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On the Banks of Plum Creek
On the Banks of Plum Creek
On the Banks of Plum Creek
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On the Banks of Plum Creek

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

The fourth book in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s treasured Little House series, and the recipient of a Newbery Honor—now available as an ebook! This digital version features Garth Williams’s classic illustrations, which appear in vibrant full color on a full-color device and in rich black-and-white on all other devices.

The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as they leave the prairie and travel in their covered wagon to Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Here they settle in a new home made of sod beside the banks of Plum Creek. Soon Pa builds a wonderful new little house with real glass windows and a hinged door. Laura and her sister Mary go to school, help with the chores, and fish in the creek. At night everyone listens to the merry music of Pa's fiddle. Misfortunes come in the form of a grasshopper plague and a terrible blizzard, but the pioneer family works hard together to overcome these challenges.

The nine Little House books are inspired by Laura’s own childhood and have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America’s frontier history and as heartwarming, unforgettable stories.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMar 8, 2016
ISBN9780062484062
Author

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) was born in a log cabin in the Wisconsin woods. With her family, she pioneered throughout America’s heartland during the 1870s and 1880s, finally settling in Dakota Territory. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885; their only daughter, Rose, was born the following year. The Wilders moved to Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, where they established a permanent home. After years of farming, Laura wrote the first of her beloved Little House books in 1932. The nine Little House books are international classics. Her writings live on into the twenty-first century as America’s quintessential pioneer story.

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Reviews for On the Banks of Plum Creek

Rating: 4.127345630026809 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,492 ratings47 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My favourite so far (I'm reading in order) as the books move from the feeling of Pioneer How-To Manual into the realm of actual novel. It's still a series of incidents, but they connect to form a plot (we saw glimmerings of this in the last book, but not at all in the first two, to my mind). As Laura ages we get more deft characterization touches, and the sentence-crafting has improved, with masterful descriptive passages. A real charmer.

    (Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    How different the Ingall's Christmas were. Can you imagine a child today being happy because they got 6 pieces of candy. Or canned oysters.They had so little, but the appreciated it more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hmm.

    It starts out problematic. Norwegians are clean people."

    "In Wisconsin we lived among Swedes and Germans. In Indian Territory we lived among the Indians. Now here in Minnesota all the neighbors are Norwegian. They're good neighbors too. But I guess our kinds of folk are pretty scarce."

    And this idea of taming the prairie without knowing anything about it - and nobody would tell them that Grasshopper Weather meant that planting a crop would be a waste of energy & time.

    And Caroline changed the name of the milch cow from Wreath of Roses (for her markings) to Spot. In all the books, iirc, she comes across as awfully conservative. She strongly discourages Laura's imagination, in at least one of the others.

    However, she does allow the girls some freedom. Laura is growing up strong & fearless, so that's good.

    I did appreciate, both now and when I was a child, the family's courage and persistence. Even if it was misguided.

    And I appreciate the wealth of detail. I'd forgotten just how much there was - a reader really gets to know what the prairie is like, what living in a dugout on the banks of a creek, and then building a house, and huddling in it from grasshoppers and from blizzards, is like.

    I think that attention of detail, as well as the character & citizenship lessons, was what earned this the Newbery Honor.
    ----------------------------------------------------------

    So, why did Pa sacrifice his boots for a 'frivolous' church bell? I'll have to re-read this and see if I can manage to empathize. Thanks Ibis3!

    Answer - because the Reverend Alden is a good and persuasive man, and because (accd to the Ingalls) faith & community are more important than comfort. *I* think the boots, since the old ones were so worn out, were more important in this case, but since faith & prayer were key to the settlers' survival, I can sympathize with Pa's choice. That's an example of one of the lessons that probably appealed to the Newbery committee."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Ingalls family moves from Kansas to Minnesota, into a sod hut cut into the side of a hill. Pa builds a clean new house with the help of a bachelor neighbor), going into debt for the materials, but his first wheat crop is eaten out by grasshoppers, and he has to move away to work. Ma and the girls learn how to manage on their own, but the hardships are mitigated by the beauty of the homestead and their love for each other.Whether all of this happened to Laura's family or not, she once more "stands in" for the experiences of many of the pioneers caught short by their ignorance of the cycles of nature in a new land.I started reading the "Little House" books because of my daughter-in-law's love for them, and because she was reading them to my grand-children. I somehow skipped that phase in my own youth, as my reading was not exactly "age appropriate" after about the 2nd grade, going pretty directly from Dr. Seuss & Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle to Robert Heinlein & Co. I actually think I am enjoying them more now than I would have then, with some knowledge of history and raising a family, and a greater appreciation for Laura's writing style, which consists of non-nonsense narrative, sometimes blunt descriptions of harrowing events, a firm remembrance of what little girls are like, and a lyrical descriptive facility that conveys her love for the beauty of the landscape and animals that made her childhood joyful despite its tribulations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Read aloud to the boys.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Delightful tale of the Ingalls family in Minnesota. Especially good describing the plague of locusts and the great snow storm. This is a re-read after 50+ years and it was just as good now as it was then.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    No date on when I read this book because, being my favorite of Laura Ingalls books, I read it about a dozen times as a child. This book inspired all my imaginative play as a child, raking the yard became a farm chore. The bottom bunk of my sisters' bed became the dugout. The crickets chirping outside the window as I slept became the locusts crawling toward us. And my first biography project in school was written about the author. These books shaped my childhood, and I don't know who I'd be if I hadn't read them.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read all the Little House books as a kid (and I've read the whole series more than a few times as a grown-up). I always enjoyed this installment, and was fascinated and disgusted by the grasshopper episodes recounted here. I always try to remember how this family took a lot of hard knocks but never gave up. They always dusted themselves off and kept at it. That's admirable. I think these are books that can still be relatable to modern readers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another great book by Laura Ingalls Wilder!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Simple, charming story, as the Wilders progress from a dugout sod house to a wooden house, enduring challenges both natural and social.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was fun to read this again for the first time since I visited Plum Creek and waded in the water out front of the homesite last summer. I enjoyed this chapter of the Ingalls' life more than the previous one, but I'm finding Pa to be a real annoyance. I know he was a loving father, but I don't think he put his family first. Fascinating slice of Americana, though.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another one i hadn't yet read. I didn't love this one as much as the others. It's perhaps more of a let down because I just read Farmer Boy, which was such a delight. All I can think after reading this is, "Good god. Pa was a freakin' moron." I mean, really...he was a selfish twit. He was like a squirrel, always on to the next shiny thing, never mind that he's dragging his wife and kids all over creation.

    And the whole, "grasshopper weather" thing...really, Pa? You thought it was just "some Norwegian thing"? Pretty sure a grade school kid could figure that one out. Also, his going out in a blizzard...wtf was he thinking? Once again, I know kids who have better sense than that. He was a grown man. What the hell was he thinking?

    I'm starting to dislike Pa as much as I hate Mary.

    Anyway, glad I read it. Not bad, just not as good as the others.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I enjoyed Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie, but I really felt like Wilder hit her stride in this book. The foreshadowing was brilliant (feeding the grasshopper a blade of grass a little more so than the constant vocal worries about borrowing against the wheat crop, which were a little heavy handed), and I think the characters really became more three-dimensional in this book. There was less of the "here's how we did things back then" and more of just the story and the family and how they weathered the hardships together.

    And man, were there hardships. If I ever actually do move to a cabin in the woods, it will not be in western Minnesota.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    More of the same from the Little House series, which is to say, simple writing rising at times to the poetic along with compelling stories of life on the frontier. We meet the horrid Nellie Oleson in this one, and here, too, is the terrifying grasshopper scene, where a swarm of grasshoppers denudes the prairie of every single green thing, including all of Pa's crops. It's truly heartbreaking and terrifying, even when you know it's coming. Some of the incidents in Plum Creek were depicted fairly faithfully on the television show, most notably Nellie's sophisticated party and Laura and Mary's subsequent party in the country. I read those chapters with a bit of surprise and delight, because most of the TV series is really inspired by, rather than based on, the books, and it was pleasant to see that here was a bit that actually came to the screen in much the way it was written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After leaving their "Little House on the Prairie", the Ingalls family travels to and settles in Minnesota. Pa has high hopes for doing well raising wheat but is thwarted by grasshoppers which eat everything in sight. Laura, now 8 years old, and her older sister Mary are finally living close enough to a town where they can walk to school, and Carrie is no longer just the baby. All the Little House books are good, but this one just doesn't speak to me as some of the others do. There is less of daily interactions and description of life, and much of the time spent near Plum Creek is skipped over.Still a good read, and a necessary part of the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So far this is our favorite Little House story. The kids were surprised at how much action and adventure there can be settling down on a farm. Fires, floods, grasshoppers and blizzards kept even Blake excited to hear what would happen next. And Laura is at just the right age for them to identify with. We have jumped right into the next one and hope it will be just as exciting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Ingalls family moves to Minnesota where they start out by living in a sod house. With the promise of the wheat crop, Charles gets the wood to build the family a nice, new clean house. However, grasshoppers arrive and ruin all of the crops and leave the family with choices to make.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The fourth installment of Laura Ingalls Wilder's memoirs starts off a little more slowly than the other books, as the family moves to Minnesota and establishes another homestead. For the first portion of the book, the Ingalls family lives in a dugout house and the tales are more mundane. However, soon Charles builds a house for his family and familiar names and faces start cropping up for fans of the television series. I enjoyed the tales at the end of the book far more than the beginning.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the fourth book in the Little House on the Prairie series. The Ingalls family has now moved to Minnesota where they start out by living in a sod house. With the promise of the wheat crop, Charles gets the wood to build the family a nice, new clean house. However, grasshoppers arrive and ruin all of the crops and leave the family with choices to make. This is the book that the well known character, Nellie Olsen, appears. Many know here from the TV series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This chapter in the Ingalls family is marked by high hopes that end up unfulfilled. I can't even imagine a cloud of grasshoppers so thick that it blots out the sun and covers every inch of ground so that you can't walk or breath. And blizzards that happen all winter long, one after another. While the experiences are certainly interesting, I found myself wishing for better days for the family.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    On the Banks of Plum Creek is possibly one of the more interesting tales of the family's journeys. The live in a dugout, deal with blizzards and wild animals, but also have neighbors and a town close enough to visit when the weather isn't too bad. The cast of characters changes slightly because of the nearby town and suddenly life seems to be more than just about the Ingalls family. I liked the storytelling, too. Laura doesn't claim that she was a model child, or even that her sister Mary, though better behaved, was a model child. The two squabble, they struggle with tempers, jealousy, greed, temptation... normal human afflictions. I felt like I was a part of the lives of the people in the story, so alive they came off of the page.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is in my top three Little House books. This one takes place when Laura is still young and spunky, which is so fun to read about.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Third in the Little House series, again read by Cherry Jones. Quite good! This one deals with the Ingalls family's settlement in... was it Minnesota? At any rate, they start to grow wheat but are attacked by grasshoppers. Not a very happy book for the Ingalls family!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Laura and her family have moved now from Kansas to Minnesota. They live first in a sod house, built underneath the prairie. Then Pa builds a brand new house, on the hopes of the wheat crop. Unfortunately, grasshoppers kill that hope.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book follows Laura Ingalls and her family after their return north from Indian Territory to Minnesota. It mixes the focus on simplicity of lifestyle found in "Little House on the Big Woods" with the more socially aware nature of "Little House on the Prairie." While not as historically charged as "Prairie" was, the emotional impact in this book is still there, with the family struggling through hard economic times. The description of the plague of grasshoppers in this book alone makes it worth reading, as it is so vivid and impossible for a modern audience to imagine that it would seem unbelievable if this weren't based on a true story. This book also introduces the infamous Nellie Oleson character known so well from the "Little House on the Prairie" television series. It is a pleasant follow-up to the "Prairie" book, continuing in the deliciously readable narrative style of that work.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Probably my favourite book of the series. A great read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another good tale in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder. For some reason, I did not remember this one. After 94 inches of snow last winter, I had a good appreciation of the blizzard scenes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A rather abrupt jump in the chronology of the series. Laura left out some difficult and sad parts of her life. When this story begins, sister Mary has already lost her sight. Wilder also completely left out an unsuccessful move to Iowa and the death of her baby brother.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the sweetest and richest in the series. You know at the end of this one that Laura's childhood is over.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was my favorite when I was a kid, but I can't quite recall why.

Book preview

On the Banks of Plum Creek - Laura Ingalls Wilder

THE DOOR IN THE GROUND

The dim wagon track went no farther on the prairie, and Pa stopped the horses.

When the wagon wheels stopped turning, Jack dropped down in the shade between them. His belly sank on the grass and his front legs stretched out. His nose fitted in the furry hollow. All of him rested, except his ears.

All day long for many, many days, Jack had been trotting under the wagon. He had trotted all the way from the little log house in Indian Territory, across Kansas, across Missouri, across Iowa, and a long way into Minnesota. He had learned to take his rest whenever the wagon stopped.

In the wagon Laura jumped up, and so did Mary. Their legs were tired of not moving.

This must be the place, Pa said. It’s half a mile up the creek from Nelson’s. We’ve come a good half-mile, and there’s the creek.

Laura could not see a creek. She saw a grassy bank, and beyond it a line of willow-tree tops, waving in the gentle wind. Everywhere else the prairie grasses were rippling far away to the sky’s straight edge.

Seems to be some kind of stable over there, said Pa, looking around the edge of the canvas wagon-cover. But where’s the house?

Laura jumped inside her skin. A man was standing beside the horses. No one had been in sight anywhere, but suddenly that man was there. His hair was pale yellow, his round face was as red as an Indian’s, and his eyes were so pale that they looked like a mistake. Jack growled.

Be still, Jack! said Pa. He asked the man, Are you Mr. Hanson?

Yah, the man said.

Pa spoke slowly and loudly. I heard you want to go west. You trade your place?

The man looked slowly at the wagon. He looked at the mustangs, Pet and Patty. After a while he said again, Yah.

Pa got out of the wagon, and Ma said, You can climb out and run around, girls, I know you are tired, sitting still.

Jack got up when Laura climbed down the wagon wheel, but he had to stay under the wagon until Pa said he might go. He looked out at Laura while she ran along a little path that was there.

The path went across short sunny grass, to the edge of the bank. Down below it was the creek, rippling and glistening in the sunshine. The willow trees grew up beyond the creek.

Over the edge of the bank, the path turned and went slanting down, close against the grassy bank that rose up like a wall.

Laura went down it cautiously. The bank rose up beside her till she could not see the wagon. There was only the high sky above her, and down below her the water was talking to itself. Laura went a step farther, then one more step. The path stopped at a wider, flat place, where it turned and dropped down to the creek in stair-steps. Then Laura saw the door.

The door stood straight up in the grassy bank, where the path turned. It was like a house door, but whatever was behind it was under the ground. The door was shut.

In front of it lay two big dogs with ugly faces. They saw Laura and slowly rose up.

Laura ran very fast, up the path to the safe wagon. Mary was standing there, and Laura whispered to her, There’s a door in the ground, and two big dogs— She looked behind her. The two dogs were coming.

Jack’s deep growl rolled from under the wagon. He showed those dogs his fierce teeth.

Those your dogs? Pa said to Mr. Hanson. Mr. Hanson turned and spoke words that Laura could not understand. But the dogs understood. One behind the other, they slunk over the edge of that bank, down out of sight.

Pa and Mr. Hanson walked slowly away toward the stable. The stable was small and it was not made of logs. Grass grew on its walls and its roof was covered with growing grasses, blowing in the wind.

Laura and Mary stayed near the wagon, where Jack was. They looked at the prairie grasses swaying and bending, and yellow flowers nodding. Birds rose and flew and sank into the grasses. The sky curved very high and its rim came neatly down to the faraway edge of the round earth.

When Pa and Mr. Hanson came back, they heard Pa say: All right, Hanson. We’ll go to town tomorrow and fix up the papers. Tonight we’ll camp here.

Yah, yah! Mr. Hanson agreed.

Pa boosted Mary and Laura into the wagon and drove out on the prairie. He told Ma that he had traded Pet and Patty for Mr. Hanson’s land. He had traded Bunny, the mule-colt, and the wagon-cover for Mr. Hanson’s crops and his oxen.

He unhitched Pet and Patty and led them to the creek to drink. He put them on their picket-lines and helped Ma make camp for the night. Laura was quiet. She did not want to play and she was not hungry when they all sat eating supper by the camp fire.

The last night out, said Pa. Tomorrow we’ll be settled again. The house is in the creek bank, Caroline.

Oh, Charles! said Ma. A dugout. We’ve never had to live in a dugout yet.

I think you’ll find it very clean, Pa told her. Norwegians are clean people. It will be snug for winter, and that’s not far away.

Yes, it will be nice to be settled before snow flies, Ma agreed.

It’s only till I harvest the first wheat crop, said Pa. Then you’ll have a fine house and I’ll have horses and maybe even a buggy. This is great wheat country, Caroline! Rich, level land, with not a tree or a rock to contend with. I can’t make out why Hanson sowed such a small field. It must have been a dry season, or Hanson’s no farmer, his wheat is so thin and light.

Beyond the fire-light, Pet and Patty and Bunny were eating grass. They bit it off with sharp, pulling crunches, and then stood chewing it and looking through the dark at the low stars shining. They switched their tails peacefully. They did not know they had been traded.

Laura was a big girl, seven years old. She was too big to cry. But she could not help asking, Pa, did you have to give him Pet and Patty? Did you, Pa?

Pa’s arm drew her close to him in a cuddly hug.

Why, little half-pint, Pa said. "Pet and Patty like to travel. They are little Indian ponies, Laura, and plowing is too hard work for them. They will be much happier, traveling out west. You wouldn’t want to keep them here, breaking their hearts on a plow. Pet and Patty will go on traveling, and with those big oxen I can break up a great big field and have it ready for wheat next spring.

A good crop of wheat will bring us more money than we’ve ever had, Laura. Then we’ll have horses, and new dresses, and everything you can want.

Laura did not say anything. She felt better with Pa’s arm around her, but she did not want anything except to keep Pet and Patty and Bunny, the long-eared colt.

THE HOUSE IN THE GROUND

Early in the morning Pa helped Mr. Hanson move the wagon bows and cover onto Mr. Hanson’s wagon. Then they brought everything out of the dugout house, up the bank, and they packed it in the covered wagon.

Mr. Hanson offered to help move the things from Pa’s wagon into the dugout, but Ma said, No, Charles. We will move in when you come back.

So Pa hitched Pet and Patty to Mr. Hanson’s wagon. He tied Bunny behind it, and he rode away to town with Mr. Hanson.

Laura watched Pet and Patty and Bunny going away. Her eyes smarted and her throat ached. Pet and Patty arched their necks, and their manes and tails rippled in the wind. They went away gaily, not knowing that they were never coming back.

The creek was singing to itself down among the willows, and the soft wind bent the grasses over the top of the bank. The sun was shining and all around the wagon was clean, wide space to be explored.

The first thing was to untie Jack from the wagon wheel. Mr. Hanson’s two dogs had gone away, and Jack could run about as he pleased. He was so glad that he jumped up against Laura to lick her face and made her sit down hard. Then he ran down the path and Laura ran after him.

Ma picked up Carrie and said: Come, Mary. Let’s go look at the dugout.

Jack got to the door first. It was open. He looked in, and then he waited for Laura.

All around that door green vines were growing out of the grassy bank, and they were full of flowers. Red and blue and purple and rosy-pink and white and striped flowers all had their throats wide open as if they were singing glory to the morning. They were morning-glory flowers.

Laura went under those singing flowers into the dugout. It was one room, all white. The earth walls had been smoothed and whitewashed. The earth floor was smooth and hard.

When Ma and Mary stood in the doorway the light went dim. There was a small greased-paper window beside the door. But the wall was so thick that the light from the window stayed near the window.

That front wall was built of sod. Mr. Hanson had dug out his house, and then he had cut long strips of prairie sod and laid them on top of one another, to make the front wall. It was a good, thick wall with not one crack in it. No cold could get through that wall.

Ma was pleased. She said, It’s small, but it’s clean and pleasant. Then she looked up at the ceiling and said, Look, girls!

The ceiling was made of hay. Willow boughs had been laid across and their branches woven together, but here and there the hay that had been spread on them showed through.

Well! Ma said.

They all went up the path and stood on the roof of that house. No one could have guessed it was a roof. Grass grew on it and waved in the wind just like all the grasses along the creek bank.

Goodness, said Ma. Anybody could walk over this house and never know it’s here.

But Laura spied something. She bent over and parted the grasses with her hands, and then she cried: I’ve found the stovepipe hole! Look, Mary! Look!

Ma and Mary stopped to look, and Carrie leaned out from Ma’s arm and looked, and Jack came pushing to look. They could look right down into the whitewashed room under the grass.

They looked at it till Ma said, We’ll brush out the place before Pa comes back. Mary and Laura, you bring the water-pails.

Mary carried the large pail and Laura the small one, and they went down the path again. Jack ran ahead and took his place by the door.

Ma found a willow-twig broom in a corner, and she brushed the walls carefully. Mary watched Carrie to keep her from falling down into the creek, and Laura took the little pail and went for water.

She hoppity-skipped down the stair-steps to the end of a little bridge across the creek. The bridge was one wide plank. Its other end was under a willow tree.

The tall willows fluttered slender leaves up against the sky, and little willows grew around them in clumps. They shaded all the ground, and it was cool and bare. The path went across it to a little spring, where cold, clear water fell into a tiny pool and then ran trickling to the creek.

Laura filled the little pail and went back across the sunny footbridge and up the steps. She went back and forth, fetching water in the little pail and pouring it into the big pail set on a bench inside the doorway.

Then she helped Ma bring down from the wagon everything they could carry. They had moved nearly everything into the dugout when Pa came rattling down the path. He was carrying a little tin stove and two pieces of stovepipe.

Whew! he said, setting them down. I’m glad I had to carry them only three miles. Think of it, Caroline! Town’s only three miles away! Just a nice walk. Well, Hanson’s on his way west and the place is ours. How do you like it, Caroline?

I like it, said Ma. But I don’t know what to do about the beds. I don’t want to put them on the floor.

What’s the matter with that? Pa asked her. We’ve been sleeping on the ground.

That’s different, Ma said. I don’t like to sleep on the floor in a house.

Well, that’s soon fixed, said Pa. I’ll cut some willow boughs to spread the beds on, for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll find some straight willow poles, and make a couple of bedsteads.

He took his ax and went whistling up the path, over the top of the house and down the slope beyond it to the creek. There lay a tiny valley where willows grew thick all along beside the water.

Laura ran at his heels. Let me help, Pa! she panted. I can carry some.

Why, so you can, said Pa, looking down at her with his eyes twinkling. There’s nothing like help when a man has a big job to do.

Pa often said he did not know how he could manage without Laura. She had helped him make the door for the log house in Indian Territory. Now she helped him carry the leafy willow boughs and spread them in the dugout. Then she went with him to the stable.

All four walls of the stable were built of sods, and the roof was willow-boughs and hay, with sods laid over it. The roof was so low that Pa’s head touched it when he stood up straight. There was a manger of willow poles, and two oxen were tied there. One was a huge gray ox with short horns and gentle eyes. The other was smaller, with fierce, long horns and wild eyes. He was bright red-brown all over.

Hello, Bright, Pa said to him.

And how are you, Pete, old fellow? he asked the big ox, slapping him gently.

Stand back out of the way, Laura, he said, till we see how these cattle act. We’ve got to take them to water.

He put ropes around their horns and led them out of the stable. They followed him slowly down the slope to a level path that went through green rushes to the flat edge of the creek. Laura slowly tagged after them. Their legs were clumsy and their big feet split in the middle. Their noses were broad and slimy.

Laura stayed outside the stable while Pa tied them to the manger. She walked with him toward the dugout.

Pa, she asked, in a little voice, did Pet and Patty truly want to go out west?

Yes, Laura, Pa told her.

Oh, Pa, she said, and there was a tremble in her voice. I don’t think I like cattle—much.

Pa took her hand and comforted it in his big one. He said, We must do the best we can, Laura, and not grumble. What must be done is best done cheerfully. And some day we will have horses again.

When, Pa? she asked him, and he said, When we raise our first crop of wheat.

Then they went into the dugout. Ma was cheerful, Mary and Carrie were already washed and combed, and everything was neat. The beds were made on the willow boughs and supper was ready.

After supper they all sat on the path before the door. Pa and Ma had boxes to sit on. Carrie cuddled sleepily in Ma’s lap, and Mary and Laura sat on the hard path, their legs hanging over its sharp edge. Jack turned around three times and lay down with his head against Laura’s knee.

They all sat quiet, looking across Plum Creek and the willows, watching the sun sink far away in the west, far away over the prairie lands.

At last Ma drew a long breath. It is all so tame and peaceful, she said. There will be no wolves or Indians howling tonight. I haven’t felt so safe and at rest since I don’t know when.

Pa’s slow voice answered, We’re safe enough, all right. Nothing can happen here.

The peaceful colors went all around the rim of the sky. The willows breathed and the water talked to itself in the dusk. The land was dark gray. The sky was light gray and stars prickled through it.

It’s bedtime, Ma said. And here is something new, anyway. We’ve never slept in a dugout before. She was laughing, and Pa laughed softly with her.

Laura lay in bed and listened to the water talking and the willows whispering. She would rather sleep outdoors, even if she heard wolves, than be so safe in this house dug under the ground.

RUSHES AND FLAGS

Every morning after Mary and Laura had done the dishes, made their bed and swept the floor, they could go out to play.

All around the

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