but was gored to fullness at the bottom. It was lined throughout with the cambric dress lining, and interlined with crinoline from the bottom to as high as Laura's shoes. The bottom of the skirt and the linings were turned under and the raw edges covered with dress braid, which Laura hemmed down by hand on both edges, so that no stitches showed on the right side.

There was no drive that Sunday. Almanzo came by for only a moment in his work clothes, to say that he was breaking the Sabbath by working on the house. It would be finished, he said, by Wednesday; so they could be married Thursday. He would come for Laura at ten o'clock Thursday morning, for the Reverend Brown was leaving town on the eleven o'clock train.

“Then better come over with your wagon, Wednesday, if you can make it, for Laura's things,” Pa told him.

Almanzo said he would, and so it was settled, and with a smile to Laura he drove quickly away.

Tuesday morning Pa drove to town, and at noon he came back bringing Laura a present of a new trunk.

“Better put your things into it today,” he said.

With Ma's help, Laura packed her trunk that after-273

noon. Her old rag doll, Charlotte, with all her clothes carefully packed in a cardboard box, she put in the very bottom. Laura's winter clothes were laid in next, then her sheets and pillow cases and towels, her new white clothes and calico dresses and her brown poplin. The pink lawn was carefully laid on top so that it would not be crushed.

In the hatbox of the trunk's till, Laura put her new hat with the ostrich tips, and in the shallow till itself she had her knitting and crochet needles and worsted yarns.

Carrie brought Laura's glass box from the whatnot saying, “I know you want this.”

Laura held the box in her hand, undecided. “I hate to take this box away from Mary's. They shouldn't be separated,” she mused.

“See, I've moved my box closer to Mary's,” Carrie showed her. “It doesn't look lonesome.” So Laura put her box carefully in the trunk till, among the soft yarn, where it could not be broken.

The trunk was packed, and Laura shut down the lid, Then Ma spread a clean, old sheet across the bed. “You will want your quilt,” she said.

Laura brought her Dove-in-the-Window quilt that she had pieced as a little girl while Mary pieced a nine-patch. It had been kept carefully all the years since then. Ma laid it, folded, on the sheet, and upon it she placed two large, plump pillows.

“I want you to have these, Laura,” she said. "You helped me save the feathers from the geese that Pa shot 274

on Silver Lake. They are good as new; I have been sav-ing them for you. This red-and-white-checked tablecloth is like those I have always had; I thought it might make the new home more homelike if you saw it on your table,“ and Ma laid the tablecloth, still in its paper wrapping, on the pillow. She drew the corners of the old sheet together over all, and tied them firmly. ”There, that will keep the dust out," she said.

Almanzo came next morning with Barnum and Skip hitched to his wagon. He and Pa loaded the trunk and the pillow bundle into it. Then Pa said, “Wait a minute, don't hurry away, I'll be back,” and he went into the house. For a moment or two all the others stood by the wagon, talking, and waiting for Pa to come from the door.

Then he came around the corner of the house, leading Laura's favorite young cow. She was fawn-colored all over, and gentle. Quietly Pa tied her behind the wagon, then threw her picket rope into the wagon as he said,

“Her picket rope goes with her.”

“Oh, Pa!” Laura cried. “Do you really mean I may take Fawn with me?”

“That is exactly what I do mean!” Pa said. “Be a pity if you couldn't have one calf out of all you have helped to raise.”

Laura could not speak, but she gave Pa a look that thanked him.

“You think it is safe to tie her behind those horses?”

Ma asked, and Almanzo assured her that it was safe, 275

and said to Pa that he appreciated the gift of a cow.

Then turning to Laura he said, “I'll be over in the morning at ten o'clock.”

“I will be ready,” Laura promised, but as she stood watching Almanzo drive away, she was unable to realize that tomorrow she would leave home. Try as she would, she could not think of going away tomorrow as meaning that she would not come back, as she had always come back from drives with Almanzo.

That afternoon the finished black cashmere was carefully pressed, and then Ma made a big, white cake.

Laura helped her by beating the egg whites on a platter with a fork, until Ma said they were stiff enough.

“My arm is suffer,” Laura ruefully laughed, rubbing her aching right arm.

“This cake must be just right,” Ma insisted. “If you can't have a wedding party, at least you shall have a wedding dinner at home, and a wedding cake.”

After supper that night, Laura brought Pa's fiddle to him, and asked, “Please, Pa, make some music.”

Pa took the fiddle from the box. He was a long time tuning it; then he must resin the bow carefully. At last he poised the bow above the fiddle strings and cleared his throat. “What will you have, Laura?”

“Play for Mary first,” Laura answered. “And then play all the old tunes, one after another, as long as you can.”

She sat on the doorstep and just inside the door Pa and Ma sat looking out over the prairie while Pa played 276

“Highland Mary.” Then while the sun was going down he played all the old tunes that Laura had known ever since she could remember.

The sun sank from sight, trailing bright banners after it. The colors faded, the land grew shadowy, the first star twinkled. Softly Carrie and Grace came to lean against Ma. The fiddle sang on in the twilight.

It sang the songs that Laura knew in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, and the tunes that Pa had played by the campfires all across the plains of Kansas. It repeated the nightingale's song in the moonlight on the banks of the Verdigris River, then it remembered the days in the dugout on the banks of Plum Creek, and the winter evenings in the new house that Pa had built there. It sang of the Christmas on Silver Lake, and of springtime after the long, Hard Winter.

Then the fiddle sounded a sweeter note and Pa's deep voice joined its singing.

"Once in the dear dead days beyond recall When on the world the mists began to fall, Out of the dreams that rose in happy throng, Low to our hearts love sang an old sweet song.

And in the dusk where fell the firelight gleam Softly it wove itself into our dream.

"Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low And the flickering shadows softly come and go, Though the heart be weary, sad the day and long, Still to us at twilight comes love's old song, Comes love's old sweet song.

"Even today we hear of love's song of yore, Deep in our hearts it swells forever more.

Footsteps may falter and weary grow the way, Still we can hear it at the close of day, So to the end when life's dim shadows fall, Love will be found the sweetest song of all."

Laura was ready when Almanzo came. She was wearing her new black cashmere dress and her sage-green poke bonnet with the blue lining and the blue ribbon bow tied under her left ear. The soft black tips of her shoes barely peeped from beneath her flaring skirt as she walked.

Ma herself had pinned her square gold brooch with the imbedded strawberry at Laura's throat, against the bit of white lace that finished the collar of her dress.

“There!” Ma said. “Even if your dress is black, you look perfect.”

Gruffly Pa said, “You'll do, Half-Pint.”

Carrie brought a fine white handkerchief, edged with lace matching the lace on Laura's collar. “I made it for you,” she said. “It looks nice in your hand, against your black dress.”

Grace just stood near and admired. Then Almanzo came, and they all watched at the door while Laura and Almanzo drove away.

Once Laura spoke. “Does Reverend Brown know we are coming?”

Almanzo said, “I saw him on my way over. He will not use the word, 'obey.'”

Mrs. Brown opened the sitting room door. Nervously she said that she would call Mr. Brown and asked them to sit down. She went into the bedroom and closed the door.

Laura and Almanzo sat waiting. In the center of the sitting room a marble-topped table stood on a crocheted rag rug. On the wall was a large colored picture of a woman clinging to a white cross planted on a rock, with lightning streaking the sky above her and huge waves dashing high around her.

The door of the other bedroom opened and Ida slipped in and sat down in a chair near the door. She gave Laura a frightened smile and then twisted her handkerchief in her lap and looked at it.

The kitchen door opened and a tall, thin young man quietly slipped into a chair. Laura supposed he was Elmer but she did not see him, for Reverend Brown came from the bedroom, thrusting his arms into his coat sleeves. He settled the coat collar to his neck and asked Laura and Almanzo to rise and stand before him.

So they were married.

Reverend Brown and Mrs. Brown and Elmer shook their hands, and Almanzo quietly handed Reverend Brown a folded bill. Reverend Brown unfolded it, and at first did not understand that Almanzo meant to give him all of ten dollars. Ida squeezed Laura's hand and tried to speak, but choked; quickly she kissed Laura, slipped a soft little package into her hand, and ran out of the room.

Laura and Almanzo came out into the sun and wind.

He helped her into the buggy and untied the horses.

They drove back through town. Dinner was ready when they came back. Ma and the girls had moved the table into the sitting room, between the open door and the open windows. They had covered it with the best white tablecloth and set it with the prettiest dishes. The silver spoons in the spoon holder shone in the center of the table and the steel knives and forks were polished until they were as bright.

As Laura hesitated shyly at the door, Carrie asked,

“What's that in your hand?”

Laura looked down. She was holding in her hand with Carrie's handkerchief, the soft little package that Ida had given her. She said, “Why, I don't know. Ida gave it to me.”

She opened the small tissue-paper package and unfolded the most beautiful piece of lace she had ever seen. It was a triangular fichu, of white silk lace, a pattern of lovely flowers and leaves.

“That will last you a lifetime, Laura,” Ma said, and Laura knew that she would always keep and treasure this lovely thing that Ida had given her.

Then Almanzo came in from stabling the horses, and they all sat down to dinner.

It was one of Ma's delicious dinners, but all the food tasted alike to Laura. Even the wedding cake was dry as sawdust in her mouth, for at last she realized that she was going away from home, that never would she come back to this home to stay. They all lingered at the table, for they knew that after dinner came the parting, but finally Almanzo said that it was time to go.

Laura put her bonnet on again, and went out to the buggy as Almanzo drove to the door. There were good-by kisses and good wishes, while he stood ready to help her into the buggy. But Pa took her hand.

“You'll help her from now on, young man,” he said to Almanzo. “But this time, I will.” Pa helped her into the buggy.

Ma brought a basket covered with a white cloth.

“Something to help make your supper,” she said and her lips trembled. “Come back soon, Laura.”

When Almanzo was lifting the reins, Grace came running with Laura's old slat sunbonnet. “You forgot this!”

she called, holding it up. Almanzo checked the horses while Laura took the sunbonnet. As the horses started again, Grace called anxiously after them, "Remember, Laura, Ma says if you don't keep your sunbonnet on, 283

you'll be brown as an Indian!"

So everyone was laughing when Laura and Almanzo drove away.

They drove over the road they had traveled so many times, across the neck of Big Slough, around the corner by Pearson's livery barn, up Main Street and across the railroad tracks, then out on the road toward the new house on Almanzo's tree claim.

It was a silent drive until almost the end, when for the first time that day Laura saw the horses. She exclaimed,

“Why, you are driving Prince and Lady!”

“Prince and Lady started this,” Almanzo said. “So I thought they'd like to bring us home. And here we are.”

The tracks of his wagon and buggy wheels had made a perfect half-circle drive curving into the grove of little sapling trees before the house. There the house sat, and it was neatly finished with siding and smoothly painted a soft gray. Its front door was comfortably in the middle, and two windows gave the whole house a smiling look.

On the doorstep lay a large, brown shepherd dog, that rose and politely wagged to Laura as the buggy stopped.

“Hello, Shep!” Almanzo said. He helped Laura down and unlocked the door. “Go in while I put up the horses,” he told her.

Just inside the door she stood and looked. This was the large room. Its walls were neatly plastered a soft white. At its far end stood a drop-leaf table, covered with Ma's red-checked tablecloth. A chair sat primly at 284

either end of it. Beside it was a closed door.

In the center of the long wall at Laura's left, a large window let in the southern sunshine. Companionably placed at either side of it, two rocking chairs faced each other. Beside the one nearest Laura, stood a small round table, and above it a hanging lamp was suspended from the ceiling. Someone could sit there in the evening and read a paper, while in the other chair someone could knit.