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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 goodby 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, 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 cl
aim.
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 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.
The window beside the front door let still more sunny light into that pleasant room.
Two closed doors were in the other long wall. Laura opened the one nearest her, and saw the bedroom. Her Dove-in-the-Window quilt was spread upon the wide bed, and her two feather pillows stood plumply at the head of it. At its foot, across the whole length of the partition was a wide shelf higher than Laura’s head, and from its edge a prettily flowered calico curtain hung to the floor. It made a perfect clothes closet. Against the wall under the front window stood Laura’s trunk.
She had seen all this quickly. Now she took off her poke bonnet and laid it on the shelf. She opened her trunk and took out a calico dress and apron. Taking off her black cashmere, she hung it carefully in the curtain closet, then slipped into the blue calico dress and tied on the crisply ruffled, pink apron. She went into the front room as Almanzo came into it through the door by the drop-leaf table.
“All ready for work, I see!” he said gaily, as he set Ma’s basket on the chair near him. “Guess I’d better get ready for my work, too.” He turned at the bedroom door to say, “Your Ma told me to open your bundle and spread things around.”
She looked through the door by the table. There was the lean-to. Almanzo’s bachelor cook-stove was set up there, and pots and frying pans hung on the walls. There was a window, and a back door that looked out at the stable beyond some little trees.
Laura returned to the front room. She took up Ma’s basket, and opened the last door. She knew it must be the pantry door, but she stood in surprise and then in delight, looking at that pantry. All one wall was covered with shelves and drawers, and a broad shelf was under a large window at the pantry’s far end.
She took Ma’s basket to that shelf, and opened it. There was a loaf of Ma’s good bread, a ball of butter, and what had been left of the wedding cake. She left it all on the shelf while she investigated the pantry.
One whole long wall was shelved from the ceiling halfway down. The upper shelves were empty, but on the lowest was a glass lamp, Almanzo’s bachelor dishes, and two pans of milk, with empty pans near. At the end, where this shelf was above the window shelf in the corner, stood a row of cans of spices.
Beneath this shelf were many drawers of different sizes. Directly below the spices, and above the window shelf, were two rather narrow drawers. Laura found that one was almost full of white sugar, the other of brown sugar. How handy!
Next, a deep drawer was full of flour, and smaller ones held graham flour and corn meal. You could stand at the window shelf and mix up anything, without stirring a step. Outside the window was the great, blue sky, and the leafy little trees.
Another deep drawer was filled with towels and tea towels. Another held two tablecloths and some napkins. A shallow one held knives and forks and spoons.
Beneath all these drawers there was space for a tall, stoneware churn and dasher, and empty space for other things as they should come.
