They went farther and farther into the vast prairie. Laura felt smaller and smaller. Even Pa did not seem as big as he really was. At last they went down into the little hollow where the Indians had camped.
Jack started up a big rabbit. When it bounded out of the grass Laura jumped. Pa said, quickly: “Let him go, Jack! We have meat enough.” So Jack sat down and watched the big rabbit go bounding away down the hollow.
Laura and Mary looked around them. They stayed close to Pa. Low bushes grew on the sides of the hollow—buck-brush with sprays of berries faintly pink, and sumac holding up green cones but showing here and there a bright red leaf. The goldenrod’s plumes were turning gray, and the ox-eyed daisies’ yellow petals hung down from the crown centers.
All this was hidden in the secret little hollow. From the house Laura had seen nothing but grasses, and now from this hollow she could not see the house. The prairie seemed to be level, but it was not level.
Laura asked Pa if there were lots of hollows on the prairie, like this one. He said there were.
“Are Indians in them?” she almost whispered. He said he didn’t know. There might be.
She held tight to his hand and Mary held to his other hand, and they looked at the Indians’ camp. There were ashes where Indian camp fires had been. There were holes in the ground where tent-poles had been driven. Bones were scattered where Indian dogs had gnawed them. All along the sides of the hollow, Indian ponies had bitten the grasses short. Tracks of big moccasins and smaller moccasins were everywhere, and tracks of little bare toes. And over these tracks were tracks of rabbits and tracks of birds, and wolves’ tracks.
Pa read the tracks for Mary and Laura. He showed them tracks of two middle-sized moccasins by the edge of a camp fire’s ashes. An Indian woman had squatted there. She wore a leather skirt with fringes; the tiny marks of the fringe were in the dust. The track of her toes inside the moccasins was deeper than the track of her heels, because she had leaned forward to stir something cooking in a pot on the fire.
Then Pa picked up a smoke-blackened forked stick. And he said that the pot had hung from a stick laid across the top of two upright, forked sticks. He showed Mary and Laura the holes where the forked sticks had been driven into the ground. Then he told them to look at the bones around that camp fire and tell him what had cooked in that pot.
They looked, and they said, “Rabbit.” That was right; the bones were rabbits’ bones.
Suddenly Laura shouted, “Look! Look!” Something bright blue glittered in the dust. She picked it up, and it was a beautiful blue bead. Laura shouted with joy.
Then Mary saw a red bead, and Laura saw a green one, and they forgot everything but beads. Pa helped them look. They found white beads and brown beads, and more and more red and blue beads. All that afternoon they hunted for beads in the dust of the Indian camp. Now and then Pa walked up to the edge of the hollow and looked toward home, then he came back and helped to hunt for more beads. They looked all the ground over carefully.
When they couldn’t find any more, it was almost sunset. Laura had a handful of beads, and so did Mary. Pa tied them carefully in his handkerchief, Laura’s beads in one corner and Mary’s in another corner. He put the handkerchief in his pocket, and they started home.
The sun was low behind their backs when they came out of the hollow. Home was small and very far away. And Pa did not have his gun.
Pa walked so swiftly that Laura could hardly keep up. She trotted as fast as she could, but the sun sank faster. Home seemed farther and farther away. The prairie seemed larger, and a wind ran over it, whispering something frightening. All the grasses shook as if they were scared.
Then Pa turned around and his blue eyes twinkled at Laura. He said: “Getting tired, little half-pint? It’s a long way for little legs.”
He picked her up, big girl that she was, and he settled her safe against his shoulder. He took Mary by the hand, and so they all came home together.
Supper was cooking on the fire, Ma was setting the table, and Baby Carrie played with little pieces of wood on the floor. Pa tossed the handkerchief to Ma.
“I’m later than I meant, Caroline,” he said. “But look what the girls found.” He took the milk-bucket and went quickly to bring Pet and Patty from their picket-lines and to milk the cow.
Ma untied the handkerchief and exclaimed at what she found. The beads were even prettier than they had been in the Indian camp. Laura stirred her beads with her finger and watched them sparkle and shine. “These are mine,” she said.
Then Mary said, “Carrie can have mine.” Ma waited to hear what Laura would say. Laura didn’t want to say anything. She wanted to keep those pretty beads. Her chest felt all hot inside, and she wished with all her might that Mary wouldn’t always be such a good little girl. But she couldn’t let Mary be better than she was.
So she said, slowly, “Carrie can have mine, too.”
“That’s my unselfish, good little girls,” said Ma.
She poured Mary’s beads into Mary’s hands, and Laura’s into Laura’s hands, and she said she would give them a thread to string them on. The beads would make a pretty necklace for Carrie to wear around her neck.
Mary and Laura sat side by side on their bed, and they strung those pretty beads on the thread that Ma gave them. Each wet her end of the thread in her mouth and twisted it tightly. Then Mary put her end of the thread through the small hole in each of the beads, and Laura put her end through her beads, one by one.
They didn’t say anything. Perhaps Mary felt sweet and good inside, but Laura didn’t. When she looked at Mary she wanted to slap her. So she dared not look at Mary again.
The beads made a beautiful string. Carrie clapped her hands and laughed when she saw it. Then Ma tied it around Carrie’s little neck, and it glittered there. Laura felt a little bit better. After all, her beads were not enough beads to make a whole string, and neither were Mary’s, but together they made a whole string of beads for Carrie.
When Carrie felt the beads on her neck, she grabbed at them. She was so little that she did not know any better than to break the string. So Ma untied it, and she put the beads away until Carrie should be old enough to wear them. And often after that Laura thought of those pretty beads and she was still naughty enough to want her beads for herself.
But it had been a wonderful day. She could always think about that long walk across the prairie, and about all they had seen in the Indian camp.
Chapter 15
Fever ’n’ Ague
Now blackberries were ripe, and in the hot afternoons Laura went with Ma to pick them. The big, black, juicy berries hung thick in brier-patches in the creek bottoms. Some were in the shade of trees and some were in the sun, but the sun was so hot that Laura and Ma stayed in the shade. There were plenty of berries.
Deer lay in the shady groves and watched Ma and Laura. Blue jays flew at their sunbonnets and scolded because they were taking the berries. Snakes hurriedly crawled away from them, and in the trees the squirrels woke up and chattered at them. Wherever they went among the scratchy briers, mosquitoes rose up in buzzing swarms.
Mosquitoes were thick on the big, ripe berries, sucking the sweet juice. But they liked to bite Laura and Ma as much as they liked to eat blackberries.
Laura’s fingers and her mouth were purple-black with berry juice. Her face and her hands and her bare feet were covered with brier scratches and mosquito bites. And they were spattered with purple stains, too, where she had slapped at the mosquitoes. But every day they brought home pails full of berries, and Ma spread them in the sun to dry.
Every day they ate all the blackberries they wanted, and the next winter they would have dried blackberries to stew.
Mary hardly ever went to pick blackberries. She stayed in the house to mind Baby Carrie, because she was older. In the daytime there were only one or two mosquitoes in the house. But at night, if the wind wasn’t blowing hard, mosquitoes came in thick swarms. On still nights Pa kept piles of da
mp grass burning all around the house and stable. The damp grass made a smudge of smoke, to keep the mosquitoes away. But a good many mosquitoes came, anyway.
Pa could not play his fiddle in the evenings because so many mosquitoes bit him. Mr. Edwards did not come visiting after supper any more, because the mosquitoes were so thick in the bottoms. All night Pet and Patty and the colt and the calf and the cow were stamping and swishing their tails in the stable. And in the morning Laura’s forehead was speckled with mosquito bites.
“This won’t last long,” Pa said. “Fall’s not far away, and the first cold wind will settle ’em!”
Laura did not feel very well. One day she felt cold even in the hot sunshine, and she could not get warm by the fire.
Ma asked why she and Mary did not go out to play, and Laura said she didn’t feel like playing. She was tired and she ached. Ma stopped her work and asked, “Where do you ache?”
Laura didn’t exactly know. She just said: “I just ache. My legs ache.”
“I ache, too,” Mary said.
Ma looked at them and said they looked healthy enough. But she said something must be wrong or they wouldn’t be so quiet. She pulled up Laura’s skirt and petticoats to see where her legs ached, and suddenly Laura shivered all over. She shivered so that her teeth rattled in her mouth.
Ma put her hand against Laura’s cheek. “You can’t be cold,” she said. “Your face is hot as fire.”
Laura felt like crying, but of course she didn’t. Only little babies cried. “I’m hot now,” she said. “And my back aches.”
Ma called Pa, and he came in. “Charles, do look at the girls,” she said. “I do believe they are sick.”
“Well, I don’t feel any too well myself,” said Pa. “First I’m hot and then I’m cold, and I ache all over. Is that the way you feel, girls? Do your very bones ache?”
Mary and Laura said that was the way they felt. Then Ma and Pa looked a long time at each other and Ma said, “The place for you girls is bed.”
It was so queer to be put to bed in the daytime, and Laura was so hot that everything seemed wavering. She held on to Ma’s neck while Ma was undressing her, and she begged Ma to tell her what was wrong with her.
“You will be all right. Don’t worry,” Ma said, cheerfully. Laura crawled into bed and Ma tucked her in. It felt good to be in bed. Ma smoothed her forehead with her cool, soft hand and said, “There, now. Go to sleep.”
Laura did not exactly go to sleep, but she didn’t really wake up again for a long, long time. Strange things seemed to keep happening in a haze. She would see Pa crouching by the fire in the middle of the night, then suddenly sunshine hurt her eyes and Ma fed her broth from a spoon. Something dwindled slowly, smaller and smaller, till it was tinier than the tiniest thing. Then slowly it swelled till it was larger than anything could be. Two voices jabbered faster and faster, then a slow voice drawled more slowly than Laura could bear. There were no words, only voices.
Mary was hot in the bed beside her. Mary threw off the covers, and Laura cried because she was so cold. Then she was burning up, and Pa’s hand shook the cup of water. Water spilled down her neck. The tin cup rattled against her teeth till she could hardly drink. Then Ma tucked in the covers and Ma’s hand burned against Laura’s cheek.
She heard Pa say, “Go to bed, Caroline.”
Ma said, “You’re sicker than I am, Charles.”
Laura opened her eyes and saw bright sunshine. Mary was sobbing, “I want a drink of water! I want a drink of water! I want a drink of water!” Jack went back and forth between the big bed and the little bed. Laura saw Pa lying on the floor by the big bed.
Jack pawed at Pa and whined. He took hold of Pa’s sleeve with his teeth and shook it. Pa’s head lifted up a little, and he said, “I must get up, I must. Caroline and the girls.” Then his head fell back and he lay still. Jack lifted up his nose and howled.
Laura tried to get up, but she was too tired. Then she saw Ma’s red face looking over the edge of the bed. Mary was all the time crying for water. Ma looked at Mary and then she looked at Laura, and she whispered, “Laura, can you?”
“Yes, Ma,” Laura said. This time she got out of bed. But when she tried to stand up, the floor rocked and she fell down. Jack’s tongue lapped and lapped at her face, and he quivered and whined. But he stood still and firm when she took hold of him and sat up against him.
She knew she must get water to stop Mary’s crying, and she did. She crawled all the way across the floor to the water-bucket. There was only a little water in it. She shook so with cold that she could hardly get hold of the dipper. But she did get hold of it. She dipped up some water, and she set out to cross that enormous floor again. Jack stayed beside her all the way.
Mary’s eyes didn’t open. Her hands held on to the dipper and her mouth swallowed all the water out of it. Then she stopped crying. The dipper fell on the floor, and Laura crawled under the covers. It was a long time before she began to get warm again.
Sometimes she heard Jack sobbing. Sometimes he howled and she thought he was a wolf, but she was not afraid. She lay burning up and hearing him howl. She heard voices jabbering again, and the slow voice drawling, and she opened her eyes and saw a big, black face close above her face.
It was coal-black and shiny. Its eyes were black and soft. Its teeth shone white in a thick, big mouth. This face smiled, and a deep voice said, softly, “Drink this, little girl.”
An arm lifted under her shoulders, and a black hand held a cup to her mouth. Laura swallowed a bitter swallow and tried to turn her head away, but the cup followed her mouth. The mellow, deep voice said again, “Drink it. It will make you well.” So Laura swallowed the whole bitter dose.
When she woke up, a fat woman was stirring the fire. Laura looked at her carefully and she was not black. She was tanned, like Ma.
“I want a drink of water, please,” Laura said.
The fat woman brought it at once. The good, cold water made Laura feel better. She looked at Mary asleep beside her; she looked at Pa and Ma asleep in the big bed. Jack lay half asleep on the floor. Laura looked again at the fat woman and asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m Mrs. Scott,” the woman said, smiling. “There now, you feel better, don’t you?”
“Yes, thank you,” Laura said, politely. The fat woman brought her a cup of hot prairie-chicken broth.
“Drink it all up, like a good child,” she said. Laura drank every drop of the good broth. “Now go to sleep,” said Mrs. Scott. “I’m here to take care of everything till you’re all well.”
Next morning Laura felt so much better that she wanted to get up, but Mrs. Scott said she must stay in bed until the doctor came. She lay and watched Mrs. Scott tidy the house and give medicine to Pa and Ma and Mary. Then it was Laura’s turn. She opened her mouth, and Mrs. Scott poured a dreadful bitterness out of a small folded paper onto Laura’s tongue. Laura drank water and swallowed and swallowed and drank again. She could swallow the powder but she couldn’t swallow the bitterness.
Then the doctor came. And he was the black man. Laura had never seen a black man before and she could not take her eyes off Dr. Tan. He was so very black. She would have been afraid of him if she had not liked him so much. He smiled at her with all his white teeth. He talked with Pa and Ma, and laughed a rolling, jolly laugh. They all wanted him to stay longer, but he had to hurry away.
Mrs. Scott said that all the settlers, up and down the creek, had fever ’n’ ague. There were not enough well people to take care of the sick, and she had been going from house to house, working night and day.
“It’s a wonder you ever lived through,” she said. “All of you down at once.” What might have happened if Dr. Tan hadn’t found them, she didn’t know.
Dr. Tan was a doctor with the Indians. He was on his way north to Independence when he came to Pa’s house. It was a strange thing that Jack, who hated strangers and never let one come near the house until Pa or Ma told him to, had gone to meet Dr.
Tan and begged him to come in.
“And here you all were, more dead than alive,” Mrs. Scott said. Dr. Tan had stayed with them a day and a night before Mrs. Scott came. Now he was doctoring all the sick settlers.
Mrs. Scott said that all this sickness came from eating watermelons. She said, “I’ve said a hundred times, if I have once, that watermelons—”
“What’s that?” Pa exclaimed. “Who’s got watermelons?”
Mrs. Scott said that one of the settlers had planted watermelons in the creek bottoms. And every soul who had eaten one of those melons was down sick that very minute. She said she had warned them. “But, no,” she said. “There was no arguing with them. They would eat those melons, and now they’re paying for it.”
“I haven’t tasted a good slice of watermelon since Hector was a pup,” said Pa.
Next day he was out of bed. The next day, Laura was up. Then Ma got up, and then Mary. They were all thin and shaky, but they could take care of themselves. So Mrs. Scott went home.
Ma said she didn’t know how they could ever thank her, and Mrs. Scott said, “Pshaw! What are neighbors for but to help each other out?”
Pa’s cheeks were hollows and he walked slowly. Ma often sat down to rest. Laura and Mary didn’t feel like playing. Every morning they all took those bitter powders. But Ma still smiled her lovely smile, and Pa whistled cheerfully.
“It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good,” he said. He wasn’t able to work, so he could make a rocking-chair for Ma.
He brought some slender willows from the creek bottoms, and he made the chair in the house. He could stop any time to put wood on the fire or lift a kettle for Ma.
First he made four stout legs and braced them firmly with crosspieces. Then he cut thin strips of the tough willow-skin, just under the bark. He wove these strips back and forth, under and over, till they made a seat for the chair.
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